The present study was designed to gain more perspective on human aggression and how sports media violence affects aggression levels. Anderson (1997) defined aggression as behavior that is intended to harm others or one's self. Anderson (2001) defined media violence as a portrayal of intentional harmful behavior directed at another person or the self. To define sports aggression, the definition of aggression must be manipulated slightly. The definition should be changed to a form of behavior intended to injure, whether or not an actual injury occurs, directed at an opposing team or opposing player to gain an advantage during the progression of play. An example of this would be trying to hurt a key player of the opposing team so that this player can no longer perform at a level expected of him by others. This definition does not include aggressive behavior toward people watching the game or officials during the game. It only pertains to playeron-player aggression and those actions taken that are allowed with in the rules of the game. Sports media violence does not include players and fan interaction, two fans fighting, or violent acts between players and officials. Many studies have been completed looking at human aggression levels and how certain media types affect aggression levels. In a study completed in 2001, it was shown that viewing violent movies can increase aggression levels in participants (Bushman & Anderson, 2001). Another study completed by Phillips (1986), examined and compared the homicide rates in America the day after a major boxing match had occurred to the average homicide rate. His findings suggest that a relationship between viewing boxing and homicide rates exists. The more people who viewed the fight the night before, the higher the homicide rates were in America the next day. The present study is attempting to look specifically at the effects of sports violence in the media on aggression levels of its viewers. Participants completed a Buss-Perry Aggression Scale before the experiment began to assess their pre-experiment aggression levels. Then the participants were randomly assigned to view one of the video groups: non-violent sport, violent sport, nonviolent movie, or violent movie. The participants were randomly assigned to conditions based on the times at which they signed up to complete the study. They next watched a five-minute video clip. The content of each video varied by the conditions of the experiment, for example, nonviolent sport, violent sport, nonviolent movie, or violent movie. After watching the video, each group was given the Word Completion Task to assess post-video aggression levels. Results indicated that after viewing violent forms of video material, sports and non-sports, aggression levels increased in participants significantly. But when participants viewed non-aggressive material their aggression levels did not increase significantly. Therefore, exposure to violent sports has the potential to increase levels of aggression following such exposure, just as exposure to violent movies and television shows increases aggression. However, there are other factors that play a role in the development of aggressive behavior.

This research project attempts to provide information that will determine the effects of corporate culture on the value of performance appraisals in an organization. To provide analysis for this theory, the researcher utilized information found in prior written literature that examined results of performance appraisals and conducted interviews in various manufacturing organizations on results not yet published. In particular, the researcher examined the development and practice of performance appraisals at Logan Aluminum Inc. and used this team management greenfield site as a basis for looking at results from other organizations. Results of the study found strong evidence to support the theory that the corporate culture of an organization has a direct effect upon the value of performance appraisals in the organization.

Procedural justice in organizations has received increasing attention from researchers in recent years. Part of the reason for the increase in attention is that today's workforce must satisfy inner needs through aspects of the job that are not related directly to pay and promotion due to the current trend in downsizing organizations. As more women enter the workforce, the issue of maternity leave is also becoming more prevalent. More and more women are working in professional fields and don't want to end their careers in order to have and raise children. In this current study the researcher has combined the issues of procedural justice and maternity leave to examine various methods for establishing a maternity leave policy in a university setting. Fifteen scenarios were developed combining three levels of procedural justice and five maternity leave policy options. The three procedural justice levels were autocratic, consultative, and participative. The five options were: hire a temporary instructor (paid leave), have other faculty cover the courses, hire a temporary instructor (unpaid leave), pregnant faculty member team teaches with another faculty member, and pregnant faculty member teaches bi-term courses. It was hypothesized that the more participation the faculty were allowed in the decision making process, the more likely they would be to rate the scenario favorably. A second hypothesis was that subjects would be more likely to favor maternity leave options that resulted in less work for them (i.e., hire a temporary instructor) than those that would require more work (i.e,. cover the course for the pregnant faculty member). Faculty members were presented with the fifteen scenarios in a questionnaire. Participants were asked to rate each scenario on the following variables: willingness to support the policy, fairness to pregnant faculty, fairness to other faculty, fairness of process used to make decision, and appropriateness of the level of faculty involvement when making the decision. Strong support was found for both hypotheses.

