Support for employment equity policies: A self-enhancement approach

The effectiveness of employment equity (EE) policies has been hindered by negative reactions to these policies. We draw on the self-enhancement literature to expand self-interest accounts of reactions to EE policies to explain inconsistent findings showing that both nonbeneficiaries and beneficiaries react negatively to EE policies. Across four studies, we found that self-image threat influences reactions to gender-based EE policies. Studies 1 and 2 established that EE policies threaten the self-images of both men (nonbeneficiaries) and women (beneficiaries). Study 3 found that those least likely to experience self-image threat when faced with a gender-based EE policy are the most likely to show positive reactions to EE policies, while Study 4 showed that both men and women react more favorably to EE policies when self-images threats are mitigated through a self-affirmation task. Implications for our understanding of reactions to EE policies are discussed.     

Self-Efficacy and Political Skill as Comparative Predictors of Task and Contextual Performance: A Two-Study Constructive Replication

This study examined how competition within teams influences which type of achievement goals employees adopt. We studied how dispositional learning-goal and performance-goal orientation interact with team-level competition and predict whether team members adopt state learning or performance achievement goals. State achievement goals, in turn, were proximal antecedents of two outcome measures: job-related self-efficacy and supervisory ratings of job performance. The participants were 502 employees and 55 supervisors. Results confirmed that competition was positively associated with state performance goals. Trait performance-goal orientation influenced whether competition was negatively associated with state learning goals. In highly competitive teams, trait performance-goal orientation was negatively related to state learning goals, whereas in less competitive teams, a performance-goal orientation was positively related to state learning goals.     

Intraspecific aggression in male hamsters is inhibited by intrahypothalamic vasopressin-receptor antagonist

The present study examines the effect of the arginine vasopressin (AVP) receptor antagonist, d(CH₂)₅Tyr(Me)AVP, on intraspecific aggression between pairs of male Golden hamsters in a neutral territory. Subjects drawn from a group of 24 animals were paired once each with novel partners from the group under each of three experimental conditions: 1) both members of a pair were microinjected into the anterior hypothalamus with saline (S/S), 2) one member of a pair was microinjected with AVP-receptor antagonist and its partner with saline (A/S), and 3) both members of a pair were microinjected with AVP-receptor antagonist (A/A). There were significantly (P < .01) fewer attacks during encounters between pairs of hamsters in the A/A condition compared to pairs in the A/S condition. Similarly, pairs in the A/S condition attacked significantly (P < .025) less often than pairs of hamsters in the S/S condition. These results confirm our earlier work showing that AVP-receptor antagonist reduces intraspecific aggression. In addition, saline-treated hamsters initiated significantly (P < .001) fewer attacks toward antagonist treated hamsters than would have been predicted if their opponent was not drug treated. These latter results suggest that hamsters microinjected into the anterior hypothalamus with an AVP-receptor antagonist also elicit less aggression from conspecifics.     

Personal Characteristics,Job Performance,and Absenteeism of Public School Teachers1

Personal characteristics and job performance were examined as potential predictors of absenteeism for a professional occupational group. Data on 152 public school teachers demonstrated that sex and independence contributed unique variance to the prediction of absenteeism. Furthermore, the interaction terms of sex with independence, with the ability to control anxiety, and with performance rating significantly added to the variance explained in absenteeism. Implications of the present results are discussed as well as suggestions for future research.     

Understanding as an Antidote for the Dysfunctional Consequences of Organizational Politics as a Stressor 1

The proposition that organizational politics perceptions are potential stressors with potentially dysfunctional outcomes was set forth based on previous theory. The hypothesis that the dysfunctional outcomes of stress associated with the perceptions of the organizational political climate can be ameliorated by understanding the environment was tested in a field study. Results provided strong support for the hypothesis, demonstrating a significant interaction of politics x understanding on job anxiety, and showing that understanding can serve as an antidote of sorts to the dysfunctional effects of organizational politics.     

Differential Effectiveness of Applicant Impression Management Tactics on Employment Interview Decisions1

It has been a commonly held belief for some time that applicants attempt to manage impressions of interviewers in the employment interview process, but only recently have researchers begun to examine systematically the tactics applicants use, and how effective they are. The present study contrasted two sets of impression management tactics used by applicants and observed their effects on interviewer decisions in a controlled laboratory experiment. An applicant who employed self-focused-type impression management tactics was rated higher, received more recommendations for a job offer, and received fewer rejections from business students, who had just completed an interviewer training program, than when he used other-focused-type tactics. The implications of these results in terms of both theory and practice are discussed.     

The age context of performance-evaluation decisions.

Organizational demography contends that demographic characteristics of individuals, examined at individual, dyadic, group, and organizational levels of analysis, exert significant effects on organizational processes. The purpose of this article was to test the contextual effects created by the interaction of work-group age composition and supervisor age on supervisor evaluations of subordinate performance. Two competing models of age demography were tested. The similarity model predicts that supervisors similar in age to the work group they supervise will issue generally higher performance ratings. The dissimilarity model, developed in this article, predicts the opposite. Support was indicated for the dissimilarity model. Implications of the results are discussed.     

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECTS OF TOKEN REINFORCEMENT ON DIVERGENT VERBAL RESPONDING1

The effect of token reinforcement on three classes of divergent verbal responding to verbal stimulus items from three measures of the Wallach-Kogan Creativity test was examined. The subjects consisted of two “gifted”, two “average”, and two “learning disabled” children from a public-school setting. The design utilized both an intra-subject and inter-subject multiple-baseline design with a reversal design added. Tokens were dispensed contingent upon the number of appropriate verbal responses to each stimulus item, i.e., a continuous schedule of reinforcement was used—one token per appropriate response. Interobserver agreement on “appropiateness” was 993%. The tokens could be used to “purchase” items listed in a “menu” format (e.g., ball and jacks—100 tokens). Consistently large effects of token reinforcement were observed, without generalization of effect across the three classes of behaviors, or conditions. These results support the works of Goetz and Baer (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1973, 6 , 209–217), Goetz and Salmonson (Behavior Analysis and Education, G. Semb, (Ed.), University of Kansas, 1972, 53–61), and Maloney and Hopkins (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1973, 6 , 425–434). Implications lie in continued experimental analysis of behavior approach to the concept called “creativity”. Additionally, implications are made in classroom application of assessing and intervening in the area of divergent responding for children with deficits in those areas.     

REPLICATION OF THE ACHIEVEMENT PLACE MODEL IN CALIFORNIA1

Attempting to replicate procedures from Achievement Place, token reinforcement procedures were used to modify savings, conversational interruptions, and table-setting of delinquent boys residing in a home-style, community based, treatment setting. The tokens (points) were redeemable for various privileges and could be earned for specified appropriate behaviors and lost for specified inappropriate behaviors. Contingent point fines reduced the frequency of interruptions. Point rewards improved table-setting, but even large point rewards did not substantially increase savings. Baseline data indicated that lateness to dinner was not a problem, as it was in Achievement Place. Withdrawal of contingent points and back-up rewards did not disrupt the clean-up behavior of two boys.