R-3 Repository :: Browsing by Author "Schneider, David J."

Browsing by Author "Schneider, David J."

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Ambivalence as a moderator of the effects of disability acknowledgement and task performance on the evaluation and treatment of the disabled
(1996) Day, James A.; Schneider, David J.
Subjects performed a team task with a confederate who either was disabled and acknowledged her disability, was disabled and did not acknowledge her disability, or was not disabled. In addition, the confederate performed either well or poorly on the task. Subjects were assessed on their ambivalence toward the disabled prior to working with their team partner. As predicted, subjects working with a disabled team partner who did not acknowledge her disability and did well on the task, rated her higher on agreeableness and spent more time discussing a topic with her than when she was not disabled. Subjects working with a disabled team partner who did not acknowledge her disability and did poorly on the task, rated her lower on agreeableness and spent less time discussing a topic with her than when she was not disabled. In addition, subjects working with a disabled team partner who acknowledged her disability and did well on the task, rated her higher on agreeableness and spent more time discussing a topic with her than when she was not disabled. Subjects working with a disabled team partner who acknowledged her disability and did poorly on the task, rated her higher on agreeableness than when she was not disabled. They spent less time discussing a topic with her than when she was not disabled, although the difference was not as great as when she did not acknowledge her disability. Furthermore, all of these effects only occurred when subjects had prior ambivalent attitudes toward the disabled. The results provide evidence for ambivalence as a moderator of the way people evaluate and behave toward the disabled. In addition, the results demonstrate that disability acknowledgment can be an effective interactional tactic that will result in positive evaluations and behavior toward the disabled.
Are four heads better than one? Comparing groups and individuals on behavioral rating accuracy
(1991) Borg, Maria Rita; Schneider, David J.
The main objective of this research was to determine whether differences between group and individual accuracy on behavioral rating tasks are due to differences in memory sensitivity or to systematic differences in the type of decision criterion adopted. Group vs. individual differences in evaluative judgment and in confidence levels, and the effects of a five-day delay were also investigated. Lastly the relationship between response bias and prior evaluative judgment was explored. The results revealed a group memory superiority but also demonstrated that groups adopt a too-liberal decision criterion when rating the occurrence of effective behaviors. In addition, in the delayed rating condition, groups were found to be more confident in their correct responses than individual subjects. And finally, for individual subjects, prior evaluative decisions were positively related to response bias in the rating of effective behaviors and negatively related to response bias in the rating of ineffective behaviors.
Automatic and controlled processes in leadership recognition: Investigating the impact of information load, need for leadership, and time delay
(1993) Willis, Cynthia Emrich; Schneider, David J.
It has been theorized that leadership recognition is the product of an automatic categorization process in which individuals compare a set of observed behaviors to a leadership prototype and then, given a sufficient match, automatically recognize the target individual as a leader (Lord, Foti, & DeVader, 1984). The first goal of this research was to test this theory. A second goal was to investigate three potential moderators of the cognitive processes mediating leadership recognition: information load, need for leadership, and time delay. Three experiments were conducted in which subjects assumed the role of a work team coordinator for a small computer company. Their task was to identify an individual to fill an opening in a work team. During a study phase, subjects read a series of behavioral descriptions that were taken from recommendations written about former employees and one job candidate. A test phase followed in which the primary task was Jacoby's (1991) process-dissociation procedure (PDP), a recognition memory that generates estimates of automatic and controlled processes. Results from the experiments revealed that leadership recognition was mediated by a combination of automatic and controlled processes, with the balance clearly favoring automatic processes. That is, individuals operated in a primarily unintentional, unavoidable, and effortless manner when processing and integrating behavioral information about a potential leader. This balance of automatic and controlled cognitive processes was moderated by subjects' perceptions of the extent to which the work team needed a leader (Experiment 2 - Need for Leadership). Specifically, high-need-for-leadership subjects employed a more focused strategy of information processing than did their low-need counterparts. They appeared to expect and to give less scrutiny to behaviors that were consistent with leadership (increase in automatic processes), and to work more diligently to make sense of and integrate behaviors that were irrelevant to leadership (increase in controlled processes). The general primacy of automatic processes found in these experiments suggests that individuals are adept at forming impressions of potential leaders. This ability to identify leaders in a primarily effortless fashion is largely adaptive in light of the attentional scarcity that characterizes much of everyday life.
