The shifting basis of life satisfaction judgments across cultures: Emotions versus norms.

The relative importance of emotions versus normative beliefs for life satisfaction judgments was compared among individualist and collectivist nations in 2 large sets of international data (in total, 61 nations, N?=?62,446). Among nations, emotions and life satisfaction correlated significantly more strongly in more individualistic nations (r?=?.52 in Study 1; r?=?.48 in Study 2). At the individual level, emotions were far superior predictors of life satisfaction to norms (social approval of life satisfaction) in individualist cultures, whereas norms and emotions were equally strong predictors of life satisfaction in collectivist cultures. The present findings have implications for future studies on cultural notions of well-being, the functional value of emotional experiences, and individual differences in life satisfaction profiles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Team creativity as a function of the creativity of the members.

The relationship between team performance and individual abilities was studied with creative tasks. Data from 3 experiments are presented which indicate that the conclusions of other investigators, who used manual dexterity and cognitive tasks, can be applied to creative tasks. Up to about 70% of the variance in dyadic creativity may be predicted from the individual creative abilities of the 2 members. Multiple correlations for the prediction of group performance from the knowledge of the abilities of the members did not improve when the interaction between the ability scores was considered. In 1 experiment, in which the procedure permitted the determination of the relative "dominance" of the 2 Ss, the correlations of the abilities of the dominant Ss with group performance were higher than the correlations of the abilities of nondominant Ss with group performance. The study is a 1st step towards the determination of the relationship of group and individual performance in groups composed of more than 2 individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive similarity and interpersonal communication in industry.

Does cognitive similarity affect the process of interpersonal communication? "One hundred and fifty-five Ss responded to 12 triads of jobs and 12 triads of people. The Ss were asked to state 'Which job (person) is more different from the other two?' and 'Why' The responses of subordinates and supervisors to these triads were compared by two judges. If the responses were judged to be similar the index of categoric similarity of the pair was high. The same Ss were asked to rate five jobs and six people on specially constructed semantic differentials. Similarity of the 'semantic profiles' obtained indicated high syndetic similarity between a boss and a subordinate. Successive intervals scales on perceived communication effectiveness and liking within the boss-subordinate pair were constructed. Correlational analysis and analyses of variance showed an association between categoric similarity based on people and syndetic similarity based on jobs and communication effectiveness and liking within the pair. This is considered evidence supporting the hypothesis that cognitive similarity is a significant variable in interpersonal communication and liking." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ecosystem distrust and the hard-to-employ.

Conducted a study of samples of blacks and whites, males and females, young and old, hardcore unemployed, and working- and middle-class individuals to investigate "ecosystem distrust." The term is defined as a distrust of people, things, and institutions in one's environment. The components include less trust in people, suspicion of the motives of others, rejection of authority figures and institutions of the establishment, and seeing the environment as malevolent. Consistency was obtained across a heterogeneous set of questions, suggesting the presence of ecosystem distrust among the black hard-core. The implications of these findings for training the hard-to-employ and their supervisors are discussed. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multimethod probes of individualism and collectivism.

A theoretical framework concerning cultural patterns labeled individualism and collectivism is probed. As predicted, it is shown that the content of the self includes more group-linked elements in collectivist than in individualist cultures; members of collectivist cultures perceive their ingroups as more homogeneous than their outgroups, and the opposite pattern is found among members of individualistic cultures; and people in collectivist cultures perceive more intimate and subordinate social behaviors as likely toward their ingroup members and more dissociative and superordinate behaviors toward members of their outgroups than do members of individualistic cultures. Collectivists emphasize values that promote the welfare of their ingroup, whereas individualists emphasize values that promote individual goals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual models of social behavior.

Presents a technique that extracts individual models of social behavior. Such models reflect each individual's ideas about what social behaviors are interrelated, and what aspects of social situations are linked to different levels of probability that particular patterns of social behavior will occur. The method was used in 2 studies, one with bicultural Ss (1 American, 6 Latin Americans, 2 Hong Kong Chinese, and 1 Greek) and the other with 22 monocultural Mexican and Chinese Ss and 8 of the bilinguals from the 1st study. For each S, factor analysis of the judgments concerning the probability of occurrence of specific social behaviors in specific social situations provided information of how the S linked social behaviors. ANOVA on the factor scores provided information about the S's beliefs concerning how attributes of social situations are linked to social behaviors. Inspection of the individual models of social behavior indicated that some common elements across models are probably linked to culture. The technique has wide applicability for social and personality psychology because it permits idiographic comparison of models of social behavior across individuals who share some attribute. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive interaction in person perception.

A review of the evidence concerning Osgood's congruity principle (CP) and a test of this principle with 78 Greek and 91 Illinois Ss suggest that the principle does not predict the perception of complex stimulus persons as well as a derivation from Fishbein's theory. Semantic differential (SD) judgments using concepts such as, Portuguese, Negro, Coal Miner, Same Religion As You, as well as SD judgments of the components entering these concepts, constituted the basic data. CP predictions and the obtained SD judgments of the complex stimuli correlated highly and significantly, but the judgments of the occupation of the complex stimuli correlated even more highly with the obtained SD judgments of the complex stimuli. A measure derived from Fishbein's theory correlated more highly with the judgments of the complex stimuli than the occupation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Categories of thought of managers, clerks, and workers about jobs and people in an industry.

What effect does the use of categories by various groups have on communication? What can be gained by analyzing categories of thought about jobs and people in industry? "Triads of jobs and people were presented to 105 Ss. The Ss were managers, clerks, and workers in a small New York State industrial concern. The Ss were asked 'Which one of these three jobs (people) is more different from the other two?' and 'Why?' The characteristics that differentiated one member of the triad from the other members were listed. Certain differences in the lists obtained from the various groups were observed. An attempt was made to assess the significance of these differences for inter-group communications in industry." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A critique and experimental design for the study of the relationship between productivity and job satisfaction.

"It is argued that the present approach to the study of the relationship between employee output and job satisfaction is not fruitful. What is needed is an examination of the characteristics of workers who are operating at a satisfactory level of both output and job satisfaction with workers and groups of workers who are not operating at such a level. A procedure is described which will permit the location of the workers who are operating at this 'optimal' level." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)