A Model of the Perceived Competence of Conflict Strategies

This study examines how strategic communication is linked to specific relational features. We hypothesize that perceptions of a communicator's competence mediate the effects of conflict strategies on the relational outcomes measured by trust, control mutuality, intimacy, and satisfaction. The components of competence were specific and general appropriateness, effectiveness, and global competence; these were included in LISREL analyses to investigate How the variables conflict, competence, and relational outcomes were linked. Participants reported on their partners’ conflict strategies, their own perceptions of the partner's competence, and relational variables. The results reveal that integrative strategies were positively linked to competence, whereas distributive and avoidant strategies were negatively linked to competence. The results support the view that competence perceptions mediate the link between conflict messages and relational outcomes.     

EFFECTIVENESS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL TRAINING USING COMPUTER ASSISTED INSTRUCTION AND BEHAVIOR MODELING

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of performance appraisal training in an organizational setting. Four hundred and two middle level managers were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: no training, computer assisted instruction only (CAI), or CAI training plus a behavior modeling workshop (CAIW). Training effectiveness was assessed on two categories of dependent variables, managerial learning and managerial job performance. As predicted trained managers were found to be more knowledgeable of performance appraisal than untrained managers. Also as predicted, managers in the CAIW group conducted appraisal discussions which were perceived by employees as more satisfying than employees of managers in the no training group. Only partial support was obtained for the hypothesis that trained managers would be more effective in completing performance appraisal forms.     

TO LEAD, LAG, OR MATCH: ESTIMATING THE FINANCIAL IMPACT OF PAY LEVEL POLICIES

In this study, the Boudreau and Berger (1985a) retention/acquisition model is modified in order to develop a utility model that can be used to assess the impact of alternative pay level policies. This paper then demonstrates how the model could be used to assess the financial impact of alternative pay level policies for an organization whose current policy is to match the market. In demonstrating this, estimates of the effect of pay level on employee and applicant behaviors are presented. The utility model is then used to translate these effects into financial terms and compare them against the wage costs associated with alternative pay level policies. Finally, break-even analysis is used to suggest how decision makers might use utility results when making decisions about pay level policy. The implications for pay level policy and the role of utility analysis in compensation decision making are discussed.     

Beliefs And Creative Performance: Relationships Across Three Tasks

Creative work occurs on novel, ill‐defined tasks. By virtue of their ambiguity and complexity, however, creative tasks allow the situation to be construed in a number of ways. Accordingly, one might argue that beliefs, as interpretive structures, would be related to performance on creative problem‐solving tasks. To test this proposition, a battery of measures was developed to assess people's beliefs. Subsequently, 195 undergraduates were asked to work on three creative problem‐solving tasks. When quality and originality ratings, reflecting performance on the creative problem‐solving tasks, were regressed on the beliefs, multiple correlations in the low .40s were obtained. It was found that beliefs consistent with the nature of the task were those most likely to be related to performance. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the role of beliefs in shaping people's creative problem‐solving activities.     

Respect for Just Revenge

The paper considers acts of private (in the sense of individually motivated and extra‐legal) revenge, and draws attention to a special kind of judgement we may make of such acts. While endorsing the general view that an act of private revenge must be morally wrong, it maintains that under certain special conditions (which include its being just) it is susceptible of a rational respect from others which is based on its standing outside morality, as a choice by the revenger not to act morally but to obey other compelling motives. This thesis is tested against various objections, notably those which doubt the intelligibility or application of such non‐moral ‘respect,’ or would assimilate it to moral approval; and it is distinguished from various positions with which it might be confused, such as the ‘admirable immorality’ of Slote, or the Nietzschean critique of morality.     

The social regulation of affect and self‐esteem among opiate‐dependent adults

This study extends basic theory and research on the social regulation of affect and thought to opiate‐dependent adults. Inner‐city, opiate‐dependent adults rated the supportiveness of, and conflict with, each of four support providers, and rated affect and self‐esteem experienced with each. This permitted the isolation of trait‐like aspects of these constructs (i.e., stable across providers) from their socially influenced aspects (i.e., varied across providers). Affect and self‐esteem were strongly socially influenced and such influences were as strong as trait‐like individual differences. Providers who elicited unpleasant affect and low self‐esteem in recipients were viewed as unsupportive and as eliciting conflict. Findings were virtually identical to research on students, suggesting broadly generalizable social processes in the regulation of affect and thought.