The affective revolution in the organizational sciences has yielded a body of theoretical and empirical research examining the relationship between affect and performance. This work has typically advanced affect as a predictor of performance; however, more recent theory suggests that the relationship between affect and performance is reciprocal. Since little empirical work exists supporting reciprocity between affect and performance, the purpose of this dissertation is to test if affect and performance are actually reciprocally related. Importantly, the advent of longitudinal and experiential research designs in the organizational sciences affords empirical opportunities to test such theory. This dissertation examines the temporal patterning of relations between affect and performance using longitudinal meta-analysis. Using longitudinal meta-analysis, this dissertation shows that the relationship between affect and performance is equivalently reciprocal (i.e. performance predicts affect to the same extent that affect predicts performance) and that the relationships between negative affect and performance and positive affect and performance are similar in magnitude (i.e. there is no positive-negative asymmetry). This dissertation also suggested that positive affect and negative affect are compatible with a broad performance construct (i.e. task performance, OCB, CWB and withdrawal). Finally, this dissertation examined important measurement moderators and found: (a) affect is reciprocally related to episodic performance; (b) affect and performance are reciprocally related when time between measurements are longer than a month; and (c) state affect measures and trait affect measures both have reciprocal relationships with performance. This meta-analysis benefits the organizational sciences by providing support for existing theories of affect as a predictor of performance (e.g. "happy-and-productive" theories) and by validating theories which suggest that affect and performance are reciprocally related.

The principles of psychometric meta-analysis were utilized to cumulate the literature that examined the relationship between measures of newcomer socialization and job satisfaction. Over 450 correlations were analyzed. The overall analysis of the correlation between measures of newcomer socialization and job satisfaction found that a positive effect exists (rho=0.31). Thus, socialization programs, on average, have a positive effect on job satisfaction. While the moderator analysis found many large variations in the effect sizes, none of the moderators had a statistically significant influence. Socialization programs had more impact for entry managers than for veteran managers. Newcomers in the services industries benefited more from the socialization program than newcomers in the manufacture industries. Cross-sectional studies tended to show a stronger effect than longitudinal studies. The effectiveness of the socialization program was not influenced by the newcomer’s role type. More research is needed to explore the underlying process mechanisms of newcomer socialization.

Context effects in a personality scale were examined by determining if conscientiousness scale (C) scores were significantly different when administered alone vs. part of a Five Factor Model inventory (Big5). The effectiveness of individual difference variables (ID Vs) as predictors of the context effect was also examined. The experiment compared subjects who completed the full Big5 once and the C alone once (Big5/C or C/Big5) to subjects who complete either the Big5 inventory twice (Big5/Big5) or the C twice (C/C). No significant differences were found. When Big5/C and C/Big5 groups were combined, ID Vs were tested, and only the field dependence variable (R2=.O6) was found to significantly predict the context effect. However, the small R2 minimized concerns of context effects in Big5 inventories.

Bibliography: pages 87-91. / The shortage of skilled computer staff in South Africa has reached critical proportions. Not only is commerce unable to recruit enough manpower with the required experience and expertise, they are also posed with the problem of high turnover and remunerating a small number of people in excess of their market value. In contrast to this phenomena, South Africa has a vastly under-utilised "other than "white" population of Matriculants and Technikon diplomates. It is hypothesised that the skilled shortage in computer programming could be overcome if more applicants out of this labour segment were given entry level jobs and trained to be productive and competent. This study attempts to address the difficulties of the under-utilised manpower resources by looking at the entry level requirements for computer programmers. Since for industry as a whole, aptitude tests are used on applicants for entry level programmers, one of these tests, viz. the National Institute of Personnel Research General Aptitude Battery was investigated. It was hypothesised that the instrument was an unfair selection tool· as most "other than white" applicants evaluated did not perform as well as the white applicants. The sample comprised of technikon students who had passed at least their first year of the Computer Data Processing Diploma. Thirty five were selected and matched from a white and forty three from a so-called "coloured" institution. The results of this cross cultural research design in a field setting were statistically analysed and findings were that the "coloured" group scored far lower than that of the white group. Therefore, the researcher concluded that the test battery was not a good predictor of success and should not be used across population groups, as it could lead to an unfair labour practice. It was proposed instead that a biographical structured interview guide based on the accomplishments of applicants ·be used to supplement the test results. In so doing the researcher suggested that dimensions of success for a programmer be probed for, during the interview rather than concentrating purely on an aptitude test which could be seen as unfair.

