Wednesday, June 02, 2010

May '10 J.A.P.

Summer journal madness continues with the May issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology. It's a diverse issue, check it out:

- Taras et al. conducted a very large meta-analysis of the association between Hofstede's cultural value dimensions (e.g., power distance, masculinity, individualism) and a wide variety of individual outcomes. One interesting finding is the stronger relationship between these values and emotions (organizational commitment, OCBs, etc.) compared to job performance.

- Are high performers more likely to stay or leave? In a study of over 12,000 employees in the insurance industry over a 3-year period, Nyberg found the answer was: it depends. Specifically, it depends on the labor market and pay growth.

- Think g (cognitive ability) is just related to job performance? In a (albeit small) study by Judge, et al., it turns out it was also related to physical and economic well-being. Maybe their next study will address my personal hypothesis: g is related to choice of car.

- A study by Lievens, et al. (in press version here) found with a sample of 192 incumbents from 64 occupations that 25% of the variance in competency ratings (like you might find in a job analysis) was due to the nature of the rater's job, such as level of complexity. Not surprisingly, the greatest consensus was reached for jobs that involved a lot of equipment or contact with the public.

- Self-efficacy (i.e.., confidence) has been proposed as an important predictor of job performance. In a study by Schmidt & DeShon, the authors found that this relationship depends on the ambiguity present in the situation--in situations high in ambiguity, self-efficacy was negatively related to job performance; in situations low in ambiguity, the opposite was true.

- Finally, for anyone citing Ilies, et al.'s 2009 study of the relationship between personality and OCB, there have been a couple corrections.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

We eagerly await an elaboration on your personal hypotheses. Which vehicle makes and models are related to high, mid, and low g?

BryanB said...

My hypothesis is that, controlling for cost of car and choice (versus, say, inheriting a car), quality of car as measured by things like reliability and Consumer Reports ratings, are correlated with g. Maybe someone has done some related biodata work?

Anonymous said...

I tend to buy German cars because of their driving characteristics. I am fully aware of the consumer and reliability research showing that my car choice is significantly less reliable than other makes. Does that make me less intelligent? Are drivers of SUVs less intelligent than hybrid drivers because they are ignoring all the data on environmental impact?

BryanB said...

I don't know...when was the last time you took an intelligence test?

All joking aside, I wouldn't expect there to be a perfect correlation given all the other factors that go into purchasing a car, such as the models available and the "fun" factor.

I'm sure there has been research done on this, particularly by car companies.