<p>AbstractBIEDERMAN, JULIE LYNNE. The Dimensionality of Work-Related Needs and Work Reinforcers. (Under the direction of J.W. CUNNINGHAM.)Even though there have been many approaches to the study of the person-environment (P-E) fit, little research is available that makes it possible to systematically compare work-related needs and work-reinforcers across various instruments. Research suggests that the traditional concept of commensurate measurement may not be feasible at the item or scale level (Shubsachs, Round, & Lofquist, 1978; Rounds, Dawis, & Lofquist, 1987). This study investigated and compared the factor structures of four self-report inventories (measuring work-related needs) and three job-rating inventories (measuring work reinforcers) in a search for some common dimensionality among instruments. The underlying structures of the self-report and job-rating inventories were established and compared through three groups of analyses. In the first group, multitrait-multimethod analyses of correlation coefficients offered support for the convergent and discriminant validity of eight matched factors common to two or more self-report inventories. In the second group, multitrait-multimethod analyses of congruence coefficients supported three common constructs among the job-rating inventories. In the final group of comparative analyses, six common factors were identified across the self-report and job-rating inventories.Although the number of factors differed among the analyses, subsequent categorical groupings of factors seemed to offer a parsimonious and meaningful model for comparing self-report and job-rating inventories. The three identified categories were Existence, Relatedness, and Growth, as presented in Alderfer's (1969) E.R.G. theory of work motivation. In the future, these categories could prove useful in commensurate measurement and P-E fitting. Practical implications and suggestions for future research are addressed. <P>

<p> The purpose of the following study was to assess college students' perceptions of sexual abstinence and to determine their likelihood of refraining from sexual behaviors in the future. Research conducted by Horan, Hagan, and Phillips (1998) indicates a need to clearly communicate to students what is meant by the term "abstinence," since a significant proportion of young adults appear to consider risky sexual behaviors as "abstinent." In the present study, using an anonymous self-report survey, students enrolled in various psychology courses at North Carolina State University were asked to report their previous sexual behavior, identify those behaviors they believe constituted sexual abstinence, and predict the likelihood that they will abstain from sexual intercourse in a one year period. The results suggest that there is a discrepancy between the CDC's definition of abstinence and college students' interpretation of this practice. This is especially true for behaviors related to oral sex. Implications of the research are provided.<P>

<p>The effects of changes in elevation, route distance, route complexity, and non-spatial information on memory for a virtual environment were investigated. Thirty college students learned the layout of a two-story virtual environment through a series of navigation tasks. Participants were required to learn the route from a starting point to each of 14 rooms in the environment. After completing six blocks of learning trials, the participants estimated route distances and directions, completed a priming task in which they identified the floor that each room was on, and navigated novel routes that were not traversed in the learning trials. The results indicated that the elevation, route distance, and route complexity, affected both learning and memory for the environment. In contrast, non-spatial information had no effect on memory for room location or the layout of the virtual environment.<P>

<p>MEASUREING VISUAL SEARCH REACTION TIME AND ACCURACY FOR A PRODUCT LABELWARNING AS A FUNCTION OF ICON, COLOR, COLUMN, AND VERTICAL PLACEMENT<p>SWINDELL, JULIE ANN <p>Abstract<br> There is a large body of work written on how to design effectivewarnings. Within an information-processing perspective, before a warning can be heeded it must be noticed,read, understood, retained, retrieved at the appropriate time, and acted upon. If a warning is not noticed (thefirst step in the process), the linear sequence is broken and compliance behavior is much less likely to result.This study examined factors that might facilitate the noticeability of a warning in a simulated product label. Thefactors examined were icon, signal word color and placement. The experiment examined a 5 icon x 3 color x 2column x 3 placement design. Participants were to decide which of two warnings was present in a given labeland reaction time was measured. Afterwards, participants were asked to order the 16 label conditions fromthe most- to least-noticeable warnings. The results showed icon/signal word pairs presented in red or bluewere found significantly faster than those presented in black although red was not significantly greater thanblue. All icon conditions showed significantly faster reaction times than when the icon was absent, althoughthere were differences found between the icon conditions. Warnings in the left column were found significantlyfaster than those in the right column. Those warnings located at the top of the column were significantly fasterthan those located in the middle or at the bottom of a column, although no significant difference was foundbetween the latter two locations. The addition of color or icon overrode any effects of column or placement.The results of this study suggest that minor changes to a fairly extensive warning label such as the addition of anicon or color, could greatly improve warning noticeability. <P>

