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.     

Work-Induced Changes in Feelings of Mastery

ABSTRACT

Past theory and research indicate that conditions of work can have lasting effects on job incumbents. R. A. Karasek and T. Theorell (1990) Karasek, R. A. and Theorell, T. 1990. Healthy work: Stress, productivity, and the reconstruction of working life, New York: Basic Books.  [Google Scholar], for example, proposed that workers’ feelings of mastery increase with levels of job demands and job control, and that these effects are mediated by the process of active learning. To test these propositions, 657 school teachers completed scales assessing job demands, control, active learning, and mastery on 2 occasions, 8 months apart. As hypothesized, job control predicted change in mastery, an effect that was mediated by active learning. Job demands had a weaker effect on change in mastery. The demands–mastery relationship was moderated by job control, so that under conditions of high control, but not low control, increasing job demands were associated with gains in mastery. The findings partially support R. A. Karasek and T. Theorell's (1990) predictions regarding the main, interactive, and mediated effects of job conditions on employee mastery.     

A Multiphasic Personality Schedule (Minnesota): III. the Measurement of Symptomatic Depression

La Fave's habit lag construct, which specifies conditions under which previously automatized motor responses become disruptive of subsequent performance, was tested. Performance under stress was also examined as a possible factor in the occurrence of habit lag. Following a visual discrimination task, 48 women performed motor responses simultaneously: (a) repeating an invariant lever movement and (b) pushing one of two keys. The habit lag construct was supported, as Ss who had automatized responses produced more errors than nonautomatized Ss. Performance under stress, by calling attention to the risk of habit lag, reduced errors. Habit lag accounts for an intrusive type of error often found in motor performance where negative transfer fails to do so.     

“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.     

Invited Essay: A New System Of Politics: Government,Governance, And Political Decision Making In The Twenty-First Century

The present system of politics is based on the centrality of economics. This system is not capable of coming to grips with the problems confronting humanity. A culture-based system of politics is required to do this and prevent ecological disaster. This system would make it possible to reduce the demands human beings are making on the natural environment and situate human welfare, environmental well-being, and the public interest at the core of the political process. The risks of such a system could be reduced through cultural education and improved cultural understanding.     

Social trauma: The pathogenic effects of untoward social conditions

Abstract

Psychoanalysis has traditionally overlooked the fact that unsuitable and damaging life conditions, originating in the social milieu, play a part in the pathogenesis of emotional suffering and mental disorders. Nonetheless, the self establishes an object relation with the social system, as well as with the non-human environment. This is expected to act as a container–contained relationship. Whenever the community and its institutions fail to act as a container for individuals and groups, this generates a trauma, which can be compared with the baby's experience of a failure in mothering. Such failures can be classified in several categories. The first is when the social system fails to contain, nurture, care for, and protect individuals, as in the case of the lack of assistance and compassion towards the victims of poverty, disease, natural catastrophe, social turmoil, economic crisis, violence, or war. The second category occurs when there is a blatant attack, on the part of the authorities or privileged social groups, on minorities, or even on the bulk of the population, as in the case of social repression, war—both internal and external—racism, genocide, or persecution. The third is when there is a perversion of the social system, which feigns to uphold current social values and laws while actually breaking them, as in the case of corruption, chicanery, and mendacity on the part of the authorities. One recent example of this is the impeachment process against the Chief of Government of Mexico City. The author approaches this problem by exploring the consequences of such experiences for the development and functioning of personality structure and personal relations, as well as their repercussions for individuals living together in the community and for the necessary relation between them and the authorities.     

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.     

An examination of premarital sexual behavior among college students in hong kong

Abstract

This study examined the determinants of Hong Kong Chinese college students' intentions to engage in premarital sexual behavior. Fishbein and Ajzen's (1975) theory of reasoned action (TOFA) and Ajzen's (1985) perceived behavioral control were used as the theoretical framework for our investigation. Two hundred and thirty eight students completed a questionnaire designed to measure constructs of the two theories. Results from the regression analysis: (a) support the applicability of TORA in predicting these students' intentions to engage in premarital sex; (b) suggest that while attitudes toward engaging in premarital sex were more important in predicting male students' intentions, subjective norms were more important for female students; (c) reveal that the additional prediction contributed by the behavioral control components was relatively weak. Other findings were basically consistent with premarital sex research conducted in Western societies. Given the fact that promoting abstinence is one way to stop the transmission of the AIDS virus, both the theoretical and applied implications of our results for health intervention are discussed.