Two studies explored issues related to the content and structure of psychological climate: First, confirmatory analyses of self-report climate survey data examined the James and James (1989) hierarchical model of psychological climate and three alternatives to their notion of a general factor underlying climate perceptions (PC$\sb{\rm g}$). These archival data (N = 8109) were obtained from multiple locations of a government R&D organization. Second, a modified version of Kelly's (1955) repertory grid technique was used to identify the personal constructs that individuals use to interpret organizational events and assess their correspondence with current models of psychological climate. Participants (N = 27), from the organization in study one, elicited 213 personal constructs from meaningful organizational events. They then rated the similarity of their constructs with thirty reference dimensions derived from previous research. Confirmatory analyses, conducted in study one, were somewhat supportive of the James and James hierarchical model of psychological climate. However, the best fitting model suggests that their hierarchical structure may be due to either a methodological artifact or a form of response bias. Alternative models, positing that responses to climate surveys are driven by respondents' level of satisfaction and that PC$\sb{\rm g}$ and satisfaction are redundant were not supported. Results of study two indicate that the general factor (PC$\sb{\rm g}$) underlying hierarchical models may actually represent an assessment of the work environment in terms of one's level of personal control rather than the impact to one's well-being. The constructs that individuals use to interpret organizational events, as elicited in study two, are consistent with the dimensions identified in prior climate research. Factor analyses of individuals' personal constructs indicate that they can be grouped according to the following dimensions: job autonomy and personal control; rewards and recognition; job challenge and skill development; group interaction and cooperation; satisfaction; clarity of organization roles and procedures; employee's impact; impact to one's well-being; quality of supervision; organizational politics; and organizational support. In addition, these data suggest that previous distinctions between psychological climate and satisfaction, based on cognition and affect, have been overly restrictive and should be reexamined. Implications for future research are discussed.

Three different measures of risk taking were compared to examine the support for a unitary trait of risk taking. The measures included the Sensation Seeking Scale, an experimental lottery, and a consumer product/activity risk perception questionnaire. The measures were administered to groups of subjects believed to differ in different types of risk taking propensity: gamblers, scuba divers, and students. Although differences between the subject groups were demonstrated on the individual measures, relationships between the measures were quite weak. These results indicate that references to risk taking behavior should be specified as applying to certain individual activities.

Individual and situational influences on distortion of personality tests were investigated. It was expected that individuals would use different distortion strategies in different situations and that individual differences would influence distortion. Two laboratory studies were conducted. The first experiment showed that the desirability of personality traits varied for different situations and different jobs. The second experiment showed that self-monitoring influenced distortion. It also found that when told to respond as if applying for a job individuals distorted in the direction that was desirable for that job, and not in a uniformly socially desirable manner. Overall the results indicate that individuals can distort personality tests, socially desirable responding is not the same as distortion, the amount and direction of distortion can vary with different jobs, and individual differences can influence distortion. Therefore, meta-analyses that attempt to equate distortion with social desirability, or that fail to account for the effect of the situation, may reach erroneous conclusions. Researchers need to understand the potential variation in distortion strategies for different situations and use this information to determine what type of distortion is expected rather than assuming distortion will occur in a uniform manner.

This study assessed whether the effect of voice on procedural fairness is due to the opportunity to voice or to actual voice behavior. In addition, it examined several possible antecedents of voice behavior. In a laboratory experiment, 100 undergraduates completed measures of personality, self-evaluation, perceived voice instrumentality and opportunity to voice. Opportunity for voice, goal setting, and voice instrumentality were manipulated. The results show that opportunity to voice, but not voice behavior, predicted fairness perceptions. Further, goal setting, perceived instrumentality, conscientiousness, and voice self-efficacy significantly predicted voice behavior. Significant interactions between locus of control and voice instrumentality and goal setting and perceived instrumentality on voice behavior were detected. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

<p> Many pair-bond relationships begin as a result of romantic attraction and sexual desire. Romantic attraction comprises feelings of love, affection, intimacy, and a desire to spend time with another person; sexual desire involves sexual attraction, arousal, and behavior (Diamond, 2003). This dissertation explored how individuals reconcile their experience of predominant sexual desire toward members of one gender (e.g. women) and predominant romantic attraction toward members of another gender (e.g. men). </p><p> To study this experience, a small, qualitative study was performed. Participants were recruited via flyers to answer interview questions regarding their romantic and sexual attractions and the impact of those feelings on their relationships with others and their own mental health. The experiences of four participants were then analyzed via phenomenological analysis. Two of the participants identified as male, and two as female. All participants were graduate students. Three of the participants described complicated attractions, reporting that they were romantically and sexually attracted to members of one gender, while also being romantically or sexually attracted to members of another gender. </p><p> Participants discussed several aspects of this experience, including: being unsure how to identify their sexual orientations (two participants noted that they do not identify as bisexual because they feel the term implies a sense of equality between romantic and sexual attraction); the extent to which they have discussed attractions with other people (three participants reported that they do not discuss their attractions with their families); the impact their attractions have had on relationships (two participants reported they feel their attractions have impacted their dating lives); and the struggles and benefits participants report related to their variant attractions. </p><p> While each of the participants' sexual and romantic preferences was different from the others', all report that acceptance by friends and family improved psychological well-being. Counter to this sense of well-being, however, are limitations in modern language regarding personal identities. All of the participants noted that they chose a label that is closest to what they perceive their collective attractions to be, and that they experience personal confusion about how to label themselves, which translates to confusion when discussing their identities with others.</p>