<p>ABSTRACTMURPHY, KRISTIN FREUND. An examination of factors affecting the accuracy, reliability and validity of job analysis task ratings. (Under the direction of Mark A. Wilson.) This study examined several issues related to evaluating job analysis information. The first issue concerned the relationship between job analysis reliability and accuracy and the utilization of these variables to gain an estimation of job analysis validity. In this study, the performance on reliability and accuracy indices was compared to determine the extent to which such indices identify a consistent set of reliable and accurate raters. Similar to Green and Stutzman (1986), this study also compared the rating profile of the selected accurate and reliable raters with that of the entire rater population. The second issue concerned the impact of other individual differences concerning job tenure and experience on the validity of job analysis ratings. In addition, the effect of individual rater's fatigue may have on job analysis reliability was explored. Finally, the study addressed whether the distinction between in-role and extra-role behavior may help explain some of the variance in job analysis ratings. Thus, the study examined whether the nature of the task has any impact on job analysis reliability or accuracy. A significant relationship was found between reliability and accuracy. Highest mean reliabilities were found for the reliable raters as compared to accurate raters and the incumbent population. Thus, the impact of the reliability of raters on the validity of the instrument was demonstrated. A correlation analysis among reliability and accuracy scores and individual difference variables revealed a significant negative correlation between reliability and organization tenure. No significant relationships were found between education and reliability scores or between education and accuracy scores. An analysis of reliability over the course of a job analysis inventory showed that mean reliabilities trend downwards initially and slope slightly back upwards. The downwards trend may suggest that fatigue impacts the reliability of the rater over time. The sudden change in trend could indicate that point at which incumbents changed survey format (from computer to paper-pencil or vice-versa). Lastly, nature of the task appears have an impact on reliability of job analysis ratings as in-role task mean reliabilities were higher than extra-mean reliabilities. In sum, this study sought to explain the potential impact of the factors of accuracy, reliability, individual differences and the nature of the task on the validity of job analysis ratings. This study expands the knowledge base concerning inter-relationship among these factors and the extent to which this knowledge could lead to a model of selecting accurate and reliable job analysis subject matter experts (SMEs).<P>

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<p>ABSTRACTEATON, KIMBERLY LINHART. Family expressiveness and emotion understanding: A meta-analysis of one aspect of parental emotion socialization. (Under the direction of Amy G. Halberstadt.)Associations between family styles of expressing emotion and children?s skill in understanding emotion were examined using a meta-analytic strategy for synthesizing the studies in this area. Moderating variables of emotion valence, age group, and measurement independence in the relationship between family expressiveness and outcomes in children were measured, as well as differences in the operationalization of expressiveness, understanding, who is the ?family?, and other research design elements. Parents? overall expressiveness and negative-submissive expressiveness exhibited a significant negative relationship with children?s emotion understanding over age. Negative family expressiveness and children?s emotion understanding tended to be curvilinearly related across age (an inverted U-shaped relationship). Explanations for these relations and future goals for research are discussed.<P>

<p>Recently, pharmaceutical manufacturers have begun using direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements to convey prescription medication information directly to consumers. The current research explores several factors that may influence the communication of risk and benefit information in DTC advertisements on the World Wide Web (WWW). Specifically, this study focused on the effects of integrating and separating risk and benefit information at different levels of a DTC prescription medication advertisement web site hierarchy. The study also examined how risk/benefit information placement was affected by a user?s information processing objective (IPO) or task type. IPO was manipulated by requiring participants to either perform a general browsing task or a search and find task. To extend the generalizability of the results, two prescription medication DTC advertisement web sites were used in the study.<p>Risk and benefit recall, recognition, time-on-task, amount of information found, web site click rates, and risk-noticability ratings were measured to compare the effects of integrating and separating the risk and benefit information on the same web page and on different web pages at different levels of a DTC medication advertisement web site, task type, and drug.<p>Results from the current study indicated that risk and benefit information was found faster, with less clicks, and remembered more often when it is placed higher in the web site hierarchy, and presented in separate sections. The pattern of results for the two tasks used in the current study was similar and no significant differences were found between the two drugs. Participant ratings indicated a strong preference for risk information placed separate from other information on the home page. Finally, participants who were more experienced with surfing the web and online shopping tended to have better performance scores.<p>The results suggest that the current U.S. Federal regulations regarding DTC prescription medication advertisements, that require a balanced presentation of risk and benefit information, do not account for the effects of other variables such as information accessibility and placement. The lack of information placement guidelines can result in risk and benefit information placement on DTC prescription medication web sites that hinder a consumer's ability to find and read important drug information.<p>Finally, the study provides a list of guidelines that can be used in the development of a DTC prescription medication web site: present separate risk and benefit information sections; present risk and benefits on the top half of a drug's home page; if required, place the risks on a second level page with a prominent link placed in the top half of a drug's home page; consistently place important drug information across web site advertisements; use simple wording and grammar to describe important information; employ basic web usability techniques to evaluate the design of all prescription medication web sites to ensure that important drug information is easily noticed, read, and remembered.<P>

