Mark E. Tubbs

Expectations, Impressions, and Judgments of Physically Attractive Students: A Review

This article examines the effect of students’ physical attractiveness on a variety of judgments made in educational settings. This review discusses the following issues: (a) methodology for studying physical attractiveness in the classroom; (b) teacher judgments, expectations, and impressions of physically attractive students; and (c) the influence of moderator variables such as gender, race, conduct, and physical attractiveness effects. A descriptive and a meta-analytic review of the research indicated that physically attractive students are judged usually more favorably by teachers in a number of dimensions including intelligence, academic potential, grades, and various social skills. The potential influence of moderator variables—such as, student gender, race, and past performance on the physical attractiveness bias—is also examined. Finally, the possible mechanisms responsible for the attractiveness effect and the limitations of this research are discussed.

Commitment as a moderator of the goal-performance relation: A case for clearer construct definition.

A central assumption in the goal theory literature is that the degree of commitment to the assigned goal moderates the effectiveness of the goal-setting procedure. However, attempts to empirically verify commitments moderating role have generally met with failure, calling into question either widely used measures of goal commitment, the moderating assumption itself, or both. Three studies are described that address this issue. Results indicated that the moderation assumption is valid but is only relevant to one of three closely related motivational concepts that are commonly discussed under the heading of commitment: prechoice attitudes, the subsequent choice of a personal goal, and the maintenance of that choice

Expectancy, valence, and motivational force functions in goal-setting research: an empirical test

Expectancy-valence (EV) theory has often been used as a model for understanding goal setting. The authors attempt to further distinguish within-person from across-persons uses of EV theory concepts in the goal-setting literature and present a within-person empirical test. The key element of the approach examined here is that an assigned goals initial effect is on the patterns formed across levels of potential task performance by a persons judgments of expectancy, valence, and motivational force (i.e., performance-expectancy, performance-valence, and performance-motivational force functions). By examining these functions, the authors make available more detailed information regarding the motivational effects of assigned goals

A Case Meta-Analysis of Gainsharing Plans as Organization Development Interventions

A model of the effects of structural, implementation, and situational factors on the success of gainsharing plans as organization development interventions was tested using a case meta-analysis. Data were derived from 33 case studies of gainsharing plans implemented over 50 years. The authors found that several structural features and implementation practices significantly predicted gainsharing success: employee involvement in plan design, use of outside practitioners, formal involvement structures, and employee favorability toward the plan. With the exception of participative management style, situational conditions did not correlate with gainsharings success. Success was robust across organizational size, union status, technology, and environment. The authors conclude that case meta-analysis allows researchers to discern patterns of relationships in OD cases and to test specific hypotheses by capitalizing on naturally occurring covariation in OD practice

An Empirical Comparison of Several Commonly Used Measures of Valence

ABSTRACT The construct validity of valence measures based on anticipated satisfaction, attractiveness, and importance was examined in three studies. Results indicated that only the satisfaction measure consistently fit the validity criteria. The importance and, to a lesser extent, the attractiveness measures appear to be less appropriate as assessments of valence, perhaps due to the influence of expectancy on those judgments.

Through a Glass Darkly: Effects of Smiling and Visibility on Recognition and Avoidance in Passing Encounters

This study examined the patterns of recognition and avoidance in pedestrians as they walked past a confederate. The first purpose of the study was to replicate the results of an earlier experiment (Patterson, Webb, & Schwartz, 2002) showing that the addition of a smile from the confederate greatly increased pedestrians’ responsiveness. A second purpose was to determine if confederates’ visibility (wearing sunglasses or not) in these passing encounters would affect pedestrians’ reactions and provide insight regarding the functions involved in these events. Specifically, the effects of condition (avoid, look‐only, and look and smile), sex of confederate, and sunglasses on passing pedestrians were examined in a field study on 183 participants. A log‐linear analysis of the results provided support for the first hypothesis with more glances, smiles, and nods in the look and smile condition than in the avoid and look‐only conditions. The hypotheses that confederates who wore sunglasses would receive fewer glances than those who did not and that this effect would be greater for the male confederate were not supported. There was, however, a significant Sunglasses × Sex of Confederate effect on smiles, with pedestrians smiling more at the male confederate when he wore sunglasses than when he did not and smiling less at the female confederate when she wore sunglasses than when she did not. The contrasting effect of sunglasses for the male and female confederate was discussed in terms of the different functions of a smile in pedestrian encounters.

Direct reports of motivation for task performance levels: some construct-related evidence.

Abstract The validity of direct self-reports of motivational force for task performance levels was examined in three studies. Such measures have been used as true-scorelike criteria for computed measures of force and have advantages as measures in their own right. Results suggested that simple, direct self-reports should be useful in some research settings, but their validity as assessments of motivational force per se may be influenced by both wording and context.

Goal Setting Research in Industrial/Organizational Psychology

In the Forward to Locke and Latham’s (1990) “A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance,” Albert Bandura wrote: “The regulation of motivation by goal setting is a remarkably robust phenomenon. Converging lines of evidence from laboratory and field studies involving heterogeneous task domains reveal goal effects to be highly reproducible and of substantial magnitude. Despite this unprecedented level of empirical support, goal theory has not been accorded the prominence it deserves in mainstream psychology. Perhaps it is because this line of theorizing and research has been featured mainly in publications in the organizational field” (p. xii).

An examination of individuals' information processing in the formation of goal commitment judgments

ABSTRACT Commitment to performance goals is increasingly viewed as the result of an expectancy—valence process such as that which underlies motivational force judgments. Although some across-persons evidence exists regarding the relationships between commitment, expectancy and valence, and motivational force, this within-person study was an investigation of the psychological process underlying commitment judgments. Subjects performed a decision-making task that provided the data necessary for individual-level analyses. Results indicated that commitment judgments were indeed related to expectancy and valence, although individual differences in information processing were evident.

External Performance Evaluations and Task Motivation: Some Suggestions

Our purpose in this volume is to consider the role of external evaluations in individual motivation and performance. In the most basic (and oversimplified) terms possible, it seems that the central issues are these: What are the effects of external performance evaluation? Is it a good or a bad thing? When does it work best/worst? The first four chapters in this volume describe different research traditions, all of which share the common theme of investigating motivated task behavior and, in one way or another, the effects of performance evaluation. Each tradition has of course been shaped by parochial concerns, resulting in many methodological differences, including the choice of independent and dependent variables, level of analysis, and experimental tasks. Overall, in my opinion, while there is some overlap in these literatures, they are more often complementary, representing special, particularly salient, cases of task motivation. It is quite understandable why these particular variables and contexts have been examined and, for the most part, they do represent rather different cases involving rather different concerns.