"But it doesn't mean anything, it's just a cartoon": Cartoons as primes for stereotypes of women in the workplace
(1997) Haley, Elizabeth Ann; Schneider, David J.
This study looked at the influence of cartoons as primes for stereotypes about women in the workplace. Three sets of cartoons (neutral animal, non-agentic women, and feminists) were used and subjects were exposed to just one set based on their assigned condition. After rating the funniness of the cartoons, subjects read about ambiguous behaviors recorded by a supervisor about a social worker. Subjects evaluated the social worker on both performance issues and personal traits. Subjects then read additional information and rated the supervisor. The gender of the social worker and supervisor were manipulated. Three general performance measures and five traits, identified in a pilot study, were analyzed. Priming did occur but inconsistently across the measures. Some interesting patterns representing contrast effects for males in the feminist cartoon condition and females in the non-agentic condition surfaced. The gender composition of the subordinate-supervisor dyad contributed to the priming effect for some measure.
Effects of prior impressions, time pressure, cognitive complexity, and cognitive ability on information gathering and decision making strategies
(1993) Day, James A.; Schneider, David J.
Using a computerized information display board, subjects gathered information regarding applicants and subsequently evaluated the applicants. Results showed that subjects with prior impressions operated under a confirmatory bias during the information search and during the subsequent decision making process. This effect was greater for subjects under time pressure and with lesser cognitive complexity. Subjects having no prior impressions preferred to gather diagnostic information. Subjects under time pressure demonstrated a noncompensatory processing strategy by increasing the rate of processing, gathering less information, and showing greater variance in dimensional accesses. Subjects under severe time pressure demonstrated greater variance in applicant accesses, focused on the information dimensions most important to them, and had significantly more Type 4 (nonsystematic) transitions. Subjects with lesser cognitive complexity eliminated applicants from consideration sooner than did subjects with greater cognitive complexity. Subjects with lesser cognitive ability were more likely to immediately reaccess information and gathered less information.
Information search in personnel selection decisions: The influence of affirmative action, decision set, and selection ratio
(1995) Swerdlin, Marnie Rose; Schneider, David J.
A series of three laboratory experiments examined effects of affirmative action (AA) employment policies, decision set (in terms of accepting or rejecting applicants), and selection ratio (ratio of applicants to available positions) on amount, duration, content, and sequence of information search on job applicants, on personnel selection decisions, and on judgments of applicants. AA was investigated only in conjunction with a concern for hiring qualified applicants and only with respect to applicant gender (not race/ethnicity). The target job was a slightly male sex-typed job. A computerized information board tracked information search. When no decision set was provided, AA increased (decreased) the amount of search on female (male) applicants when considering search on females relative to males and decreased the time spent on males. More females (and fewer males) were hired in the presence than absence of an AA policy unless there was a high selection ratio with no decision set provided. More failure-relevant information about applicants was sought in a reject than accept decision set when there was not an AA policy. Amount of intradimensional search (search by attribute across applicants) was greater in a reject than accept decision set. Decision set also affected ratings of applicant qualifications. The amount and duration of search on applicants who were selected was greater for a low than high selection ratio. The same pattern held for duration per item of information on applicants who were selected if there was an accept decision set or no decision set was provided. Decision makers were more (less) accurate in identifying the best- (least-) qualified applicants when there was a low than high selection ratio. When comparing the number of females hired relative to their proportion in the applicant pool, females were either on equal footing or at an advantage (disadvantage) relative to males in the presence (absence) of an AA policy, depending on decision set and selection ratio. AA attitudes affected information search although not in a consistent manner across experiments. The multitude of effects found highlights the sensitivity of information search in the personnel selection process to person, task, and environmental characteristics.
Predicting postinterview impressions from preinterview information: An examination of behavioral mediators
(1994) Kohn, Laura Stephanie; Schneider, David J.
Consistent with previous findings, interviewers' postinterview evaluations of applicants for correction officer positions were positively related to preinterview information on the applicants. The interviewer's conduct of the interview appeared to mediate this effect in a manner consistent with the behavioral confirmation predictions of a process model of the interview (Dipboye, 1982). Individual differences among interviewers were found in the extent to which they used preinterview information in reaching their decisions. Additionally, the instructions which interviewers were provided with appeared to play a role in the manner in which interviewers rendered their ratings about applicants on ten interview dimensions.
