Lawrence H. Peters

The behavioral and affective consequences of performance-relevant situational variables

Abstract Results of two studies are reported. Four of the situational variables identified as relevant to performance settings in Study I were experimentally manipulated in order to create facilitating and inhibiting treatment conditions in Study II. Results indicated that performance, affective responses, and the relationship between these two variables tended to be affected by performance-relevant situational characteristics. Implications for this neglected research area are discussed.

The Joint Influence of Situational Constraints and Goal Setting on Performance and Affective Outcomes

The major prediction in the present investigation was that increases in goal dificulty would be associated with increases in task performance only in the absence of severe situational constraints. In order to test this and associated predictions, a laboratory study was conducted using a 2 (facilitating versus inhibiting task settings) x 3 (low versus moderate versus high goal levels) experimental design. Results supported the constraint x goal difficulty interaction prediction using a measure of self-set personal goals and tended to do so using the manipulated goal difficulty level. In addition, situational constraints were found to be significantly associated with the performance and affective outcome variables and self-set goal level was found to be significantly associated with performance. These results are discussed with regard to both the goal setting and situational constraint literatures.

The Measurement of Job Satisfaction: Current Practices and Future Considerations

Data are reviewed which indicate that a lack of standardized measurement is currently apparent within the job satisfaction literature. While several other instruments were used repeatedly, 71 measures (46% of the 155 instances in which job satisfaction was measured) appeared only once in five leading journals during the 1973 to 1975 period. Similar results were evident when data from 1976 to 1978 were examined. The authors argue that the continued usage of non-replicated measures may be doing a great disservice to the job satisfaction field not only by failing to provide fair tests of conceptual propositions but by precluding the incremental building of knowledge across studies. Three alternative strategies are discussed and arguments are presented supporting the current need for serious thought concerning the nature of experienced satisfaction and for rigorous construct validation of job satisfaction measures.

Identifying Moderator Variables Using Multiple Regression: A Reply to Darrow and Kahl

Darrow and Kahls (1982) paper on detecting moderator variables is misleading because it contains both logical and methodological problems. The present paper was written to respond to two of those problems: their distinction between pure and mixed moderators and their choice of model for testing for moderator effects. In this paper we show that the distinction between pure and mixed models is uninformative and that the standard hierarchical regression model represents the appropriate method for identifying moderator variables.