Predictive Criterion-Related Validity of Observer Ratings of Personality and Job-Related Competencies Using Multiple Raters and Multiple Performance Criteria

The purpose of this study was to assess the predictive validity of observer ratings of personality and job-related competencies in a selection setting. Based on ratings from multiple raters of both the predictors and the criteria in a sample of MBA students, results indicated that observer ratings of Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, leadership, and interpersonal skills predicted work performance, team performance, and academic performance. For work performance and team performance, a composite of the four predictors had incremental predictive validity over general mental ability, even after controlling for how well the rater knew the ratee.     

Costs and benefits of political ideology: The case of economic self-stereotyping and stereotype threat

Across two experiments, the cognitive salience of a stigmatized ingroup identity harmed self-evaluation and elicited stereotype-consistent behavior to the degree that participants endorsed the political status quo. In Experiment 1, ethnic identity salience caused Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong to evaluate their own labor as meriting less pay if they were high in social dominance orientation but more pay if they were low in social dominance orientation. In Experiment 2, gender identity salience caused women in the US to evaluate their work on a logic task (but not a verbal task) as meriting less pay if they were politically conservative but more pay if they were politically liberal—a pattern mirrored in task performance. Depending on the degree to which the political status quo is accepted or rejected, findings suggest that members of stigmatized groups can be either implicit participants in their own subjugation or agents of change.     

The effect of D-cycloserine on immediate vs. delayed extinction of learned fear

We compared the effect of D-cycloserine (DCS) on immediate (10 min after conditioning) and delayed (24 h after conditioning) extinction of learned fear in rats. DCS facilitated both immediate and delayed extinction when the drug was administered after extinction training. However, DCS did not facilitate immediate extinction when administered prior to extinction training (i.e., when the interval between drug administration and shock was reduced). In addition, administering five, but not two, shocks prior to extinction training disrupted the facilitating effects of DCS on delayed extinction. These results suggest that aversive experiences prior to DCS administration can prevent it from facilitating extinction.     

US habituation,like CS extinction,produces a decrement in conditioned fear responding that is NMDA dependent and subject to renewal and reinstatement

Just as fear can be learned, it can also be inhibited. The most common way of reducing learned fear is through extinction, where the conditioned stimulus (CS) previously paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) is repeatedly presented on its own. Another, much less commonly studied, way to inhibit learned fear is by habituating, or devaluing, the US. In this procedure, fear responding to a CS is reduced by repeatedly presenting the US in the absence of the CS following the conditioning phase. The purpose of the present study was to directly compare the effects of US habituation and CS extinction on a learned fear response (freezing). Experiment 1 demonstrated that US habituation given either after (Experiment 1A) or before (Experiment 1B) fear conditioning reduced freezing to the CS at test. We then showed that the reduction in freezing resulting from either US habituation or CS extinction was context-specific (i.e., a change in context led to a renewal of the learned fear response; Experiment 2) and, furthermore, was attenuated when a pre-test shock was given (i.e., reinstatement of fear was observed in both cases; Experiment 3). Finally, Experiment 4 demonstrated that an injection of the NMDA antagonist MK-801 prior to US habituation impaired long-term retention of the learning that takes place during this procedure. Together, these results suggest that the decrement in conditioned fear responses produced by US habituation and CS extinction could rely on overlapping processes.     

Fair Shares: A Preliminary Framework and Case Analyzing the Ethics of Offshoring

Much has been written about the offshoring phenomenon from an economic efficiency perspective. Most authors have attempted to measure the net economic effects of the strategy and many purport to show that “in the long run” that benefits will outweigh the costs. There is also a relatively large literature on implementation which describes the best way to manage the offshoring process. But what is the morality of offshoring? What is its “rightness” or “wrongness?” Little analysis of the ethics of offshoring has been completed thus far. This paper develops a preliminary framework for analyzing the ethics of offshoring and then applies this framework to basic case study of offshoring in the U.S. The paper following discusses the definition of offshoring; shifts to the basic philosophical grounding of the ethical concepts; develops a template for conducting an ethics analysis of offshoring; applies this template using basic data for offshoring in the United States; and conducts a preliminary ethical analysis of the phenomenon in that country, using a form of utilitarianism as an analytical baseline. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research.     

The connection between macro and micro levels: states' spending for hospitals and their suicide rates

A trend analysis of states' spending for hospitals and their suicide rates in 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1984 showed that states' spending for hospitals was not directly related to their suicide rates until 1984. The analysis also showed that in 1984, states' spending for hospitals was not only directly and inversely related to their suicide rates, but also accounted for a 5% increase in their variance. Drawing on Durkheim's theory of social integration, the analysis took into account the effects of states' divorce rates, rates of population change, population density, and the economic level and racial composition of states' population. Following policy trends in health care more generally, the findings call attention to the wider implications of institutional norms of cost containment at all costs and states' suicide rates, and thus to the largely ignored connection between macro and micro levels.