"The darker the berry...'': An investigation of skin color effects on perceptions of job suitability
(1993) Kennedy, Andreana Holmes; Schneider, David J.
Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of skin color on subsequent ratings of job suitability and to evaluate the influence trait based stereotypes have on these ratings. Results showed that the effect of skin color on job suitability is moderated by the race of the rater. For white raters, more favorable job suitability ratings were attributed to light skinned applicants. For black raters, more favorable job suitability ratings were attributed to dark skinned applicants. There was no basis for attributing the skin color differences to trait based stereotypes. These findings are discussed and future research goals are presented.
The effects of career model prototypicality and age on children's occupational gender stereotypes and career interest
(1997) Borg, Maria R.; Schneider, David J.
The present study examined nontraditional career modeling from the perspective of social categorization and subtyping theories. Its main objective was to isolate the discrete, additive, and interactive effects of the manipulated model prototypicality factors, femininity and exceptionality on a set of dependent measures related to children's occupational gender stereotyping and girls' career interest and confidence. This research also pioneered the use of peers as career models and examined their effectiveness relative to adults. In general, prototypical models were expected to be more influential in decreasing stereotypes and increasing girls' interest in the modeled career than atypical models. Results showed that model femininity did, in fact, have the hypothesized effect on girls' career interest. Also as hypothesized, models who were both feminine and nonexceptional generally had the most influence in decreasing stereotyping. The expectation that models who were both nonfeminine and exceptional would have the least influence was supported for only one of the stereotyping measures. On other stereotyping measures, a model exceptionality model femininity interaction revealed a pattern whereby feminine models had more influence when they were nonexceptional. No overall superiority of peer models over adult models was hypothesized, or found. The expectation that exceptional peers would inspire less career confidence than exceptional adults was supported.
The effects of leader goal on perceptions of subordinates
(1994) Kotler, Elizabeth Anne; Schneider, David J.
Research on goal-based processing has shown that the goal or "mindset" with which a perceiver enters an interaction can significantly affect the manner in which information about a target is processed. Leaders and others in organizations might be particularly prone to these types of effects because they need to find ways to minimize the amount of information with which they must deal. Also, years of research on leadership style has demonstrated that different leadership styles differentially affect subordinates. This indicates that a critical link has gone unexamined: The effect of leadership style on the leader him/herself, and particularly on the way in which s/he processes information about subordinates. Leadership style, in its more specific form, can be viewed as a goal similar to many of those studied in the research on goal-based processing. It was proposed that leaders with a high-performance goal and those with a satisfied-worker goal would approach their subordinates differently and would process identical subordinate performance and behavior information in different ways. Subjects played the role of leaders in this experiment. Subjects were instructed to approach the task and the worker with a particular leader goal, either high-performance or satisfied-worker. Leaders had a (fictional) worker with whom they worked throughout the task. The leader gave the worker instructions, and the leader received responses and comments from the worker for each trial. Workers either performed well or poorly, and expressed either satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the task. Thus, a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects design was used. Following the task, subjects filled out several questionnaires. Dependent measures included amount and type of instructions given to the worker, incentives chosen for the worker, information seeking, attributions of worker performance, recall of various worker-relevant measures, worker performance ratings, and worker satisfaction ratings. Results indicated that leader goal had a significant effect on several of the measures, such as attributions, performance ratings, and amount of instruction given. In some cases, leader goal interacted with performance level and/or satisfaction level. The effects of leader goal should be further examined in order to more fully describe the leadership process.
The effects of motivation on social information processing
(1991) Kotler, Elizabeth Anne; Schneider, David J.
Studies examining processing of information which is consistent and inconsistent with an expectancy have not been able to conclusively determine which of these types of items has a memory advantage. Recent research indicates that one important determinant of this may be attention allocation to the different types of items. For example, a recent model of impression formation suggests that people process information along a continuum from using only a category label to using only individual attributes. It is proposed that motivational factors can influence attention allocation and thus memory for and use of consistent and inconsistent information. Two different communication sets were compared to assess their effects on information processing. It was hypothesized that whereas accountability would correspond with an advantage for inconsistent information, transmission tuning would correspond with an advantage for consistent information. Two experiments failed to confirm these hypotheses. There are several possible explanations for results.
The relative effects of interview structure and person-organization fit on recruiting outcomes: An individual differences perspective
(1995) Kohn, Laura Stephanie; Schneider, David J.
