Organizational Commitment,Job Satisfaction,and Effort in the Service Environment

Investigations of the causal relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction have yielded contradictory findings. Little empirical research has looked at this complex relationship in the context of work effort. The purpose of this study was to determine how these variables interact in the service environment. Using a sample of 425 employees in two service organizations, the author tested two structural equation models. The hypothesized model with organizational commitment as a moderator between job satisfaction and service effort fit better than a model with job satisfaction as moderator did. Conceptual implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are made.     

A Method for the Study of Personality Reactions in Preschool age Children by Means of Analysis of their Play

This investigation studied variability in visual thresholds for six subjects for 50 consecutive days. The results show the following:

1. Session-to-session variability agrees closely with the variability estimates made by Hecht and Zegers.

2. No periodic or cyclic trends appeared for the group or for any individual subject.

3. For all six subjects for the first 15 days of testing, a learning phenomenon was observed for the mean and standard-deviation data. There was a slow rise over the last 10 days of testing for the mean, but not for the standard-deviation data. (A discussion of the possible causes of the rise of the mean over the last 10 days suggested the influence of extraneous factors, such as boredom and fatigue.)

4. No effect of the menstrual cycle upon the threshold values was found.

4. No effect of the menstrual cycle upon the threshold values was found.     

“Authoritarianism” and Agreement with Things Authoritative

The use of personality and attitudinal questionnaires in private executive and military samples is briefly reviewed. The need for evidence regarding the factor similarity of such questionnaires in comparative studies is noted. Such a comparative factorial study of an abbreviated version of the Shure-Meeker (11) Personality/Attitude Schedule (PAS) is reported. In terms of the general scales examined, three of the four scales emerge in both samples. The order of emergence, as well as the number and item content of the factors, differs slightly between the two samples. Caution is suggested in assuming factor similarity across samples in comparative studies utilizing the PAS and other personality and attitudinal instruments.     

A validation of a computerised task of risk-taking and moral decision-making and its association with sensation-seeking,impulsivity and sociomoral reasoning

The aim of this study was to investigate the reliability and validity of the computer based application of the Secret Agent (SA) task of risk-taking and moral decision-making. The participants were 100 male patients in a maximum security hospital (50 with severe mental illness and 50 with personality disorder) and 50 community based healthy controls. All participants completed the SA task, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), and measures of IQ, antisocial personality traits, sensation-seeking, impulsivity and sociomoral reasoning. The SA risk-taking and moral decision-making scales had satisfactory levels of reliability (Cronbach’s alpha). Risk-taking correlated significantly with sensation-seeking across all three participant groups. In contrast, risk-taking only correlated with impulsivity among the severe mental illness group. Moral decision-making correlated with sociomoral reasoning among the personality disorder group. No correlation was found between the SA scores and the IGT score and the IGT did not correlate with sensation-seeking or impulsivity. IQ and antisocial personality traits did not correlate with the SA or IGT scales. The study highlights the importance of context, the nature of the risk-taking task, and ‘problem framing’ of the instructions in their relationship with individual differences.     

The effects of team strategic orientation on team process and information search

We tested the effects of team strategic orientation on team member perceptions, work strategy and information search. In Experiment 1, 80 teams worked on a hidden profile decision-making task. A defensive team strategic orientation increased members’ perceptions of the problem’s scope, leading to a more process-focused work strategy and broader information search compared to an offensive team strategic orientation. When teams needed critical information from the environment, defensive teams outperformed offensive teams; offensive teams performed better when critical information resided within the team. In Experiment 2, these findings were replicated with 92 teams performing a different decision task. When making a second decision, half of the teams were led to change their strategic orientation; teams shifting from offense to defense altered their information search behavior more readily than did teams shifting in the opposite direction, suggesting an asymmetric adaptation effect.     

真实火灾和模拟火灾情境下小鼠的逃生决策比较*

探讨并比较真实火灾和模拟火灾情境下小鼠是否采用直觉性逃生决策。研究包括一个预备训练和两个主实验。预备训练的目的：首先训练小鼠获得有关迷宫路线及出口的经验,然后再经过遗忘处理使它们遗忘相关经验。两个主实验均采用3(情境：真实火灾,模拟火灾,普通情境)×2(记忆：遗忘前和遗忘后)混合实验设计,因变量均为逃生决策。实验组被试为72只经过训练的小鼠,控制组为24只未经过训练的小鼠。通过考察小鼠在不同情境和不同记忆条件下的逃生时间和对逃生出口的选择探测并比较真实火灾和模拟火灾情境下小鼠的逃生决策差异。主要结果：(1)实验组在真实火灾情境下的逃生时间无论遗忘前后都明显比模拟火灾情境下短;(2)实验组在真实火灾和模拟火灾情境下的逃生时间都明显比控制组短;(3)当熟悉和陌生出口均开启同时熟悉出口处有烟雾条件下,真实火灾组在遗忘前后均倾向于选择熟悉出口逃生,其他两组则倾向于选择陌生出口离开。结论：真实火灾和模拟火灾情境下小鼠的逃生决策存在明显差异：真实火灾情境下受过训练的小鼠倾向于直觉性逃生决策;模拟火灾情境下受过训练的小鼠不倾向于直觉性逃生决策。     

The Current Status of Women in Professional Selling

Abstract

This article examines the status of women in professional selling careers. First, reasons women have not made more rapid movement into the selling profession are examined. Second, women's progress into professional sales jobs are explored. Lastly, suggestions are made for sales managers on how to attract and retain capable women in selling positions.     

What do people think about changes in health behaviors? Differential perceptions of consequences of increases and decreases in health behaviors

Most health decision-making models posit that cost-benefit analyses underlie decisions to make changes in health-related behavioral practices. In a series of studies, participants imagined either increasing or decreasing the frequency of a variety of health behaviors and estimated the consequences of those changes. In Studies 1 and 2, individuals consistently estimated that increasing a health behavior produced greater consequences than did decreasing the behavior by an equivalent amount. The results of Study 3 demonstrated that this effect is due to differences in how individuals judge the impact of health behavior changes which involve not engaging in the behavior at all versus other types of changes. Taken together, these findings suggest that perceptions of the outcomes afforded by health behavior changes depend on both the behavioral frequency and direction of changes in behavior an individual is considering. This asymmetry has the potential to help explain patterns of behavior in a range of important health domains and may impact the effectiveness of behavior change interventions.     

Gender differences in type a behavior and hostility within an organizational setting

Abstract

Recent investigations suggest that the hostility component of the Type A behavior patter (TABP) is a greater detriment to health than the overall pattern. Some researchers suggest that certain Type A characteristics (e.g., job-involvement) are actually adaptive. This study compared the relative relationship of the TABP and hostility to career-related achievement and psychosocial adjustment among 223 service-delivery employees. Male and female participants completed the Jenkins Activity Survey and the MMPI Hostility Scale as part of a cardiovascular disease risk factor screening. The TABP was positively associated with managerial status for both men and women. However, the TABP was positively related to psychosocial adjustment variables among men only. Hostility was significantly related to undesirable outcomes including lower job status, life dissatisfaction, and unfavorable perceptions of the workplace for both men and women. Discussion addresses organizational factors which might perpetuate hostility and the TABP, as well as gender differences in the experience of these constructs.