Journal of Applied Psychology最新文献

There is high-level interest in diversifying workforces, which has led organizations-including the U.S. Armed Forces-to reevaluate recruiting and selection practices. The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has encountered particular difficulties in diversifying its workforce, and it relies mainly on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) for assigning active-duty recruits to one of 19 specialized training schools. When recruits' scores fall below ASVAB entrance standards, the USCG sometimes offers admission waivers. Alternatively, recruits can retest until their ASVAB scores meet the entrance standard. Retesting has shown mixed results in the personnel selection literature, so our main interest is to determine whether retesting or waivers best support USCG recruits' training school outcomes, especially for recruits identifying as an underrepresented minority (URM). We use data from 16,624 USCG recruits entering between 2013 and 2021 and fit augmented inverse propensity weighted models to assess differences in training outcomes by pathway to admission while accounting for self-selection into pathways. Our analyses found (a) no difference in training outcomes between recruits who qualified from their initial scores and recruits who retested, (b) recruits who received waivers were less likely to complete training school on time and spent more time in remedial training when they failed training school compared to those who retested, and (c) improvement in training outcomes for retesting over waivers was larger for recruits identifying as an URM. Results suggest that retesting may be an effective strategy for workforce diversification and for improving outcomes among recruits identifying as an URM. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Predictive bias (i.e., differential prediction) means that regression equations predicting performance differ across groups based on protected status (e.g., ethnicity, sexual orientation, sexual identity, pregnancy, disability, and religion). Thus, making prescreening, admissions, and selection decisions when predictive bias exists violates principles of fairness based on equal treatment and opportunity. First, we conducted a two-part study showing that different types of predictive bias exist. Specifically, we conducted a Monte Carlo simulation showing that out-of-sample predictions provide a more precise understanding of the nature of predictive bias-whether it is based on intercept and/or slope differences across groups. Then, we conducted a college admissions study based on 29,734 Black and 304,372 White students, and 35,681 Latinx and 308,818 White students and provided evidence about the existence of both intercept- and slope-based predictive bias. Third, we discuss the nature and different types of predictive bias and offer analytical work to explain why each type exists, thereby providing insights into the causes of different types of predictive bias. We also map the statistical causes of predictive bias onto the existing literature on likely underlying psychological and contextual mechanisms. Overall, we hope our article will help reorient future predictive bias research from whether it exists to the why of different types of predictive bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

While it is well understood that the content included in an apology matters, what constitutes an effective apology may differ depending on the gender of the person delivering it. In this article, we test competing theoretical perspectives (i.e., role congruity theory and expectancy violation theory [EVT]) about the relative effectiveness of apologies that include language that conforms (or not) with the gender stereotypes ascribed to the apologizer. Results of four studies supported an EVT perspective and showed that apologies were perceived to be relatively more effective when they contradicted gender stereotypes (i.e., communal [agentic] apologies by men [women]). Specifically, Study 1 provided an initial test of the competing hypotheses using celebrity apologies on Twitter. Then, results of three experiments (Studies 2, 3a, and 3b) built upon these initial findings and tested the psychological mechanisms proposed by EVT to explain why counterstereotypical apologies are beneficial (i.e., attributions of interpersonal sensitivity [assertiveness] and enhanced perceptions of benevolence [competence] for men [women]). Our contributions to theory and practice are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Performance appraisal (PA) is used for various organizational purposes and is vital to human resources practices. Despite this, current estimates of PA reliability are low, leading to decades of criticism regarding the use of PA in organizational contexts. In this article, we argue that current meta-analytical interrater reliability (IRR) coefficients are underestimates and do not reflect the reliability of interest to most practitioners and researchers-the reliability of an employee's direct supervisor. To establish the reliability of direct supervisor ratings, those making PA ratings must directly supervise employee job performance instead of nonparallel rater designs (e.g., direct supervisor ratings correlated with ratings from a more senior leader). The current meta-analysis identified 22 independent samples that met this more restrictive study inclusion criterion, finding an average observed IRR of .65. We also report reliability estimates for several important contextual moderators, including whether ratings were completed in operational settings (.60) or for research purposes (.67). In sum, we argue that this study's meta-analytical IRR estimates are the best available estimates of direct supervisor reliability and should be used to guide future research and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