Two laboratory experiments were conducted to examine the effect of interview structure on recruiting outcomes. The first study was a 2 x 2 x 2 between subjects design in which subjects were presented with transcripts of either a structured or unstructured interview and information describing the organization as either affiliative or achievement oriented and the job as either data or socially oriented. Subjects rated numerous recruiting outcomes concerning their perceptions of the interviewer, organization, and job. The results of study 1 supported the hypothesis that structured interviews negatively influenced recruiting outcomes. Subjects given structured interviews rated the interviewer, organization, and job less favorably than subjects given unstructured interviews. The hypothesis that subjects would rate organizations congruent with their personal interests more favorably was not confirmed with examination of the individual difference measures of need for achievement and need for affiliation. However, some support was found for person-organization congruence with individual item measures of self-perceived organization and job fit. Study 2 was a 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 within subjects design in which specific attributes of the interview structure were examined: Job-relevance of questions, question standardization, applicant voice, and interviewer warmth. The findings revealed more favorable reactions to the interview when interviews were high in applicant voice and interviewer warmth, and low in question standardization. When the interview was high in applicant voice and interviewer warmth, and low in question standardization and job relevance, organizational attractiveness was rated more favorably. Of the four factors, applicant voice and interviewer warmth had the largest effects, followed by question standardization and job-relevance.
Through a glass darkly: Factors influencing the perception of bias
(2002) Solecki, Judith A.; Schneider, David J.
The current study focuses on understanding how individuals perceive bias. Using fictitious candidates for a job in differently discriminating companies, this study investigated three sets of factors hypothesized to contribute to the perception of bias; characteristics of the target job candidate, characteristic of the context, and characteristics (attitudes) of the participant. Participants were individuals approached in a Houston airport waiting lounge who returned the survey via a postage paid envelope (n = 108) or Rice University undergraduates (n = 49) participating in exchange for course credit. Investigation of the target characteristics showed that the target's deservedness (the extent to which the target's qualifications matched the target's selection outcome) greatly determined perceptions of bias. Race of the target was found to be more complexly related to perception of bias than originally hypothesized. The notion of target deservedness was also used to investigate the context and participant factors as contributions to bias. The theory of shifting standards was used to predict that context (past company discrimination in the current study) would influence bias in a counter-intuitive direction such that bias would not be perceived where it was expected. Perceptions of bias supported the hypothesis for deserved targets, but the results were counter to the hypothesis for undeserved targets (with the exception of selected white candidates). Participant attitudes were investigated as a third factor. Participant attitudes were not found to be predictive of bias perceptions. Alternative analyses suggest that participant attitudes may be useful for explaining bias perception when outcomes are undeserved.
What is it about unique ideas? The effects of utility and social norming on the exchange of unique information
(1992) Parker, Susan Libby; Schneider, David J.
Little is known about how groups use their most precious commodity: information held by group members. In particular, until the recent work of Stasser and his colleagues, almost nothing was known about how groups differentially use commonly held information and information that is known only by one member. Stasser's probabilistic information sampling model explains differential treatment of uniquely and commonly held information by explaining that more group members have access to commonly held than uniquely held information, so the commonly held information is more likely to be mentioned in discussion (Stasser & Titus, 1985, 1987). This model has been primarily supported for first mentions of information at the group level (Stasser, Taylor, & Hanna, 1989). In the study reported here predictions from a suggested model were tested on second and further mentions of information to determine if anything other than probability contributes to withholding of unique information by group members. It was expected that group member concerns about utility of information (including task relevance and validity) and social norms regarding sharing unique information might contribute separately and in combination to the withholding of unique information after it was discovered unique (via the first mention). Manipulations of confirmation of information utility and social norming were expected to increase repeat mentions of uniquely held information relative to commonly held information. University students read information about study abroad programs and decided as a group whether to recommend such a program for their university. Conversations of two- and three-person groups were audio-tape recorded and analyzed at both the group and individual level for mentions of commonly and uniquely held information. Perceptions of information usefulness, recognition of item uniqueness, and perceptions of group process were gathered after the group discussion. As expected, the manipulations did not affect first mentions. For second and further mentions social norming and utility confirmation singly and in combination tended to lower the advantage of commonly held information, although not always significantly. Suggestions for further research are made and recommendations for applications for decision making groups are based upon the demonstrated positive effectiveness of the utility confirmation manipulation.

Browsing by Author "Schneider, David J."

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