<p>Conjoint behavioral consultation, an extension of traditional behavioral consultation, is a relatively new model of structured problem-solving. No published study exists that systematically examines the relationship between process and outcome variables in CBC. In an effort to expand on the process-outcome research in traditional behavioral consultation, a relational communication perspective was adopted to examine the presence of relational control in CBC and its relationship to outcomes. CBC was initiated for 20 clients who were elementary and middle school students identified as having a disability such as behavioral or learning disorders. Consultants were 16 advanced graduate students trained in CBC, and consultees were 23 school-based professionals and 20 parents. Consultant, teacher, and parent control was measured within the Conjoint Problem Identification Interview of each case using the Family Relational Communication Control Coding System (Heatherington & Friedlander, 1987). This coding system, an extension of the Rogers and Farace (1975) Relational Coding System, allows for patterns of relational control regarding the process of consultation to be examined. For each speaker, two measures of relational control were calculated, domineeringness and dominance. Domineeringness is the number of one-up messages by speaker A divided by the total number of messages for speaker A. Dominance is the number of one-up messages by speaker A responded to with one-down messages by speaker B. Outcomes were assessed at the conclusion of CBC regarding the acceptability of CBC, consultant effectiveness, and client improvement. Correlational results suggest that parent control (i.e., dominance) toward the consultant is associated with less favorable teacher ratings regarding model acceptability, r(19) = -49, p = .01, and less favorable parent ratings of client improvement, r(14) = -61, p = .01. Additionally, parent-to-teacher control was associated with less favorable parent ratings of client improvement, r(14) = -58, p = .01. In contrast to behavioral consultation's focus on teacher behavior, the results of this study suggest that greater importance should be paid to parent relational control with respect to outcomes of CBC.<P>

<p>Research and case studies have emphasized the role Early Adopters play (as gatekeepers and disseminators) in the diffusion of new technologies and innovations (Rogers & Cartano, 1962; Robertson, 1971; Rogers, 1983; Flynn & Goldsmith 1993). Marketers have acknowledge the need to identify, profile, utilize and potentially influence Early Adopters to successfully launch a new product or service (Robinson, 1988). This research assists with identifying the salient characteristics of Early Adopters (those with a high predisposition towards innovativeness) of wireless phone features and services. The findings provide a framework for future identification of Early Adopters within the wireless market, as well as, contributing to the study of Early Adopters in general.The research utilized a random sample of 3,045 wireless phone users within an eleven state calling area. Each user completed a detailed survey regarding telecommunication needs, usage and attitudes. Basic demographics, psychographics and lifestyle measures were also collected from each user.An adapted cross-sectional measure of innovativeness (Midgely & Dowling 1978) based on prior wireless phone features and services adoption behavior, was used to identify a predisposition towards innovativeness, with regard to wireless features and services. Past research has identified the cross-sectional innovativeness measure as viable surrogate of adoption behavior (Stanton, 1999). A strong relationship was observed between traditional time-of-adoption measures and the cross-sectional innovativeness measures, within this analysis.The cross-sectional innovativeness measure was utilized as the dependent measure for the analysis. Two dependent variables were constructed from the cross-sectional innovativeness measure. The first dependent variable was a continuous variable, employing the cross-sectional innovativeness measure as a ratio scale variable. The variable provided a distribution from 0 (low innovativeness) to 20 (high innovativeness). The second dependent variable was a categorical variable that divided the cross-sectional innovativeness measure into to three distinct categories of adoption, similar to the adoption categories identified by Rogers (1983) in his definitive book Diffusion of Innovations. Similarly, the categories were labeled as Early Adopters, Middle Majority and Later Adopters.Three sets of independent variables were developed, based on past research findings concerning Early Adopters of the technology market and available measures found in the study questionnaire. The first set of independent variables, Demographics (Model 1), included the following predictor variables: age, marital status, education, household income, children in the household and home ownership. The second set of independent variables, Psychographics (Model 2), included self-perceived attitudes towards opinion leadership and risk taking/venturesomeness. The third set of independent variables combined both of the Demographics and Psychographics variables into one comprehensive set.In general the results of the study support many of the hypothesis posed. Few exceptions were noted. Early Adopters of the wireless market tended to be younger, more likely to be single, college educated, with higher household incomes, with fewer children, less likely to be owners of their primary residence, more likely to perceive themselves as opinion leaders, as well as having positive attitudes towards risk taking/venturesomeness. Analysis of the independent models, utilizing regression coefficients and uniqueness indices for the continuous dependent variable, and the proportional chance criteria and Press?s Q for the categorical dependent variable, pointed to the Demographics and Psychographics (Model 3) as the strongest model (followed by the Demographics (Model 1)). Age and income variables (followed by Opinion Leadership) provided the greatest contribution to the explanatory power of the independent models.The findings aid with present and future diffusion of wireless technologies, including wireless e-mail, wireless internet access and M-commerce, as well as other categories such as telecom and the technology market in general. The analysis marks the first step in a process of identifying, profiling, utilizing and potentially influencing Early Adopters of the wireless technology market.<P>