Impact of Rater Beliefs Regarding Performance Appraisal and Its Organizational Context on Appraisal Quality

The relationship between attitudes and beliefs regarding performance appraisal and its organizational context and three measures of rating quality (i.e., rating level, discrimination among ratees, discrimination among rating dimensions) were examined. Eighteen of twenty-four directional predictions about the correlations between attitudinal measures and rating behavior measures were supported. However, because of the expected weak to moderate relationships between predictors and criteria and the use of small samples, statistical power was generally low, and many of the individual observed correlations failed to reach significance. Nevertheless, the consistent pattern of support for the directional predictions suggests that the attitudes and beliefs studied here provide a useful basis for understanding performance appraisal behaviors.     

Attributions,Cognitions, and Coping Styles: Teleworkers' Reactions to Work-Related Problems1

Based on the attributional reformulation of learned helplessness theory (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978) and Lazarus and Launier's (1978) primary-secondary appraisal theory of stress, the present study sought to examine teleworkers' reactions to their work-related problems. The role of attributions about the sources, and cognitions about the consesquences, of these problems in promoting positive adaptation was addressed. In particular, it was predicted that teleworkers who made optimistic attributions and cognitions would be more likely to employ problem-focused coping strategies and, as a result, report more positive psychological and job-related outcomes. Based on a survey sample of 192 teleworkers, the results indicated that a tendency to engage in self-blame was related to the use of emotion-focused coping strategies. In turn, there was evidence linking emotion-focused coping strategies to negative outcomes and problem-focused coping strategies to positive outcomes. The results are discussed in relation to attributional approaches to stress which highlight the importance of cognitions about the consequences of negative events. Finally, implications for the training of teleworkers are presented.     

EXTENSION TEMPORELLE DES PROJETS PERSONNELS AU COURS DE LA VIEILLESSE*

The future time perspective (FTP) of 361 elderly persons was studied. Personal projects (goal objects or concrete motivations) were collected by means of the sentence completion technique and were classified in temporal categories. The future extension index (ratio between short- and long-term projects) shows that the FTP of both sexes is similar. Concerning the relation between FTP and age, we observed that the number of subjects with a long FTP is reduced as the age increases. On the other hand, when we consider all the data, 17% of the answers are classified in the near future (less than one year) whereas 52% are related to distant future. The future is far from disappearing during the old age. The FTP is in relation with socio-economic status and schooling, but the ‘effects’ of these variables on the FTP are interwoven. The results were not inconsistent with the idea that subjects with high socio-economic status (who also have more years of schooling) are characterized by a longer FTP. From the results, we suggest implications for research and for professional practice with the elderly.     

The role of novelty detection in food memory

Memory plays a central role in food choice. Recent studies focusing on food memory in everyday eating and drinking behaviour used a paradigm based on incidental learning of target foods and unexpected memory testing, demanding recognition of the target among distractors, which deviate slightly from the target. Results question the traditional view of memory as reactivation of previous experiences. Comparison of data from several experiments shows that in incidentally learned memory, distractors are rejected, while original targets are not recognised better than by chance guessing. Food memory is tuned at detecting novelty and change, rather than at recognising a previously encountered food.     

Motor coordination dynamics underlying graphic motion in 7- to 11-year-old children

Using concepts and tools of a dynamical system approach in order to understand motor coordination underlying graphomotor skills, the aim of the current study was to establish whether the basic coordination dynamics found in adults is already established in children at elementary school, when handwriting is trained and eventually acquired. In the study, 45 children and 9 adults volunteered to copy two series of 13 ellipsoid shapes. These shapes were generated by manipulating the relative phase between 0° and 180° of two orthogonal oscillators in two orientations. Findings showed that although children from an early age onward and adults reproduced straight lines precisely (i.e., 0° and 180°), the former drew ellipsoid shapes in a less eccentric fashion than the latter (i.e., ～90° in all children rather than ～60° and 120° in adults). This tendency to write in a rounder fashion persists until 11 years of age, suggesting that the coordination dynamics underlying graphomotor skills and tentatively shaping the coordinated activity involved in adult handwriting appears only later, probably due to increasing constraints on speed.     

