Support marshaling for romantic relationships: Empirical validation of a support marshaling typology

Research has demonstrated that network support for a romantic relationship often plays a crucial role in the relationship's success. Despite this knowledge, it is not uncommon for romantic couples to encounter network opposition for their relationship, and little research has evaluated what the romantic partners do in this situation. Using “social contextual theory” as its foundation (M. R. Parks, 2007 , 2011 ), this study evaluates a previously proposed typology (J. P. Crowley, 2012 ) explicating the variety of strategies an individual can use to marshal support for his or her romantic relationship. In addition, the study examines different variables that can influence an individual's decision to use certain support marshaling strategies. Future applications of the typology and its implications are also explored.     

CANDIDATE PERSISTENCE AND PERSONALITY TEST PRACTICE EFFECTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR STAFFING SYSTEM MANAGEMENT

Candidates persist in selection settings for numerous reasons, prompting several concerns regarding staffing-system management. Predictors of the propensity to retest and personality test practice effects were investigated among a sample of 15,338 candidates who applied for supervisory positions (and 357 who repeated the selection process) over a 4-year period with a large organization in the service industry. Results reveal greater likelihood of retesting among internal candidates and overall evidence of small-to-moderate personality test practice effects. Compared to passing candidates who retested for various reasons, failing candidates pursued alternative response strategies upon retesting and generated dimension-level practice effects that reached .40 to .60, whereas passing candidates generally replicated their initial profiles. For several subscales, low initial scores were associated with practice effects that exceeded a full standard deviation. Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed.     

Perceiving low self‐esteem in close others impedes capitalization and undermines the relationship

Disclosing positive experiences to others (i.e., “capitalization”) is associated with personal and interpersonal benefits (Gable & Reis, 2010). Unfortunately, people who perceive low self‐esteem (LSE) in close others are reluctant to capitalize, holding back from those they expect will be unsupportive (MacGregor & Holmes, 2011). In Study 1, we extend previous findings by demonstrating the importance of the type of experience disclosed; participants capitalized less positively with an (ostensibly) LSE friend when disclosing an accomplishment, not a positive experience attributed to happenstance. In Study 2, we demonstrate the external validity of the phenomenon by examining real discussions between romantic partners. Participants capitalized less positively with their LSE partner, behavior associated with lower relationship satisfaction 6 weeks later (particularly for women).     

Sowing wild oats: Valuable experience or a field full of weeds?

In this study, the association was explored between the number of sexual partners individuals had in their lifetimes and martial outcomes. The research objective was to test whether the number of sexual partners was associated with sexual quality, communication, relationship satisfaction, and relationship stability, while controlling for relationship length, education, race, income, age, and religiosity, using the two competing theories of sexual compatibility and sexual restraint. The results, with a sample of 2,654 married individuals, indicated that the number of sexual partners was associated with lower levels of sexual quality, communication, and relationship stability, providing support for the sexual restraint theory. Gender was not significantly associated with the patterns in the model but age cohorts did have different patterns.     

IS IT WORTH IT TO WIN THE TALENT WAR? EVALUATING THE UTILITY OF PERFORMANCE‐BASED PAY

Although the business press suggests that "winning the talent war," the attraction and retention of key talent, is increasingly pivotal to organization success, executives often report that their organizations do not fare well on this dimension. We demonstrate how, through integrating turnover and compensation research, the Boudreau and Berger (1985) staffing utility framework can be used by I-O psychologists and other HR professionals to address this issue. Employing a step-by-step process that combines organization-specific information about pay and performance with research on the pay-turnover linkage, we estimate the effects of incentive pay on employee separation patterns at various performance levels. We then use the utility framework to evaluate the financial consequences of incentive pay as an employee retention vehicle. The demonstration illustrates the limitations of standard accounting and behavioral cost-based approaches and the importance of considering both the costs and benefits associated with pay-for-performance plans. Our results suggest that traditional accounting or behavioral cost-based approaches, used alone, would have supported rejecting a potentially lucrative pay-for-performance investment. In addition, our approach should enable HR professionals to use research findings and their own data to estimate the retention patterns and subsequent financial consequences of their existing, and potential, company-specific performance-based pay policies.