Situational and Individual Determinants of Teachers' Reported Use of Behavior Alteration Techniques

Tying together principles applicable to compliance-gaining from both interpersonal and instructional communication theory and research, this investigation focused on situational and individual difference determinants of teachers’ strategy selection in the classroom. Specifically, this study required teachers to focus on student misbehavior scenarios that reflected the situational determinants of misbehavior type (active/passive) and intensity (moderate/severe). Results indicated that teachers’ compliance-gaining message selection was influenced substantially by misbehavior type, and to a lesser extent, misbehavior intensity. Assessments of teachers’ and students’ gender confirmed stereotypic differences for male and female teachers’ reported technique use, but no student gender effect was obtained. These findings are compared with those obtained with prospective teachers (Plax, Kearney, & Tucker, 1986). Results are discussed in terms of cognitive scheme development for classroom management.     

Facilitating Performance with Cued Wording: An Examination of Reasoning in the Tax Context

Researchers have consistently found increased accuracy for reasoning tasks that involve permission and obligation situations; however, little is known about the task characteristics that aid the reasoning processes in these situations. This study investigates the ability of cued wording (i.e., ‘is permitted’ or ‘is required’) to increase the accuracy of subjects' reasoning. Specifically, two experiments were conducted using versions of the Wason selection task to present tax rules involving permission and obligation situations. Results of both experiments generally support the use of cued wording to increase reasoning accuracy, especially for those subjects with no experience with the rule. These results have implications for rule-driven fields like taxation, where taxpayers must comply with numerous provisions containing permission and obligation situations. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

INTERACTION AND INTERSECTION: THE CONSTELLATION OF EMOTIONAL STABILITY AND EXTRAVERSION IN PREDICTING PERFORMANCE

This study investigated the constellation of 2 Big 5 traits—Emotional Stability and Extraversion—in predicting job performance. Two forms of the constellation, one indirect (a statistical interaction) and the other direct (a measure of the intersection between the traits from the Big 5 circumplex), were used to predict job performance. Data were collected from employees and their supervisors at a regional health and fitness center. Results indicated that both measures predicted performance, even when controlling for the "main effects" of Emotional Stability and Extraversion, as well as 2 other relevant Big 5 traits (Agreeableness and Conscientiousness). These results suggest that the combination of Emotional Stability and Extraversion—reflecting a "happy" or "buoyant" personality—may be more important to performance than either trait in isolation.     

Misperception of sexual and romantic interests in opposite‐sex friendships: Four hypotheses

Two online studies evaluated the misperception of sexual and romantic interests in established relationships and tested four hypotheses: a simple sex‐difference hypothesis, a projection hypothesis, a mate value hypothesis, and a mediation hypothesis. Two hundred thirty‐eight (Study 1) and 198 (Study 2) members of young adult opposite‐sex friendship dyads indicated their sexual and romantic interests in their friend and their perceptions of their friend’s sexual and romantic interests in them. Participants projected their own levels of sexual and romantic interests onto their opposite‐sex friend, mediating the following effects: males overperceived and females underperceived their friends’ sexual (but not romantic) interest, and participants of both sexes misperceived the sexual (but not romantic) interest of friends depending on the friends’ mate value.     

IS EMOTIONAL LABOR MORE DIFFICULT FOR SOME THAN FOR OTHERS? A MULTILEVEL,EXPERIENCE‐SAMPLING STUDY

In response to 2 areas for development in the emotional labor literature—(a) the contemporaneous associations between emotional labor and affective reactions, and (b) whether emotional labor might be more personally costly for some employees than others—this study tested a conceptual model explaining the differential effects of deep and surface acting on job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion via their asymmetrical influences on mood, and whether extraverts fare better when engaging in emotional labor. As expected, surface acting was positively associated with negative mood, and this explained some of the association of surface acting with increased emotional exhaustion and decreased job satisfaction. Contrary to hypotheses, deep acting was unrelated to job satisfaction and was associated with lower positive affect. Extraversion moderated several emotional labor relationships such that, in general, surface and deep acting had more positive (or less negative) effects for extraverts (compared to introverts). Overall, the results support the importance of considering the roles of mood and disposition in the impact of emotional labor.     

Transition novelty moderates daters' cortisol responses when talking about marriage

Nonmarital couples' salivary cortisol responses during a likelihood of marriage discussion were assessed. Sixty‐eight couple members (34 couples) in the United States independently indicated the extent to which they had experience thinking about and talking about marriage to their current partners (i.e., marriage novelty). Couples subsequently jointly graphed their chance of marriage to each other over the course of their relationship histories. Increased levels of marriage novelty predicted heightened cortisol reactivity to the joint discussion relative to cortisol responses of couple members for whom the idea of marriage was less novel. These results highlight the impact simply discussing transitions can have on individuals' physiological responses, and add to the expanding literature concerning the link between nonmarital romances and biological outcomes.     

BUILDING CHARACTER THROUGH SPORTS: MYTH OR POSSIBILITY?

In this article the authors ask whether striving to win in sports is compatible with the belief that participation in sports builds character. In identifying two viewpoints on winning in sports—winning as consequence and winning as experience—the authors suggest ways in which counselors might encourage athletes, coaches, and parents to perceive winning as experience so that participation in sports can foster “character” and build feelings of self-worth.     

Assessing the Development of Relationships: A New Measure

This paper describes the development and application of a procedure (The Relationship World Index) to measure the development of intimate relationships. Grounded in symbolic interaction theory, the Relationship World Index is a measure of agreement on important aspects of relationships between members of intimate dyads. The development of the measure was guided by assumptions inherent in symbolic interactionism that predict the emergence of a shared construction of reality that bonds relationship members. Research results are presented providing evidence for the reliability and validity of the measure.