To date, the unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) literature has been guided by a prosocial perspective, which argues that people engage in UPB primarily to benefit the employers with whom they identify and have a positive social exchange. According to this perspective, employees who are characteristically self-interested are less likely to engage in UPB. However, recent evidence suggests self-interest may play a larger role in motivating UPB than originally theorized. To clarify this controversy, we offer two different, but not necessarily mutually exclusive, perspectives of UPB-one in which UPB is driven primarily by prosocial motives and one in which it is driven primarily by self-interest. We tested which of these accounts of UPB was more strongly supported by comparing UPB's relationships with two nomological networks: one containing relatively prosocially motivated constructs and the other containing relatively self-interest-motivated constructs. Two of the eight hypotheses from the prosocial perspective were supported, while seven of the eight hypotheses from the self-interest perspective were supported. Additionally, the average absolute value of UPB's correlations with prosocial perspective constructs was .09, while the comparable average correlation with self-interest perspective constructs was .33. Thus, the results favored the self-interest perspective. We discuss how these findings change our theoretical understanding of UPB by acknowledging both its prosocial and self-interest motivations, and we accordingly propose a revised definition for UPB that allows for both of these motivations. We also examined more broadly the relationship between UPB and other constructs to provide a comprehensive meta-analytic overview of this literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Decades of negotiations research has emphasized the importance of having alternatives. Negotiators with high-value outside offers tend to have greater power and claim higher values in the focal negotiation. We extend this line of work by proposing that the source of alternatives-that is, who negotiators receive an alternative offer from-can significantly shape their negotiation behavior and outcomes. Specifically, we examine how negotiators' behavior changes when they face a counterpart who has an offer from their rival. Four studies demonstrate that this situation enhances negotiators' motivation to outperform their counterpart's alternative by reaching an agreement with the counterpart. This in turn leads the focal negotiator to make less aspirational first offers and eventually claim less value in final agreements. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the existing relationships among actors directly and indirectly involved in a negotiation, reveal a novel motive that can guide negotiators' behavior and outcomes, and uncover a previously unexplored negotiation strategy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The purpose of this research is to demonstrate how using natural language processing (NLP) on narrative application data can improve prediction and reduce racial subgroup differences in scores used for selection decisions compared to mental ability test scores and numeric application data. We posit there is uncaptured and job-related constructs that can be gleaned from applicant text data using NLP. We test our hypotheses in an operational context across four samples (total N = 1,828) to predict selection into Officer Training School in the U.S. Air Force. Boards of three senior officers make selection decisions using a highly structured rating process based on mental ability tests, numeric application information (e.g., number of past jobs, college grades), and narrative application information (e.g., past job duties, achievements, interests, statements of objectives). Results showed that NLP scores of the narrative application generally (a) predict Board scores when combined with test scores and numeric application information at a level of correlation equivalent to the correlation between human raters (.60), (b) add incremental prediction of Board scores beyond mental ability tests and numeric application information, and (c) reduce subgroup differences between racial minorities and nonracial minorities in Board scores compared to mental ability tests and numeric application information. Moreover, NLP scores predict (a) job (training) performance, (b) job (training) performance beyond mental ability tests and numeric application information, and (c) even job (training) performance beyond Board scores. Scoring of narrative application data using NLP shows promise in addressing the validity-adverse impact dilemma in selection. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Decades of research in industrial-organizational psychology have established that measures of general cognitive ability (g) consistently and positively predict job-specific performance to a statistically and practically significant degree across jobs. But is the validity of g stable across different levels of job experience? The present study addresses this question using historical large-scale data across 31 diverse military occupations from the Joint-Service Job Performance Measurement/Enlistment Standards Project (N = 10,088). Across all jobs, results of our meta-analysis find near-zero interactions between Armed Forces Qualification Test score (a composite of math and verbal scores) and time in service when predicting job-specific performance. This finding supports the validity of g for predicting job-specific performance even with increasing job experience and provides no evidence for diminishing validity of g. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, along with directions for personnel selection research and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A large body of literature has studied the effect of stereotype threat and stereotype lift on cognitive test performance. Research on stereotype threat (ST) examines whether the awareness of a negative stereotype can decrease stereotyped group members' test performance. A less commonly studied influence of stereotypes is stereotype lift (SL), defined as an increase in a group's test performance due to not being part of a negative stereotype. For example, men might perform better on math tests if they are primed on the stereotype that men are better than women at math. Walton and Cohen (2003) previously meta-analyzed the impact of SL on cognitive tests, finding an overall d = 0.24. We report an updated meta-analysis on SL with more samples and moderator analyses. We then meta-analyzed between-group effects (majority-minority group differences both in the presence and absence of SL and ST) to compare their relative contributions to subgroup mean differences on cognitive tests. Our results indicate that SL has a small influence on cognitive test performance (d = 0.09, SD_res = 0.19), and that subgroup mean differences result largely from between-group effects rather than from the effects of ST and SL. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Although subordinate-to-supervisor relational identification (RI) has gained significant scholarly attention in organizational research, an understanding of its nomological network is incomplete. There have also been recurring discussions about its distinctions with another more extensively researched relational construct-leader-member exchange (LMX). In this meta-analysis, we expand Sluss and Ashforth's (2007) typology, going beyond the influence of the supervisor, to systematically study the antecedents and consequences of RI and its comparison with LMX. Meta-analytic results based on 157 independent samples demonstrate that positive leader behaviors that span role-based and person-based identities (e.g., transformational leadership, supervisor humility) are important antecedents of subordinate-to-supervisor RI, with effects contingent on subordinates' national culture (i.e., collectivism and power distance). Although less hypothesized, relational and organizational contexts as well as subordinate characteristics are also important antecedents of subordinate-to-supervisor RI. The results further show that RI relates to important subordinate behaviors and attitudes. Finally, we test how RI and LMX have differing effects across these important subordinate attitudes and behaviors. We conclude with suggestions to enhance our understanding of RI. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).