Supervisory ratings and attitudes.

Do supervisors tend to be biased in their ranking and rating of workers? 42 janitors were ranked and rated by 4 supervisors and rated by the division chief. The highest and lowest were compared by 10 factor scores. "Supervisors of our hospital maintenance men valued most the abilities least prevalent in the men (leadership and executive ability) and valued least the attributes most abundant in these men (social adjustment and personal charm). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of student and instructor educational orientations with course ratings.

In a study with 359 undergraduates and 9 university faculty members, student and instructor educational orientations were examined in relation to course ratings in 9 classes. With 4 rating dimension scales (i.e., Teacher–Student Relationships, Course Objectives and Organization, Quality of Lectures, and Quality of Reading Assignments—Student Instructional Report), multiple regression analyses yielded an overall R–2 of 10 to 28%; instructor orientations were relatively more useful than student orientations in the regression equations. Spearman rhos between a measure of class–instructor orientation disparity and ratings were not significant. However, the negative sign of these coefficients is consistent with the congruence hypothesis of a person–environment interaction model. Discussion centers on the need for further study of student and instructor orientations and their "fit" in relation to outcomes for students. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between organizational context and job analysis task ratings.

This research examined whether differences among job incumbents in their task ratings could be attributed to systematic as well as random variation. Data collected from 83 respondents showed that there was a significant degree of interrater agreement regarding task importance but not for ratings of task time spent. Moreover, measures of job context were significantly correlated with ratings of time spent but not task importance. These results suggest that within-job variation among raters can have both systematic and random components. Thus, practitioners should collect data on the job context as well as on incumbents' demographic characteristics and experience. Personnel practices based on task analyses may need to be examined to ensure that they are compatible with local variation in the job. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between student attitudes about cooperation and competition and attitudes toward schooling.

Responses to the Minnesota School Affect Assessment made by approximately 2,400 students in grades 2-12 of a midwestern school district were submitted to correlational analyses of relationships between scales measuring attitudes toward cooperation and competition and scales measuring attitudes toward school personnel, motivation to learn, involvement in learning, self-worth as student, other students, and restraints on student behavior. Attitudes toward cooperation and competition were virtually independent across grades. Cooperativeness was consistently related to a broad range of positive attitudes toward schooling experience at all grade levels. Competitiveness changed its pattern of correlates, showing relationships to several positive attitudes only in high school. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between individual attitudes toward life and death.

Administered the Purpose in Life Test and Lester's Fear of Death Scale to 80 college and 40 high school students. Significant negative correlations between the 2 measures support Frankl's notion that the meaning of life is enhanced as one finds meaning in suffering and death. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between psychosocial adjustment and perception of maternal attitudes.

Divided a sample of 26 adult male hemophiliacs into 2 groups on the basis of their psychosocial adjustment. The poorly adjusted group rated their mothers as significantly higher in tendencies toward dominating overprotecting, and ignoring their children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between White racial identity attitudes and self-reported multicultural counseling competencies.

Tested a multicultural competency training model's hypothesis that counseling students' White racial identity development strongly influences their attainment of multicultural counseling competencies (H. B. Sabnani et al; see record 1991-16743-001). 128 White counseling graduate students completed measures of White racial identity development and self-reported multicultural counseling competencies. Students' White racial identity development, educational level, and clinical experience demonstrated moderate correlations with multicultural competencies. Regression analyses indicated that racial identity attitudes explained variability in competencies beyond that accounted for by demographic, educational, and clinical variables. Results suggest that racial identity attitude development should be considered an integral component in the planning of multicultural counseling training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between job attitudes and two forms of withdrawal from the work situation.

Correlated attitudes concerning the job in general and specific aspects of the work situation with termination decisions and recorded frequency of absences during the year following administration of job attitude questionnaire to 160 nonsupervisory female employees. Overall satisfaction and satisfaction with several intrinsic aspects of the work situation were significantly related to the termination criterion. None of the extrinsic variables were related. For the frequency of absence criterion, attitudes toward specific aspects of the work situation showed no consistent relationships when nonattitudinal variables were partialed out, but overall satisfaction was significantly related. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Feeling-of-knowing ratings distinguish between genuine and simulated forgetting.

