Does Organizational Commitment Fully Mediate Constituent Commitment Effects? A Reassessment and Clarification

Research suggests that employees can be committed to constituents of an organization, distinct from commitment to the organization itself. However, 2 key studies came to different conclusions on whether constituent commitments have independent effects on outcomes. This study improves on earlier methodology to clarify this contradiction. Specifically, nested-model comparisons test a partially mediated model versus a fully mediated model (through organizational commitment). The results refute the main conclusion of Hunt & Morgan (1994), supporting a partially mediated model with direct constituent commitment effects on turnover intentions and citizenship behaviors (i.e., Becker, 1992). Effects of commitment to work group on turnover intentions and non-idleness were in the opposite direction from those of organizational commitment. Implications for commitment research are discussed.     

The Political Psychology of Evil

Fifty-eight subjects were interviewed about their concepts of evil. They include students, retirees, white collar workers, and 18 prison inmates. Many defined evil not as a moral category but as an experience of impending doom. This definition reflects and affects how many subjects experience evil as an ethical problem, leading them to "privatize" evil—experiencing it in terms of their own terror. Many have considerable difficulty connecting this experience with issues of morality and goodness. An education about evil must respectfully confront this private dimension. The same conclusion applies to how we study evil on a larger scale, such as the Holocaust. This is revealed by subjects' responses, some quite troubling, to questions about the Nazis.     

Counting knowledge and skill in cognitive addition: a comparison of normal and mathematically disabled children.

The relationship between counting knowledge and computational skills (i.e., skill at counting to solve addition problems) was assessed for groups of first-grade normal and mathematically disabled (MD) children. Twenty-four normal and 13 MD children were administered a series of counting tasks and solved 40 computer-administered addition problems. For the addition task, problem-solving strategies were recorded on a trial-by-trial basis. Performance on the counting tasks suggested that the MD children were developmentally delayed in the understanding of essential and unessential features of counting and were relatively unskilled in the detection of certain forms of counting error. On the addition task, the MD children committed many more computational errors and tended to use developmentally immature counting procedures. The immature counting knowledge of the MD children, combined with their relatively poor skills at detecting counting errors, appeared to underlie their poor computational skills on the addition task. Suggestions for future research are presented.     

Evolution and Developmental Sex Differences

From an evolutionary perspective, childhood is the portion of the life span during which individuals practice and refine those competencies that facilitate survival and reproduction in adulthood. Although the skeletal structure of these competencies appears to be inherent, social interaction and play flesh them out during childhood so that they are adapted to local conditions. Darwin's principles of sexual selection, including male-male competition over mates and female choice of mating partners, successfully explain the acquisition and expression of reproductive competencies in hundreds of species. When this perspective is applied to humans, it predicts sex differences that are, in fact, found in the childhood activities of boys and girls and that reflect sex differences in reproductive strategies in adulthood. A few of these differences are described, along with cultural factors that modify their expression. The article closes with a brief discussion of the social and scientific implications.     

Attentional Selectivity in Short-term Memory: Similarity of Process,Not Similarity of Content,Determines Disruption

Background sound substantially disrupts serial recall, even under conditions where participants are explicitly told to ignore it. Study of such a phenomenon may serve to illuminate the manner in which information from various sources interacts in memory, as well as the extent to which unattended information is processed. A review of the literature is presented that points to a number of conclusions. First, that interference occurs in memory, not on the basis of similarity of content between relevant and irrelevant material, but rather on the basis of similarity of process. Specifically, in a serial recall task, the key memory process is that of order retention, and therefore, order information in the sequence of auditory events interferes with the process of ordering within the rehearsal set. Second, that organisation and interference within memory are intimately connected with perceptual processes.     

Relative Deprivation,Dissatisfaction, and Militancy: A Field Study In A Protest Crowd1

The links between relative deprivation (RD), dissatisfaction with financial situation, and propensity for militancy were examined in a field study of a farmers' rally in Adelaide, South Australia. The rally was held to protest the blockade of sheep exports by the meat workers' union. Consistent with Gurr's (1970) theory, a majority of protesters were relatively deprived. However, there was no support for Morrison's (1971) hypothesis that participants in a conservstive protest demonstration are in a state of “decreinental” RD. No support mas found for Gurr's postulate that RD is the basic condition for participants in collective violence. RD war significantly associated with feelings of dissatisfaction but not with predispositions toward militancy. Dissatisfaction alone was a significant predictor of militant predisposition. Factors that may act to weaken the link between RD and militancy in actual episodes of collective behavior were discussed.     

Improving the reliability of event-based laboratory tests of prospective memory

Laboratory tests of event-based prospective memory (ProM) require participants to perform actions in response to infrequent cues in a background task. We conducted three experiments to assess and improve the reliability of this popular procedure. In Experiment 1, we tested college students on 2 separate days and found that the alternate-forms reliability of ProM accuracy was quite low (r = .31), although general knowledge accuracy was more reliable (r= .89). In Experiment 2, a statistically significant difference in reliability emerged between conditions with a low (n = 6) versus a high (n = 30) number of ProM targets. Finally, lower ProM accuracy increased reliability in Experiment 3. Adopting these straightforward changes may enhance the search for individual differences in ProM.     

The codevelopment of skill at and preference for use of retrieval-based processes for solving addition problems: individual and sex differences from first to sixth grades

The ability to retrieve basic arithmetic facts from long-term memory contributes to individual and perhaps sex differences in mathematics achievement. The current study tracked the codevelopment of preference for using retrieval over other strategies to solve single-digit addition problems, independent of accuracy, and skilled use of retrieval (i.e., accuracy and reaction time [RT]) from first to sixth grades inclusive (N=311). Accurate retrieval in first grade was related to working memory capacity and intelligence, and it predicted a preference for retrieval in second grade. In later grades, the relation between skill and preference changed such that preference in one grade predicted accuracy and RT in the next grade as RT and accuracy continued to predict future gains in preference. In comparison with girls, boys had a consistent preference for retrieval over other strategies and had faster retrieval speeds, but the sex difference in retrieval accuracy varied across grades. Results indicate that ability influences early skilled retrieval, but both practice and skill influence each other in a feedback loop later in development and provide insights into the source of the sex difference in problem-solving approaches.