<p> Openness to experience is one of the least useful personality predictors in the workplace. The present study tested the notion that openness to experience would be a more effective predictor of tenure and turnover intention if openness to experience was separated into two sub-factors. We used a total sample size of, <i>N</i> = 96, participants, which was analyzed both as a whole and separately, segmented by students (<i>n</i> = 51) and working adults (<i>n</i> = 45). </p><p> The present study was unable to show that the sub-factors of openness to experience were more effective predictors of turnover intention and tenure. Implications of the evidence in the present study are discussed with the conclusion that openness to experience, at the factor and the sub-factor levels, is a weak predictor in the workplace.</p>

<p> Law enforcement agencies face the difficult task of identifying suitable individuals to take on jobs that require certain skills and characteristics. Training new hires requires these agencies' resources, so an important aspect of the hiring process is maximizing these resources and ensuring that as many of these individuals as possible will succeed. Pre-employment screening tools can assist with hiring by identifying notable characteristics, pathology, and attitudes either related to, or vastly different from, the position. Many assessment exist that can contribute to the pre-employment screening process, such as the Law Enforcement Applicant Inventory (LEAI). </p><p> The goal of this study was to explore the relationships between scales on the LEAI to better understand how these different areas of interest correlate. Pearson's r statistics were compiled to identify the correlations between each of the eight LEAI scales, including the Honesty, Nonviolence, Drug Avoidance, Risk Avoidance, Safety, Stress Tolerance, Criminal Justice Orientation (CJO), and Candidate Potential Index (CPI) scales. The results showed that all of the LEAI scales were statistically significantly correlated, <i> p</i> &lt; .01, with large effect sizes, r² &lt; .14. A post-hoc power analysis was also run to further investigate these correlations. Each post-hoc analysis yielded a power = 1.00, which may have been affected by the large sample size. Additionally, this study focused on expanding the readily available reliability statistics for the LEAI. Reliability statistics were provided for the Honesty, Nonviolence, Drug Avoidance, Risk Avoidance, Safety, Stress Tolerance, and CJO scales in the form of Cronbach's alpha coefficient and split-half reliability.</p>

<p> Poetry can be a portal into the inner world, a doorway into the psychological space in which one might encounter the vast array of archetypal motifs&mdash;the seed forms&mdash;that structure human experience. Poetry compels a reexamination of the cultural stories upon which ordinary perception is based and awakens a mythic, or poietic, consciousness, leading toward more soulful and meaningful interpretations of life&mdash;what scholar James Hillman calls "soul-making." </p><p> There are two major reasons for this. First, the heightened and compressed language of a poem requires slow and careful reading, facilitating a more intimate encounter with its subject than typically occurs in other types of reading. Second, because it is based in metaphorical language, poetry demonstrates the art of analogizing&mdash;of making new connections between the layers of life. In its drawing of novel parallels between things, events, feelings, and relationships, poetry invites readers to likewise examine and re-imagine their own experiences in order to imbue them with a deeper sense of meaning. </p><p> Despite poetry's focus on universal themes, however, the reading and enjoyment of poetry is a less than universal pastime. Particularly in the West, engagement with poetry remains trapped primarily in academic circles, leaving too many people with inadequate access to its "soul-making" properties. By weaving together the threads of a number of disciplines, including depth psychology, phenomenological philosophy, literary theory, reading theory, and maieutic education, this dissertation examines poetry's potential as a tool for transforming human perception and presents a method for moving the study of poetry deeper into the cultural mainstream. The production piece that accompanies the dissertation, a curriculum for use with small groups of adults titled "Living in the Layers: Traveling Soul's Way through Poetry," provides self-explanatory study materials through which small group leaders and individual students may enter into a depth-psychological encounter with a variety of classic and contemporary poems. Key words: Poetry, Depth Psychology, Maieutic Education, Soul-Making, Spiritual Transformation, Small Groups</p>

<p> When a person estimates their global (overall) performance on a test they just completed, low performers often overestimate their performance whereas high performers estimate more accurately or slightly underestimate. Thus, low performers have been described as 'unskilled and unaware' (Kruger &amp; Dunning, 1999). However, recent evidence (Hartwig &amp; Dunlosky, in press) demonstrates that low performers sometimes estimate accurately. What determines whether a participant estimates accurately vs. inaccurately remains unclear. Thus, the present research asks: What might participants use as the basis for their global estimates, and can it explain the accuracy of those estimates? One intuitive possibility is that participants use their response confidence in test items as the basis of their global estimates. A simple instantiation of this idea is described by the item-frequency hypothesis, which posits that participants compute the frequency of their high-confidence responses, and this frequency serves as an estimate of their global performance. A corollary of this hypothesis is that items that produce high confidence in wrong answers (i.e., false alarms, or FAs) will contribute to global overestimates, whereas items that produce low confidence in correct answers (i.e., misses) will contribute to global underestimates. Study 1 found preliminary support for the hypothesis, because the frequency of high-confidence responses on a typical trivia test was correlated with participants' global estimates, and the imbalance of FAs vs. misses predicted the accuracy of those estimates. To evaluate the hypothesis experimentally, Studies 2 and 3 manipulated the frequencies of FAs and misses that a trivia test was expected to yield, and participants were randomly assigned to receive one of the tests. Tests designed to yield many FAs (relative to misses) produced global overestimation, tests designed to yield more misses (relative to FAs) produced underestimation, and tests designed to yield a balance of FAs and misses produced accurate estimation. Thus, the selection of test items affects global estimates and their accuracy. The imbalance of FAs and misses could not explain all individual differences in estimation accuracy, but it nonetheless was a moderate predictor of global estimation accuracy. </p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1988. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-03, Section: B, page: 1504. Chairperson: Karl J. Mueller.