Three experiments with 104 undergraduates investigated the relation between genuine and simulated forgetting of a specific episode. Ss who had genuinely forgotten an episode and those who were instructed to simulate forgetting of the same episode made feeling-of-knowing ratings concerning the likelihood that they could remember the episode on their own or in the presence of cues. They also verbalized their thoughts as they attempted for several minutes to recall the forgotten episode. Patterns of feeling-of-knowing ratings made by genuine and simulating Ss were similar in several respects but differed systematically in that simulators consistently expressed less confidence that cues would facilitate retrieval than did genuinely forgetful Ss. A panel of psychologists and psychiatrists who judged verbal protocols of Ss' retrieval attempts could not distinguish between genuine and simulating Ss, even when they expressed certainty that they had. The role of metamnemonic knowledge in attempts to simulate forgetting is discussed. (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student/instructor attitude similarity, student ratings, and course performance.

Investigated the validity of student ratings of instructional effectiveness by exploring the relations among student ratings, course performance, and the perceived attitude similarity of students and their instructors. 349 college students enrolled in 22 classes first rated instructor effectiveness on a 28-item rating form and then rated their own attitudes plus instructor attitudes on an attitude scale adapted from D. Byrne (1971). Another 296 college students enrolled in 19 classes rated instructor effectiveness and then their own attitudes plus instructor attitudes on an attitude scale adapted from F. E. Hofman and L. Kremer (see record 1980-33352-001). For both S groups, official end-of-term grades were also collected. Consistent with prior research, modest correlations were found between student ratings and perceived attitude similarity. There was also a modest relation between similarity and course grades. These relations were greatly reduced (56.2 and 44.5%, respectively) when the large influence of instructors on ratings and achievement was removed. Findings fail to support the claim that perceived attitude similarity is a substantial source of bias in student ratings. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correspondence between neuropsychological and functional ratings of perceptual neglect.

Examined perceptual neglect in 59 stroke patients (mean age 61.9 yrs) as described by neuropsychological assessment (NP) and by occupational therapists' (OT) functional assessment. Results indicate that NP and OT raters agreed on the presence of neglect in the majority (73–80%) of cases, depending on the scale definitons used. In the remaining cases, most discrepancies existed between ratings of no vs mild neglect. At times, neuropsychological assessment both over- and underestimated the degree of neglect cited by OT raters as functional perceptual impairment due to sources of possible error or bias. The need for and value of efforts to describe the neuropsychological impairments associated with observed functional deficits are highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison between ipsative and normative ratings of personality.

This is a report of results of 2 studies in which ipsative ratings, treated normatively, were correlated with corresponding normative ratings in a test of the functional equivalence of the 2 forms of measurement. "Both analyses showed an almost complete equivalence between the 2 methods. A possible reason for this relationship was discussed and some of the advantages of the ipsative approach presented." The opinion that a number of current rating and assessment procedures bear revision in light of these findings was offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between U.S. News and World Report's and the National Research Council's ratings/rankings of psychology departments.

Every year, U.S. News and World Report (USNEWS) creates a stir among academics and the public by publishing its ranking of universities and various departments within those universities. Although members of the public rely on the USNEWS rankings when making their academic choices, psychologists and other academics tend to rely on the National Research Council (NRC) report to differentiate various academic departments. Given the concerns about the scientific merit of the USNEWS rankings, the authors gathered some empirical information about the correlates of the USNEWS department ratings/rankings. They address the following questions in this comment: How similar are the ratings/rankings from USNEWS and the NRC? Are the USNEWS and NRC ratings/rankings related to other indices of department quality? Finally, what do these correlations say about the utility of these two rating systems? The authors believe that this comparison provides an initial exploration of the meaningfulness of two resources that are heavily relied on by the public and academia. The authors found that although they expected a positive correlation between the NRC and USNEWS rankings, they did not expect the magnitude of the relationship to be so substantial. Further, both of these measures exhibited significant and substantial relationships with two other NRC criteria of department effectiveness and several weaker but clearly nontrivial relationships with the APA graduate student data. At the very least, the present results do not support the belief of some academics that the USNEWS ratings/rankings lack scientific merit. Indeed, these results seem to suggest that the USNEWS rankings of psychology departments substantially duplicate the NRC rankings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discrepancy between self- and observer ratings of performance in social phobics.

