A Study on Maintaining Workshop Impact for Employment Counselors

It is the authors' belief that the skills or knowledge acquired in short-term educational experiences are often rapidly washed-out after returning to a work environment. This article describes an attempt to maintain the skills of employment counselors after they return from a workshop setting to their work environment.     

A Study of Selected Demographic Variables and Recidivism with Adult Male Probationers

This article represents a study of variables associated with the recidivism rates of public offenders. The relationship of age, education, and prior offenses to recidivism rates is explored.     

Does attractiveness buy happiness? “It depends on where you’re from”

Abstract Previous studies document that attractiveness predicts life outcomes, including well‐being and social connectedness. This study investigates whether the attractiveness–outcomes link is especially strong in settings, such as many urban areas, that promote relationship constructions as a product of personal choice. This link may weaken in settings, such as many rural areas, that promote less voluntaristic‐independent relationship constructions. Analyses of survey data from a national representative (United States) sample supported these hypotheses. Attractiveness (operationalized as waist‐to‐hip ratio) predicted well‐being and social connectedness among urban (n = 257) but not rural (n = 330) women. Social connectedness mediated the urban–rural moderation of the attractiveness/well‐being link. Findings suggest that frequently observed attractiveness effects are the product of particular, modern social contexts that promote relationship choice.     

PERSONALITY TESTS AT THE CROSSROADS: A RESPONSE TO MORGESON, CAMPION, DIPBOYE, HOLLENBECK, MURPHY, AND SCHMITT (2007)

Despite widespread and growing acceptance that published personality tests are valid predictors of job performance, Morgeson et al. (2007) propose they be abandoned in personnel selection because average validity estimates are low. Our review of the literature shows that Morgeson et al.'s skepticism is unfounded. Meta-analyses have demonstrated that published personality tests, in fact, yield useful validity estimates when validation is based on confirmatory research using job analysis and taking into account the bidirectionality of trait–performance linkages. Further gains are likely by use of narrow over broad measures, multivariate prediction, and theory attuned to the complexities of trait expression and evaluation at work. Morgeson et al. also suggest that faking has little, if any, impact on personality test validity and that it may even contribute positively to job performance. Job applicant research suggests that faking under true hiring conditions attenuates personality test validity but that validity is still sufficiently strong to warrant personality test use in hiring. Contrary to Morgeson et al., we argue that the full value of published personality tests in organizations has yet to be realized, calling for programmatic theory-driven research.     

Roasting Ethics

What are the rules of the comedic roast? Initially, there might seem to be a tension between “the comedic” and “roasting” or “insult.” The comedic is concerned with the funny or mirth while insults are mean-spirited in nature, tools of injury. So how can the two be combined to produce something fun? In this article, I entertain a few views that attempt a resolution of this apparent tension. I conclude with a proposal that suggests when they are successful, roasts employ mechanisms that redirect attention from the joke's content to its formal properties; it is when those mechanisms fail that roasting becomes disagreeable.