This study was conducted to test a theoretical framework integrating the complex literatures on affect and decision processes with theory and research on the dispositional trait, negative affectivity (NA). Previous research has shown that positive mood affects some cognitive processes, including decision making (e.g., Isen & Means, 1983). However, the relationship between negative moods and cognitive processes appears less clear (e.g., Isen, Shalker, Clark, & Karp, 1978; Isen & Daubman, 1984) It was hypothesized that persons high on negative affectivity (NA), a pervasive dispositional trait manifested by self-doubt, anxiety, and worry, would tend to expend more effort but possibly be less efficient than persons low on NA at processing information on a multiattribute decision task. This proposition was based on the work of M. W. Eysenck (1979, 1982, 1985), who contended high NA individuals tend to overprocess information, particularly while experiencing anxious states. Because it is known that high NA persons experience negative moods more frequently than low NAs (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1980), and because negative moods increase the likelihood they will experience self-doubt and anxiety, it was predicted that if high NA individuals do in fact expend more effort or process information less efficiently than lows, those differences would be maximized while persons are in bad moods. To test the proposition that NA and mood would interact such that high NAs in negative affective states would make decisions differently than low NAs, half the subjects in this study were randomly assigned to a negative mood induction and the other half to a control condition. All subjects then performed a computer-based multiattribute job choice decision task. Findings did not support the study hypotheses; and, in fact, shed doubt on the proposition that NA in fact influences behavior directly. Implications for Eysenck's theory and practical considerations of these findings are discussed / acase@tulane.edu

Stereotypes are cognitively efficient, yet often inaccurate, tools that aid in impression formation. Much research has examined motivational factors which encourage individuation (the result of attribute-based processing) as opposed to stereotypic processing. The current study explored the effect of a non-motivational factor on encouraging individuation. Specifically, I hypothesized that exposure to communicated counterstereotypic exemplars would increase individuation. Counterstereotypic attributes of a traditionally stereotyped group member can be overlooked because a perceiver is not motivated to attend to them. Because perceivers expect communicators to provide relevant and necessary information (Schwarz, 1994), however, perceivers should be less likely to ignore counterstereotypic traits when they are directly communicated. In addition, the minority influence literature suggests that the impact of such a communication should be stronger if it comes from a peer A two-experiment ploy was utilized. In the alleged Experiment One, college student participants viewed videotapes of ingroup members (other college students) presenting either stereotypic or counterstereotypic exemplars of older persons. In the alleged Experiment Two, participants were asked to read over and comment on information about an elderly person presented in the form of a phone survey. Comments about individual items on the survey and the impression of this person that was later communicated to a friend served as the primary dependent variables Overall, participants in all conditions viewed the elderly target in a stereotypic manner. An ad hoc study suggested that these results were due to the particularly stereotypic way the target initially was described. Differences among conditions did occur and contrary to predictions, during both the impression formation and communication sequences, participants exposed to stereotypic exemplars increased attention to and agreement with stereotype inconsistent attributes of the elderly target. Such findings suggest that individuation occurred more in the stereotypic, as opposed to counterstereotypic, conditions. Some evidence suggests that participants in the counterstereotypic conditions did perceive elderly persons in general less stereotypically than participants in the stereotypic conditions. Results are explained in terms of contrast effects; the target individual might have appeared particularly stereotypic to participants who earlier were exposed to counterstereotypic exemplars. Similarly, participants who heard stereotypic exemplars might have viewed the target person as comparatively counterstereotypic. Future research expanding on the idea of non-motivational methods of encouraging individuation is advocated / acase@tulane.edu

A key premise of the Leader-Member-Exchange (LMX) approach to leadership is the distinguishing relationship a leader may have with each of his or her subordinates. The following study is a result of the analysis conducted on the LMX theory since its inception 28 years ago. The critical conclusion of the analysis that is currently available determines that the LMX approach to leadership has not yet been fully specified. This conclusion was based on the fact that theorists have only focused their attention on examining the characteristics of a subsystem (the dyadic LMX relationships), without considering the whole system (context) where these relationships are formed. In an attempt to partially address this deficiency, this study will introduce a group-level model that will examine the possible effects of two predictor variables (demographic profile similarity and friendship outside the working environment) on group LMX relationships (or GLMX). This proposed model extends the traditional domain of organizational demography beyond the analysis of single demographic attributes of leaders and their subordinates by examining a demographic profile (age, team tenure, company tenure, and level of education). Moreover, the model will examine the possible effects of GLMX on group task performance (GTP) and on group organizational citizenship behaviors (GOCB). The proposed group level model includes several hypotheses. Results with respect to Hypothesis I revealed that when members of the work group were similar with respect to their leader, no relationship was found between the demographic profile and GLMX relationships. Results with respect to Hypothesis 2 indicated that when members of the work group perceived a stronger friendship outside the working environment with their leader, they also perceived a higher quality working relation with that same leader. Results did not support Hypothesis 3, it proposed that GLMX should relate positively to group task performance. Finally, results with respect to Hypothesis 4 indicated that GLMK in a work group predict supervisory perceptions of the GOCB behaviors / acase@tulane.edu

