Rawls and Religious Community: Ethical Decision Making in the Public Square

While most people may initially agree that justice is fairness,as an evangelical Protestant I argue that, for many religiouscomprehensive doctrines, the Rawlsean model does not possessthe resources necessary to sustain tolerance in moral decisionmaking. The weakness of Rawls's model centers on the reasonablepriority of convictions that arise from private comprehensivedoctrines. To attain a free and pluralistic society, peopleneed resources sufficient to provide reasons to tolerate actionsthat are otherwise intolerable. In addition to arguing for thedeficiency of the Rawlsean political model, I sketch out a preliminarymodel of ambassadorship that offers religious communities, andin particular Protestant evangelicals, the necessary resourcesto engage the broader society tolerantly while maintaining theirreligious convictions. As a citizen of the church and a memberof another kingdom, Christians serve as ambassadors to thosewho are not of the heavenly kingdom. I take this model to bemore ambitious than that of a sojourner who lives in the landbut is isolated as much as possible from society, while moremodest than that of reconstructionists who seek to implementtheir own sacred law on all others.     

The McCollough effect: Influence of several kinds of visual stimulation on decay rate

An experiment was conducted to determine whether the decay rate of the McCollough effect could be differentially influenced by the type of visual stimulation that followed its induction. After acquiring this effect, Os were exposed to achromatic gratings, homogeneous chromatic fields, natural visual stimulation, or complete darkness. Exposure to achromatic gratings caused a marked fading of the effect; the other types of stimulation were associated with similar and much less rapid decay.     

Effects of cigarette smoking on lexical decision-making

10 habitual smokers, aged 19-25 yr., were randomly assigned to smoke either a very low nicotine "Placebo" cigarette (.05-mg nicotine delivery as estimated by the FTC method) or a Nicotine cigarette (.7-mg estimated nicotine delivery). Each participant was asked to abstain from smoking for 4 to 7 hr. prior to testing. After completing a presmoking test of lexical decision-making, participants smoked either a Nicotine or Placebo cigarette and were then retested for reaction times and accuracy on the lexical decision test. When presented the most difficult lexical decisions, participants responded significantly faster after smoking a Nicotine cigarette than they did before smoking; smoking a Placebo cigarette did not affect reaction times. Response accuracy was unaffected by smoking either kind of cigarette. These results suggest that smoking a nicotine cigarette may improve attention or memory retrieval after several hours of smoking abstinence.     

Graded differential reinforcement: Response-dependent reinforcer amount

After key pecking had been autoshaped, six pigeons were exposed to a condition in which the duration of grain availability at the end of an 8-second trial depended on the number of responses emitted during the trial (0.25-second access to grain per response). This procedure, called correlated reinforcement, alternated across conditions with the automaintenance baseline in which the 8-second trial terminated with a constant 2.5-second access to grain. Two control procedures were run; in both, the reinforcer durations were yoked to those obtained in the last correlated session. In the yoked control no responses were required, but in the single-response yoked control at least one response was required to receive the yoked duration. The correlated condition maintained response rates above those produced by the two control conditions. These results may be accounted for by differential reinforcement.     

Construction of gender roles in perceived scarce environments – Maintaining masculinity when shopping for fast fashion apparel

Gender refers to ways men and women socialize into the male and female roles that are commonly attributed to them. These roles are continuously (re)constructed within and through our daily activities. Prior literature suggests a need for more research in investigating how men and women construct their identity in various exchange situations and in various cultural settings. This paper explores the situational construction of male and female identities (especially the male one) when shopping for fashion products in environments with strategically created scarcity. The findings of this study suggest that, when shopping for fashion products in scarce environments, men and women tend to exhibit gendered behaviors that are considered more consistent with their traditional gender norms. We find that men, although concerned about their appearance, adhere to urgent buying behavior. This behavior helps men maintain some of their traditional masculine identity. In addition, they do not participate as frequently in the in‐store hoarding and in‐store hiding that are more frequently exhibited by women and that are more consistent with a feminine identity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relationship Development in Selling: A Cognitive Analysis

