The effect of externally-mediated goal setting on intrinsic motivation was examined using a laboratory assembly task. College male subjects (N=80) were randomly assigned in a factorial design including two conditions of goal setting (assigned vs. no goals) and two conditions of initial task interest (interesting vs. boring task). The results show…

This study assessed attributions made to an attractive or unattractive person who took either a proximal or distal seating position following task performance. Greater attributions of success were made to an attractive person, regardless of the proximity, which suggests pervasive influence of physical attractiveness on attributions in behavioral…

Attributions of causes of successful task performances as a function of task and sex of the performer were investigated. Introductory psychology students (N=157) were presented with closed-circuit, videotaped episodes in which a male or female stimulus person performed a card-guessing task for 10 trials. Subjects heard the task described to the…

As part of a longitudinal study of first-term enlisted naval personnel, perceptions of job scope (the complexity and challenge of a job), were investigated to predict criteria of satisfaction, enlisted performance ratings, and turnover. Correlations between job scope (Job Diagnostic Survey scores) and behavior as moderated by a variety of…

An initial model of the evaluation process in the leadership context is presented in order to consider information processing explanations of behavior in general and attributional analyses in particular. The model is designed to aid those individuals acting in supervisory capacities who must evaluate the performance of subordinates in an…

The relationships between feedback, its source, and the increases or decreases of the behavior associated with it were investigated to apply predictions of the credibility gap regarding the effects of feedback on the acquisition of an individual skill. Subjects (N=45) were randomly assigned to one of five treatment conditions and provided…

A fading procedure to maintain student pacing in personalized instruction courses in two settings--a small educational psychology course at a public university and a large psychology course at a private university--was investigated. Students in both courses were divided into two groups. The first group had gradually lengthened unit completion…

Categories such as commanding, requesting, and explaining were used to analyze communicative intentions in conversations of 108 children, aged five through nine, during three sets of play activities varying in task specification and leadership role assignment. Results showed that the frequency and variety of communicative intention categories…

This study examined the effects of functional communication patterns on interpersonal attraction, using a ten-category system of interaction analysis. Eight undergraduates were randomly selected and assigned to four unacquainted male-female pairs. After completing a physical attraction measure of their partners in the pairs, members of two pairs…

The relationship between the behavioral consistency procedure and two other procedures (application form analysis and rating scales) were investigated through a comparison of initial employment and hiring practices used by the U.S. Civil Service Commission. The position of Budget Analyst was initially assessed in terms of five achievement areas…

The possibilities of providing, for a manager, an individualized prescription of what he can do to increase the performance of his work unit on designated criteria in selected organizational settings are demonstrated. The information is couched in terms of a 31-variable system described by the manager and his immediate subordinates. Regression…

This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of commonly used measures of job effectiveness, concentrating on a recent development in the field, the Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS); and proposes a new approach, the Behavior Description Index (BDI), which the author contends reduces or avoids most of the shortcomings of other…

A sorting-recall procedure was used to examine the relationship between study and recall organization in reflective and impulsive children at the first and fourth grade levels. Data regarding sorting latencies per trial and the number of trials required to achieve stable sorts were provided by two indirect measures of the deliberateness and ease…

Numerous attempts by the U.S. Navy to identify leadership potential within its ranks and to train for such leadership skills have been mostly unsuccessful since the efforts were based upon very subjective perceptions of good leadership qualities. To address this problem, the Navy, with the assistance of Dr. David McClelland, has described a set of…

This paper describes a study of the classroom behavior patterns of 79 reflective and impulsive elementary school children in each of three contextual settings: individual setting (independent, unsupervised seat work); large group setting (15 or more students instructed by the teacher or another adult); and small group setting (similar to large…