In recent years, there have been many studies of the relationship between unemployment and psychological distress. Nevertheless, it is still true today, as Hyman pointed out in 1979, that there is little study of the social impacts of unemployment. This research is an attempt to remedy that deficiency by analyzing the impacts of unemployment on social and political attitudes. Past literature provides inconclusive evidence that experience with unemployment does (or does not) influence social and political attitudes. There is also inconclusive reason to believe that any effect will vary by status In this research, the expectation is that unemployment will influence social and political attitudes net of gender, education, race, prestige and age. A further expectation is that any change in attitudes will be in the direction of best interest of the unemployed. This research also examines the usefulness of expanding the dichotomy of employment status. Finally, this research considers whether the impacts of unemployment vary by status There are two sets of data analyzed in this study. First are data collected by Schlozman and Verba (1979). The reason for the use of this data set is that Schlozman and Verba maintain that unemployment does not affect certain kinds of social attitudes. A second data set used is the General Social Survey (1972-1991). This data set is analyzed because of the multitude of potential dependent variables available in it, as well as its greater representativeness The results support the idea that unemployment affects social and political attitudes net of gender, education, race, prestige and age. The unemployed, more than the employed, favor government activism in solving problems. Nevertheless, the unemployed show greater distrust of government, people who run societal institutions and people in general. As far as best interest can be ascertained, the unemployed respond in that direction. This research finds limited support for status by employment effect interactions. Finally, the analyses support the idea of considering employment status as a polytomous variable. The presently employed but previously unemployed, those who fear they will lose a job, and those with friends who are unemployed all show similar effects of unemployment / acase@tulane.edu

Female speakers making global statements about women elicit exaggerated stereotype application by men high and low in Modern Sexism (Cralley & Ruscher, 1999). Exposure to female speakers making these statements presumably first activates the stereotype of women, and then either affords permission for stereotype application or stereotype suppression. Subsequent application or suppression has been shown to be a function of level of prejudice; men high in modern sexism apply their stereotypes to subsequently encountered women, while men low in modern sexism show stereotype suppression. Of particular interest are the suppression efforts of low sexist men. Devine (1989) suggests that stereotype suppression is an effortful process. If so, depletion of cognitive resources should interfere with stereotype suppression. Hence, the present experiment assessed stereotype application and suppression for high and low sexist men when cognitive load was manipulated. Under conditions of low cognitive load, low sexist men showed stereotype suppression while high sexist men applied their stereotypes. Under conditions of high cognitive load, however, the pattern of stereotype application for low and high sexist men was indistinguishable. Thus, results from this experiment demonstrate that stereotype suppression requires both motivation and cognitive resources / acase@tulane.edu

Several studies have investigated the extent to which implicit theories predict stereotyping, namely perceived outgroup homogeneity (Levy & Dweck, 1999: Levy. Stroessner, & Dweck, 1998). Entity theorists believe that traits are fixed and immutable, while incremental theorists contend that traits are malleable and can be incrementally gained or lost. At the group level, entity theorists (relative to incremental theorists) perceive outgroups in terms of relevant stereotypes, and in particular, perceive outgroups as highly homogenous (Levy et al., 1998). The current project suggests that the extent to which entity theorists perceive outgroup homogeneity may depend on the stereotype content associated with a salient outgroup exemplar. The Stereotype Content Model (SCM: Fiske. Xu, Cuddy, & Glick, 1999) suggests that two dimensions, competence and warmth, inform outgroup stereotypes. For entity theorists in particular, exposure to a prototypical Black exemplar (i.e., neither competent nor warm) should accentuate perceived outgroup homogeneity, while exposure to an atypical Black exemplar (i.e., competent and/or warm) should attenuate perceived outgroup homogeneity about the larger outgroup. Results lend support for these hypotheses on perceived homogeneity with respect to warmth (but not competence). These findings are discussed in terms of the necessity of intergroup contact and the subsequent implications for improving outgroup attitudes toward typically disparaged groups / acase@tulane.edu

