The role of participation and control in the effects of computer monitoring on fairness perceptions, task satisfaction, and performance

Procedural justice and social facilitation theories were used to investigate effects of 2 kinds of process control on fairness perceptions, task satisfaction and performance of complex, computer-monitored tasks. A laboratory study manipulated participation (high or low voice) and monitoring approach (monitoring, control over monitoring, or no monitoring). High-voice participants perceived higher justice. Monitored participants reported higher satisfaction with high voice and lower satisfaction with low voice. Task performance was poorer for monitored participants unless they had control over monitoring. Among those with control, performance was not impaired for higher baseline performers. The 2 kinds of process control had different effects on the outcome variables. Results suggest the value of considering variations in the kinds of control provided and the justice principles that may apply in predicting effects of monitoring procedures.     

Campus Police Cooperation and Legitimacy: Extending the Procedural Justice Model

This paper extends the procedural justice model to campus policing, examining both the antecedents of legitimacy as well as the relative influence of student legitimacy evaluations on their likelihood of reporting campus crimes to the public safety department. A simple random sample of 31 undergraduate sections (n = 554) responded to a paper survey instrument. Undergraduate respondents indicate general procedural justice ratings are significantly related to their evaluations of campus police (CP) legitimacy. In turn, legitimacy ratings are significantly related to reporting likelihood. However, evaluations of the effectiveness of the CP have a stronger relationship with legitimacy than procedural justice.     

Control and Anticipation of Social Interruptions: Reduced Stress and Improved Task Performance1

Social interruptions are frequent occurrences that often have distressing consequences for employees, yet little research has gauged their effect on individuals. Participants were exposed to 2 social interruptions as they engaged in a computer task with an accepted performance goal. Participants who were able to anticipate social interruptions performed significantly better than did those who could not anticipate them. Participants who had the opportunity to prevent interruptions reported significantly less stress than those who did not have this opportunity. This reduction in stress resulted even when participants did not take advantage of this opportunity. Implications for job performance and job satisfaction are discussed. Organizational strategies for how leaders can help employees manage social interruptions are suggested.     

Why are idioms recognized fast?

It is an established fact that idiomatic expressions are fast to process. However, the explanation of the phenomenon is controversial. Using a semantic judgment paradigm, where people decide whether a string is meaningful or not, the present experiment tested the predictions deriving from the three main theories of idiom recognition—the lexical representation hypothesis, the idiom decomposition hypothesis, and the configuration hypothesis. Participants were faster at judging decomposable idioms, nondecomposable idioms, and clichés than at judging their matched controls. The effect was comparable for all conventional expressions. The results were interpreted as suggesting that, as posited by the configuration hypothesis, the fact that they are known expressions, rather than idiomaticity, explains their fast recognition.     

No evidence for ethnic and racial bias in the Tryout Edition of the Merrill-Palmer Scale-Revised

This research examined a revised version of the Merrill-Palmer Scale, a test of childhood development, to assess the cultural validity of items, i.e., Differential Item Functioning. Archival data were used to determine the Differential Item Functioning of items for 245 African-American, Euro-American, and Hispanic children, ages 3-6 years. Subjects were gathered from all four regions of the United States. Potential bias was examined through the use of partial correlations. Statistical analyses suggest that the Tryout Edition of the Merrill-Palmer Scale-Revised was not systematically biased toward any of the three racial groups examined.     

Computer Monitoring of Work Performance: Extending the Social Facilitation Framework to Electronic Presence1

This study demonstrated the utility of employing a social facilitation framework to the study of computer monitoring of work performance. The physical presence of an observer watching a subject work on a complex task (as a supervisor might “look over an employee's shoulder“) was contrasted with four conditions involving the electronic presence of computer-based work monitoring (as a supervisor might monitor an employee's work remotely via computer) and a control condition of subjects working alone without any monitoring of their work. Task performance was severely impaired for participants who were monitored electronically as well as for those who were monitored “in person.” Two interventions, providing participants with a sense of control over their work conditions and monitoring participants as a group rather than as individuals, each reduced the negative impact of monitoring on task performance by almost 40%. Results also indicated that individuals with an external locus of control (who believe reinforcements received are primarily determined by factors outside of themselves, e. g., other people) experience greater anxiety than those with an internal locus of control under monitoring conditions. Implications of these findings for social facilitation and the rapidly expanding use of computer-based work monitoring are discussed.     

