Browsing by Author "Martell, Richard F."

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    Motivated strategies in the performance appraisal process: Effects of rater accountability
    (1992) Swerdlin, Marnie Rose; Martell, Richard F.
    Recent performance appraisal research has focused on rater cognitive processes. Instead, this research examined the effects of a motivational variable, accountability, on rater cognitive processes and on performance ratings. In the first experiment, accountability attenuated a primacy effect in evaluative ratings, and, when negative information was presented first, increased the time spent looking at performance information. However, there was no evidence that looking time mediated the effect of accountability on evaluative ratings. In the second experiment, accountable subjects had a more conservative response bias in behavioral ratings relative to unaccountable subjects if evaluative ratings were made prior to behavioral ratings. Accountable subjects who made behavioral ratings first showed no response bias in behavioral ratings although they had less confidence in their ratings relative to other subjects. This research demonstrates that accountability can influence rater cognitive processes and thus performance ratings but that its effects are situational.
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    Performance cue effects in work behavior ratings: Memory or response bias?
    (1991) Willis, Cynthia Emrich; Martell, Richard F.
    This study examined whether a memory or response bias mediated the effects of performance cues on observers' recollections of a work group's behavior. Fifty-nine subjects observed a film of a group at work. Then, immediately or one week later, subjects rated the group's performance using behavioral, evaluative, and objective outcome rating instruments. Prior to observing the group, subjects were given performance cues that led them to believe the group had either performed well or poorly in the task. Results identified a systematic response bias and not a memory bias as the cognitive process mediating the effects of performance cues in work behavior ratings: Subjects adopted a more liberal decision criterion when attributing effective (ineffective) behaviors in response to positive (negative) performance cues. Unlike the behavioral ratings, recollections of specific group outcomes were immune to the biasing effect of performance cues.