Includes bibliographical references leaves 25-29. / The present study investigated the feasibility of using a specific set of personality dimensions, as measured by the Personal Orientation Profile (POP), and certain career anchors, to predict organizational commitment, job performance and tenure in life insurance salespersons. The Career Orientation Inventory (COI) and the Organizational Commitment Scale (OCS) were used to identify the respective career anchors and the commitment dimensions. A series of factor analyses confirmed the original OCS scale constructs, but not those of the POP and the cor. The factorial scales of the POP and COI were subsequently used in the remainder of the research. Intercorrelations and canonical correlation analysis revealed significant associations between the respective POP and COI subscales, but the relationship between POP and COI covariates was too weak for either scale to have any moderating effect on the other. These findings suggested that career anchors would have very little, if any, influence on personal orientation dimensions, and vice versa, in the prediction of criterion variables. A second canonical correlation indicated a significant relationship between the achievement-striving dimension of the POP and number of policies sold, but this association was too weak to be predictive any of the job performance criteria. Further investigation yielded no significant relations between career anchors and job performance. Likewise, no significant relationship was found between the any of the measuring scales and organizational tenure. The results of this study suggested that personal orientation and career anchors, as measured by the POP and COI respectively, are not stable predictors of job performance in life insurance salespeople. Both the POP and the COI were found to be lacking in construct validity and, as a result to confirm the existence of predictive qualities. Further research is required, using larger and different samples, before any conclusions can be drawn regarding the predictability of these instruments. Two major conclusions can be drawn from this study. Firstly, life insurance salespersons tend to be committed to the organization that provide them with both the opportunity to express their sense of service or dedication to life insurance sales, and the autonomy to do their job in an independent fashion. Secondly, of all the personality dimensions, achievement-striving or competitiveness appears to be the most stable and only valid predictor of job performance in life insurance salespeople. If the salesperson has the knowledge, skill and the opportunity to do the job, then it is purely effort or work ethic that distinguishes the achiever from the poor performer.

The use of mobile assessment in personnel selection is an increasing trend that offers benefits to job applicants and organizations, including increased convenience of testing and expanded applicant pools (Tippins, 2011). Fewer than 10 published studies have examined the measurement equivalence of pre-employment cognitive ability assessments administered over mobile compared to non-mobile devices. Some of this research has found evidence of measurement equivalence and no score differences across device types while other studies contradict these results (Arthur et al., 2017). The present study is the first to investigate the measurement equivalence of a mobile-delivered, adaptively administered pre-hire cognitive ability assessment. This study is also the first to investigate how a specific item characteristic, item scrolling requirement (i.e., if scrolling is required to view the entire item or not), impacts mobile test functioning. Archival operational data from a large national restaurant chain was obtained to conduct differential item functioning (DIF) analyses of mobile cognitive assessment items completed by job applicants for five different roles. Mean assessment scores were significantly lower for applicants who completed the assessment on a mobile device compared to a non-mobile device. Item scrolling requirements were not found to predict DIF across mobile and non-mobile devices. Regarding practical implications, a number of mobile cognitive assessment best practices are presented, including ensuring tests are evaluated for measurement equivalence and adverse impact prior to administration. It is hoped that future research will investigate the criterion-related validity and adverse impact potential of static and adaptive mobile assessments.

The positive effects of health behaviors on job performance have been reported. Specifically, there is evidence to suggest that getting adequate quantity and quality sleep, staying physically active, and following a nutritious diet, are linked to enhanced functioning and work-related outcomes. Although some studies have examined the role of energy in relation to health behaviors and performance, research looking at energy as an underlying mechanism in the health behaviors – performance link is both scarce and fragmented. The present study examines the role of energy as a potential mediator, devoting particular attention to its emotional, mental, and physical component. Using daily diary method, data of 72 study participants were collected and proposed direct and indirect effects were examined. The results of several multilevel path analyses provide support for significant fixed effects of the health behaviors under study on three-dimensional energy and performance. Overall, the extent to which individuals generally incorporate healthy lifestyle practices was found to be important in terms of higher energy levels and greater task and contextual performance. Study implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.