Harmonic structure as a determinant of melodic organization

Musicians and nonmusicians indicated whether a two-note probe following a tonally structured melody occurred in the melody. The critical probes were taken from one of three locations in the melody: the two notes (1) ending the first phrase, (2) straddling the phrase boundary, and (3) beginning the second phrase. As predicted, the probe that straddled the phrase boundary was more difficult to recognize than either of the within-phrase probes. These findings suggest that knowledge of harmonic structure influences perceptual organization of melodies in ways analogous to the influence of clause relations on the perceptual organization of sentences. They also provide evidence that training plays an important role in refining listeners’ sensitivity to harmonic variables.     

Effects of Bodily Contact on Reactions to Crowding1

The present study examined the effects of bodily contact in a crowded environment. Initially, the skin conductance levels (SCL) of 160 males and females were obtained during rest and while bursting a balloon. In a subsequent session, subjects in same-sex groups of four were seated for 30 minutes in either (a) a large room, (b) a small room subjected to unavoidable bodily contact, or (c) a small room which was partitioned to either reduce or prevent bodily contact while allowing visual access. Measures of mood, tolerance for frustration, cognitive task performance, and self reports of annoyance and somatic distress were then taken. Results showed that crowding is stressful and that bodily contact makes a significant contribution to the amount of stress experienced for both men and women. In general, crowded subjects forced to touch showed the greatest increases in SCL, felt most annoyed, were most bothered by spatial intrusion during crowding, and had the lowest tolerance for frustration following crowding. Sex differences in mood following crowding and in reaction to the noncrowded environment were observed and appeared to be mediated by differential social concerns.     

Evidence of heterospecific referential communication from domestic horses (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Equus caballus</Emphasis>) to humans

Referential communication occurs when a sender elaborates its gestures to direct the attention of a recipient to its role in pursuit of the desired goal, e.g. by pointing or showing an object, thereby informing the recipient what it wants. If the gesture is successful, the sender and the recipient focus their attention simultaneously on a third entity, the target. Here we investigated the ability of domestic horses (Equus caballus) to communicate referentially with a human observer about the location of a desired target, a bucket of food out of reach. In order to test six operational criteria of referential communication, we manipulated the recipient’s (experimenter) attentional state in four experimental conditions: frontally oriented, backward oriented, walking away from the arena and frontally oriented with other helpers present in the arena. The rate of gaze alternation was higher in the frontally oriented condition than in all the others. The horses appeared to use both indicative (pointing) and non-indicative (nods and shakes) head gestures in the relevant test conditions. Horses also elaborated their communication by switching from a visual to a tactile signal and demonstrated perseverance in their communication. The results of the tests revealed that horses used referential gestures to manipulate the attention of a human recipient so to obtain an unreachable resource. These are the first such findings in an ungulate species.     

National Study of School Psychologists’ Use of Evidence-Based Assessment in Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study aimed to better understand predictors of evidence-based assessment practices for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Nationwide, 402 school psychologists were surveyed for their knowledge of and training and experience with ASD on assessment practices, including reported areas of training needs. The majority of school psychologists reported that they did not engage in comprehensive assessment of ASD, which was defined as assessments that consider all areas of development in addition to the use of ASD-specific instruments. Results from logistic regression revealed that experience and training, working with young children with ASD, and geographic location predicted use of evidence-based assessment practices. Experience and training with ASD was the strongest predictor of evidence-based assessment. No differences in training needs were indicated by school psychologists whose practices were consistent with evidence-based assessment and those whose practices were not. Overall, the results identified gaps between best and current practices by school psychologists and highlight areas of need for additional training and professional development.