28 Ss meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III-Revised (DSM-III-R) criteria for social phobia and without comorbid affective disorder and 33 nonclinical controls were asked to present a brief, impromptu speech to a small audience. Speakers themselves, as well as members of the audience, rated each speaker on a public speaking questionnaire that included both specific items (e.g., voice shook) and global items (e.g., appeared confident). For global items, no significant difference was indicated between the 2 groups on observers' ratings of public speaking performance. However, social phobics rated their own performance worse than did nonclinical controls, and there was a significantly greater discrepancy between self and other ratings for social phobics than controls. Fear of negative evaluation was the only significant predictor of the self–other discrepancy on global items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations between infant behavior ratings and concurrent and subsequent mental test scores.

125 Mexican-American infants of lower socioeconomic status were administered the Bayley Scales of Infant Development at 12 and 24 mo of age; 66 of these Ss were later given the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale at 36 mo of age. Results indicate that when behavioral clusters are derived in the fashion used by A. Metheny et al (1974), similar findings emerge from the correlational analyses with the exception of a somewhat higher prediction from Extraversion scores in the present report. When behavioral factors were derived by a principal-components analysis, however, it was found that 5 factors that differed substantially in structure from the composites proposed by Matheny et al emerged from the analysis. Multiple regression analyses revealed that neither the factor scores from the principal components nor the composite scores for Primary Cognition and Extraversion added significantly to the prediction of subsequent Mental Performance beyond what was afforded by 12-mo Bayley Mental Development Index scores. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genetic relationships between personality and eating attitudes and behaviors.

Genetic and environmental factors underlying relationships between personality traits and disordered eating were examined in 256 female adolescent twin pairs (166 monozygotic, 90 dizygotic). Eating behaviors were assessed with the Total Score, Body Dissatisfaction, Weight Preoccupation, Binge Eating, and Compensatory Behavior subscales from the Minnesota Eating Disorders Inventory (M-EDI; K. L. Klump, M. McGue, & W. G. Iacono, 2000). Personality characteristics were assessed with the Negative Emotionality, Positive Emotionality, and Constraint scales from the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire: (MPQ; A. Tellegen, 1982). Model-fitting analyses indicated that although genetic factors were more likely to contribute to MPQ and M-EDI phenotypic associations than environmental factors, shared genetic variance between the 2 phenotypes was limited. MPQ personality characteristics may represent only some of several genetic risk factors for eating pathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reciprocal relation between attitudes and behavior recall: Committing people to newly formed attitudes.

Reports 3 studies that used a total of 195 male and female undergraduates. Exp I showed that shifts in attitude were accompanied by shifts in the recall of the more qualitative rather than quantitative aspects of past behaviors. Exps II and III assessed the effects of recall on Ss' commitment to newly formed attitudes. On the premise that behavior recall is biased so as to be consistent with salient attitudes, it was hypothesized that recall would serve to increase Ss' commitment to their attitudes. In Exp II it was assumed that degree of commitment to an attitude would be reflected in the persistence of the attitude, behavioral intention, and actual behavior. As anticipated, Ss' intentions were more consistent with their attitudes when they had been prompted to recall attitudinally relevant behaviors. However, recall did not affect attitude persistence or actual behavior. In Exp III, commitment was measured by resistance to an attack on an attitude. Ss were more likely to maintain an attitude in the face of an attack if they had been induced to recall attitudinally relevant behaviors. The data support the hypothesis that attitudes can affect recall, which in turn affects commitment to the attitudes. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of supervisor and trainee gender to in-session verbal behavior and ratings of trainee skills.

This study of 44 supervision dyads investigated the effects of supervisor and trainee gender on the verbal interactions of participants and on their perceptions of trainee skill levels. Supervisor and trainee utterances were coded as being relationship or task focused. Male supervisors paired with male trainees engaged in more task-oriented discourse than did other dyad configurations. In other analyses, gender did not affect which party exerted more effect on the structure of the interactions. Finally, no significant differences were found in how male and female trainees rated their own skill levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An examination of the relationship between the accuracy and favorability of ratings.

Administered a scale to 68 senior marketing students, who rated the prospecting ability of a life insurance agent on 7 videotaped telephone approaches. 3 randomly selected subgroups were given different background information about the agent. It was found that induced mental sets varied significantly in terms of favorability. A differential accuracy phenomenon (dap) was the only significant source of variance. However, neither the dap nor the overall accuracy of ratings was related to the favorability of s's general impression of the ratee. Findings make suspect the current practice of operationalizing leniency error by means of the average level of favorability of global ratings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)