Effects of LMX and differential treatment on work unit commitment

The Leader-Member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership states that leaders do behave differently towards the various members in their work unit. Relatively little attention has been devoted to the question of whether members' perceptions of differential treatment on the part of the leader affects their commitment to the work unit. Perceptions of the amount of differential treatment within their work unit did not explain additional variance in members' work unit commitment after the effects of LMX quality were accounted for. There was, however, a significant interaction effect of LMX quality and differential treatment on work unit commitment. The perception of a large number of differential treatment incidents seems to act as a neutralizer with respect to the positive effects LMX quality may have.     

Observed-score equating as a test assembly problem

A set of linear conditions on item response functions is derived that guarantees identical observed-score distributions on two test forms. The conditions can be added as constraints to a linear programming model for test assembly that assembles a new test form to have an observed-score distribution optimally equated to the distribution on an old form. For a well-designed item pool and items fitting the IRT model, use of the model results into observed-score pre-equating and prevents the necessity ofpost hoc equating by a conventional observed-score equating method. An empirical example illustrates the use of the model for an item pool from the Law School Admission Test.The authors are most indebted to Norman D. Verhelst for suggesting Proposition 4 and its proof, to the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) for making available the data set, and to Wim M. M. Tielen for his computational assistance.     

Bayesian item selection criteria for adaptive testing

Owen (1975) proposed an approximate empirical Bayes procedure for item selection in computerized adaptive testing (CAT). The procedure replaces the true posterior by a normal approximation with closed-form expressions for its first two moments. This approximation was necessary to minimize the computational complexity involved in a fully Bayesian approach but is no longer necessary given the computational power currently available for adaptive testing. This paper suggests several item selection criteria for adaptive testing which are all based on the use of the true posterior. Some of the statistical properties of the ability estimator produced by these criteria are discussed and empirically characterized.Portions of this paper were presented at the 60th annual meeting of the Psychometric Society, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June, 1995. The author is indebted to Wim M. M. Tielen for his computational support.     

Administrative Obedience: Carrying Out Orders to use Psychological-Administrative Violence

A paradigm named ‘administrative obedience’ was designed to study obedience in carrying out orders to use a kind of violence that is typical for our times, namely psychological-administrative violence resulting in definite harm. In this study, the victim was an applicant for a job, who came to the laboratory to take a test, This test would determine whether or not he would get the job. Subjects were ordered, in the context of a research project, to make the applicant nervous and to disturb him during the test; consequently, the applicant failed the test and remained unemployed. More than 90 per cent of the subjects carried out these orders, although they considered them unfair and did not enjoy doing the task, The level of administrative obedience found in our study is higher than the level of obedience found in the comparable experiment by Milgram. The experimental conditions ‘Experimental absent’ and ‘Two peers rebel’ produced a reduction of obedience in our paradigm comparable to that which occurred in Milgram's paradigm.     

A maximin model for IRT-based test design with practical constraints

A maximin model for IRT-based test design is proposed. In the model only the relative shape of the target test information function is specified. It serves as a constraint subject to which a linear programming algorithm maximizes the information in the test. In the practice of test construction, several demands as linear constraints in the model. A worked example of a text construction problem with practical constraints is presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of some alternative models of test construction.The authors are indebted to Jos J. Adea for suggesting Equation 17 as a Simplification of an earlier version of this constraint. This research was suuorted in part by a grant from the Dutch Organization for Research (NWO) through the Foundation for Psychological and Psychonomic Research in the Netherlands (Psychon).     

On perceiving morality and potency: Social values and the effects of person perception in a give-some dilemma

The present study examines a two-person give-some dilemma characterized by the conflict between the pursuit of own benefits (not giving) and collective benefits (giving). The major purpose was two-fold: (a) to examine the effects of person perceptions manipulated along the dimensions of morality (goodness) and potency (strength) on co-operation, and (b) to examine whether pre-existing differences between individuals in their preference for specific self-other outcome distributions (social values) would modify the effects of person perception. First, we predicted and found that across social values the degree of co-operative behaviour increased as a linear function of the extent to which the other was seen as moral. Concerning the perceptions in terms of potency, we found a significant quadratic trend; another seen as moderate on potency elicited more co-operative behaviour than another seen as either high or low on potency. These effects of person perception were not moderated by social value. More interesting was the finding that even though persons classified as pro-social (co-operators and altruists) and pro-self (individualists and competitors) held about the same expectation about the magnitude of another's co-operation, pro-socials behaved more co-operatively than pro-selfs. This suggests that under certain conditions behavioural differences between pro-socials and pro-selfs are not conditional upon expectational differences between those two social values.     

What to diffuse in a gender‐specific store? The effect of male and female perfumes on customer value and behaviour

Sensory marketing can be an efficient way to involve consumers in the store environment. Diffusing a pleasant ambient scent that matches with the store setting is often used to create pleasant shopping experiences. The aim of this study is to extend scent marketing research: (i) by examining the effect of pleasant ambient scent on the different dimensions of customer value; and (ii) by exploring whether product‐scent incongruity can have a positive effect on consumer evaluations. A field experiment with 182 participants showed that a pleasant gender‐incongruent ambient perfume positively influences different dimensions of customer value as compared to the absence of a perfume. Moreover, a gender‐incongruent perfume also leads to a more positive evaluation of the play, product excellence, and social dimension of customer value as compared to a gender‐congruent perfume. A pleasant gender‐congruent ambient perfume, on the other hand, only has a positive effect on the aesthetic dimension of customer value as compared to the absence of a perfume. The observed ambient scent effects do not differ between men and women. These results are in contrast with existing literature. However, an explanation for this undocumented effect can be found in the mate attraction theory. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beyond left and right: Automaticity and flexibility of number-space associations

Close links exist between the processing of numbers and the processing of space: relatively small numbers are preferentially associated with a left-sided response while relatively large numbers are associated with a right-sided response (the SNARC effect). Previous work demonstrated that the SNARC effect is triggered in an automatic manner and is highly flexible. Besides the left-right dimension, numbers associate with other spatial response mappings such as close/far responses, where small numbers are associated with a close response and large numbers with a far response. In two experiments we investigate the nature of this association. Associations between magnitude and close/far responses were observed using a magnitude-irrelevant task (Experiment 1: automaticity) and using a variable referent task (Experiment 2: flexibility). While drawing a strong parallel between both response mappings, the present results are also informative with regard to the question about what type of processing mechanism underlies both the SNARC effect and the association between numerical magnitude and close/far response locations.