The Effects of Procedures, Social Accounts, and Benefits Level on Victims' Layoff Reactions

Three hundred and fifty-three layoff victims responded to questions describing their reactions to layoffs. Victims also described management layoff practices. Two measures of procedural fairness in layoff practices (decision-making characteristics and social accounts) and one measure of layoff outcomes (benefits level) were included. Only decision-making characteristics predicted exemployee willingness to recruit for a former employer and desire for regulation of layoffs. These results provide further evidence of the importance of procedural justice in organizational decision-making.     

CREATIVITY, CARING AND CONTEXT

Empirical research on humor has perpetuated, rather than challenged, stereotypes of the humorless female. Among other biases, it has neglected participants' own definitions of sense of humor and their own accounts of their preferences and practices. In this study, 203 participants (72 males, 131 females) answered a 68-item Humor Questionnaire and also wrote a narrative about a person with an outstanding sense of humor. Factor analysis of the questionnaire revealed ten dimensions of humor, with four of the ten producing gender differences. Content analysis of the narratives produced a detailed account of the participants' definition of sense of humor. Both males and females viewed creativity, contextual relevance, and caring as components of an outstanding sense of humor. Gender similarities and differences are discussed in relation to the conversational context of spontaneous humor.     

A COMPARISON OF GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL SEXUAL ASSAULT VICTIMS

The experiences of 44 group sexual assault victims (multiple offenders, one victim) were compared with 44 individual sexual assault victims (one offender, one victim). Sexual assaults included various degrees of sexual victimization ranging from verbal coercion to rape. Participants were located from among a national sample of 3,187 college women. Group sexual assaults, compared to individual sexual assaults, were in general more violent, involved greater resistance from the victims, and were more likely to be perpetrated by strangers or relatives and to involve an experience which met the legal definition of rape. Group sexual assaults were less likely to involve multiple episodes by the same offender(s). Group sexual assault victims were more likely than individual sexual assault victims to seek police and crisis services, to have contemplated suicide, and to have sought therapy postassault. Despite these differences, the two groups were similar in the amount of drinking and drug use during the assault and their scores on standardized measures of psychological symptoms.