The Moderating Effect of Sex on the Prediction of Job Satisfaction in the Public Sector

The author reports the results of his study examining whether sex moderates the relationship between general job satisfaction or dissatisfaction and the 25 job satisfaction factors of the Triple Audit Opinion Survey (TAOS). The author conducted Hierarchical Multiple Regression Covariance Analysis to test the homogeneity of regression (intercepts and slopes) between males and females using the five orthogonal factors derived from the 25 job satisfaction components of the TAOS as the independent variables and the general job satisfaction scores of the TAOS as the dependent variable.     

The influence of parent negative emotional expression on adolescents' perceptions of their relationships with their parents

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between parent affective expression in interactions and adolescent perceptions of their relationship. Observational and self-report data were collected on 85 intact families with adolescents in grades 5 to 9 (n = 44 males, 41 females). Each parent and adolescent took part in two 8-minute conversations–one about an activity they reported enjoying together and one about a disagreement or area of conflict. Conversations were coded on a speaker turn basis for positive, negative, neutral, mixed, and altered affect (kappa = .76). Physical maturation was related to adolescent perceptions of increased negative communication quality in all parent-adolescent dyads. Stepwise regression analyses indicated that expression by fathers of negative and mixed affect significantly predicted adolescent perceptions of communication quality, psychological autonomy, and firm/lax control, in addition to the effects of adolescent pubertal maturation. Mother affective expression in interactions was less consistently related to adolescent perceptions of relationship satisfaction. Implications for the salience of father versus mother affective expression in interactions with adolescents are discussed.     

When the glass is half‐empty: Framing effects and evaluations of a romantic partner's attributes

Two studies examined how the framing of information influences evaluations of hypothetical relationships. Studies 1 (n= 183) and 2 (n= 247) examined how the framing of a hypothetical partner's attributes in gains or loss terms influences (a) impressions of the future success of the relationship and (b) the perceived importance of the partner's attributes. Generally, participants were less pessimistic about a relationship's future success when the partner's attributes were framed in gains terms than when framed in loss terms, even though the attributes were objectively identical in each case. Participants also attached significantly more importance to intelligence when it was missing among a partner's strengths than when it was present, particularly when the attribute was presented in a loss frame. This research has important implications for the integration of the decision‐making and relationship cognition literatures.     

REPLICATION IN EXPERIMENTAL COMMUNICATION RESEARCH: AN ANALYSIS

This study proposes a taxonomy of replication designs and applies it to a representative sample of experimental communication research reports in Communication Monographs and Human Communication Research. Results of the analysis indicate that publishability and reporting practices hamper our ability to identify replication studies. The implications of these findings are discussed, and several suggestions for improving the situation are offered.