Applicant attraction to organizations and job choice: a meta-analytic review of the correlates of recruiting outcomes

Attracting high-performing applicants is a critical component of personnel selection and overall organizational success. In this study, the authors meta-analyzed 667 coefficients from 71 studies examining relationships between various predictors with job-organization attraction, job pursuit intentions, acceptance intentions, and job choice. The moderating effects of applicant gender, race, and applicant versus nonapplicant status were also examined. Results showed that applicant attraction outcomes were predicted by job-organization characteristics, recruiter behaviors, perceptions of the recruiting process, perceived fit, and hiring expectancies, but not recruiter demographics or perceived alternatives. Path analyses showed that applicant attitudes and intentions mediated the predictor-job choice relationships. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for recruiting theory, research, and practice.     

Missing information in multiple-cue probability learning

In a multiple-cue probability learning task, participants learned to use six discrete symptoms (i.e., cues) to diagnose which of three possible flu strains a hypothetical patient suffered from. For some patients, information regarding the status of certain symptoms was not available. Various possible ways in which the missing cue information might be processed were distinguished and tested in a series of three experiments (Ns = 80, 109, and 61). The results suggest that the judged probability of the outcome variable (i.e., flu strain) was assessed by "filling in" the missing cue information with a mean value based on previous observations. The predictions of other methods of processing missing cue information are inconsistent with the data.     

Subjective experience and the attentional lapse: task engagement and disengagement during sustained attention

Three experiments investigated the relationship between subjective experience and attentional lapses during sustained attention. These experiments employed two measures of subjective experience (thought probes and questionnaires) to examine how differences in awareness correspond to variations in both task performance (reaction time and errors) and psycho-physiological measures (heart rate and galvanic skin response). This series of experiments examine these phenomena during the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART, Robertson, Manly, Adrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997). The results suggest we can dissociate between two components of subjective experience during sustained attention: (A) task unrelated thought which corresponds to an absent minded disengagement from the task and (B) a pre-occupation with one's task performance that seems to be best conceptualised as a strategic attempt to deploy attentional resources in response to a perception of environmental demands which exceed ones ability to perform the task. The implications of these findings for our understanding of how awareness is maintained on task relevant material during periods of sustained attention are discussed.     

Assessing worry in older adults: confirmatory factor analysis of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire and psychometric properties of an abbreviated model

The assessment of worry among older adults typically has involved measures designed with younger cohorts. Because of special concerns in assessing older adults, modifications to existing instruments may be necessary. Addressing equivocal factor analytic data on the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) among younger adults, the authors conducted confirmatory factor analyses to evaluate the generalizability of previous models to older adults with generalized anxiety disorder. Data fit poorly with established single- and two-factor models. The single-factor model was modified, resulting in the elimination of 8 items, strong fit indices, high internal consistency, adequate test-retest reliability, and good convergent and divergent validity. Further psychometric work is required to assess whether the revised model is a more parsimonious method to assess late-life anxiety.     

Mothers' psychological adjustment following disaster affecting their children

The authors investigated the psychological adjustment of 37 British women whose adolescent children survived the cruise ship Jupiter's sinking in 1988, about 6 years previously. They compared these women with a group of widows (N = 18) and a group of women who had suffered no major negative life event (N= 15). Psychological adjustment of the 37 women was assessed with the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia Lifetime Version (SADS-L; R. L. Spitzer & J. Endicott, 1975) and various standard questionnaires. The women whose children had been involved in the disaster were found to have suffered a greater number of incidents of psychological distress in the period since the disaster than the women who had suffered no major negative life events but fewer incidents of psychological distress than the widows. The significance of these findings and clinical implications are discussed.     

The Nature of Generalized Anxiety in Older Primary Care Patients: Preliminary Findings

Clinical features of older primary care patients with GAD (PC-GAD; n = 22) were examined relative to older patients with GAD recruited for two academic clinical trials (M. A. Stanley, J. G. Beck, et al., 2003; J. L. Wetherell, M. Gatz, & M. G, Craske, 2003) and to a sample of older primary care patients without psychiatric diagnoses (No Dx; n = 10). Comparisons revealed similar levels of worry, anxiety, depressive symptoms, quality of life, and functional status between the PC-GAD subsample and patients recruited for academic trials, although primary care patients were older, less well educated, and more ethnically diverse. The PC-GAD subgroup, however, reported greater symptom severity, reduced quality of life, and poorer perceived general health, mental health, and vitality than the No Dx subgroup (² = .23–.43). Service utilization was not different between PC-GAD and No Dx subgroups, with the exception of psychotropic medication use. The Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) and an abbreviated version of this measure may be useful for identifying late-life GAD in primary care. Cutoff scores of 50 and 22 on the full and abbreviated versions of the PSWQ, respectively, demonstrated excellent specificity, sensitivity, and positive predictive value. Negative predictive value was less impressive, probably as a result of high base rates for GAD in this sample.     

Personality and executive functioning as risk factors in recidivists

The classification of an inmate population at a maximum security jail in Canada was undertaken to study factors correlated with recidivism. A total of 12 recidivists and 12 nonrecidivists were classified according to their index offenses, and a Criminal Record search was completed to verify their statements. A total of 15 non-offenders who had also undergone a criminal record check were included as controls. All participants were administered the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-168, Violence Risk Scale-Experimental Version, Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task. Statistical analysis showed significant differences between the groups on scores for the Hypochondriasis, Psychopathic Deviate, and Hypomania scales of the MMPI-168. Significant differences were noted for the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task and the Violence Risk Scale. Discriminant analysis of the recidivists and nonrecidivists correctly classified at a 91.3% level.     

Meme Pools, World 3, and Averroës's Vision of Immortality

Dawkins's concept of the meme pool, essentially equivalent to Popper's World 3, is considered as an expression in modern terms for what Averroës knew as the active intellect , an immortal entity feeding into, or even creating, the passive intellect of consciousness. A means is thus provided for reconciling a materialist Darwinian view of the universe with a conception of nonpersonal immortality. The meme pool/active intellect correspondence provides a strong basis for regarding science as a communal enterprise producing enrichment of the meme pool and expansion of consciousness. It also emphasizes the virtues of memetic conservation in relation to vanishing cultures.     

Language and persuasion: A discursive psychological approach

Across the social sciences, there is a wealth of research on the role of language in persuasion in interpersonal communication. Most of these studies have been conducted in laboratories using experimental methods, have taken a social cognitive perspective, and have focused on the effects of particular linguistic practices on how persuasive messages are understood, processed, and ultimately complied with. By contrast, less attention has been paid to how language can be used to create sequential, interactional, and social obligations, in everyday interactions, like sales encounters or business negotiations, where persuasion occurs naturally and is built into the fabric of the conversation. In reviewing the former approach to studying language and persuasion, in this paper, I highlight several critical shortcomings. Then, I argue that, when studying naturally occurring persuasion-in-interaction, a discursive psychological approach is better suited for investigating and theorising the interactional structures underpinning persuasion and the role of language therein.