The moderating impact of sex on the equity–satisfaction relationship: A field study.

Explored whether males' satisfaction with an exchange relationship is more dependent on the equity of that relationship, relative to females'. 26 male and 25 female members of 1 of 3 business lead and referral clubs (1 all female, 1 primarily male, and 1 approximately equal in males and females) rated their own and others' inputs and outcomes into the exchange relationship, as well as their satisfaction with the relationship. Results indicate that satisfaction was lower in a negatively inequitable than equitable relationship and slightly lower in an equitable than positively inequitable relationship. As predicted, the relationship of equity and satisfaction was considerably more pronounced for male than female club members. Further analyses revealed that the equity-satisfaction relationship was especially (a) pronounced for males in the primarily male group and (b) weak for females in an all-female group. The latter findings suggest that the salience of the equity norm may be a joint function of the sex of both members of an exchange relationship. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When do procedural fairness and outcome fairness interact to influence employees’ work attitudes and behaviors? The moderating effect of uncertainty.

Prior research has shown that procedural fairness interacts with outcome fairness to influence employees’ work attitudes (e.g., organizational commitment) and behaviors (e.g., job performance, organizational citizenship behavior), such that employees’ tendencies to respond more positively to higher procedural fairness are stronger when outcome fairness is relatively low. In the present studies, we posited that people’s uncertainty about their standing as organizational members would have a moderating influence on this interactive relationship between procedural fairness and outcome fairness, in that the interactive relationship was expected to be more pronounced when uncertainty was high. Using different operationalizations of uncertainty of standing (i.e., length of tenure as a proxy, along with self-reports and coworkers’ reports), we found support for this hypothesis in 4 field studies spanning 3 different countries. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

It's Different to Give Than to Receive: Predictors of Givers' and Receivers' Reactions to Favor Exchange.

The present research examines episodes of favor exchange among peer employees. We posit that favor receivers' and favor givers' commitment to their exchange relationships with one another will be accounted for by different factors. As predicted, in 2 different organizational contexts, receivers' commitment to their relationships with givers was found to be more related to their judgments of the givers' interactional justice when performing the favor, whereas givers' commitment to their relationships with receivers was shown to be more associated with their judgments of the favorability of the outcomes associated with the favor that they performed. The implications of these findings for how givers and receivers can better manage favor exchange, and hence their relationships with each other, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward an explanation of cultural differences in in-group favoritism: The role of individual versus collective primacy.

Previous research conducted on a Western sample has shown that people are less apt to exhibit in-group favoritism when they perform well individually while their in-group performs poorly. The authors evaluated whether this finding would be moderated by the cultural dimension of individual–collective primacy, which refers to whether people give more weight to their personal interests rather than their in-group's interests when forced to choose between the two. The authors hypothesized that relative to their counterparts from the United States, participants from the People's Republic of China would have more of a collective-primacy orientation and therefore would exhibit more in-group favoritism when they performed well individually while their in-group performed poorly. The results supported the hypothesis. Implications for the literatures on in-group favoritism and cross-cultural differences are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again: Effects of persistence-performance contingencies, ego involvement, and self-esteem on task persistence.

We explored some of the factors affecting individuals' decisions to persist with a course of action. A total of 60 graduate students of varying levels of chronic self-esteem worked at a task that contained several insoluble problems (unbeknownst to the participants). One half were informed beforehand that the nature of the task was such that persistence was a wise strategy for task completion (continuous condition), whereas the remaining half were informed that the nature of the task was such that persistence was a less prudent strategy (discrete condition). Also, one half were told that their task performance was very revealing of their personality and aptitude levels (high-involvement condition), whereas the remaining half were informed that their task performance was nonrevealing of themselves (low-involvement condition). Subjects exhibited greater persistence in the continuous than discrete condition; the continuous–discrete difference was much greater in the high-involvement than low-involvement condition; and the continuous–discrete information had a greater impact on the degree of persistence exhibited by high than low self-esteem subjects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The roles of self-esteem and self-consciousness in the Wortman-Brehm model of reactance and learned helplessness.

