Type A Personality Characteristics and the Effect on Individual and Team Academic Performance

Type A personality has been conceptualized in part as high need for achievement combined with aggression, hostility, and self-esteem issues. In teams of undergraduate business students, high levels of Type A personality significantly correlated with high levels of depression and high levels of social monitoring; and negatively correlated with social desirability, communality, and individual performance across time. In team settings, the more Type A's were balanced in a team with low Type A's, the more there was team commitment and the more team synergy behaviors; while if teams had a greater number of Type A's, there was more individualistic behavior, and team project scores were lower.     

Experimenter effects on children's understanding of false drawings and false beliefs

Two experiments were conducted in which a variant of J. McGarrigle and M. Donaldson's (1975) "Naughty Teddy" intervention was applied to children's understanding of false drawings and false beliefs. The results showed that preschool children's understanding of the contents of an out-of-date drawing improved when the drawing was made by a capricious agent ("Naughty Snakey" glove puppet) rather than by the experimenter. The children's performance on a false belief task also improved when the events that set up the false belief were the result of the actions of the glove puppet. The results are discussed in terms of the role of children's sensitivity to the pragmatics of interactions in their development of a theory of mind.     

Use of a structured investigative protocol enhances the quality of investigative interviews with alleged victims of child sexual abuse in Britain

One hundred alleged victims of child sexual abuse (aged 4–13; M = 9.3 years) were interviewed by police investigators about their alleged experiences. Half of the children were interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) structured interview Protocol, whereas the other children, matched with respect to their age, relationship with the alleged perpetrator, and seriousness of the alleged offenses, were interviewed by investigators following the Memorandum of Good Practice. Protocol‐guided interviews elicited more information using free‐recall invitations and less information using directive, option‐posing and suggestive questions than did standard Memorandum interviews. There were no age differences in the proportion of total information provided in response to open‐ended invitations in either condition, but there was a significant increase with age in the proportion of central information provided in response to open‐ended invitations. Published in 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A meta-analytic evaluation of the impact of dimension and exercise factors on assessment center ratings

Two recent reviews have attempted to summarize findings quantitatively regarding assessment center (AC) construct-related validity (i.e., Lance, Lambert, Gewin, Lievens, & Conway, 2004; Lievens & Conway, 2001). Unlike these previous studies, which reanalyzed individual multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) matrices from previously published research, the authors recoded and combined past matrices into a single MTMM matrix. This matrix, comprised of 6 dimensions each measured by 6 exercises, was then analyzed, providing a more generalizable set of results. Both dimensions and exercises were found to contribute substantially to AC ratings. Specific dimensions (i.e., communication, influencing others, organizing and planning, and problem solving) appeared more construct valid than others (i.e., consideration/awareness of others and drive). Implications for AC design and practice are discussed.     

Organizational Concern,Prosocial Values,or Impression Management? How Supervisors Attribute Motives to Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Although prior studies have indicated that organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) tend to be positively related to supervisory ratings of employee performance, only a few studies have investigated how the motives attributed to OCB (e.g., impression management, prosocial motives, organizational concern) might influence such evaluations. Based on Weiner's (1995 ) attribution model and a study of supervisors in varied industries, we found that attributions regarding employees' motives for engaging in OCB are related to supervisors' emotional reactions to such behavior, which are, in turn, related to ratings of employee performance. Implications of the study for management research and practice are discussed.