Thursday, June 13, 2013

Another (smaller) research update

Seems like this always happens, I post a research update and then Personnel Psychology comes out with their latest issue.

Oh well!  At least you won't have to read as much this time  And while we're at it, let's take a look at the latest Journal of Applied Social Psychology.  But first, Personnel Psych:

- The relationship between task performance and citizenship behavior: more complicated than you might think

- Propensity scoring: a statistical technique that may improve our ability to make causal inferences from quasi-experimental designs

- Can creative employees drive higher organizational performance?  Well that seems to depend on how open to risk your organization is...

- It's easier said than done, but those looking for a job should try to stay positive: it influences how quickly you're likely to land your next position

- Last but not least, a small correction to a study posted earlier on the advantage of contextualizing personality inventory items


Okay, on to June 2013 JASP, which is a special issue on prejudice:

-Trying to reduce bias in your selection process? Make sure your raters get enough sleep.

- Discrimination against people based on their weight: it starts early!  (there's another study on weight discrimination that looked at its impact on perceived social status)

- Discrimination against men perceived to be Muslim increased among Western observers when subjects were presented in traditional dress.

- Those of Black/White biracial descent were less likely to be perceived as minorities and thus less appropriate receipts of affirmative action

- Okay, I like this one in particular, and it happens to be the last one I'll describe.  Researchers showed that competency perceptions of an African-American man hired varied depending on whether it was under "affirmative action" or a "diversity initiative"--the latter resulting in higher ratings.  This was particularly true for conservative, White raters.  Just goes to show how important words are, as any political consultant will tell you.

Fin.