The authors investigated the relative validity of personality testing and the assessment center (AC) in order to evaluate the incremental validity of both assessment methods in the prediction of managerial performance. Managers (N = 68) from a forestry products organization were evaluated with an AC and selected traits on the Personality Research Form (D. N. Jackson, 1984). Performance and promotability served as criteria. Overall, personality was found to be at least equivalent to the AC in predicting performance. Personality testing resulted in significant incremental validity over that of the AC in the prediction of performance, but the converse was also true. This suggested that personality and the AC assess different domains, with each uniquely and significantly predicting performance. Promotability was not significantly predicted. Practical implications and future directions were discussed.
Recent research (T. H. Macan, 1994) questioned the importance oftime management i predicting performance. The authors tested the hypothesis that ime management behav-iors interact with achievement striving to predict car sales performance. On the basis of data from 102 salespeople, moderated regression analyses supported that hypothesis. There was a significant interaction between short-range planning and achievement striv-ing. Results how how time management is related to job performance under conditions of high motivation. Despite a large literature lauding the benefits of time management behaviors in general (e.g., Warihay, 1978) and for sales performance in particular (e.g., Berkowitz & Ginter, 1978; Feiertag, 1991; Friedman, 1993), the available literature suggests ome controversy regarding whether the expected benefits of time management are realized in practice (Macan, 1994). Empirical findings suggest that positive time management practices are as-sociated with self-evaluations of academic performance
Researchers examined the performance-turnover relationship under conditions of varying reward contingency with 189 sales representatives who earned base pay plus commission (moderately contingent rewards) during their first 2 months of work and commission-only pay (maximally contingent rewards) thereafter. As predicted by an expanded version of the contingent rewards hypothesis, the performance-turnover relationship was stronger under maximally contingent rewards, higher than any reported in the literature. Using event history analyses, the researchers also showed that current (time-dependent) performance affords a better prediction of turnover than average (time-stationary) performance. Performance velocity (slope overtime) had a further, unique effect on turnover risk. The implications of these findings for future studies of the employee turnover process and pay systems were discussed.
The proposition that the relationship between extraversion and sales performance is moderated by reward structure was investigated. Specific hypotheses were tested with data obtained from 152 sales representatives. One group of sales representatives was rewarded primarily for obtaining new sales and another primarily for retaining customers. Data pooled across the 2 groups showed that extraversion did not correlate significantly with either new sales or customer retention. However, moderator analysis revealed that extraversion was positively associated with the dimension of performance that was explicitly rewarded but not with the nonrewarded dimension. A significant correlation between conscientiousness and new sales, but not between conscientiousness and customer retention, was found with the pooled data. As expected, relationships between conscientiousness and sales performance were not moderated by reward structure.
Criminal defendants should be protected from suggestive lineup procedures by the presence of their attorneys at lineups. This protection is effective only if attorneys are sensitive to factors that affect lineup suggestiveness. This study assessed attorney sensitivity to foil, instruction, and presentation biases. Stimuli were 8 videotaped lineups in which the 3 factors were manipulated between subjects. Assistant public defenders (N = 109) viewed the videotapes and completed a questionnaire that assessed perceptions of suggestiveness, fairness, and correctability. Attorneys were very sensitive to foil bias but only somewhat sensitive to instruction bias. Their perceptions of presentation bias were contrary to empirical research results. Attorneys reported that they are rarely present at lineups. These results imply that the presence-of-counsel safeguard may be less effective than it could and should be.
No studies dealing with cognitive processes in performance appraisal have been conducted in field settings, raising questions about the usefulness of this research for practice. The field experiments described here, conducted in 2 organizations, were designed to evaluate interventions that laboratory research has suggested enable raters to better organize performance information in memory: structured diary keeping and structured recall. After these interventions, raters had more positive reactions to the appraisal process, were better able to recall performance information, and produced ratings that were less elevated and better able to discriminate between and within rates. The implications of these results for practice and for cognitive research in performance appraisal are discussed, along with the limitations of these studies and the problems with criteria for evaluating ratings in the field.