Recent research has suggested that trust and relationship-building contribute to the effectiveness of salespeople. This paper reviews the literature on the cognitive selling paradigm and the influence of knowledge structures on the relationship-building process. Next, two recent studies (Anglin 1990; Szymanski 1987) which investigated knowledge, relationship development, and sales performance are reviewed. The findings from these studies imply that a fundamental difference may exist in the manner in which higher and lower performing salespeople perceive the selling process. Higher performers placed greater emphasis on establishing “trust” and also preferred to find out information about the prospect before reciprocating with information about themselves. Lower performers, on the other hand, preferred to disclose information about themselves before obtaining personal information about the prospect.     

Reconsidering the Equivalence of Multisource Performance Ratings: Evidence for the Importance and Meaning of Rater Factors

Purpose

The study specified an alternate model to examine the measurement invariance of multisource performance ratings (MSPRs) to systematically investigate the theoretical meaning of common method variance in the form of rater effects. As opposed to testing invariance based on a multigroup design with raters aggregated within sources, this study specified both performance dimension and idiosyncratic rater factors.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data was obtained from 5,278 managers from a wide range of organizations and hierarchical levels, who were rated on the BENCHMARKS^® MSPR instrument.

Findings

Our results diverged from prior research such that MSPRs were found to lack invariance for raters from different levels. However, same level raters provided equivalent ratings in terms of both the performance dimension loadings and rater factor loadings.

Implications

The results illustrate the importance of modeling rater factors when investigating invariance and suggest that rater factors reflect substantively meaningful variance, not bias.

Originality/Value

The current study applies an alternative model to examine invariance of MSPRs that allowed us to answer three questions that would not be possible with more traditional multigroup designs. First, the model allowed us to examine the impact of paramaterizing idiosyncratic rater factors on inferences of cross-rater invariance. Next, including multiple raters from each organizational level in the MSPR model allowed us to tease apart the degree of invariance in raters from the same source, relative to raters from different sources. Finally, our study allowed for inferences with respect to the invariance of idiosyncratic rater factors.     

A study of the discrepancy between self- and observer-ratings on managerial derailment characteristics of European managers

Managerial derailment is costly to managers, their co-workers, and their organization. Knowing whether discrepancies (i.e., differences, dissimilarity, disagreement, incongruity) exist between self- and observer- (subordinates, peers, and bosses) ratings about derailment may help to lessen or prevent the detrimental outcomes of derailment on managers, their co-workers, and their organization. Results from 1742 European managers revealed a statistically significant difference between a manager's self-ratings and observer-ratings on the extent to which a manager displayed derailment behaviours and characteristics. The discrepancy also widened as managerial level increased, and was mostly due to inflated self-ratings. In addition, discrepancies between self – boss, self – direct report, and self – peer were examined, as well as differences between European and American managers. A discussion of these findings and implications for practice conclude this article.     

The simple man: The consumption behavior of the principled life

In this study, we analyze the Simple Man, a label for those men who have above-average means in education, household income, or net worth but who consume inconspicuously and modestly below their means. We interviewed 27 men in the Northwest, Midwest, Southeast and Northeast regions of the United States and found that these men have highly individualistic identities and backgrounds yet appear to stray from products that separate them from others. These men also seem to have reached a level of contentment, not needing products or material possessions to achieve fulfillment, status, or a particular masculine identity. These men have practical and durable tastes that reflect low cultural capital (LCC) consumption but have the means and education in many instances to engage in high cultural capital (HCC) consumption. The men in this study adamantly proclaim that they do not define themselves by what they own nor do they appear to define themselves primarily by what they do, at least in terms of occupation. In short, these men appear complex in many ways yet live simple lives, or what might be termed complex simplicity. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.