SOCIAL COMMUNICATIVE ANXIETY AND THE PERSONNEL SELECTION PROCESS: TESTING THE SIMILARITY EFFECT IN SELECTION DECISIONS

Three studies tested competing predictions about the role of similarity in personnel selection decisions. Previous research suggests a significant role for applicant-selector similarity in the determination of selection decisions. Applicants who are similar to selectors are evaluated, by selectors, more positively than dissimilar applicants. The current investigations found that when the object of similarity is the applicant's and selector's level of anxiety, this relationship fails to appear. Regardless of the selector's own level of anxiety, the high anxious applicant is less positively evaluated than the low anxious one. This effect appears even when the communication demands of the position are specified.     

An Indirect Argument for Strategic Voting

abstract   A common bit of public political wisdom advises that in certain three-way elections, one should cast a strategic vote for one of the top two candidates rather than a conscience-driven vote for a third candidate, since doing otherwise amounts to 'throwing one's vote away'. In this paper, I examine the possible justifications for this pragmatic advice to vote strategically. I argue that the most direct argument behind such advice fails to motivate strategic voting in large-scale elections, since there is no significant chance that one's own vote will alter the outcome of the election, even in plausible close-call cases. In short, the lack of probable pragmatic effect undermines the pragmatic motivation for altering one's baseline voting behavior. However, an indirect argument succeeds in motivating strategic voting in some scenarios. Such an indirect argument relies on the possibility of one acquiring an obligation to engage in public strategic campaigning for one of the top two candidates. In many cases in which one strategically campaigns, one will, indirectly, acquire an obligation to vote strategically in accord with one's prior public campaign activities. Thus, the common bit of political wisdom about strategic voting can be justified, though only indirectly.     

College Students' Reactions to the Criteria Recommended for Selecting Employment Referents

This investigation offers a concise review of the literature concerning the selection of employment referents and tests the extent to which college students value the recommended selection criteria.     

The Effects of Role Induction on Trainees' Perceptions of Supervision

The effects of a role-induction procedure on beginning counselor-trainees' perceptions of supervision were examined using a 10-minute audiotaped summary of Bernard's (1979) model of supervision. Nineteen trainees were administered the role-induction procedure at either the 2nd, 5th, or 9th week of the academic term. Two self-report scales assessed trainees' conceptualization of supervision as well as expectations and attitudes toward the supervisory process. Results indicated that trainees evaluated supervision more negatively over the time period before the role induction. Following role induction, trainees reported a clearer conceptualization of supervision and a greater willingness to reveal concerns to their supervisors.