Biased recollections in older adults: The role of implicit theories of aging.

Explored how older adults recall the traits they possessed at an earlier age. It was hypothesized that older adults' recollections would be related to their theories about aging. In Study 1, a group of older Ss provided their theories concerning how various traits change with age. Another group of older Ss rated their current status on these traits and recalled the status they possessed at a younger age. In addition, a group of younger adults rated their current status on the same traits. On traits theorized to increase with age, older Ss recalled themselves as possessing lower levels at an earlier age than the younger group reported possessing. On traits theorized to decrease with age, older Ss recalled themselves as possessing higher levels at an earlier age than the younger group reported possessing. Study 2 indicated that this effect is obtained regardless of trait positivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of personal characteristics on relationships between attitudes and job performance.

Using 376 airmen, Whitlock and Cureton (see 35: 7252) collected attitude score and biographical data, which is reanalysed in the present study, using multiple regression techniques. "… much of the criterion variance associated with attitude measures is also related to more easily obtained biographical characteristics of workers and biographical variables should be considered when relating attitudes to productivity." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Four techniques of group decision making under uncertainty.

4 techniques of group decision-making—authoritarian, leader suggestion, census, and chairman—under risk and uncertainty were compared using a survival situation with 45 aircrews. "1. In a conflict situation, when a group discussion method… is involved, the members' reactions to the alternatives are relatively undifferentiated in contrast to the condition in which the leader alone makes the decision… . 2… . the groups appear to be least favorably disposed toward the authoritarian technique of decision-making… . 3. When the decision-making procedure is group centered the group reaches a decision involving greater personal risk to the members." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of "real life" assessments of management potential with situational exercises, paper-and-pencil ability tests, and personality inventories.

In a 2-day assessment program evaluated the degree of active participation in the group situational exercises, and administrative and decision-making ability of 47 members of a large national marketing organization. Paper-and-pencil ability tests and personality inventories were less clearly related to assessments of managerial potential. Ratings of management potential developed from a careful review of company personnel records were as highly correlated with the assessment center data as were overall ratings from the 2-day program, except for ratings dealing with interpersonal behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Managerial talent.

"I have come to the conclusion that important to managerial success are the traits of intelligence, supervisory ability, initiative, self-assurance and perceived occupational level." Self-assurance and initiative seem "to be of lesser importance than intelligence, supervisory ability, and perceived occupational level… . Self-realization and autonomy universally are more important to managers than prestige, social satisfactions, and even security." The "substratum of managerial talent is individuality and the desire for self-realization through creative activity." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of the mode of prosthesis control to psychomotor performance of arm amputees.

Comparisons of a "voluntary closing" type of prosthesis control system, for hook and hand prosthetic terminal devices, "were made for a total of 17 amputees, using performance time as a criterion measure on three simple manipulation tests. Amputee preference for various types of device was determined by a questionnaire. The results indicated that the mode of control of the prehension device was unrelated to the criterion measure… preference… is related to other factors than speed… such as mechanical reliability [and]… there is no inherent superiority for either type of control; neither one stands in any natural functional relationship to the shoulder shrug or biceps contraction." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Employee attitudes and employee performance.

An examination is made of the empirical literature bearing upon the relationships between employee attitudes and employee performance. A discussion of methodological questions includes considerations of sampling, of criterion measures, and of general problems of analysis and design. Theoretical considerations include the employee's outside environment, and both union and company structures. Two conclusions are inferred from the literature reviewed: 1. Job satisfaction does not imply strong motivation for outstanding performance; and 2. "… productivity may be only peripherally related to many of the goals toward which the industrial worker is striving." 62 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of education to sex, managerial status, and the managerial stereotype.

Investigated the personality traits of achievement orientation, aggression, dominance, and nurturance, as measured by the Personality Research Form, to analyze sex differences when males and females achieve similar job ranks and educational levels. Ss, matched by organization and department, represented 39 firms and included 66 sets of 4 employees each: a male manager, a female manager, a male nonmanager, and a female nonmanager. Results indicate that education is significantly related to each of the 4 personality traits and interacts with sex for dominance and nurturance. Sex differences for these 2 traits practically disappeared when more educated males and females were compared; the more educated members of both sexes approximated the managerial stereotype. There was no interaction between education and managerial status for any of the personality variables. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of subliminal and supraliminal suggestion on verbal productivity.

"Two experiments were performed to study the effect of subliminal and supraliminal suggestion on productivity… in describing a picture… . [A control] group was given a task of describing in writing a TAT picture presented tachistoscopically 10 times at increasing exposure levels. In the second condition a subliminal stimulus, the words WRITE MORE overlapped with the TAT picture for .02 seconds. In the third condition the subliminal suggestion was DON'T WRITE… . A second experiment was performed to see the effect on productivity of the same suggestions at supraliminal levels… . subliminal suggestion may produce some effect in the region just below threshold. When the suggestion becomes supraliminal its distracting effects causes a contrasuggestive response in some Ss." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Competence and conformity in the acceptance of influence.

