Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) is considered behavior that benefits others, but is not a part of the employee’s job description. Research has indicated that OCB can be divided into two categories, behavior that is directed towards other individuals (OCBI) and behavior that is directed towards the organization (OCBO). Research has also suggested that there are three different motives behind OCB, impression management, prosocial values, and organizational concern. This study examines the relationship between the motives and the type of OCB that is performed. The results failed to indicate that motives matter in determining which type of OCB is performed. Additionally, participants in all three motives were more likely to engage in OCBO behavior than in OCBI behavior.

A 12-month longitudinal study assessed the emotional reactions of an intercollegiate athletic team to a near fatal bus incident. PANAS-X and the Brief COPE, administered on five occasions, indicated NA declined over time. Most coping strategies showed significant changes in trajectory. Acceptance and Positive Reframing were high across waves. In October 2010, an intercollegiate athletic team and coaching staff were traveling by sleeper bus to an out-of-state match. The team members and coaches were in the back of the bus when they felt the bus swaying and heard the tires hit the rumble strips. The head coach went forward to find the bus driver unconscious and slumped over the steering wheel. Although the bus swerved into the oncoming lane of interstate traffic and back onto the other shoulder, the coach was able to steer the bus and stop it safely on the side of the road. The bus driver had suffered a fatal heart attack; fortunately, the coaches and players survived with only minor injuries. This study is a longitudinal follow up assessing the emotional reactions of the coaches and team to the bus incident across a twelve-month time frame. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule - Expanded (PANAS-X; Watson & Clark, 1994) and the Brief COPE (Carver, 1997) were administered on five occasions. Negative affect declined over time, with a larger drop in waves more proximal to the incident. Positive affect demonstrated a curvilinear pattern showing increases on the second and third wave but dropped off at the end of the spring semester 2011 and the beginning of the fall semester 2011. There were significant changes in the coping trajectories for 10 of the 14 coping strategies from the Brief COPE. These data are of particular interest as we could locate no other studies in the published literature of individual athlete or team reactions to traumatic travel incidents, although ESPN (Lavigne, 2010) noted that bus safety should be a concern for team travel.

The purpose of the current study is to determine whether eliciting the need for assimilation or the need for differentiation influences individuals’ identification with a given team. Team identification is defined as a fan’s psychological connection to a team; that is, the extent to which the fan views the team as an extension of him or herself (Wann, Melnick, Russell, & Pease, 2001). It is important to understand potential factors that may motivate and potentially increase one’s identification with a particular team. The sample consisted of 106 participants attending Western Kentucky University. The participants completed the Sport Fandom Questionnaire (SFQ) and the Need for Affiliation (nAff) scale. Participants were presented with one of three randomly assigned scenarios, and were asked to transcribe two memories, dependent upon the previously assigned scenario. Following this, the gambling scenario was described. Participants rated how identified they were with both the underdog and favored team, regardless of their choice. It was hypothesized that those who are primed to experience the feelings of assimilation will wager more money on and be more highly identified with a team that is a prohibitive favorite. Also, it was hypothesized that those who are primed to experience the feelings of differentiation will wager more money on and be more highly identified with a team that is a large underdog. Results indicated that the hypotheses were not supported; however, significance was approached, as participants who were primed for feelings of differentiation tended to choose the underdog football team. Regardless of condition, participants tended to wager more money on the favorite football team, as opposed to the underdog football team.

The current study is a significant portion of a content validation study conducted to evaluate new selection tools developed by an organization. In it I assessed the content validity of a structured interview through the following steps: conducting a literature review to establish best practices, reviewing the data gathering process, conducting data analyses, recommending item weights, evaluating the validity of the interview, suggesting standardized materials, creating a plan for training for interview use, and ensuring documentation is kept as required by law. The data were collected internally by the organization and were provided for analyses. Analyses included one-way ANOVAs, and the calculation of r*wg for the Subject Matter Expert (SME) importance ratings. Results indicated that the SME ratings exhibited acceptable interrater agreement and that all competencies were important. Therefore, the interview based on these ratings has acceptable content validity. Recommendations were provided to the organization regarding possible alternatives and the impact that the decisions made would have on the resulting validity.

