The Structured Employment Interview: Narrative and Quantitative Review of the Research Literature

In the 20 years since frameworks of employment interview structure have been developed, a considerable body of empirical research has accumulated. We summarize and critically examine this literature by focusing on the 8 main topics that have been the focus of attention: (a) the definition of structure; (b) reducing bias through structure; (c) impression management in structured interviews; (d) measuring personality via structured interviews; (e) comparing situational versus past‐behavior questions; (f) developing rating scales; (g) probing, follow‐up, prompting, and elaboration on questions; and (h) reactions to structure. For each topic, we review and critique research and identify promising directions for future research. When possible, we augment the traditional narrative review with meta‐analytic review and content analysis. We concluded that much is known about structured interviews, but there are still many unanswered questions. We provide 12 propositions and 19 research questions to stimulate further research on this important topic.     

Driving it Home: How Workplace Emotional Labor Harms Employee Home Life

To date, the majority of research on emotional labor has focused on outcomes that occur in the workplace. However, research has yet to consider the possibility that the daily effects of emotional labor spill over to life outside of work, even though a large body of literature examining the spillover from work life to home life indicates that work experiences influence employees after they leave the workplace. Accordingly, we examined the influence of day‐to‐day surface acting on 3 types of theoretically derived stress outcomes experienced at home: emotional exhaustion, work‐to‐family conflict, and insomnia. In an experience sampling field study of 78 bus drivers, we found that daily surface acting was connected to increases in each of the outcomes noted above. Moreover, surface acting had an indirect effect on emotional exhaustion and insomnia via state anxiety.     

Putting “Positive” and “Psychology” In Perspective: The Role of Indian Psychology

Rao (this issue) offers a trenchant critique of the field of positive psychology. He clearly shows the way positive psychology, as it has been thus far considered, is clearly a product of a Westernized psychology. He goes further though and proposes that some of the limitations of positive psychology might be addressed by considering the insights of Indian indigenous psychology. In this commentary I suggest that these limitations of positive psychology can be fruitfully framed by considering the nature of the self and the nature of the positive or good that any understanding of positive psychology must presuppose.     

Rural Neighborhoods and Child Aggression

Structural equation modeling with latent variables was used to evaluate the direct and mediated effects of a neighborhood risk factor (negative teen behaviors) on the parent-report aggressive behavior of 213 students in grades 3 through 5 attending a school in a low-income, rural community. Contagion and social control hypotheses were examined as well as hypotheses about whether the neighborhood served as a microsystem or exosystem for rural pre-adolescents. Analyses took into account the clustering of students and ordinal nature of the data. Findings suggest that rural neighborhoods may operate as both a microsystem and exosystem for children, with direct contagion effects on their aggressive behaviors as well as indirect social control effects through parenting practices. Direct effects on aggression were also found for parenting practices and child reports of friends’ negative behaviors. Pre-adolescence may be a transitional stage, when influences of the neighborhood on child behavior begin to compete with influences of caregivers. Findings can inform the timing and targets of violence prevention in rural communities.     

Leveraged Resources and Systems Changes in Community Collaboration

Most models of community collaboration emphasize the ability of diverse partners to come together to enact systematic changes that improve the health of individuals and communities. The ability of these groups to leverage resources is thought to be an important marker of successful collaboration and eventual improvements in community health. However, there is a paucity of research addressing linkages between systems change activities and leveraged resources. This study used a sample of collaboratives (N = 157) that received technical assistance and funding through the Georgia Family Connection Partnership (GaFCP) between 2006 and 2007. Data were collected from collaborative report of activities and funding, member ratings of collaborative functioning, and characteristics of the communities served by the collaboratives drawn from US Census data. Cross-lagged regression models tested longitudinal associations between systems change activities and leveraged dollars. The results indicated that systems change activities predict increased leveraging of resources from state/federal and private partners. However, there was no evidence that systems changes were linked with leveraging resources from local groups and agencies. These findings have important implications for providing technical assistance and training to health partnerships. Furthermore, future research should consider the relative strength of different systems change activities in relation to the ability of coalitions to leverage resources.     

