FORCED DISTRIBUTION RATING SYSTEMS AND THE IMPROVEMENT OF WORKFORCE POTENTIAL: A BASELINE SIMULATION

Through simulation we investigate how characteristics of forced distribution rating systems (FDRS), which require firing a certain percentage of the workforce each year, might interact with ratings reliability, selection validity, selection ratio, and voluntary turnover to improve average workforce performance potential. Results suggest that a FDRS could lead to noticeable improvement in workforce potential, that most of the improvement should be expected to occur over the first several years, and that improvement is largely a function of the percentage of workers to be fired and the level of voluntary turnover. Greater improvement is associated with higher numbers being fired and lower levels of voluntary turnover. The effects of bundling FDRS with recruiting and retention initiatives are also investigated.     

Racial/Ethnic Differences in Religious Involvement in a Multi-Ethnic Cohort of Midlife Women

We examined racial/ethnic differences in five measures of religious involvement (worship attendance, religious social support, importance of faith, comfort from religion, and frequency of prayer or meditation) among 2,690 women, age 42–52 years, participating in the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN). The women reported five racial/ethnic identifications: white, African American, Hispanic, Japanese, and Chinese. A large proportion of the Asian and Hispanic women were born outside the United States (Japanese 48 percent, Chinese 69.5 percent, Hispanic 89.1 percent). African-American and Hispanic women reported the highest levels of religious involvement. White and Japanese women reported similar levels of involvement for four measures. Compared to the white women, the Chinese women reported similar levels of worship attendance and religious social support, but lower levels for the other three measures. These racial/ethnic differences were not explained by differences in religious preference, acculturation, or sociodemographic factors. With the exception of worship attendance, in adjusted models, measures of acculturation were not significantly associated with religious involvement .     

Faculty Perceptions of College Creativity Courses

If you were going to teach a college-level course in creativity, would you be interested in what other instructors believe about such courses? Would you like to know their views about planned outcomes, evaluation and course content? These are some of the areas addressed in this report. The study orginated discussions at the First National Conference on Creativity in American Colleges and Universities.¹ The conference was promoted by the work of McDonough and McDonough (1987),² and was held in July of 1990 at the Alden B. Dow Creativity Center of the Northwood Institute in Midland, Michigan. It was an exciting opportunity for university-level teachers of creativity to get together and talk. To facilitate discussions, most participants brought with them copies of their course syllabi. Much of the ensuing discussion centered around the purposes of creativity courses, appropriate course experiences, required products, and the evaluation of student participation and learning. While the diversity of opinion of those present soon become clear, many participants were left questioning if the opinions heard and syllabi offered at this conference were representative of what was being done nationally. The present study is born from that question.     

Crisis Reactions of College Freshmen As a Function of Family Support Systems

This study explored the relationship between family support system availability and crisis reactions of entering freshman college students. Self-report measures, including distance from home, anticipated weekend visits with family, and number of family relatives residing in the college community, were investigated in relation to the crisis variable. The availability of the student's family was inversely correlated with his or her crisis score. This article emphasizes the need for primary group support and discusses implications for intervention.     

The Effects of Cognitive Restructuring and Decision-Making Training on Career Indecision

The authors designed a cognitive restructuring intervention for individuals having difficulty with career decision making and compared the intervention to a decision skills intervention and a no-treatment control. The cognitive restructuring intervention was more effective than were both decision-making training and the control condition in reducing anxiety about career decision making and in encouraging vocational exploratory behavior. Cognitive restructuring clients also reported more use of the skills they had learned, were more satisfied with the decisions they made, and found the treatment program more useful in making career decisions than did clients in the other two groups.     

Social influence techniques during marital conflict

The use of social influence techniques was examined in two studies of marital conflict. In each study, couples discussed two issues in counterbalanced order: one in which the husband wanted change and one in which the wife wanted change. Interactions were coded for the use of influence techniques. Evidence from both studies supported a social role explanation, such that roles based on who wanted change predicted the use of influence, whereas gender did not. Secondary hypotheses based on attribution theory and schema theory were also supported. When discussing areas in which they wanted change in partners, spouses made more partner attributions, were more likely to suggest change, and were more likely to explain their partners’behavior than when discussing areas in which their partners wanted change. However, they were more likely to ask questions to clarify the problem when discussing a change their partners wanted in them than when discussing a change they wanted. The importance of considering social structural variables such as social roles in examining conflict interactions is discussed.     

Creativity and Cooperation in the Elementary Music Classroom*

The author examines attitudes towards, and the effects of focus on, creativity and cooperation in the elementary music classroom. First, elementary music teachers were interviewed regarding their values towards creativity and cooperation. Then, a curriculum was field tested that utilized cooperative learning and emphasized activities designed to encourage creative thinking and problem solving. A pretreatment-posttreatment study, with experimental and control group, was conducted to measure actual changes in student levels of creativity and attitudes towards cooperation. A follow-up of creativity measures was conducted four years later. Results indicate that elementary music teachers can adapt cooperative learning models to their teaching and can, short-term, influence students' levels of creativity and attitudes towards cooperation. Implications and opportunities for social-psychological creativity research and classroom educators are discussed. In 1983, Goodlad observed that, in general, there was a “gap between the rhetoric of individual flexibility, originality, and creativity … and the cultivation of these [things] in our schools” (p. 241) and that schools provided students with little opportunity to develop “satisfying relations with others based on respect, trust, cooperation, and caring” (p. 240). Goodlad encouraged teachers in the arts to provide opportunities for creative problem solving and to “boldly demonstrate the potentiality for doing through the arts what cannot be done readily through the other fields” (p. 238). His appeal to arts teachers is reminiscent of Maslow (1968):