A TEST OF NONVERBAL RECEIVING ABILITY: PRELIMINARY STUDIES1

This paper describes the development and preliminary studies of a test of the ability to decode affect in others. Items are videotaped sequences showing spontaneous unposed facial expressions and gestures of college student “senders” to emotionally-loaded color slides. Subjects make judgments about what kind of slide elicited the affect and how pleasant or unpleasant the sender's subjective response was. Satisfactory test-retest reliability was demonstrated for the former kind of judgment but not the latter. There was evidence that females are slightly better receivers than males, and business and fine arts majors are relatively good receivers while science majors are relatively poor.     

WATCHING THE DETECTIVES: SEASONAL STUDENT EMPLOYEE REACTIONS TO ELECTRONIC MONITORING WITH AND WITHOUT ADVANCE NOTIFICATION

The present paper tested procedural justice hypotheses about seasonal high school and college student employees' reactions to electronic monitoring with video cameras. Study 1, a field study, explored (a) whether employees receiving advance notification of monitoring offered more favorable justice judgments than employees who did not, and (b) whether employees who saw monitoring procedures and/or consequences as fair returned to the organization the following summer. Results supported the hypotheses: employees viewed monitoring procedures as fairer if they received advance notice. Fairness judgments predicted reemployment Study 2, a scenario-based laboratory experiment, also found that advance notice elicited greater justice beliefs. In addition, Study 2 examined how variations in justification for the monitoring affected justice beliefs. Either strong or weak justifications produced greater procedural justice beliefs than no justification.