Self-appraisal, personal desirability, and perceived social desirability of personality traits.

200 college sophomores took the MMPI 3 times. Analysis showed the following results: (1) Variation of order or time of testing in the personal or social condition seemed to make no difference. (2) Intercorrelations between the 3 forms were low enough to show that the 3 tasks were different. (3) Variance on all 3 forms was lower than in the standardization of the MMPI. (4) The mean profiles were highly similar in all 3 groups. (5) The clinical scales were in general highest on self, as were the Si, A, and obvious scales. The L, K, and subtle scales were in general lowest on self. (6) Results based on analysis of item discrepancies rather than scale comparisons showed that the discrepancies tended to be very sizable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The factorial structure of selected consumer choice parameters and their relationship to personal values.

Importance ratings of 104 respondents of 6 choice parameters for each of 5 product types were related to value scores on the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Scale (AVL) using (a) an analysis of variance of raw score judgments and (b) multiple regression of the AVL against factor scores obtained from a factor analysis of the ratings. The Economic scale was significantly related to choice parameters (p     

Life activities among individuals with spinal cord injury living in the community: Perceived choice and perceived barriers.

Objective: To apply the World Health Organization model of functioning to a study of perceived choice over life activities and barriers to engaging in life activities among persons with spinal cord injury. Participants and Setting: This large community-dwelling sample included 255 participants from 2 urban sites and 1 rural site. Measure: Items from the Participation of People With Mobility Limitations Survey were used. Results: Approximately half of the participants reported little or no perceived choice with employment, and the majority reported low levels of satisfaction with choice with employment. Access to employment was limited by physical barriers (48%) and transportation (46%). Physical impairment, pain, and fatigue were also barriers. Conclusions: Improvements of workplace and transportation accessibility, increased vocational supports, and interventions to decrease pain and fatigue are needed to ensure participation for persons with spinal cord injury. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of personal pronouns as categories for studying small group interaction.

Observations were made of the use of personal pronouns in the meetings of 2 groups, a VA therapy session and a VA staff meeting. The assumption was made that the individual's pronoun choice reflects his orientation toward persons, ideas, feelings, and objects. Under conditions of group interaction, patterns of pronominal preference may be expected to express characteristics of the group relationships. The method is described, and judgments of its effectiveness in expressing group characteristics are made. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social perception and sociometric choice of children.

"This study was designed to test the generality of the positive relationship between perceived similarity and valuation of others." The results indicate that highest sociometric choices tend to be perceived as more similar to self than are lowest sociometric choices and also more similar to self than they actually are. The proposition is suggested that the positive relationship between perceived similarity and valuation of others is a function of the need to be similar to valued persons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of handedness and reachability on perceived distance.

Previous research has suggested that perceived distances are scaled by the action capabilities of the body. The present studies showed that when “reachability” is constrained due to a difficult grasp required to pick up an object, perceived distance to the object increases. Participants estimated the distances to tools with handle orientations that made them either easy or difficult to grasp with their dominant and nondominant hands. Right-handed participants perceived tools that were more difficult to grasp to be farther away than tools that were easier to grasp. However, perceived distance did not differ in left-handed participants. These studies suggest that, when reaching toward a target, the distance to that target is scaled in terms of how far one can effectively reach, given the type of reaching posture that is executed. Furthermore, this effect is modulated by handedness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consequences of client-initiated workplace violence: The role of fear and perceived prevention.

The authors suggested and tested a model of the consequences of client-initiated workplace violence, introducing perceived prevention of violence and perceived coping ability as factors that reduce fear of future violence and mitigate negative personal and organizational consequences. Survey data from 330 frontline staff from job centers and social security offices were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The data supported the model and confirmed the central role of the fear of violence with regard to outcomes such as psychological and physical well-being or irritability. Results point further to perceived prevention of violence as an important factor that influences fear levels in different ways, predicts turnover intentions, and should therefore be considered when managers aim to address the consequences of client-initiated violence and threats. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The moderating effects of personal reputation on accountability-strain relationships.

Although felt accountability has predicted positive outcomes in some studies, it has demonstrated anxiety-provoking properties in others. This inconsistency has led researchers to search for moderating variables that explain why felt accountability promotes or impedes favorable outcomes. Building on these studies, the authors examine the moderating effects of personal reputation on the felt accountability-strain relationship. As hypothesized, the results indicate that a positive personal reputation ameliorated the strain reactions caused by felt accountability. In particular, as felt accountability increased, individuals with strong personal reputations experienced less job tension and depressed mood at work, as well as more job satisfaction, but individuals with weak personal reputations experienced the opposite outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social networks, personal values, and creativity: Evidence for curvilinear and interaction effects.