In defence of instrumentalism about epistemic normativity

According to epistemic instrumentalists the normativity of evidence for belief is best explained in terms of the practical utility of forming evidentially supported beliefs. Traditional arguments for instrumentalism—arguments based on naturalism and motivation—lack suasive force against opponents. A new argument for the view—the Argument from Coincidence—is presented. The argument shows that only instrumentalists can avoid positing an embarrassing coincidence between the practical value of believing in accordance with one’s evidence, and the existence of reasons so to believe. Responses are considered and shown to be inadequate.     

The pre-theoreticality of moral intuitions

Moral intuitionism, once an apparently moribund metaethical position, has seen a resurgence of interest of late. Robert Audi, a leading moral intuitionist, has argued that in order for a moral belief to qualify as intuitional, it must fulfill four criteria: it must be non-inferential, firmly held, comprehended, and pre-theoretical. This paper centers on the fourth and seemingly most problematic criterion: pre-theoreticality. The paper begins by stipulating the defensibility of the moral cognitivism upon which moral intuitionism turns. Next, the paper develops the distinction between semantic and epistemic pre-theoreticality, and goes on to explore and reject the putative ubiquity of the theoreticality of first-order moral discourse: it argues that on a defensible understanding of theoryhood, both semantic and epistemic pre-theoretical moral belief is not only possible, but in fact frequently realized. The paper then briefly explores and rebuts objections to (epistemic) pre-theoreticality issuing from (i) the “Cornell Realists” and (ii) considerations of the epistemic relevance of the epistemic/valuational background of moral belief. The paper concludes that, so far as the pre-theoreticality criterion is concerned, moral intuitionism remains in the running as a viable thesis regarding foundationally justified first-order moral belief and knowledge.     

Comparing methods for measuring peak look duration: Are individual differences observed on screen-based tasks also found in more ecologically valid contexts?

Convergent research points to the importance of studying the ontogenesis of sustained attention during the early years of life, but little research hitherto has compared and contrasted different techniques available for measuring sustained attention. Here, we compare methods that have been used to assess one parameter of sustained attention, namely infants’ peak look duration to novel stimuli. Our focus was to assess whether individual differences in peak look duration are stable across different measurement techniques. In a single cohort of 42 typically developing 11-month-old infants we assessed peak look duration using six different measurement paradigms (four screen-based, two naturalistic). Zero-order correlations suggested that individual differences in peak look duration were stable across all four screen-based paradigms, but no correlations were found between peak look durations observed on the screen-based and the naturalistic paradigms. A factor analysis conducted on the dependent variable of peak look duration identified two factors. All four screen-based tasks loaded onto the first factor, but the two naturalistic tasks did not relate, and mapped onto a different factor. Our results question how individual differences observed on screen-based tasks manifest in more ecologically valid contexts.     

Looking back and falling further behind: The moderating role of rumination on the relationship between organizational politics and employee attitudes,well-being,and performance

The current study tested the theoretically relevant, yet previously unexamined, role of rumination on the relationship between politics perceptions and a variety of threat responses. Drawing from Response Styles Theory, it was argued that rumination amplifies the effects of politics by enhancing the influence of negative information on cognition, interfering with problem-solving, and undermining sources of social support. The work stress literature, along with extant politics research, served to identify four variables – job satisfaction, tension, depressed work mood, and employee effort/performance – that served as study outcomes. Across three unique samples, hypothesized relationships were strongly supported, indicating that politics perceptions negatively affected work outcomes of high ruminators, but demonstrate little influence on those who engage in less rumination. Moreover, the nonlinear influences of the focal constructs were considered and the results confirmed atypical relational forms. Contributions, implications for theory and practice, strengths and limitations, and future research directions are described.     

Family Belongingness,Gang Friendships,and Psychological Distress in Adolescent Achievement

The authors investigated connections among social, psychological, and academic functioning of ethnically diverse urban youth. Participants included 310 seventh graders (mean age = 12.10 years) from an ethnically diverse middle school in which no ethnic group was a majority. Social engagements with family and gang members were predictive of academic achievement in the expected directions, with psychological distress mediating the effects of these social engagements on academic achievement. Implications for counselors’ work with ethnically diverse urban youth are discussed.