Managers' Implicit Assumptions About Personnel

ABSTRACT— Effective managers recognize both positive and negative changes in employee performance and take appropriate remedial action when required. Managers' assumptions about the rigidity or malleability of personal attributes (e.g., ability and personality) affect their performance of these critical personnel management tasks. To the extent that managers assume that personal attributes are fixed traits that are largely stable over time, they tend to inadequately recognize actual changes in employee performance and are disinclined to coach employees regarding how to improve their performance. However, a growth-mindset intervention can lead managers to relinquish their fixed mindset and subsequently provide more accurate performance appraisals and helpful employee coaching. Implications for performance evaluation procedures and avenues for future research are outlined.     

The trouble with overconfidence

The authors present a reconciliation of 3 distinct ways in which the research literature has defined overconfidence: (a) overestimation of one's actual performance, (b) overplacement of one's performance relative to others, and (c) excessive precision in one's beliefs. Experimental evidence shows that reversals of the first 2 (apparent underconfidence), when they occur, tend to be on different types of tasks. On difficult tasks, people overestimate their actual performances but also mistakenly believe that they are worse than others; on easy tasks, people underestimate their actual performances but mistakenly believe they are better than others. The authors offer a straightforward theory that can explain these inconsistencies. Overprecision appears to be more persistent than either of the other 2 types of overconfidence, but its presence reduces the magnitude of both overestimation and overplacement.     

Values in action scale and the Big 5: An empirical indication of structure

Within this study we used self-report measures completed by 123 undergraduate students from an Australian university to investigate the validity of Peterson and Seligman’s [Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P (2004). Character strengths and virtues. New York: Oxford.] classification system of 24 character strengths and six virtues. We also looked at how the 24 character strengths relate to the Five Factor Model of personality and to a measure of social desirability. Using a second order factor analysis of the 24 character strengths, we found that these 24 character strengths did not produce a factor structure consistent with the six higher order virtues as proposed by Peterson and Seligman [Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P (2004). Character strengths and virtues. New York: Oxford.]. Instead, the 24 character strengths were well represented by both a one and four factor solution. Patterns of significant relationships between each of the 24 character strengths, the one and four factor solutions and the Five Factor Model of personality were found. The results have implications for [Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P (2004). Character strengths and virtues. New York: Oxford.] classification.     

What's in a Name?

This paper is about the mode of being of names. The paper begins by explaining why the joke is on commentators who see Lewis Carroll's White Knight as applying the use/mention distinction. Then it argues that the real problem with the distinction is that the idea that names are used to mention what they name depends on mistakenly conceiving of language as existing autonomously; and that philosophers have this conception because they fail to appreciate what they are doing when they philosophise about language. This failure also explains why philosophers mistakenly think of any manifestation of a name as a (physical) token.     

Myopic prediction, self-destructive secrecy, and the unexpected benefits of revealing final deadlines in negotiation

Three studies explored the psychology of social prediction by examining negotiators’ predictions of the effects of time pressure and comparing those predictions with actual outcomes. The results show that revealing final deadlines in negotiation can lead to better outcomes for the negotiator with the deadline because revelation speeds concessions by the other side. However, both naïve and experienced negotiators consistently predicted the opposite. As a result, when given the choice of revealing their final deadlines to their negotiating opponents, negotiators chose not to. The reasons for these erroneous expectations can be explained by myopic processes of prediction in which people anticipate the effects of constraints like deadlines more on their own behavior than on the behavior of others.     

Simultaneous media usage: a critical consumer orientation to media planning

This research study is the third in a series of surveys exploring the incidence of simultaneous media usage among a national sample of US consumers. The research is based on 12,322 respondents who were sampled via an online network. The findings show that simultaneous media usage, ie multiple exposures to various media forms at a single point in time for the same media consumer, occurs in and among a substantial portion of the US media population. The existence of simultaneous media exposures, created by multi‐tasking consumers, is a fact in today's media marketplace. The existence of simultaneous media exposures undermines most current media measurement systems as they are defined as isolated environments. Thus, the challenge of this paper is for media management to rethink how media evaluations should be rethought for the 21st century. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications Ltd.     

How Ethical Are Ethical Purchasing Policies?

In recent years ethical purchasing policies have been promoted as potentially effective and promising ways of combatting global inequality and oppressive labour practices in developing countries. These initiatives have been launched on university campuses with the hope of opening a new front for improving labour rights under conditions of neo-liberal globalization. This paper is an attempt to respond to the critics of these policies, and especially their claims that ethical purchasing may have the perverse effect of increasing job losses and undercutting economic development in poorer countries. Although it can be shown that these criticisms are misguided, it is important to acknowledge that ethical purchasing should not be seen as a full-blown alternative to the kind of progress that can be achieved through state-centred labour regulation. Nevertheless, the new role of universities as monitors of corporate responsibility remains a promising one.     

The unexpected benefits of final deadlines in negotiation

Two experiments explored actual and predicted outcomes in competitive dyadic negotiations under time pressure. Participants predicted that final deadlines would hurt their negotiation outcomes. Actually, moderate deadlines improved outcomes for negotiators who were eager to get a deal quickly because the passage of time was costly to them. Participants’ erroneous predictions may be due to oversimplified and egocentric prediction processes that focus on the effects of situational constraints (deadlines) on the self and oversimplify or ignore their effects on others. The results clarify the psychological processes by which people predict the outcomes of negotiation and select negotiation strategies.     

Neosecularization and Craft Versus Professional Religious Authority in a Nonreligious Organization

At the same time many religious organizations are apparently becoming more internally secularized, other nonreligious organizations appear to be going through a countervailing process of "sacralization" (Demerath). This study explores this development through a case study of a state university hospital that attempted to created a more "holistic" corporate culture. Extending research on the declining scope of religious authority (Chaves) and professional systems (Abbott), this study suggests that secular settings may be fertile ground for craft versions of religious authority to develop. Implications of the latter during an age when authority structures and caring tasks in general are being downsized and devolved are discussed.