Studied the conditions under which failure would enhance or inhibit subsequent task performance. Based on the theory of C. B. Wortman and J. W. Brehm (1975), it was expected that small amounts of failure would produce reactance (manifested by improved performance at a subsequent task); large amounts would lead to learned helplessness (i.e., impaired later performance). It was further expected that individual differences in self-esteem and private self-consciousness would serve as moderator variables for the effects. In Exp I, 78 college students were exposed to either a small amount or no failure before working on an anagrams task. As predicted, Ss high in self-consciousness, who showed greater reactance arousal in attitude change studies, performed better on the anagrams task than Ss low in self-consciousness in the small-failure condition, but not in the no-failure condition. In Exp II, 119 Ss were pretreated with either a small amount of failure, an extended amount of failure, or no failure before working on the task. A significant Self-Esteem by Helplessness Training interaction emerged. Low self-esteem Ss (low SEs) performed marginally better than did high SEs in the small-failure condition but significantly worse than high SEs in the extended-failure condition. Questionnaire data from Exp II were consistent with the notion that enhanced performance reflected reactance, whereas impaired performance signified helplessness. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An integrative framework for explaining reactions to decisions: Interactive effects of outcomes and procedures.

The authors suggest that procedural and distributive factors interactively combine to influence individuals' reactions to their encounters with other people, groups, and organizations. Results from 45 independent samples (reviewed herein) show that (1) level of procedural justice is more positively related to individuals' reactions when outcome fairness or valence is relatively low and (2) level of outcome fairness or valence is more positively related to individuals' reactions when procedural justice is relatively low. They present various explanations of the interaction effect. Theoretical progress may be achieved through future efforts to delineate the conditions under which each of the explanations is more versus less likely to account for the interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychology of voice and performance capabilities in masculine and feminine cultures and contexts.

In this article, we examine the hypothesis that in masculine cultures or in other contexts that emphasize competitive achievement, those with higher performance capabilities will feel empowered to have input in decisions and, hence, will desire opportunities to voice their opinions about decisions to be made. In contrast, in more feminine cultures or in other contexts that value the importance of nurturing people with lower capability, those with lower capabilities will feel valued as important group members, will feel worthy of receiving voice and, hence, will appreciate voice opportunities. We provide evidence for these predictions in 2 studies, 1 conducted in the United States (a more masculine culture) and 1 in the Netherlands (a more feminine culture). Evidence also comes from experimental conditions in both studies, in which we made salient to participants countercultural norms and values, that is, nurturing the less capable in the United States and competitive achievement in the Netherlands. Implications for the psychology of voice and cross-cultural research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interactive effect of job content and context on the reactions of layoff survivors.

A field survey and laboratory experiment examined the determinants of survivors' reactions to job layoffs. Independent variables included (1) change in the perceived intrinsic quality of the content of survivors' jobs relative to before the layoffs and (2) context favorability, as determined by (a) the perceived fairness of the layoffs and (b) survivors' perceptions of their co-workers' reactions to the layoffs. Both studies revealed similiar Job Content?×?Context interaction effects on the primary dependent variable of commitment: Change in job content was more strongly (positively) related to survivors' organizational and task commitment when the context was more favorable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of self-esteem, success–failure, and self-consciousness on task performance.

Research has demonstrated that task performance of low self-esteem individuals (low SEs) suffers in the presence of self-focusing stimuli (e.g., a mirror). The present study determined if such stimuli must inevitably have adverse effects on low SEs. It was reasoned that if low SEs were provided with success feedback from a previous task, then the nature of their self-consciousness would be altered on a subsequent task. Specifically, low SEs should attend more to positive and less anxiety-provoking aspects of themselves than would low SEs who received failure feedback from the previous task. Under the former condition, low SEs' subsequent task performance was expected to improve. For high SEs, who typically perform well, success–failure feedback was expected to have little effect on subsequent performance. 90 undergraduates high and low in chronic self-esteem received false success or failure feedback from a task and completed a concept formation task in either the presence or absence of a mirror. Whereas high SEs performed equally well following success or failure, low SEs in the success condition performed significantly better than low SEs in the failure condition. This Self-Esteem?×?Prior Feedback interaction was significant in the presence of the mirror but not its absence. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)