The profession of nursing is experiencing a shortage of qualified nursing professionals. Hospitals understaffed with nurses are likely to experience several negative consequences including low quality care, which places the health and safety of patients at risk. In order to ensure an effective selection process for hospital nurses, a structured situational interview, developed using a content validation approach, was validated using a criterion-related approach. Interviews that have a high degree of structure consistently demonstrate higher predictive validities with job performance than do interviews with less structure. The structured situational interview in this study had a high degree of structure and was developed after a job analysis was completed. Interviewee responses were evaluated using a behavioral summation scale. The results of the current study confirmed the hypothesis that there would be a positive relationship between nursing student interview scores and Grade Point Average, thus indicating that the structured interview should be useful in the selection of professionals in the field of nursing. However, the observed validity coefficient (r = .29) was lower than expected based on a review of previous research on the criterion-related validity of structured situational interviews. It is recommended that future research with this instrument use a larger sample of nurse incumbents as participants and nurse managers as interviewers. Additional interview items, developed following a content validity approach, would likely increase the reliability and the validity of the interview

What motivates one to write a thesis? This study assessed whether presenting one’s master’s thesis proposal at a thesis colloquium increased the probability of Industrial/Organizational I/O) Psychology graduate students completing their thesis on time (i.e., finishing their thesis as they finished their graduate coursework). This study also examined the relationship between presenting one’s thesis proposal at a thesis colloquium and different forms of motivated regulation and three basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness). Participants included 94 master’s level I/O Psychology alumni from four universities. As expected, students who presented at a thesis colloquium had a higher rate of on-time thesis completion. Students who presented at a thesis colloquium also reported a higher level of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation toward their thesis, and a lower level of amotivation toward their thesis compared to students who did not present at a colloquium. Reported level of relatedness toward individuals who helped work on the thesis was higher for those who presented at a thesis colloquium than for those who did not present. However, there were no differences between those who did or did not present at a colloquium in terms of reported competence and autonomy.

The present study attempted to identify common and unique characteristics of faculty performance appraisal formats and procedures by analyzing characteristics of formats and procedures from the psychology departments of 28 universities, including Kentucky Council on Post-secondary Education (CPE) benchmark schools for Western Kentucky University as well as schools that have Industrial/Organizational psychology master’s degree programs. It was hypothesized that schools with Industrial/-Organizational Psychology programs would have better formats as defined by eight legal factors. However, this hypothesis was not supported. The hypothesis that graphic rating scales would be the most common method for collecting appraisal data was supported. It was determined that the performance appraisal system used at Western Kentucky University is very similar to systems used at the CPE benchmark schools that participated in this study.

The MMPI-2 is the most commonly used self-report measure for the assessment of psychopathology in forensic and psychiatric disability assessments (Bacchiochi & Bagby, 2006; Bagby, Marshall, & Bacchiochi, 2005). The MMPI-2 includes a variety of validity scales designed to detect content responsive faking (e.g., faking good or faking bad) as well as content nonresponsivity (randomly responding). The present study was conducted to determine whether a combination of validity scales to detect malingering of a psychotic disorder in a non-compensatory model would be more or less effective than using only a select few of the validity scales in a compensatory model. The results supported the use of the specified validity scales (F, Fb, Fp, F – K, and FBS) in a non-compensatory model to identify correctly whether test takers faked their profiles. The results also supported the use of a smaller subset of the validity scales (Fp, F – K, and FBS) in a non-compensatory model to identify correctly whether test takers faked their profiles. The results, limitations of the current study, and future research considerations are then discussed.

The current study examined the influence of social cognitive variables on physical activity and proposed an intervention for an 8-week physical activity promotion program. Four specific components were examined: implementation intentions, goal commitment, barrier self-efficacy, and value. Participants included faculty and staff enrolled in a university Employee Wellness Program. Participants in the treatment group received goal-setting prompts focused on developing implementation intentions, identifying the value of outcome expectancies, and overcoming self-efficacy barriers. Participants in the control group did not receive goal-setting prompts. The use of goal-setting prompts did not result in significantly more minutes spent exercising. Overall, participants who received goal-setting prompts maintained their engagement in physical activity throughout the program, while participants in the control group steadily declined after week 5. For the treatment group, physical activity was dropping after the first week, but after receiving implementation-intentions prompts, physical activity increased. The use of implementation intentions should be further investigated. Additionally, the use of administering prompts throughout the complete program should be examined.

Assessment centers, although useful for assessing behaviors and competencies associated with a targeted construct, can be low in economic utility. The current study sought to validate a situational judgment test (SJT) that was developed as an alternate form of assessment for a leadership development program. The first study examined the content validity of the SJT by performing retranslation on item stems and calibration of the item responses. The second study examined alternate forms reliability between the two forms of the leadership SJT that were developed. The third and final study evaluated the relationship between assessment center performance scores and SJT scores by demonstrating their convergent validities. Results from Study 1 demonstrated that the SALSA© test was a content valid measure of leadership ability. Results from Study 2 demonstrated that all available items from SALSA© could be used to make two forms of the test that demonstrate good alternate forms reliability. Finally, Study 3 suggests a moderate correlation between the assessment center and situational judgment test. Future research should focus on the underlying issues pertaining to significant group differences between English as primary language and English as second language students. Alternate developmental procedures, especially with alternate form assignment, should also be considered.