PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL BEHAVIORS: SUPERVISOR PERCEPTIONS AND SUBORDINATE REACTIONS

This study examined supervisor perceptions and subordinate reactions to formal performance-appraisal reviews. The performance-appraisal behaviors of supervisors and the reactions of their subordinates were studied in a sample of university employees. A factor analysis revealed that there were three dimensions of formal performance appraisals: two developmental dimensions (being supportive; emphasizing performance improvement) and one administrative dimension (discussing pay and advancement). Regression analyses suggested that supervisors supported highly rated individuals and stressed improvement efforts for poor performers. After controlling for the level of previous performance ratings, results indicated that support in the appraisal review was associated with higher levels of employee motivation, while discussing pay and advancement was associated with higher levels of employee satisfaction. Unfortunately, improvement efforts by the supervisors did not influence job performance one year later.     

Peer Attributions and Action Plans for Underachievement: Implications for Peer Counseling

Students playing the role of peer counselors blamed failing students for their poor performances by attributing them to internal, controllable factors.     

Research in Counseling

This column is based on the belief that research can provide meaningful data to the practicing counselor. While individual studies may not provide sufficient data on which to act, a combination of separate research efforts or a large-scale, long-term research project does have the possibility of providing sufficient data. This column will undertake to provide that data by either reviewing the current research in a specific area or examining the results from a long-term project. The emphasis will be on implications for the counselor, so there will be little if any information on research design or statistical procedures. Readers desiring more detail about a particular study should write directly to the original author(s). Readers who desire to have the results of their research and/or innovative approaches considered for review in this column should send the material to Richard W. Warner, Jr., Counselor Education, 2054 Haley Center, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama 36830.     

IN SUPPORT OF PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT IN ORGANIZATIONAL SETTINGS

Personality constructs have been demonstrated to be useful for explaining and predicting attitudes, behaviors, performance, and outcomes in organizational settings. Many professionally developed measures of personality constructs display useful levels of criterion-related validity for job performance and its facets. In this response to Morgeson et al. (2007) , we comprehensively summarize previously published meta-analyses on (a) the optimal and unit-weighted multiple correlations between the Big Five personality dimensions and behaviors in organizations, including job performance; (b) generalizable bivariate relationships of Conscientiousness and its facets (e.g., achievement orientation, dependability, cautiousness) with job performance constructs; (c) the validity of compound personality measures; and (d) the incremental validity of personality measures over cognitive ability. Hundreds of primary studies and dozens of meta-analyses conducted and published since the mid 1980s indicate strong support for using personality measures in staffing decisions. Moreover, there is little evidence that response distortion among job applicants ruins the psychometric properties, including criterion-related validity, of personality measures. We also provide a brief evaluation of the merits of alternatives that have been offered in place of traditional self-report personality measures for organizational decision making. Given the cumulative data, writing off the whole domain of individual differences in personality or all self-report measures of personality from personnel selection and organizational decision making is counterproductive for the science and practice of I-O psychology.     

Ignoring God Triune? The Doctrine of the Trinity in Dutch Theology

This article presents an overview of Dutch trinitarian theology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It will become clear how and why leading Dutch theologians either ignored the doctrine, or used it for their own purposes, or uttered critical reservations regarding its sense and significance. After having reviewed the ways in which this majority of Dutch theologians has dealt with the doctrine, some notable constructive exceptions are explored. In conclusion, the authors raise the question as to Low Dutch theology might, starting from its own tradition, catch up with the recent international and inter-denominational tendency towards a well-developed trinitarian theology.     

INTERVIEW NOTES AND VALIDITY

Three studies were conducted investigating the effects of notetaking behavior and the content of notes on validity in a selection interview. Overall, results indicate that when notetaking was voluntary, notetakers made more valid ratings than non-notetakers. But, when note-taking was manipulated non-notetakers made ratings that were just as valid as raters told to take behavioral notes, and actually more valid than those raters instructed to take general notes. With regard to the content of notes, behavioral-type notes were found to contribute to greater validity. In addition, in the first and third study, procedural type notes resulted in lower validity. These results may have important implications for interviewer training for notetaking.