Taking an interactional perspective on creativity, the authors examined the influence of social networks and conformity value on employees’ creativity. They theorized and found a curvilinear relationship between number of weak ties and creativity such that employees exhibited greater creativity when their number of weak ties was at intermediate levels rather than at lower or higher levels. In addition, employees’ conformity value moderated the curvilinear relationship between number of weak ties and creativity such that employees exhibited greater creativity at intermediate levels of number of weak ties when conformity was low than when it was high. A proper match between personal values and network ties is critical for understanding creativity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of personal and shared threats upon social prejudice.

The effects of varying types of threat-arousing communications upon the expression of social prejudice was examined. Personal threat groups showed a greater increase in social prejudice than did the control group. Shared threat groups showed a decrease in prejudice in comparison with the control group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition.

Stereotype research emphasizes systematic processes over seemingly arbitrary contents, but content also may prove systematic. On the basis of stereotypes' intergroup functions, the stereotype content model hypothesizes that (1) 2 primary dimensions are competence and warmth, (2) frequent mixed clusters combine high warmth with low competence (paternalistic) or high competence with low warmth (envious), and (3) distinct emotions (pity, envy, admiration, contempt) differentiate the 4 competence-warmth combinations. Stereotypically, (4) status predicts high competence, and competition predicts low warmth. Nine varied samples rated gender, ethnicity, race, class, age, and disability out-groups. Contrary to antipathy models, 2 dimensions mattered, and many stereotypes were mixed, either pitying (low competence, high warmth subordinates) or envying (high competence, low warmth competitors). Stereotypically, status predicted competence, and competition predicted low warmth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferences about the morality of an aggressor: The role of perceived motive.

The research investigated perceivers' inferences about the morality of target persons who engaged in aggressive behavior. Across several experiments, inferences about the morality of an aggressor were based more on the perceived motives of the target than on the presence of facilitating situational forces. For example, when a target's aggression was facilitated by personal rewards for aggression (instrumental aggression), perceivers inferred more negative motives and attributed lower morality to the target than when the target's aggression was facilitated by situational provocation (reactive aggression). The results suggest that perceived motives play an important role in dispositional inference and pose a problem for models that focus primarily on perceived causality, assumptions about base rates (consensus), or diagnosticity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of competition on reaction time and palmar skin conductance.

"Ninety-two Ss were tested on reaction time tasks under normal and competitive conditions. The speed of the simple reaction and of the discriminative reaction increased under the competitive condition… . Under the competitive condition, the level of palmar skin conductance increased and self-rated alertness increased, but these measures were not related to the decrease in reaction time. Thus the speed of performance and some measures of the level of motivation both increased in a competitive situation, but there was no evidence… for a causal relationship between them." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cultural grounding of personal relationship: The importance of attractiveness in everyday life.

Previous research has suggested that physically attractive people experience more positive life outcomes than do unattractive people. However, the importance of physical attractiveness in everyday life may vary depending on the extent to which different cultural worlds afford or require individual choice in the construction and maintenance of personal relationships. The authors hypothesized that attractiveness matters more for life outcomes in settings that promote voluntaristic-independent constructions of relationship as the product of personal choice than it does in settings that promote embedded-interdependent constructions of relationship as an environmental affordance. Study 1 examined self-reported outcomes of attractive and unattractive persons. Study 2 examined expectations about attractive and unattractive targets. Results provide support for the hypothesis along four dimensions: national context, relationship context, rural-urban context, and experimental manipulation of relationship constructions. These patterns suggest that the importance of physical attractiveness documented by psychological research is the product of particular constructions of reality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of control on betting: Paradoxical betting on items of high confidence with low value.

