Employment demographics and attitudes that predict preferences for alternative pay increase policies

A survey of 942 university staff employees shows that performance and cost of living are preferred over seniority as criteria upon which to base pay increases. Multiple regression analysis reveals that preferences for performance-based pay increases are most strongly related to perceptions that merit pay does not decrease co-worker cooperation, perceptions that performance differences exist among co-workers, employment in white collar jobs, and never having belonged to a union. Preferences for seniority-based and cost of living-based pay increases are most strongly related to the perceived need for a union, perceptions that merit pay reduces cooperation, education level, and gender. In addition, preferences for seniority-based pay increases are related to years of service.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1989 meetings of the Midwest Academy of Management.     

Development and validation of a standardized measure of employee turnover risk

This article describes the development, reliability, and initial validation of the Tenure Scale. The scale was designed as an attitudinal predictor of turnover risk to be used for pre-employment selection. Two validation studies are reported. In study one, significant results were obtained between Tenure Scale scores and self report measures of: a) past and present job tenure; b) intentions to quit; c) job search behaviors; and d) intentions to remain committed to one's job. In study two, significant relationships were established between Tenure Scale scores and on-the-job measures of turnover risk, including work performance, absenteeism rates, and length of employment. No adverse impact was found against any protected group in study two. The relationship of these results with job turnover theory is discussed, and future validation research is suggested.Portions of this research study were presented at the 1988 Annual Conference of the Association of Human Resources Management and Organizational Behavior, Long Beach, California, October 26–29.     

Is Pregnancy Necessary? Feminist Concerns About Ectogenesis

To what extent are women obliged to be child-bearers? If reproductive technology could offer some form of ectogenesis, would feminists regard it as a liberating reproductive option? Three lines of reproductive rights arguments currently used by feminists are applied to ectogenesis. Each fails to provide strong grounds for prohibiting it. Yet, there are several ways in which ectogenesis could contribute to women's oppression, in particular, if it were used to undermine abortion rights, reinforce traditional views of fertility, increase fetal rights in pregnancy, and perpetuate the unequal distribution of scarce medical resources. A re-thinking of women's relationship to pregnancy is needed in order to challenge ectogenetic research.     

Automated data collection using bar code

Using bar code technology to automate data collection provides a rapid and reliable alternative to paper-and-pencil tracking or keyboard entry into pocket or laptop computer. An array of bar code symbols is printed on a data menu, with a unique symbol corresponding to each possible observation. Bar code symbols are scanned using hand-held readers, which record the event, log the observation time, and store data for transfer to a personal computer. Advantages of the bar code monitoring system include: (1) ease of use by staff with minimal technical training, (2) reduced data entry errors and increased entry speed, (3) reliable portable operation, and (4) low-cost hardware. While the bar code system described here is used for behavioral monitoring in a residential treatment setting for the developmentally disabled, with minimal modification this system can be adapted for use in a wide variety of research and clinical applications.     

A program for constructing SVT tests: An alternative way of assessing text comprehension

The sentence verification technique (SVT), developed by Royer, Hastings, and Hook (1979), provides developmental and educational researchers with an alternative way of assessing text comprehension based on all of the information contained in a passage. Students must decide if test sentences have the same meaning as sentences that appeared in an original passage. The program described here automates the more laborious aspects of constructing SVT tests. The user must create a passage using a word processor. The program will prompt the user for information as needed. Finally, printable text files (SVT test and answer key) are generated. The program is written in BASIC for IBM and IBM-compatible computers.     

Oklahoma's Nonviolent Intermediate Offender Program: A Success in Rehabilitation

In this study, the authors analyzed demographic data on 403 Oklahoma inmates who went through the Regimented Inmate Discipline Program in 1984–1985. Also, a sample of the inmates was interviewed to identify the most supportive components of the program.     

The role of visual information in the processing of

Visual information provided by a talker’s mouth movements can influence the perception of certain speech features. Thus, the “McGurk effect” shows that when the syllable /bi/ is presented audibly, in synchrony with the syllable /gi/, as it is presented visually, a person perceives the talker as saying /di/. Moreover, studies have shown that interactions occur between place and voicing features in phonetic perception, when information is presented audibly. In our first experiment, we asked whether feature interactions occur when place information is specified by a combination of auditory and visual information. Members of an auditory continuum ranging from /ibi/ to /ipi/ were paired with a video display of a talker saying /igi/. The auditory tokens were heard as ranging from /ibi/ to /ipi/, but the auditory-visual tokens were perceived as ranging from /idi/ to /iti/. The results demonstrated that the voicing boundary for the auditory-visual tokens was located at a significantly longer VOT value than the voicing boundary for the auditory continuum presented without the visual information. These results demonstrate that place-voice interactions are not limited to situations in which place information is specified audibly. In three follow-up experiments, we show that (1) the voicing boundary is not shifted in the absence of a change in the global percept, even when discrepant auditory-visual information is presented; (2) the number of response alternatives provided for the subjects does not affect the categorization or the VOT boundary of the auditory-visual stimuli; and (3) the original effect of a VOT boundary shift is not replicated when subjects are forced by instruction to \ldrelabel\rd the /b-p/auditory stimuli as/d/or/t/. The subjects successfully relabeled the stimuli, but no shift in the VOT boundary was observed.     

Discrimination of facial expressions of emotion by depressed subjects

A frequent complaint of depressed people concerns their poor interpersonal relationships. Yet, although nonverbal cues are considered of primary importance in interpersonal communication, the major theories of depression focus little attention on nonverbal social perception. The present study investigated the ability of depressed, disturbed control, and normal American adults to make rapid discriminations of facial emotion. We predicted and found that depressed subjects were slower than normal subjects in facial emotion discrimination but were not slower in word category discrimination. These findings suggest that current theories of depression may need to address difficulties with nonverbal information processing. There were also no significant differences between depressed and disturbed control subjects, suggesting that the unique social-behavioral consequences of depression have yet to be identified.