Managers' Reactions to Utility Analysis and Perceptions of What Influences Their Decisions

Recent research on providing utility analysis (UA) information has shown small positive effects on acceptance of selection tests by human resource decision-makers (Carson, Becker, & Henderson, Journal of Applied Psychology, 83 84–96 (1998). In the present study, 218 managers provided reactions to UA information. Not only do our findings replicate the positive effects of UA, we found managers also responded favorably to UA information when asked independently of the decision making process. Specifically, when asked to rank order information in terms of what they perceived to be most influential in helping them make their final decisions, those who received UA information ranked it among the highest.     

Free-association norms for the Spanish names of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures.

The most frequent names in Spanish corresponding to a set of 247 pictures in the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) norms were used as stimuli in a discrete free-association task. A sample of 525 Spanish-speaking participants provided the first word that came to mind for each of the verbal stimuli. Responses were organized according to frequency of production in order to prepare word-association norms for the set of stimuli.     

Government Apologies for Historical Injustices

Scholars from various disciplines suggest that government apologies for historical injustices fulfill important psychological goals. After reviewing psychological literature that contributes to this discussion, we present a list of elements that political apologies should contain to be acceptable to both members of the victimized minority and the nonvictimized majority. Content coding of a list of government apologies revealed that many, but not all, include most of these elements. We then reviewed research demonstrating that political apologies that contain most of these facets are favorably evaluated, but especially by members of the nonvictimized majority. Next, we examined how the demands of victimized minorities affect their satisfaction with government apologies that lack some components. We conclude by discussing the implications of our analysis for when and how governments should apologize.     

Organisational interventions to improve employees' health and wellbeing: A realist synthesis

Although organisational interventions have shown promising results in improving employees' health and wellbeing, reviews of the effectiveness of such interventions conclude results are inconsistent. Realist synthesis is considered an appropriate method of literature review to improve the consistency of empirical evidence by developing generalisable statements of ‘what works for whom in which circumstances’. In this article, to identify and synthesise existing evidence from the empirical studies of organisational interventions, we conducted a realist synthesis according to the RAMESES publication standards. We reviewed 28 articles. Six realist programme theories were developed that explain how different mechanisms of organisational interventions may bring about different outcomes in different contexts. These realist programme theories are based on the process mechanisms of implementation adherence, communication, employees' participation, senior management support, middle management support and external consultants/researchers support. This realist synthesis enhances the understanding of how organisational interventions may improve employees' health and wellbeing, in which contexts, and for which group of employees. As such, it makes an important potential contribution to designing, implementing and evaluating future organisational interventions.     

Introduction: the phenomenological method today

Continental Philosophy Review -     

Social representations and intergroup conflicts: Who's smoking here?

We studied the influence of explicitating a social conflict between smokers and nonsmokers on the social representations held about tobacco. Two representations were found: a psychological' representation which was defined by psychological explanations of the causes of beginning to smoke, a characterization of smokers as psychologically disturbed, and negative feelings towards smokers; a second defensive representation which attributes smoking to social factors, and hold both a positive stereotype of smokers and positive feelings towards smokers. The percentage of smokers who adhere to the defensive representation increased significantly when the conflict was made salient. Non-smokers were not influenced by the explicitation of the social conflict. The structure of each representation was analyzed. It was found that in the psychological' representation the structuring element was the negative stereotype of smokers. By contrast, the structuring element in the defensive representation was identification with smokers. The implicatlons of this data for theories of both intergroup relations and social representations are discussed.     

Communicating the utility of human resource activities: A survey of I/O and HR professionals

A national survey of industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologists and other human resource (HR) specialists was conducted to examine experiences with and attitudes about utility estimates. Forty-six percent of respondents who had presented a HR activity to management (N = 192) reported using utility estimates. Results suggest that utility estimation in dollars provides but one of several means of expressing value. Areas for researchers to explore that may aid in the use of utility analysis by I/O and HR professionals are presented.Therese Hoff Macan is affiliated with Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 8001 Natural Bridge Road, St. Louis, MO 63121-4499.Scott Highhouse is affiliated with Department of Psychology, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, Krannert Building 54, 1125 East 38th Street, Indianapolis, IN 46205-2810.Authors contributed equally. The helpful comments of James A. Breaugh, Lee Friedman, theodore L. Hayes, and Mark E. Tubbs on an earlier version of this article are greatly appreciated. The authors also thank Laura L. Heft for entering the survey data.     

An “open-transformed scale” for correcting ceiling effects and enhancing retest reliability: The example of pain

The use of closed scales (with anchors at each end) to measure pain was found to produce ceiling effects characterized by a deceleration of ratings toward the upper end of the scale. This was consistent with previous research. Apart from producing nonlinear functions, the closed scale also limited test-retest reliability because of subjects’ tendencies to correct their distorted ratings in subsequent trials. However, an open-ended scale coupled with transformation of reported ratings into a decile scale virtually eliminated the ceiling effect, thus producing consistently linear functions and maximizing test-retest reliability. This finding may have implications for the measurement of other sensory and psychological phenomena, especially those in which the property evaluated varies in a continuous fashion.     

Some conditions that affect admissions of attitude change

Previous research has shown yielders to persuasive communications to be negatively evaluated by observers of the persuasion but positively evaluated by the persuaders. Resisters of persuasion, on the other hand, are evaluated positively by observers but negatively by the initiators of the persuasive effort. Two studies were conducted to determine (a) whether individuals are aware of the differing evaluations of yielders and resisters by persuaders and observers and (b) the extent to which targets of influence attempts strategically employ this information to enhance their images in the eyes of others. Experiment 1, a role-playing study, demonstrated that targets of persuasive appeals are cognizant of the pattern of evaluations provided to yielders and resisters by persuaders and observers. Experiment 2 indicated that targets' public reports of attitude change were shaped so as to produce the most positive evaluations from the audience to those reports. The greatest stated influence occurred in the sole presence of the persuasive agent, an intermediate amount of stated change occurred when both persuader and observer were present, and still less occurred in the sole presence of an observer to the influence attempt. The results of anonymous, private measures of change paralleled in pattern those of the publicly admitted change, but were not significant.