"A study was conducted to test the relationship between competence on a group task and conformity or nonconformity to procedural norms in determining a person's ability to influence other group members… . Influence was measured by the number of trials… in which the confederate's recommended solution was accepted as the group's choice… . a significant increase in his influence occurred as the trials progressed… . Past conformity… was also found to be positively and significantly related to the acceptance of his influence… . there was a statistically significant interaction between past and current nonconformity." From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2GE65H. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social reference points and accessibility of trait-related information in self-other similarity judgments.

Two experiments examined latencies of self-other similarity judgments. The judgments were obtained for traits for which self was prototypical, other was prototypical or neither was prototypical. Two question types used were as follows: self-as-referent questions ("How similar is X to you…?") and other-as-referent questions ("How similar are you to X…?"). Judgments were faster for self-prototypical traits than for neither-prototypical traits regardless of the question form. Judgments for other-prototypical traits were faster than judgments for neither-prototypical traits in the case of the other-as-referent questions, but not in the case of self-as-referent questions. Results support the notion that both self and representations of specific others serve as habitual reference points. However, they also suggest that, compared to other social prototypes, self is a more rigid reference point, which is not easily affected by linguistic factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethnocentrism and tolerance of trait "inconsistency."

"This study has investigated the assumptions which two kinds of people make concerning the likelihood that various human traits will occur together… . High and low ethnocentrics do make different assumptions concerning the likelihood that various pairs of human traits will co-occur. Furthermore, the differences… are in the predicted direction: the assumptions which high ethnocentrics make are more closely related to their appraisals of the desirability of the traits." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Analogy in science.

In this address presented at the 63d Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association in 1955: "I am going to talk about… analogy as an instrument in science and to a much lesser extent, some slight traits of analogies between the sciences… ." 5 examples "of the use of analogy in atomic physics" are discussed. "These five examples are not meant to exhaust, but merely to illustrate, the powerful use, the inevitable use, of analogy in a well-developed, in a highly organized, highly-formalized, highly-coherent science." The utility and limitations of analogies in science are considered. A "plea for a plural approach to [scientific] exploration" is expressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of massed practice and thickness of handcoverings on manipulation with gloves.

"This study was designed to evaluate the importance of surface friction and thickness of handcovering materials during prolonged manipulatory performance… . Manipulatory skill was evaluated by three criterion measures: mean prehension force, total number of transports, and mean time per transport. The measures were taken at three-minute intervals. Twenty-four male Ss performed a simple manipulation task of 30 minutes' duration. The Ss were randomly divided into four groups of six Ss each. Each group performed with one type of handcovering only… . All three criterion measures were directly affected by change in surface friction, and to a lesser extent by thickness of the material." Practical implications for the design of protective handgear were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The congruence of projective instruments in personnel assessment.

Projective instruments administered to a group of 63 pharmacists (Patterned Interview, Biographical Summary, Sentence Completion Test, and abbreviated TAT) were both ranked and rated by 3 analysts. Inter-instrument congruences were computed from both the rankings and the ratings. "The agreement found… is sufficiently acceptable to proceed with a study of the validity of our conclusions… . These results have been obtained on a [highly homogeneous] sample." 15 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The five-factor model of personality and managerial performance: Validity gains through the use of 360 degree performance ratings.

This study investigated the usefulness of the five-factor model (FFM) of personality in predicting two aspects of managerial performance (task vs. contextual) assessed by utilizing the 360 degree performance rating system. The authors speculated that one reason for the low validity of the FFM might be the failure of single-source (e.g., supervisor) ratings to comprehensively capture the construct of managerial performance. The operational validity of personality was found to increase substantially (50%–74%) across all of the FFM personality traits when both peer and subordinate ratings were added to supervisor ratings according to the multitrait–multimethod approach. Furthermore, the authors responded to the recent calls to validate tests via a multivariate (e.g., multitrait–multimethod) approach by decomposing overall managerial performance into task and contextual performance criteria and by using multiple rating perspectives (sources). Overall, this study contributes to the evidence that personality may be even more useful in predicting managerial performance if the performance criteria are less deficient. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived differences in task competence and asymmetry of dyadic influence.

A "task, in which perceptions of differential task competence were induced, was followed by the… task of judging the magnitudes of 100 stimuli… . [The] induction of perceptions of differential prior task competence failed to produce a significant degree of asymmetry of influence during the subsequent task… . [A] second experiment was designed and conducted. The prior task was replaced by one of greater similarity to the subsequent task, and instructions were rewritten in order to emphasize this similarity… . [This] yielded a highly significant degree of asymmetry of influence. It is concluded that perceived task competence is an important determinant of the amount and direction of social influence, but that its effectiveness depends… on perceived task similarity." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GE05C. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships between self-acceptance and sociometric choice.

"Lipsitt's… [see 34: 4134] Self-Concept and Ideal-Self scales and two Sociometric scales were given to fourth, sixth, and eighth grade subjects… Acceptance of others, acceptance by others, and acceptance by best friends were curvilinearly related to self-concept scores… . trends were not significantly different in different grades or sexes… . Acceptance by others was more strongly related to self-concept than was acceptance by best friends… . The sociometric measures were not significantly related to the discrepancy between ideal-self and self-concept scores suggesting that the discrepancy score obtained by subtraction may not be a valid measure of self-acceptance." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4FF72R. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)