Hermeneutical Philosophy and Pragmatism: A Philosophy of Science

Two philosophical traditions with much in common, (classical) pragmatism and (Heidegger's) hermeneutic philosophy, are here compared with respect to their approach to the philosophy of science. Both emphasize action as a mode of interpreting experience. Both have developed important categories – inquiry, meaning, theory, praxis, coping, historicity, life-world – and each has offered an alternative to the more traditional philosophies of science stemming from Descartes, Hume, and Comte. Pragmatism's abduction works with the dual perspectives of theory (as explanation) and praxis (as culture). The hermeneutical circle depends in addition on the lifeworld as background source of ontological meaning and resource for strategies of inquiry. Thus a hermeneutical philosophy of research involves three components: lifeworld (as ontological and strategic), theory (as explanatory), and praxis (as constitutive of culture). This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A COMPARISON OF RUSSIAN AND U.S. PAY ALLOCATION DECISIONS, DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE JUDGMENTS, AND PRODUCTIVITY UNDER DIFFERENT PAYMENT CONDITIONS

This article reports the results of two studies of pay-related attitudes and behaviors of Russian and U.S. managers and students. In a pay allocation role play, managers in both countries place primary emphasis on individual performance (equity) and secondary emphasis on coworker relations and equality. In addition, Russian managerial subjects utilized need in their pay allocations. In a series of experiments, both Russian and U.S. students preferred the equity rule, although there were no productivity effects across different allocation rules. Procedural justice effects were also observed. Implications for pay practices are examined.     

MEASUREMENT ERROR IN RESEARCH ON THE HUMAN RESOURCES AND FIRM PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIP: FURTHER EVIDENCE AND ANALYSIS

Our earlier article in Personnel Psychology demonstrated how general-izability theory could be used to obtain improved reliability estimates in the human resource (HR) and firm performance literature and that correcting for unreliability using these estimates had important implications for the magnitude of the HR and firm performance relationship. In their comment, Huselid and Becker both raise criticisms specific to our study and broad issues for the field to consider. In our present article, we argue, using empirical evidence whenever possible, that the issues and criticisms raised by Huselid and Becker do not change our original conclusions. We also provide new evidence on how the reliability of HR-related measures may differ at different levels of analysis. Finally, we build on Huselid and Becker's helpful discussion of broad research design and strategy issues in the HR and firm performance literature in an effort to help researchers make better informed choices regarding their own research designs and strategies in the area.     

A real-time assessment of interpersonal complementarity

The principle of complementarity asserts that the interpersonal behaviors of interaction partners tend to complement each other by encouraging partners to act similarly in terms of warmth and opposite in terms of dominance. The current study applied Sadler's computer joystick tracking device (originally designed to assess personality perception) to examine complementarity. Sixty-six unacquainted females were videotaped during an unstructured dyadic interaction, and their warmth and dominance behaviors were coded using the joystick. Results indicated that both partners tended to alter their behaviors in a complementary manner. In addition, partners who complemented each other in terms of warmth tended to like each other more and performed tasks more accurately and quickly than dyads who were not as complementary on this dimension.     

The impact of imagined audiences on self‐appraisals

The concept of the relational self suggests that simply imagining significant others produces shifts in self‐assessments consistent with one’s roles and experiences with those others. To test relevant hypotheses, college women (from the United States) imagined a significant other as part of a visualization task. After imagining parents as compared to peers, participants described themselves as less sensual, dominant, and adventurous (Experiment 1), a pattern consistent with other women’s ratings of how they actually felt with those others. Supporting the idea that self‐esteem differences emerge in more evaluative contexts, self‐esteem moderated self‐assessments on key dimensions (Experiment 2). After imagining a romantic other but not a best friend, self‐esteem was directly related to women’s self‐ratings of sensuality, physical attractiveness, and being at ease.     

WHAT HAS RACE GOT TO DO WITH IT? UNRAVELING THE ROLE OF RACIOETHNICITY IN JOB SEEKERS' REACTIONS TO SITE VISITS

Racioethnic minorities have constituted a substantial portion of new labor market entrants in the past decade ( Fullerton & Toossi, 2001 ). Yet, the recruitment literature has not attended to issues of racioethnicity, and more specifically, how racioethnic groups may differ in the factors used to determine job acceptance intentions after site visits. This article aims to rectify that omission by providing a theoretical model explaining how organizational and surrounding community attributes differentially affect the decision-making process of minority and majority group job applicants. Several individual difference moderators (i.e., racioethnic identity, social dominance orientation, other-group orientation, and perceived job opportunities) also are discussed in terms of their potential influence on job acceptance intentions. The article concludes with coverage of relevant research and practical implications of the racioethnic model of site visit reactions.