The Role of Parental and Adolescent Attributions in Adjustment of Adolescents with Chronic Illness

Previous literature has demonstrated the separate contributions of parental attributions and adolescent attributions to psychosocial adjustment of adolescents with chronic illness. However, it is unknown whether parental attributions affect adolescents' mental health directly or indirectly by influencing the youths' attributional style. This study evaluated the direct and indirect (through adolescent attributions) effects of parental attributions on internalizing and externalizing problems of adolescents with chronic illness. Adolescents (N?=?128; M?=?14.7?years) diagnosed with cystic fibrosis or diabetes and their caregivers completed measures of attributional style and adolescent adjustment. Parents' optimistic attributions were associated with fewer adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. These effects were partly mediated by adolescent attributions. These results suggest that targeting both adolescent and parent attributions may be important for improving adolescents' adjustment to a chronic illness.     

Motor imagery and ‘placebo-racket effects’ in tennis serve performance

ObjectivesThis study aimed at confirming whether Motor Imagery (MI) enhances tennis serve performance, and determining whether a placebo condition could affect the beneficial effects of MI.DesignThis study used a 3 × 2 factorial design. Three groups of tennis players were compared in service performance outcomes before and after a training session.MethodsTwenty-two tennis players were assigned into three groups: a control (C) and two experimental groups subjected to a similar MI intervention, one group using their regular own racket (MI group) while the other used a placebo racket (P group).ResultsAnalyses of Covariance revealed no significant group difference when comparing serve velocity after training session, but MI training improved serve accuracy and regularity. Combining placebo racket with MI further resulted in greater serve accuracy score as compared to MI alone. Players' perception of their serve quality improved after MI, and this effect was reinforced in the P group.ConclusionThese findings revealed that MI may be useful to achieve peak performance, and that the implement placebo effect might be a factor in sport performance, hence promoting the beneficial effects of alternative methods to improve tennis serve performance.     

Idiosyncratic Deals and High Performers’ Organizational Commitment

Purpose

We argue that idiosyncratic deals (or i-deals), as objective conditions in employment arrangements that employees negotiate with their employer to meet particular individual needs, attenuate the indirect negative effect of a psychological contract breach on affective commitment via trust.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was conducted via a questionnaire sent to high performers working at the director level of a large Canadian company. These employees were in a privileged position to bargain i-deals for themselves (n = 136).

Findings

We used models of mediated moderation to test the research hypotheses. Findings indicate that trust fully mediates the relationship between psychological contract breach and affective commitment of high performers. This relationship is moderated by i-deals, such that the relationship is weaker when i-deals are high.

Implications

This study provides a deeper understanding of the theoretical mechanisms explaining how i-deals compensate for breaches in the employment relationship. We show that i-deals do not prevent the loss of trust following a breach, but compensate for it in maintaining the bond between high performers and their organization.

Originality/value

This study explores the role of i-deals for a population traditionally well treated by organizations because of their status of stars: high-performing directors. In contrast with previous research that conceptualizes i-deals as building trust, this study shows that i-deals may act as substitutes for trust, in maintaining a bond with the organization in a context of trust loss.

     

The Effect of Training on Preparatory Attention in Older Adults: Evidence for the Role of Uncertainty in Age-Related Preparatory Deficits

Thirty-two older adults and 20 younger adults completed a simple visual detection task in which the preparatory interval (PI; 1, 3, and 5 s) that separates the warning signal from the target varied randomly on each trial. Participants were divided into two groups. In a control condition, participants completed four blocks of trials with the three PIs occurring equally often within a block. In the experimental condition, participants completed an equal probability block (Block 1) followed by two blocks (Blocks 2 and 3) in which the shortest PI (1 s) occurred on 2/3 of the trials, followed again by an equal probability block (Block 4). In Block 1, the results indicated a larger PI effect in older than younger participants, independent of general slowing. Increasing the likelihood of the shortest PI (Blocks 2 and 3 in the experimental condition) improved RT in older and younger adults and led to an equivalent PI effect in both age groups. This was not observed in the control condition, in which the age-related difference persisted during the four blocks of trials. Importantly, the improvement observed in the experimental group was maintained in the fourth block, where the PIs were reverted to an equal probability distribution. This supports the hypothesis that elderly participants prepare for events that have the greatest probability of occurrence and that this is a flexible process that can be modulated with brief training.