Gerrit Wolf

Work Settings and Job Satisfaction: A Study of Primary Care Physicians and Paramedical Personnel

This paper examines job satisfaction of primary care physicians and paramedical personnel in traditional office practices and in modern medical organizations. A series of two-way analyses of variance using work settings and occupational level as independent variables showed consistent effects of setting on job satisfaction. In modern organizational settings satisfaction with the work activity, with coworkers, and with income was lower than in traditional practices. Only with respect to income, were physicians, on the average, more satisfied than paramedical workers. The relationships between job satisfaction and the variety and complexity of work as well as ownership of work settings are analyzed and discussed.

Leadership and the art of cycle maintenance: A simulation model of superior—subordinate interaction

Abstract The leadership process is defined by the behaviors and messages exchanged by superiors and subordinates in the task and relationship domains. The behaviors are described and arranged in a series of cycles representing recurring patterns of transactions. A Markov model is then used to simulate behavior of different types of superior—subordinate relationships, illustrating the effects of tendencies such as risk-taking and defensiveness and the impact of closeness of supervision. Results support the usefulness of the model and highlight the mutual influence of superior and subordinate on the leadership process. Implications for testing the model and applications to selection and training are discussed.

Teams Compared to Individuals in Duopoly Games with an Artificial Player

A social, psychological, and economic analysis of two sets of duopoly games where one player is live and the other is an artifical player is presented here. The two sets of games differ according to whether the live player is a team or an individual. The details of the structure of these games are given in other publications [5]. The complete structure of the heuristics for the artificial player is given in a separate publication [7]. The social psychology of duopoly and the economics of duopoly are explored in Sections II and III respectively. Hypotheses appear in Section IV. The games experimented with are discussed in Section V and the results and analysis are presented in Section VI. Interpretation and discussion in Section VII conclude the report.

A Model of Conversation

Wolf, Gerrit A Model of Conversation. Behavioral Patterns in Goal Setting Conferences. American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C.; Yale Univ., New Haven, Conn. R-23; R-32 70 45p.; Presented at American Psychological Association Convention, Miami Beach, Florida, September 3-8, 1970 Gerrit Wolf, Yale University, Department of Administrative Sciences, 2 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, Connecticut 06520. (No price is quoted.)

Exchange in games and communication

Abstract Social exchange takes place everyday in many areas of life. It is also, however, an analytical framework that can be made into a theory if both empirical and formal variables are identified. Minimal social gaming and communication can be used in the identification of the former kind of variable and Markov chains in the identification of the latter. In our formulation, we use the following terms: situation , recent history of exchanges; actions , permissible messages; rewards , outcome values; relationships , organizations of outcome values; interaction , that action which proceeds through decision rules. The meaning and value of a message are made explicit as well as the ways in which they might change. The parameters that specify an exchange are used to analyze natural interaction and to suggest implications for experimentation.

Perception of Payoff Structure and Opponent's Behavior in Related Matrix Games

Empirical results indicate to what extent judges recognize similanties between payoff matrices that vary in game theoretic information conditions. Judges failed to note similarities in patterns of payoffs between matrices but did recognize patterns of behavior of an opponent.

Behavioral Processes in Different Minimal Social Situations

This study explored answers to two questions: What are some natural world situations represented by the environmentally poor minimal social situations (MSS), matrix gaming? And how do some kinds of behavioral processes operate in these situations? The reasons for these questions stemmed from the observation that much research has been done since the first MSS (Sidowski, 1957) with relatively unimportant results in terms of understanding natural world interaction. The direction taken in answering the questions was one of an information-processing by interactors and the kinds of information manipulated in a game (Wolf and Zahn, 1971 ).

The Effect of Delegation on Outcomes in the Primary Care Team.

Delegation should positively affect outcomes according to usual management and organizational theory. This study sought to see if delegation related to outcomes in different settings and for different problems. The results based on 70 primary care teams, showed that delegation relates negatively to outcomes in the traditional solo and group practice setting and positively in the modern group practice setting. The settings themselves were shown to have direct effects on outcomes in the opposite direction from that of delegation. These results imply that there are opposing forces acting in different settings that effect primary care outcomes of satisfaction, time quality and efficiency.