In attempting to impeach eyewitnesses, attorneys often highlight inconsistencies in the eyewitness's recall. This study examined the differential impact of types of inconsistent testimony on mock-juror decisions. Each of 100 community members and 200 undergraduates viewed one of four versions of a videotaped trial in which the primary evidence against the defendant was the testimony of the eyewitness. I manipulated the types of inconsistent statements given by the eyewitness in the four versions: (1) consistent testimony, (2) information given on-the-stand but not given during the pre-trial investigation, (3) contradictions between on-the-stand and pre-trial statements, and (4) contradictions made on the witness stand. Subjects exposed to any form of inconsistent testimony were less likely to convict and found the defendant less culpable and the eyewitness less effective. These effects were larger for contradictions than for information given on the stand but not during pre-trial investigations.
A model of the relationship between work and family that incorporates variables from both the work-family conflict and social support literatures was developed and empirically tested.This model related bidirectional work-family conflict, family instrumental and emotional social support, and job and family involvement to job and life satisfaction.Data came from 163 workers who were living with at least 1 family member.Results suggested that relationships between work and family can have an important effect on job and life satisfaction and that the level of involvement the worker assigns to work and family roles is associated with this relationship.The results also suggested that the relationship between work and family can be simultaneously characterized by conflict and support.Higher levels of work interfering with family predicted lower levels of family emotional and instrumental support.Higher levels of family emotional and instrumental support were associated with lower levels of family interfering with work.The growing body of occupational stress research regarding the relationship between work and family has suggested that there are interconnecting and possibly reciprocal influences between these two domains (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1987;Kanter, 1977;Rice, Near, & Hunt, 1980;Schmitt & Bedeian, 1982).Much of this research has proceeded along two lines of inquiry.The first has focused on work-family conflict, where researchers argued that conflict between the work and family domains can be a source of stress that influence important psychological and physical outcomes (e.g., Bacharach, Bamberger, & Conley, 1991;Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992).The second line of inquiry has focused on social support.Researchers have contended that social support provided by members of the work and/or family domains can have a positive influence on workers' general health and well-being (e.g., Beehr & McGrath, 1992;S. Cohen & Wills, 1985).There has been little integration of these two streams of research (Greenhaus, 1988;Jackson, Zedeck, & Summers, 1985).This is unfortunate because most studies tend to provide a glimpse of either the positive or negative aspects of the work-family interface and consequently do not usually provide an accurate view of the whole interface.The purpose of the present study was to draw upon both the work-family conflict and social support literatures to further understanding of the joint influence of these factors on well-being.In the sections that follow, research from the work-family conflict perspective and the social support perspective is briefly overviewed.Then, the two perspectives are integrated, and the role of involvement as an important antecedent of both conflict and social support is highlighted.Following this, a model relating work-family conflict, social support, and job and family involvement to job and life satisfaction is presented and empirically tested.
The researchers explored personal and contextual factors that inhibit or facilitate the use of older worker stereotypes in a selection context. The authors suggest that older worker stereotypes are more likely to be used and influence applicant evaluations when raters are biased against older workers, when raters do not have the cognitive resources to inhibit the use of age-associated stereotypes, or when applicants apply for age-incongruent jobs. The researchers explored the extent to which raters differing in older worker bias make discriminatory decisions about young or old individuals applying for age-typed jobs under conditions of high- and low-cognitive demands. A laboratory study was conducted with 131 undergraduate students who evaluated applicants in a simulated employment context. Results indicated that older worker bias, cognitive busyness, and job age-type interact to affect the extent to which applicant age plays a role in selection decisions.
The purpose of this investigation was to explore the extent to which employment in-terview evaluations reflect cognitive ability. A meta-analysis of 49 studies found a cor-rected mean correlation of.40 between interview ratings and ability test scores, suggest-ing that on average about 16 % of the variance in interview constructs represents cognitive ability. Analysis of several design characteristics that could moderate the relationship between interview scores and ability suggested that (a) the correlation with ability tends to decrease as the level of structure increases; (b) the type of questions asked can have considerable influence on the magnitude of the correlation with ability; (c) the reflection of ability in the ratings tends to increase when ability test scores are made available to interviewers; and (d) the correlation with ability generally is higher for low-complexity jobs. Moreover, results suggest that interview ratings that correlate higher with cognitive ability tend to be better predictors of job performance. Implications for incremental va-lidity are discussed, and recommendations for selection strategies are outlined. Understanding of the validity of the employment in-terview has increased considerably in recent years. In particular, a series of meta-analyses has affirmed that the interview is generally a much better predictor of perfor-mance than previously thought and is comparable with many other selection techniques (Huffcutt & Arthur,