Who Delivers Justice? Source Perceptions of Procedural Fairness1

Tyler and Bies (1990) argue that how leaders enact and apply formal procedures can affect perceptions of procedural fairness as much as the formal procedures themselves. This study examined directly the extent to which workers see either formal policies and procedures or their supervisors as the source most responsible for the procedural fairness they receive in their performance evaluations. Group differences in these source perceptions between exempt and nonexempt workers were also explored. Results indicate that workers attribute the responsibility for procedural fairness jointly and independently to both their organization's formal policies and procedures and to their supervisors. Results at the group level of analysis indicate that nonexempt workers perceive formal policies and procedures to be more responsible for procedural fairness than do exempt workers. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT MEMORY FOR HAPTICALLY EXPERIENCED TWO-DIMENSIONAL PATTERNS

Abstract— Recent research with visual objects has delineated important representational differences between memory measures that tap identification (implicit tests) and measures that require episodic recognition (explicit tests). We investigated whether these differences reflect a fundamental architecture for the representation of object information in memory. In the present experiment, we contrasted identification and episodic recognition for haptically presented two-dimensional patterns. Haptic identification was not affected by elaborative processing at study, whereas haptic episodic recognition was enhanced by elaborative processing. This finding suggests important similarities in the organization of object information in the visual and haptic modalities.     

The origins and crisis of Continental philosophy

When contemporary continental philosophy dismisses, with the discourse of post-modernism, the role of origin, teleology, foundation, etc., it is forsaking its own style of thinking and as a consequence is no longer able to discern crises of lived-meaning or to engage in the transformation of historical life. I address this crisis by characterizing continental philosophy as a particular style of thinking, generative thinking. I then examine the meaning and origins of philosophical thinking by drawing, for strategic reasons, on Jacques Derrida's essay Cogito et histoire de la folie. For not only has the very question of origins come under fire through various post-modern readings of Derrida, but Derrida's own point of critique concerning Western Metaphysics depends upon a specific understanding of origin that I call origin-originating. In the final section of this paper. I interpret the crisis within continental philosophy as a forgetting the point of origin-originating within the generative structure of experience.     

Information processing in chronic pain disorder: A preliminary analysis

Researchers have alternately suggested selective attention, impaired stimulus filtering, and affective language deficiency models as accounting for multiple somatic complaints in persons with chronic pain disorder. The purpose of the present study was to establish the comparative usefulness of these three models for explaining somatic focus in a chronic pain population. Nine chronic pain patients evidencing high somatic focus (somatizing chronic pain patients), 10 chronic pain patients evidencing low somatic focus (nonsomatizing chronic pain patients), and 10 healthy control subjects were administered a computerized version of the emotional Stroop test as a test of these models. A total of 105 pain-, depression-, and neutral-content words were used as Stroop test stimuli. Stroop test color-naming response latencies were submitted to a two-way Group × Word Type mixed-model ANOVA, with Word Type as the repeated measure. Results reveal that neither the selective attention model nor the affective language deficiency model adequately explain Stroop test performance in somatizing chronic pain patients. Findings provide tentative support for the impaired stimulus filtering model, with somatizing chronic pain patients evidencing similar Stroop test response delays across all words. These results suggest that chronic pain sufferers misinterpret bodily sensations. Findings are discussed in terms of a bilevel approach for treatment of somatizing chronic pain patients that would include assisting the patient in accurate appraisal and interpretation of physical symptoms.     

Dyadic interactions in accepted and rejected children

Forty same-sex dyads were separated into three groups (accepted, rejected, and mixed status) on the basis of their scores on the likability and rejection scales of the Pupil Evaluation Inventory [Pekarik, E.,et al. (1976).Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 4, 83–97]. These dyads participated in a 10-min videotaped interaction which was separated into three segments: waiting period, cooperative task, and conversational period. Observational recordings of six micro behaviors (talk time, gestures, gaze, smiles, orientation, and laughs), as well as ratings of physical attractiveness and speech volume (loudness) and observational counts of cooperation were obtained from these tapes. These data were subjected to a 2 (sex) × 3 (status) × 3 (segment) MANOVA, with sex and status as between-group factors and segment as a within-group factor. The results indicated a number of significant multivariate effects. Univariate tests for attractiveness, speech volume, and cooperation measures indicated a significant status effect for the variable of intensity. These results are interpreted in terms of the developmental literature on social behavior, as well as the data on face-to-face interactions provided by S. D. Duncan and D. W. Fiske [(1977).Face to face interaction: Research methods, and theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum]. Suggestions for future research are offered.The authors wish to thank the principals, parents and children of Clinton Central Elementary, Frontier Elementary, and Western Elementary Schools for their help and participation in this project. We would also like to express our gratitude to Judith Conger, Patricia Moisan-Thomas, Judith Dygdon, and all other members of the research team who contributed their time and effort to this project.     

Spare time use and psychological well-being in employed and unemployed young people

Results are presented from a longitudinal study of school leavers spanning the years 1980–1987. Those who were unemployed in 1987 reported spending relatively more of their spare time doing nothing in particular than those who were employed, although the groups did not differ in their reported use of spare time when they were at school. Also there were no differences in reported spare time use between those employed in satisfactory jobs and those employed in unsatisfactory jobs. As other studies have shown, in the unemployed spare time spent in purposeful activities with other people was positively correlated with psychological well-being. Similar associations were observed in the dissatisfied employed, although not in the satisfied employed. The results suggest that purposeful use of spare time may play a buffering role in coping with the stresses of both unemployment and unsatisfactory employment.     

Learned helplessness in high school students following experience of noncontingent rewards

High school students differing in achievement motivation were subjects in a learned helplessness experiment using a yoked triadic design with noncontingent rewards. A strong helplessness effect was observed in both high- and low-achievement motivation groups. A postexperimental questionnaire revealed that perceived response-outcome independence was induced under the noncontingent reinforcement condition, but was not associated with perceived failure. The results were seen as strong support for the original learned helplessness model in two important respects. First they refute recent claims that learned helplessness depends on aversive outcomes, and second they show that human helplessness can be distinguished from experimenter-induced failure.     

Effects of differences in achievement motivation and amount of exposure on responses to uncontrollable rewards

Within a triadic experimental design, 80 subjects classified as high or low in achievement motivation were given either standard or extended exposure to uncontrollable rewards. Subjects high in achievement motivation displayed facilitation following standard training that was eliminated following extended training. While this conforms with Wortman and Brehm's model integrating reactance theory and learned helplessness theory, in general the results were more accurately described by predictions based on a modification of the theory of achievement motivation. Because the experimental procedure induced the perception of uncontrollability independently of perceived failure, the results were seen as extending the generality of the latter theory.