A FIELD EXPERIMENT TESTING SUPERVISORY ROLE CLARIFICATION

An intervention designed to clarify individual roles was tested experimentally on the business service division of a major university. Following a pre-test which identified role stress as a significant problem in the organization, top managers clarified their respective departmental roles in meeting organizational objectives. This was followed by a post-test (Time 2) survey of workers'stressors and symptoms. Supervisors were then trained in the method of clarifying subordinate roles using a dyadic exchange process. Workers were randomly assigned to either participate in a thorough role clarification discussion with their supervisors or join a wait-list control group. Based on a follow-up (Time 3) questionnaire, the intervention appeared to reduce role ambiguity and supervisor dissatisfaction. There were no effects on other aspects of subjective strain, physical symptoms, or time lost due to illness. Role conflict decreased in both the experimental and control groups. We discuss the implications of these findings for systemic efforts to reduce employee stress.     

The Fourth Alternative: Leisure Search and Planning

Employment counselors need to be aware of a fourth job search alternative—leisure search and planning. Leisure interests are relatively untapped resources that the unemployed might use to find employment or develop necessary job-related skills.     

OUTLIER DETECTION AND TREATMENT IN I/O PSYCHOLOGY: A SURVEY OF RESEARCHER BELIEFS AND AN EMPIRICAL ILLUSTRATION

Extreme data points, or outliers, can have a disproportionate influence on the conclusions drawn from a set of bivariate correlational data. This paper addresses two aspects of outlier detection. The results of a survey regarding how published researchers prefer to deal with outliers are presented, and a set of 183 test validity studies is examined to document the effects of different approaches to the detection and exclusion of outliers on effect size measures. The study indicates that: (a) there is disagreement among researchers as to the appropriateness of deleting data points from a study; (b) researchers report greater use of visual examination of data than of numeric diagnostic techniques for detecting outliers; and (c) while outlier removal influenced effect size measures in individual studies, outlying data points were not found to be a substantial source of variance in a large test validity data set.     

Genetic and environmental influences on adult attachment styles

The heritability of adult attachment styles as measured by the Relationship Scales Questionnaire (RSQ) was estimated on data from a volunteer general population sample of 220 adult twin pairs (116 monozygotic pairs. 104 dizygotic pairs). Additive genetic effects accounted for 37%, 43%, and 25% of the variance in the secure, fearful, and preoccupied adult attachment styles, respectively, but none of the variance in the dismissing style. Nonshared environmental influences accounted for the majority of the variance in all styles: 63% secure, 57% fearful, 75% preoccupied, and 71% dismissing. Shared environmental effects were negligible for all styles except dismissing (29%).     

Improving Employee Productivity: The Role of Financial Counseling and Education

Literature has shown that a link exists between personal financial problems and employee productivity. This article presents the results of a survey that was designed to assess the personal financial behaviors of 220 clerical workers and to measure their desire for workplace financial education and counseling programs. It was found that a large percentage of employees were exhibiting poor financial behaviors and that more than 80% of respondents were interested in workplace financial counseling and education as long as the cost of such programs were relatively low. The financial behaviors of employees may be significantly improved through workplace counseling and education.     

Knowledge in Action

This paper argues that the role of knowledge in the explanation and production of intentional action is as indispensable as the roles of belief and desire. If we are interested in explaining intentional actions rather than intentions or attempts, we need to make reference to more than the agent's beliefs and desires. It is easy to see how the truth of your beliefs, or perhaps, facts about a setting will be involved in the explanation of an action. If you believe you can stop your car by pressing a pedal, then, if your belief is true, you will stop. If it is false, you will not. By considering cases of unintentional actions, actions involving luck and cases of deviant causal chains, I show why knowledge is required. By looking at the notion of causal relevance, I argue that the connection between knowledge and action is causal and not merely conceptual.
"What knowledge adds to belief is not psychologically relevant." ¹ —Stephen Stich     

PERSONALITY AND COGNITIVE ABILITY AS PREDICTORS OF JOB SEARCH AMONG EMPLOYED MANAGERS

Research on employee job search and separation traditionally focuses on situationally specific variables. Such variables may change with particular employment situations (e.g., job tenure, salary, perceived organizational success), they may be differentially relevant to work situations over time (e.g., education), or may reflect individual reactions to particular work situations (e.g., job satisfaction). More enduring individual characteristics, particularly personality and cognitive ability, may affect job search in consistent ways across different situations, but to date we have little empirical research on those effects. The present study extends traditional job search investigations by incorporating these two enduring individual characteristics–personality and cognitive ability. The value of these two enduring individual characteristics, in predicting job search, is then tested on a sample of U.S. executives. Cognitive ability as well as the personality dimensions of Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience related positively to job search. These effects remained even in the presence of an array of situational factors previously shown to affect search. The relationship between Extroversion and job search became significant and positive in the presence of situational factors, particularly job satisfaction. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.