APPLICANT AGE AND SELECTION INTERVIEW DECISIONS: EFFECT OF INFORMATION EXPOSURE ON AGE DISCRIMINATION IN PERSONNEL SELECTION

Two research questions pertaining to the applicant age bias effect were addressed in this study: the effect of age-related information exposure on selection decisions and the issue of between-sample generalizability with reference to the age bias effect. Manager and student selectors made selection decisions after viewing one videotape of a simulated selection interview of either an old or a young job applicant. Before viewing the interview tape, half of each subject group was given an item of age-related information and the other half was given neutral information. The results showed that, under the neutral information condition, managers preferred hiring the young applicant for the low-status job, and students favored the old candidate for the high-status position. Under the age-related information condition, managers shifted to favoring the old candidate for the low-status job, and students preferred the young applicant for both the low- and high-status positions. Age discrimination in selection decisions and the lack of external validity of student results in selection research are then discussed.     

Teachers do not Deal in Widgets

Although the use of merit pay, incentive pay, bonus pay, and job promotion are well-established measures in the private or corporate sector of American society, few examples of successful teacher merit pay systems exist. In 1983, the Eastern Washington University Department of Education surveyed six major private corporations to determine whether corporate merit pay programs could be applied to teachers and educational institutions. Survey findings suggest several reasons why merit pay programs for teachers will probably fail: (a) lack of monetary goals; (b) the necessity for subjective evaluation, which requires multiple measurement devices, extensive supervision, and time; (c) the absence of a many-tiered corporate structure in most educational institutions; and (d) increased supervisory direction that could stifle creativity and flexibility.     

The Critical Aesthetics of Disney World

ABSTRACT An analysis of Disney World as an aesthetic environment provides important insights. I ts many distinct areas constitute a multiplicity of environments —futuristic, ethnic, fantasy, adventure. Each shapes time, space, and movement in distinctive ways, making Disney World a microcosm of America's cultural pluralism and at the same time the kitsch of postmodernism. Yet Disney World is more than an entertainment park but conceals disturbing meanings behind its glittering images. In numerous ways it both illustrates and epitomises kinds of thought and practice that characterise the industrial-commercial culture of our period. Disney World, in fact, openly but subtly purveys the culture of consumption. Everything is converted into matter for consumption: national and ethnic traditions, science, technology, education, the family, history. This is an environment in which nothing is as it appears to be. Spectacular in scale and brilliant in execution, Disney World is a 'masterpiece of falsification, a megamonument to the commodification of culture.' The aesthetic analysis of Disney's worlds, by showing how realities are created and subverted, confronts us with the pervasiveness of the normative and the inseparability of the moral and the aesthetic. The challenge of our time is to reform knowledge and value in a way that is pluralistic and open-ended, and yet provides the basis for both decision and action.