How does one react when an important in-group does not value another important identity? This question may be answered by role conflict theory. Role conflict occurs when one role interferes or otherwise overlaps with another role (Hecht, 2001). Both conflicting roles must be salient for role conflict to occur. The present research investigates the role conflict Blacks may experience between their racial identity and their identity as a business professional. We hypothesized that role conflict would produce increased stress as measured by blood pressure. Aspiring Black professionals in the present study were asked to give advice regarding self-presentation to a target interviewing at a conservative law firm. The target was either Black with dreadlocks (High Role Conflict: HRC) or White with multiple piercings (Low Role Conflict: LRC). Pre-testing revealed that neither target conformed to normative standards of business presentation. Blood pressure was assessed during the advice task as a measure of participants' stress responses. Afrocentricity as well as other potential moderators were also considered. Contrary to predictions, participants in the HRC condition exhibited lower blood pressure readings than participants in the LRC condition. This effect was marginally moderated by Afrocentrism. That is, also not consistent with predictions, the blood pressure of participants in the low conflict group increased as a function of Afrocentrism. Potential explanations of these effects are discussed / acase@tulane.edu

This study was a conceptual replication of Drabman and Thomas (1974), in which third- and fourth-grade children who viewed an aggressive film took longer to seek adult help when preschool children they were watching became increasingly hostile towards each other than did children in a no-film condition. Whereas the Drabman and Thomas studies used only an informed experimenter, this attempted replication used an experimenter blind to the subjects' treatment condition to record latency measures to fetch the experimenter. In addition to latency measures, television viewing for one week, parental discipline practices, and teacher and peer ratings of subjects' aggression were obtained for 112 third, fourth, and fifth graders from a university laboratory school. None of these measures nor the aggressive versus nonaggressive film manipulation were reliably related to latency. The 18-minute aggressive film condition used in this study may not have been a strong enough treatment manipulation to replicate the Drabman and Thomas findings of thirteen years previously, because of an increase in the typical child's exposure to extreme violence in movies and television programming that is prevalent in today's culture. Consistent with the literature supporting a causal relationship between aggression and viewing of mass media violence, this study found significant relationships between aggression and television viewing habits. A positive relationship between teachers' ratings of children's hitting other children and hours viewing television in one week was found for females. A negative relationship for females was found for both teachers' ratings of assertiveness and teachers' ratings of verbal aggressiveness ('insults others') with television viewing habits, including total hours watched in one week and amount of violence viewed. For males, increased frequency of implementation of discipline by parents was significantly related to teachers' ratings of aggression. Implications of these findings were discussed / acase@tulane.edu

The feasibility of conceptualizing organizational culture in terms of five broad categories of cultural assumptions was tested. The five categories of basic cultural assumptions assumed to underlie observable organizational cultural characteristics are: (a) Humanity's relationship to nature, (b) the nature of human nature, (c) the nature of human relationships, (d) temporal relationships, and (e) the nature of organizational activity. We attempted to determine whether individuals could interpret and use information at this level in a judgment task. Policy-capturing procedures were used to assess the relative strength of each of the five categories of basic assumptions in predicting subjects' judgments of organizational support for innovation, on 48 hypothetical organizational profiles. All five categories significantly predicted participants' ratings on the profiles. Results also indicated that an additive model was applicable. Participants' own cultural assumptions about how businesses should operate failed to moderate judgment ratings. Lastly, the methodological soundness of the policy-capturing exercise was assessed. The results of this study have implications for future research and practice in terms of conceptualizing and assessing organizational culture / acase@tulane.edu

The purpose of this research was to explore factors which may differentially attune individuals' perceptual systems to hostile information within the visual array. Specifically, I sought to ascertain the extent to which aggressive motivations would incline individuals to more easily select hostile information in ambiguous or multi-affordant Point Light Displays (PLDs). Participants either were provoked with an anticipated opportunity to retaliate (retaliatory motivation, RM condition), provoked without apparent opportunity to retaliate (mere provocation, MP condition), or treated neutrally by an experimenter (control). They then viewed three PLD clips displaying the interaction of two male actors moving at slow, medium, and fast velocities, and judged the aggressive content in each of the segments. Timed duration measures of participant responses to items asking subjects to judge the content of the PLDs were surreptitiously obtained. It was hypothesized that the state of RM would serve to attune individuals to hostile information in the multi-affordant medium velocity displays such that they would be more inclined to make hostile judgments regarding the actors' interactions in those displays than would MP and control participants and require less time to make such judgments than would MP and Control participants. Results indicated overall support for the above hypotheses on two critical items in the PLD questionnaires which assessed the perceived hostility and intimidation of the instigating actor portrayed in the PLD. RM subjects perceived the PLDs as containing greater hostility overall than MPs or controls when the PLDs were of medium velocity, and required significantly less tune than controls to respond to items at that speed / acase@tulane.edu