Openness to Experience and Growth Need Strength as Moderators between Job Characteristics and Satisfaction

This study examines a specific personality variable Growth Need Strength (GNS) and a general Big Five Personality Factor Openness to Experience as moderators between job characteristics and job satisfaction. Respondents were 95 graduate students working in part‐time jobs. They filled out Goldberg’s (1992) bi‐polar rating scale measuring the Big Five factors and Hackman and Oldham’s (1976) Job Diagnostic Survey. Results show that GNS and openness to experience are substantially related. Further, from hierarchical regression analyses, it appeared that the moderating effect of GNS on the relation between skill variety and job satisfaction was explained by the moderating effect of openness to experience. Practical implications for the use of openness to experience and other Big Five personality factors versus specific characteristics in selection and career counselling are discussed.     

The Relationship Between Artificial and Second Language Learning

Artificial language learning (ALL) experiments have become an important tool in exploring principles of language and language learning. A persistent question in all of this work, however, is whether ALL engages the linguistic system and whether ALL studies are ecologically valid assessments of natural language ability. In the present study, we considered these questions by examining the relationship between performance in an ALL task and second language learning ability. Participants enrolled in a Spanish language class were evaluated using a number of different measures of Spanish ability and classroom performance, which was compared to IQ and a number of different measures of ALL performance. The results show that success in ALL experiments, particularly more complex artificial languages, correlates positively with indices of L2 learning even after controlling for IQ. These findings provide a key link between studies involving ALL and our understanding of second language learning in the classroom.     

The Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism: Internal Consistency Reliability and Construct Validity among Female Undergraduate Students in Israel

The Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism was developed to extend to the Jewish community a growing body of international research concerned to map the correlates, antecedents, and consequences of individual differences in attitude toward religion as assessed by the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. The internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism were supported by data provided by 284 Hebrew-speaking female undergraduate students attending Bar-Ilan University. This instrument is commended for application in further research.     

The Psychometric Properties of the Serbian Translation of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity: A Study among Eastern Orthodox Christians

The Serbian translation of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity was developed and tested among a sample of 222 students attending Niš University who self-identified as Eastern Orthodox. The data supported the internal consistency, reliability, and construct validity of this instrument, and commended it for further use in contributing to comparative empirical research within the psychology of religion.     

The Scale Properties of the Adolescent Form of the Francis Psychological Type Scales (FPTSA) Among Canadian Baptist Youth

A sample of 755 religiously committed young people between the ages of 12 and 18 attending Tidal Impact (a weeklong youth mission and service event sponsored by the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches in Eastern Canada) completed a trial 80-item form of the Francis Psychological Type Scales designed for use among adolescents. These data were employed to refine four ten-item forced-choice scales to distinguish between preferences for the two orientations (extraversion and introversion), the two perceiving processes (sensing and intuition), the two judging processes (thinking and feeling) and the two attitudes (judging and perceiving). The scale properties of the new instrument commend the 40-item Adolescent form of the Francis Psychological Type Scales (FPTSA) for future use.     

Examination of the influence of contingency on changes in reinforcer value

This study examined how the amount of effort required to produce a reinforcer influenced subsequent preference for, and strength of, that reinforcer in 7 individuals with intellectual disabilities. Preference assessments identified four moderately preferred stimuli for each participant, and progressive-ratio (PR) analyses indexed reinforcer strength. Stimuli were then assigned to one of four conditions for 4 weeks: fixed-ratio (FR) 1 schedule, escalating FR schedule, yoked noncontingent (NCR) delivery, and restricted access. Preference assessments and PR schedules were then repeated to examine changes in selection percentages and PR break points. Selection percentages decreased for all NCR stimuli but increased for most of the restricted stimuli. There were no systematic changes in selection percentages for either of the contingent stimuli. Break points increased, on average, for all conditions, but the increase was highest for the restricted stimuli and lowest for the NCR stimuli. These results are discussed in relation to recent basic research addressing the influence of effort on stimulus value.     

Factors Relating to Managerial Stereotypes: The Role of Gender of the Employee and the Manager and Management Gender Ratio

Purpose  

Several studies have shown that the traditional stereotype of a “good” manager being masculine and male still exists. The recent changes in the proportion of women and female managers in organizations could affect these two managerial stereotypes, leading to a stronger preference for feminine characteristics and female leaders. This study examines if the gender of an employee, the gender of the manager, and the management gender ratio in an organization are related to employees’ managerial stereotypes.     

Implementation intentions for physical activity in supportive and unsupportive environmental conditions: An experimental examination of intention–behavior consistency

The primary objective of this investigation was to examine the joint influences of intention strength, executive control resources (ECRs) and implementation intentions on physical activity performance in differentially supportive environmental conditions. In two studies, participants were randomly assigned to implementation intentions or control conditions. Individual differences in ECRs, intention strength and physical activity behavior were measured at baseline in the laboratory; follow-up physical activity was measured via an online questionnaire 7 days after the baseline laboratory session. Study 1 was conducted under activity-supportive environmental conditions (i.e., warm weather, little precipitation), whereas Study 2 was conducted under non-supportive environmental conditions (i.e., cold weather, moderate precipitation). In Study 1, a two-way interaction between ECR and intention strength was observed, such that those with relatively stronger ECR demonstrated stronger intention–behavior relationships than those with relatively weaker ECR; this effect was invariant across experimental conditions. In Study 2, a significant 3-way interaction was observed, such that those with lower ECRs showed greater intention–behavior correspondence in the experimental group compared to the control. Together these findings suggest that the beneficial effects of implementation intentions on intention–behavior correspondence for physical activity may be more potent under challenging environmental conditions, and that they may be of special benefit for those with initially low ECRs.     

Dissociating contingency awareness and conditioned attitudes: evidence of contingency-unaware evaluative conditioning

Whether human evaluative conditioning can occur without contingency awareness has been the subject of an intense and ongoing debate for decades, troubled by a wide array of methodological difficulties. Following recent methodological innovations, the available evidence currently points to the conclusion that evaluative conditioning effects do not occur without contingency awareness. In a simulation, we demonstrate, however, that these innovations are strongly biased toward the conclusion that evaluative conditioning requires contingency awareness, confounding the measurement of contingency memory with conditioned attitudes. We adopt a process-dissociation procedure to separate the memory and attitude components. In 4 studies, the attitude parameter is validated using existing attitudes and applied to probe for contingency-unaware evaluative conditioning. A fifth experiment incorporates a time-delay manipulation confirming the dissociability of the attitude and memory components. The results indicate that evaluative conditioning can produce attitudes without conscious awareness of the contingencies. Implications for theories of evaluative conditioning and associative learning are discussed.     

Inhibitory control gains from higher-order cognitive strategy training

The present study examined the transfer of higher-order cognitive strategy training to inhibitory control. Middle school students enrolled in a comprehension- and reasoning-focused cognitive strategy training program and passive controls participated. The training program taught students a set of steps for inferring essential gist or themes from materials. Both before and after training or a comparable duration in the case of the passive controls, participants completed a semantically cued Go/No-Go task that was designed to assess the effects of depth of semantic processing on response inhibition and components of event-related potentials (ERP) related to response inhibition. Depth of semantic processing was manipulated by varying the level of semantic categorization required for response selection and inhibition. The SMART-trained group showed inhibitory control gains and changes in fronto-central P3 ERP amplitudes on inhibition trials; whereas, the control group did not. The results provide evidence of the transfer of higher-order cognitive strategy training to inhibitory control and modulation of ERPs associated with semantically cued inhibitory control. The findings are discussed in terms of implications for cognitive strategy training, models of cognitive abilities, and education.