Validation of physical ability tests for high pressure cleaning occupations

This paper describes the development and validation of a physical performance test battery to select high pressure cleaning workers at Tennessee Eastman Company. The research uses a concurrent, criterion-related validation strategy to demonstrate the relationship between test performance and job performance. The study proceeded through four stages, with data collected in one stage used in subsequent stages. The two types of predictor measures included ability tests and work sample simulations. For some analyses, the work sample simulations were also used as criteria. Four samples of incumbents (N=63) were tested on all experimental measures. Using criterion groups of successful incumbents and unsuccessful former incumbents (N=33), all of the work simulation tests and the ability-referenced tests were significant predictors of successful versus unsuccessful job status. In addition, the ability tests predicted performance on the work sample simulations, particularly for those requiring strength and endurance. A battery of three ability tests resulted in R=.68 for job status and in R=.43, .73, .80, and .84, respectively, for each of the work sample simulations. Two of the three ability tests in the final test battery are likely to result in adverse impact against females. However, data collected on female maintenance technicians indicated women, as a group, would not be screened out categorically as a result of implementing the physical ability test battery.     

SEPARATE AND COMBINED EFFECTS OF METHYLPHENIDATE AND A BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION ON DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR IN CHILDREN WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

We investigated the separate and combined effects of a behavioral intervention and methylphenidate (Ritalin®) on disruptive behavior and task engagement in 3 children with severe to profound mental retardation. The behavioral intervention involved differential reinforcement of appropriate behavior and guided compliance. All 3 children demonstrated decreased disruptive behavior and improved task engagement in response to the behavioral intervention. Two of the 3 children demonstrated similar improvement in response to methylphenidate. Although both interventions were highly effective for these 2 participants, the relative efficacy of the interventions varied between the 2 children. There was no evidence of an additive or synergistic effect of the two interventions, but the high efficacy of each intervention alone limited our ability to detect such effects.     

Amplitude Scaling Compensates for Serial Delays in Correcting Eye and Arm Movements

Spatial and metrical parameters of the eye and arm movements made by human subjects (N = 7) in response to visual targets that were stepped unexpectedly either once (single step) or twice (double step) were studied. For the double-step, the displacement of a visual target was decreased or increased in amplitude at intervals before and during a movement. Provided the second target step occurred more than 100 ms before the onset of movement, the amplitude of the subjects' first response was altered in the direction of the new target location. But this amplitude scaling was not always sufficient to reach the new target location, and a second corrective response was required. The latency in producing this second response was greatly increased above reaction time latencies of movements to single-step targets, especially when the target change occurred 100 ms or more before movement onset. These findings suggest that even though serial processing limitations delay the production of a second corrective response, continuous parallel processing of visual information enables the amplitude of the first response to be altered with minimal delay. This enables some degree of real-time continuous control by the visuomotor control system.     

Sports participation at work: An aid to stress management?

This study examined the effects of sport participation on mood, including stress, arousal, and psychological reversals. The subjects (N = 42) of the study were enrolled in an international MBA program which included, in addition to a range of academic courses, a course in physical education for which attendance was voluntary. Subjects, 26 sport participants and 16 nonparticipants, completed mood measures on five occasions throughout a typical working day, including just before and just after a sport session. Significant differences on some mood measure items and a number of pre- to post-sport significant effects (seriousmindedness and stress) were found between the sport and non-sport group, as well as reversals in psychological state. These results suggest that sport may well act as a modulator of mood and/or an inducing agent for reversal and therefore may play an important role in stress management intervention programs at work.     

TV commercials as achievement scripts for women

This study suggests that sex stereotypes implicitly enacted, but never explicitly articulated, in TV commercials may inhibit women's achievement aspirations. Men and women (N=180) viewed locally produced replicas of four current, sex-stereotyped commercials, or four replicas that were identical except that the sex roles were reversed, or (control) named their favorite TV programs. All subjects then wrote an essay imagining their lives “10 years from now.” The essays were coded for achievement and homemaking themes. Women who viewed traditional commercials deemphasized achievement in favor of homemaking, compared to men and compared to women who had seen reversed role commercials. The reversed role commercials eliminated the sex difference in net achievement focus. Control subjects were indistinguishable from their same-sex counterparts in the traditional condition. The results identified some social changes needed to make “equality of opportunity” a social reality for women as well as men.     

Naturalistic assessment of children's compliance to teachers' requests and consequences for compliance

Naturally occurring levels of teacher commands, child compliance to those commands, and positive and negative teacher feedback were studied in 19 teachers and 130 children in kindergarten through third grade. Seventy-five of the children had been identified as "making a good social adjustment" to school (high-rated) and 55 children were identified as "not making a good social adjustment" to school (low-rated). Results of intensive observation over a 4-wk period showed that: (a) individual teachers differed significantly in their overall use of commands; however, they did not differentially respond to high- versus low-rated children; (b) high-rated children were more likely to comply with commands than were low-rated children; (c) although the overall level of positive social consequences was extremely low, there was some indication that high-rated children were more likely to receive positive feedback for compliance than were low-rated children; (d) low-rated children received significantly more positive feedback than high-rated children for noncompliance; (e) teachers gave negative feedback for noncompliance at an equal level to both groups of children; and (f) although repeated teacher commands following noncompliance were equal across groups, low-rated children were exposed to significantly higher levels of repeated commands following compliance than were high-rated youngsters.     

Transgression and altruism: A case for hedonism

A model to account for the positive relationship between transgression and altruism was proposed and tested against three alternative formulations—Guilt, Social Justice, and Self-esteem Bolstering. The proposed model, Negative State Relief, asserts that people in a transgression situation behave charitably in order to reduce a general, negative affective state which is induced by exposure to harm-doing and that if the negative state is relieved by some other means, benevolent activity will be rendered unnecessary. All of the experimental subjects were exposed to an act of transgression; half performed the act themselves while half only witnessed it. In one set of experimental conditions (the relief conditions), a positive event—the receipt of either money or approval—was interposed between the harmful act and a fellow-student's request for aid. In another set of experimental conditions (the norelief conditions), no such positive event occurred. It was found, as predicted, that subjects who received a positive event were significantly less helpful than those who did not, but were not different from a control group which had never been exposed to the transgression. It was also found that harm-doers and harm-witnesses were identical in benevolent tendency. The results were interpreted as favoring a hedonistic conception of the nature of altruism. Finally, it was contended that a U-shaped relationship exists between mood state and helping tendency.     

An exploration of women's expectations of effective male and female leadership

University women (N=188) of varying ages (19–53) and work experience described their behavioral expectations of an effective male and female leader for levels of Consideration, Initiating Structure, Role Assumption, and Production Emphasis. In line with a sex role congruency view, it was hypothesized that an effective female leader would be expected to exhibit higher levels of Consideration behaviors, while an effective male leader would be expected to exhibit more Initiating Structure, Role Assumption, and Production Emphasis behaviors. The results provided only partial support for the sex role congruency hypothesis since an effective female leader was expected to exhibit higher levels of Consideration as well as higher levels of Initiating Structure. No sex differences were detected for Role Assumption or Production Emphasis behaviors. Further, while many similarities were noted among the women in their views of effective leadership, there were also systematic age-related differences among the women in their expectations, particularly with regard to their views of effective female leadership.Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Orlando, Florida, March, 1986.