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.     

Mass psychology of the led and the leaders

Abstract

Some salient features of a Sullivanian perspective are given as a background for a discussion of the case of Anna. Lived experience is mentioned as of equal importance as fantasy. Technically, analytic inquiry in the form of questions is stressed. In his review of the case presentation, the author observes that too much emphasis is given to content, compared to form. He notes that the therapist does not report key transference and non-transference interactions with the patient and further suggests that the patient still has significant narcissistic problems. He suggests that it is time to confront the patient with her characterological ways of relating to the analyst.     

Legal Risk in Selection: An Analysis of Processes and Tools

Purpose

This paper reviews a decade of employment litigation to illuminate the most legally dangerous selection devices and employment practices.

Design/Methodology/Approach

A sample (n = 312) of court cases drawn from 10 years of Bloomberg BNA case briefs was analyzed to determine which selection tools (e.g., biographical information blank, interview, cognitive ability test, and psychomotor test) and which selection processes (e.g., violations of the four-fifths rule, administrative inconsistencies, lack of documentation, failure to provide accommodations) are most at risk for litigation for unfair employment practices.

Findings

Results demonstrate that while some selection tools do attract legal scrutiny, dangerous hiring practices such as favoritism against protected classes and improper human resource documentation put employers at far greater risk of suit. When considering cases settled outside of court and those that continued to trial, the data reveal that employers lose employment discrimination cases at a rate nearing 90 % and suffer an average payout of over $1.5 million per case.

Implications

Just as legal challenges once drove the search for selection tools free of adverse impact, the current legal landscape demonstrates the necessity of fair and consistent selection processes. This paper provides evidence of common mistakes in implementing selection systems—mistakes that lead to costly legal battles.

Originality/Value

This paper reduces cumbersome legal records into useful evidence of trends in recent employment law cases. Selection system designers and organizations who implement them will benefit from avoiding the risky hiring practices presented in this paper.     

The completeness of the pragmatic solution to Moore’s paradox in belief: a reply to Chan

Moore’s paradox in belief is the fact that beliefs of the form ‘p and I do not believe that p’ are ‘absurd’ yet possibly true. Writers on the paradox have nearly all taken the absurdity to be a form of irrationality. These include those who give what Timothy Chan calls the ‘pragmatic solution’ to the paradox. This solution turns on the fact that having the Moorean belief falsifies its content. Chan, who also takes the absurdity to be a form of irrationality, objects to this solution by arguing that it is circular and thus incomplete. This is because it must explain why Moorean beliefs are irrational yet, according to Chan, their grammatical third-person transpositions are not, even though the same proposition is believed. But the solution can only explain this asymmetry by relying on a formulation of the ground of the irrationality of Moorean beliefs that presupposes precisely such asymmetry. I reply that it is neither necessary nor sufficient for the irrationality that the contents of Moorean beliefs be restricted to the grammatical first-person. What has to be explained is rather that such grammatical non-first-person transpositions sometimes, but not always, result in the disappearance of irrationality. Describing this phenomenon requires the grammatical first-person/non-first person distinction. The pragmatic solution explains the phenomenon once it is formulated in de se terms. But the grammatical first-person/non-first-person distinction is independent of, and a fortiori, different from, the de se/non-de se distinction presupposed by pragmatic solution, although both involve the first person broadly construed. Therefore the pragmatic solution is not circular. Building on the work of Green and Williams I also distinguish between the irrationality of Moorean beliefs and their absurdity. I argue that while all irrational Moorean beliefs are absurd, some Moorean beliefs are absurd but not irrational. I explain this absurdity in a way that is not circular either.     

Digital Animation as a Method to Disseminate Research Findings to the Community Using a Community-Based Participatory Approach

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has garnered increasing interest over the previous two decades as researchers have tackled increasingly complex health problems. In academia, professional presentations and articles are major ways that research is disseminated. However, dissemination of research findings to the people and communities who participated in the research is many times forgotten. In addition, little scholarly literature is focused on creative dissemination of research findings to the community using CBPR methods. We seek to fill this gap in the literature by providing an exemplar of research dissemination and partnership strategies that were used to complete this project. In this paper, we present a novel approach to the dissemination of research findings to our targeted communities through digital animation. We also provide the foundational thinking and specific steps that were taken to select this specific dissemination product development and distribution strategy.     

Preliminary evidence for low openness to experience as a pre-clinical marker of incipient cognitive decline in older adults

The current study examined self-reported Openness to Experience as a marker of incipient cognitive decline among older adults. Seventy five cognitively-intact, community-dwelling adults ages 58–87 were assessed with the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R; (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale 2nd edition (DRS-2; (Mattis, Jurica, & Leitten, 1988) to examine association with incipient decline over approximately 1 year. Low Openness to Experience was associated with decline, controlling for baseline screening scores, age, education, and the other four personality factors. Examination of facet-level associations indicated that lower scores on the Values and Aesthetics facets of Openness primarily explained the association. Current findings build on prior research suggesting that exaggerated reaction to novelty may signal pre-clinical cognitive decline.     

Personality predictors of smoking behavior in a sample of physicians

Abstract

The smoking status of 239 physicians was obtained from a mail survey in 1981. MMPI data, which had been obtained from these men 25 years earlier, was used to prospectively predict smoking status at follow-up. Those who never smoked had scores indicative of social conventionality (low scores on L, Pd, and Schubert scales; high scores on Ego-control). A similar pattern was found among smokers who quit after a relatively short smoking history. Compared to ex-smokers, those who continued to smoke at the time of follow-up were characterized by high scores on the Pd and Ma scales. These results were discussed in terms of a multi-stage conceptualization of the smoking cessation process.     

Development of views of life scale

Abstract

The Views of Life Scale (VOLS) was designed to measure perception of well-being in three areas: inherent value of life, effective life management, and sense of health. Items were placed in these three categories by a team of advanced doctoral students; their overall agreement on item placement was 91.8%. These three categories became Subscales I, II and III of the total instrument. Seven hundred and thirty-two participants responded to the 42 item VOLS; subsamples of this group also took various other instruments with which the VOLS was being compared. Reliability assessment yielded very strong test-retest stability (I=0.80, II=0.87, III=0.76, Total=0.86) and high internal consistency (I=0.76, II=0.83, III=0.81, Total=0.91) for the VOLS measures. Relationships between the VOLS and other inventories provided consistent support for the convergent and divergent validity of the VOLS. An oblique rotation factor analysis produced five major quantitative clusters in the VOLS. There was considerable overlap between these factors and the original subscales.