Bias in Eyewitness Accounts: The Effects of Question Format,Delay Interval,and Stimulus Presentation

One of three representations of a staged automobile collision was shown to 180 students from introductory psychology classes. We then questioned the students about details of the accident, using either marked or unmarked modifiers. Half the students were questioned immediately after viewing the stimulus material and half after a 20-min delay. The results indicated that estimates of the magnitude of a number of aspects of the collision were significantly greater when unmarked modifiers were used in phrasing the relevant questions. Students who were questioned after the 20-min delay gave significantly greater estimates of monetary damage than the students who answered immediately after viewing the representation. The nature of the stimulus material had inconsistent but significant effects.     

Religious Orientation and Health among Active Older Adults in the United States

This study utilizes a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic Religious Orientation Scales to explore the connection between religion and health in a sample of physically active, older adults. The revised Religious Orientation Scale and the RAND Short Form 36 (SF-36) were adopted to relate religious orientation (intrinsic, extrinsic, pro-religious, and non-religious) and self-rated mental and physical health status. Individuals of pro-religious orientation reported significantly worse health for physical functioning, role limitations due to physical health, and energy or fatigue when compared with those of all other religious orientations; however, no dose–response relationships were found between religious orientation and self-rated health. The results of this study indicate that deleterious health effects may accompany pro-religious orientation. Caution is provided for directors of religious programs for older adults.     

Anchoring and Adjusting in Questionnaire Responses

Do survey designers bias respondents' answers on attitude/opinion questionnaires through the organization of their survey items? We hypothesize that respondents often employ an anchoring and adjusting strategy in which their response to an initial survey item provides a cognitive anchor from which they insufficiently adjust in answering the subsequent item. Three experiments indicate that respondents often anchor and insufficiently adjust in certain situations. Ultimately, this tendency can affect reliability estimates of scales and the resultant correlations with other measures. In organizing their surveys, researchers may wish to combat this bias by intermixing items designed for different but related constructs.     

Equity,Egoism, and Egocentrism: The Formation of Distributive Justice Judgments

Groups of subjects watched films under two conditions of density (high and low) and number (large and small groups). After one film a confederate applauded and the reactions of the audience were observed. As predicted by an analysis based on the intensification theory of crowding, high density greatly increased the contagion of the applause, Larger numbers also had a significant, though considerably smaller effect on contagion. The findings indicate that relatively simple environmental factors such as density and number may be major determinants of whether contagion occurs in groups.     

Investigating Links from Teacher Knowledge,to Classroom Practice,to Student Learning in the Instructional System of the Middle-School Mathematics Classroom

Using data collected in 125 seventh-grade and 56 eighth-grade Texas classrooms in the context of the “Scaling Up SimCalc” research project in 2005–07, we examined relationships between teachers’ mathematics knowledge, teachers’ classroom decision making, and student achievement outcomes on topics of rate, proportionality, and linear function—three important and cognitively demanding prealgebra topics. We found that teachers’ mathematical knowledge was correlated with student achievement in only one study out of three. We also found a lack of correlations between teachers’ mathematical knowledge and critical aspects of instructional decision making. Curriculum and other learning resources (e.g., technology, student–student interactions) are clearly important factors for student learning in addition to, and in interaction with, teachers’ mathematical knowledge. Our results suggest that mathematics knowledge for teaching may have a nonlinear relationship with student learning, that those effects may be heavily mediated by other instructional factors, and that short-term content knowledge gains in teacher workshops may not persist in classroom instruction. We discuss a need in the field for richer models of how “mathematical knowledge for teaching” works in the context of complete instructional systems.     

The effects of team strategic orientation on team process and information search

We tested the effects of team strategic orientation on team member perceptions, work strategy and information search. In Experiment 1, 80 teams worked on a hidden profile decision-making task. A defensive team strategic orientation increased members’ perceptions of the problem’s scope, leading to a more process-focused work strategy and broader information search compared to an offensive team strategic orientation. When teams needed critical information from the environment, defensive teams outperformed offensive teams; offensive teams performed better when critical information resided within the team. In Experiment 2, these findings were replicated with 92 teams performing a different decision task. When making a second decision, half of the teams were led to change their strategic orientation; teams shifting from offense to defense altered their information search behavior more readily than did teams shifting in the opposite direction, suggesting an asymmetric adaptation effect.     

P = f (Conscientiousness × Ability): Examining the Facets of Conscientiousness

We posited that the form of the joint effects of motivation and ability in traditional performance models are interactive because motivation triggers the use of energy resources required to deploy ability at work. Moreover, we posited that achievement might best represent motivation compared to five other facets of Conscientiousness or global Conscientiousness. In two samples of customer service representatives, achievement interacted with general mental ability (GMA) in predicting task performance, whereas global Conscientiousness and the other five facets did not. This suggests that researchers examining the motivational aspects of Conscientiousness might uncover a more consistent pattern of results for task performance if they focus on the achievement facet. Furthermore, managers might see the highest levels of task performance in certain contexts when hiring individuals based on both achievement and GMA.     

Utility Aspects of Personality and Peformance

The purpose of this study is threefold: (a) to examine the extent to which two personality measures appear to function in an Industrial Organizational context, but in a different language and culture; (b) to study their construct and concurrent validity; and (c) to relate these findings to utility analyses. These three tasks were done to determine the extent to which personality measurements can provide a positive financial outcome to organizations in a selection situation. Swedish versions of 2 well-known U.S. tests, Service First, a customer service measure, and the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI; Hogan & Hogan, 1992), a Big Five personality measure, were administered to several hundred employees, job applicants, and students in a range of organizations. Despite considerable differences in culture (especially attitudes to service, education, and life goals), the Swedish norms and factor structures for the 2 tests were remarkably similar to those of the United States, confirming that tests of this type can be used in different environments. When compared with each other and with the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (Consulting Psychologists Press, 1991, 1995), the results also confirmed that their construct validity had survived the transformation to anew culture and language. Two concurrent criterion validity studies showed that the correlation between test results and different kinds of criterion data were highly significant, suggesting that the tests can be used to forecast work performance. Additional information was obtained from the 2 companies concerning salaries and performance variation and these were used to perform a utility analysis to show the substantial financial benefit of using personality testing for selection as well as in a downsizing context.     

Posttraumatic Stress,Depression, and Insomnia Among U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen

Few studies have examined rates of mental health problems among special duty military personnel, who often have frequent deployments and high exposure to operational stressors and trauma. The current study examined the severity and rates of positive screening for posttraumatic stress, depression, and insomnia among 194 U.S. Air Force pararescuemen (PJs) in the active duty (AD) and National Guard/Reserve (NG/R) components. Overall estimated rates were 11.6% for probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 1.6% for probable depression, and 16.1% for clinical insomnia. PJs in the NG/R reported significantly more severe posttraumatic stress symptoms (F(1, 162) = 10.031, p = .002, partial η² = .058) and were approximately twice as likely to screen positive for probable PTSD (8.5% vs. 19.1%; χ²[1] = 3.679, p = .055). No differences in the rate or severity of depression or insomnia symptoms were found. Rates of positive screens are comparable to or lower than previously published rates among military personnel.