Traditional decision theories emphasize the probabilities and values of possible outcomes, but decisions may also be influenced by perceived control, with control defined as probability alterability. In 3 experiments, participants were offered bets on their own answers to general knowledge questions, bets that are characterized by control. The bets were fair if participants' reported confidence was well calibrated, positively valued if participants were underconfident, but unfavorable when participants were overconfident. Bet acceptance was a steep, linear, increasing function of confidence that is termed paradoxical betting. This pattern was generally contrary to the value of bets (considered either as average outcome or as subjective utility) and was steeper in slope than matched bets on apparently random events in Experiment 3. The author argues that control is a fundamental determinant of decision making that is readily incorporated in some existing models of decision weighting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role conflict and burnout: The direct and moderating effects of political skill and perceived organizational support on burnout dimensions.

Drawing from previous research on the effect of role conflict on burnout and the Conservation of Resources theory, the authors propose that individual differences in political skill and perceptions of organizational support will be negatively related to burnout and will also moderate the relationship between perceived role conflict and burnout. In a sample of 120 professional employees, political skill was associated with less depersonalization and feelings of reduced personal accomplishment and moderated the role conflict-reduced personal accomplishment relationship. Perceived organizational support was associated with less emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and moderated the role conflict-emotional exhaustion relationship. Implications of results are discussed and directions for future research are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of learning goal difficulty level and cognitive ability on performance.

The relationship between the difficulty level of a learning goal and a person's (N = 146) performance on a task that required the acquisition of knowledge to perform effectively was examined. Multiple hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the higher the learning goal, the higher the person's performance. Cognitive ability and goal commitment also positively affected performance. The results showed that the person's cognitive ability moderated the learning goal-performance relationship. Contrary to previous research findings on performance goals for tasks that are straightforward for people, the performance of individuals lower in cognitive ability was more positively affected by the setting of a difficult learning goal than was the case for people higher in cognitive ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Goal orientation and ability: Interactive effects on self-efficacy, performance, and knowledge.

This study examined the direct relationship of goal orientation--and the interaction of goal orientation and cognitive ability--with self-efficacy, performance, and knowledge in a learning context. The authors argue that whether a particular type of goal orientation is adaptive or not adaptive depends on individuals' cognitive ability. Consistent with previous research, learning orientation was positively related to self-efficacy, performance, and knowledge, whereas performance orientation was negatively related to performance only. The interactions between goal orientation and ability also supported several hypotheses. As expected, learning orientation was generally adaptive for high-ability individuals but had no effect for low-ability individuals. In contrast, the effects of performance orientation were contingent on both individuals' level of cognitive ability and the outcome examined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dynamics of death and meaning: The effects of death-relevant cognitions and personal need for structure on perceptions of meaning in life.

Do reminders of mortality increase or decrease perceptions of life’s meaning? The authors propose that death-relevant thought has divergent effects on meaning perceptions depending on individuals’ personal need for structure (PNS) or dispositional desire for structured knowledge. In prior research, high-PNS individuals primed with mortality-related stimuli were found to employ clearly structured conceptions of reality. Consequently, these individuals were expected to show stable or even bolstered perceptions of meaning when death thought was heightened. Low-PNS individuals did not show this tendency and were therefore expected to show decreased meaning under heightened death-thought activation. The results of Studies 1a–1d supported these hypotheses. Studies 2 and 3 sought to identify how low-PNS individuals might reaffirm meaning and found that death thought increased their willingness to explore novelty. Studies 4 and 5 directly tested the meaning-conferring function of novelty seeking among low-PNS individuals, showing that the consideration of novel interpretations of the world and their experiences affirmed a sense of meaning in life following reminders of death. Discussion focuses on the relationship between meaning and death and the unique ways low-PNS individuals respond to mortality concerns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of choice on intrinsic motivation and related outcomes: A meta-analysis of research findings.

A meta-analysis of 41 studies examined the effect of choice on intrinsic motivation and related outcomes in a variety of settings with both child and adult samples. Results indicated that providing choice enhanced intrinsic motivation, effort, task performance, and perceived competence, among other outcomes. Moderator tests revealed the effect of choice on intrinsic motivation was stronger (a) for instructionally irrelevant choices compared to choices made between activities, versions of a task, rewards, and instructionally relevant options, (b) when 2 to 4 successive choices were given, (c) when rewards were not given after the choice manipulation, (d) when participants given choice were compared to the most controlling forms of control groups, (e) for children compared to adults, (f) for designs that yoked choice and control conditions compared to matched designs in which choice was reduced or designs in which nonyoked, nonmatched controls were used, and (g) when the experiment was conducted in a laboratory embedded in a natural setting. Implications for future research and applications to real-world settings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)