Jerome Adams

Reliability of the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ).

The stability and internal consistency of Spence and Helmreichs Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) and Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) are reported. An entire first-year class of 1,007 male and 78 female cadets at the U.S. Military Academy were given a battery of psychological tests before and after cadet basic training, a 2 1/2-month period. The AWS and PAQ proved to be highly reliable, comparable to other frequently used psychological tests. This psychometric information encourages researchers to make further use of these gender-related instruments.

To Teach is to Learn: Overcoming Tokenism with Mentors.

Active mentors, persons who are not simply role models, have been shown to facilitate and enhance career growth, yet the token role of women entering traditionally masculine professions was shown to inhibit sponsorships. An analysis of a sample of exit interviews from the first women cadets to graduate from West Point revealed that the marginal peer acceptance of tokens within a competitive, somewhat constrained atmosphere discouraged the development of these sponsorships. If women plan to play sustained roles in the professions, they must actively sponsor other women. A first step in this process is to be aware of the situational pressures, noted in the present paper, that are directed against sponsorships within a token group.

Women at west point: A three-year perspective

A longitudinal study of approximately 3,700 male and 300 female cadets investigated similarities and differences of these young adults during the first three years of coeducation at West Point. Both men and women were relatively homogeneous on comparisons of personality variables. Also, when personality characteristics were correlated with two psychological scales—the Personal Attributes Questionnaire and the Work and Family Orientation Scale—males and females appear more similar than different. Despite their similarities, female and male cadets were different in their attitudes towards the rights and roles of women in society, their leadership evaluation ratings, and their attitudes toward dating relationships. The implications of these findings in increasing our understanding of sex roles and sex stereotypes are discussed.

ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVE: ANALYZING THE VALIDITY OF THE WOFO

Spence and Helmreich developed the Work and Family Orientation (WOFO) Questionnaire as a multidimensional measure of achievement motivation and attitudes toward family and career because they believed that a unitary construct of achievement motivation was not sufficient to account for broad patterns of behavior in varied situations. This article reviews the evidence for the construct validity of the WOFO questionnaire based on data from a large group (N = 3,727) of men and women with high educational and career aspirations. Evidence presented includes factor analysis of the WOFO subscale dimensions, subscale reliabilities, and an analysis of the effect of gender and masculinity-femininity on achievement motives. The research confirms new insights regarding the relationship between achievement motives and sex roles for women and men.

Leadership Ratings for Male and Female Military Cadets.

Ratings of leadership ability for 1096 male and 91 female cadets at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) were examined for gender differences. Males were rated significantly higher than females for two of the three rating periods. Correlates of these ratings were examined in an effort to explore the meaning of such ratings for males and females. For both male and female cadets, situationally specific correlates of leadership ratings were identified. Physical ability and performance were most highly correlated with leadership ratings during summer training camp, while academic ability and performance were most highly correlated with these ratings during the academic year. These correlations were generally higher for females than for males. The value of such information to organizational newcomers and the means by which such information might be transmitted to them were discussed.

Halo Error A Field Study Comparison of Self -and Subordinate Evaluations of Leadership Process and Leader Effectiveness

This study tested two competing hypotheses concerning the occurrence of halo error in self-(i.e., leader) and subordinate ratings of leader behavior in a field setting at the United States Military Academy (West Point). Unit leaders at Cadet Field Training and their followers described leader behavior in terms of effectiveness and several specific forms of behavior (e.g., communication processes, reward/punishment contingencies). The intercorrelations among the nine measures were examined separately for both self -and subordinate ratings. Based on the attribution literature, the first hypothesis stated that subordinate ratings would show significantly more halo error than self-ratings. A competing hypothesis, based on the rater-ratee acquaintance literature, posited that subordinate ratings would not show significantly more halo than self-ratings. The results supported the first hypothesis. The implications of this finding for future research are discussed.

Research Notes. Follower Attitudes Toward Women And Judgments Concerning Performance By Female And Male Leaders

The article presents a study pertaining to the attitudes of male cadets toward their female leaders. The study utilized the Army Research Institutes attitudes toward women in the military scale (A...

A POLICY-CAPTURING APPROACH TO EXAMINE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ATTITUDES AND LEADERSHIP STYLE

The purpose of this study was to obtain more understanding of the relational qualities of leadership in military organizations by using a policy-capturing approach. The issue was the introduction of the innate dispositions of an actor and the demands of the situation at work. A survey instrument was administered to 326 Army leaders located throughout the United States. Analysis shows that the leaders could be classified either as developmental or punitive. Further, the leaders handled the same standard problems with significantly different solutions. Policy capturing seems a conceptually meaningful methodology to explain the process of leadership in specific organizational settings.