Marlene E. Turner

GROUPS AT WORK: THEORY AND RESEARCH

has been over several decades in developing tough but key lines of work, such as the specific models of organizational earning and adaptation. There are some redundancies in the papers, as one might expect, but there is also considerable development of key ideas that can be seen precisely because of their juxtaposition. The inquiring reader who un-nests the many layers of insights interspersed with fresh perspectives will find the discoveries worthwhile both theoretically and professionally. This book is one of those slender classics in which a particularly gifted member of our community has stepped back to offer his map of the journey that our field has taken and peers into the future to illuminate where and how we may continue the journey. Its an exceptional read, a stellar reference, and a one-of-a-kind conversation partner for the trip.

Of what value is a job attitude? A socio-cognitive analysis.

Job attitudes are often weakly predictive of job-related behaviors. A socio-cognitive model is presented to demonstrate why job attitudes are important, to identify their structural and functional properties, and to specify when they predict behavior. According to this model, attitudes are represented in memory by a cognitive structure consisting of an object label, an evaluative summary of that object, and a knowledge structure. This structure serves several functions: it allows individuals to make sense of their social world (heuristic and schematic functions of attitudes) and to maintain self-worth (self functions of attitudes). Finally, we use the socio-cognitive model to identify six propositions for increasing the attitude-behavior relationship.

The Significance of Affirmative Action for theSouls of White Folk: Further Implications of a Helping Model

We develop further our model of affirmative action as help (Pratkanis & Turner, 1996b; Turner & Pratkanis, 1994) by looking at the impact of aid on the donor. White Americans often take one of three approaches toaffirmative action. First, they can reject affirmative action because of their own personal frustrations. Second, they can engage in selective aid that maintains the basic patterns of social dominance. Both of these approaches can damage the psychological functioning of Whites. Third, White Americans can proactively seek to remove discriminatory barriers in a process we call democratic altruism, thereby opening the possibility of learning from diverse others and growth as a person. We conclude by discussing tactics for promoting democratic altruism.

Affirmative Action: Insights From Social Psychological and Organizational Research

Although much has been written about the legal and ethical aspects of affirmative action, relatively few empirical and theoretical works examine affirmative action. In this article, we broadly survey three aspects of affirmative action: its content, context, and consequences. Research examining the content or form of affirmative action illustrates immense variety in implementation plans and widespread confusion over the specifics of those plans. Research examining social and organizational context in which affirmative action is implemented underscores that this context can forcefully shape its effectiveness by providing a setting in which resistance may be encouraged or dismantled. Finally, research examining the consequences of affirmative action for recipients and organizations suggests, not surprisingly that affirmative action may have either beneficial or adverse effects. The nature of these outcomes appears to depend on the specifics of the affirmative action implementation plan. We note the need for...

Social influence and creativity: Setting the stage for inventiveness

This special issue of Social Influence examines how social influences can affect such outcomes as creativity, innovation, originality, and inventiveness. While major advances have been made, many questions regarding the impact of contextual and social factors on creativity and innovation remain. The papers in this issue examine a rich array of contextual factors that affect these processes, discussing group, organizational, and situational attributes that both facilitate and impair creativity and innovation. They present insights into the conceptual underpinnings of those relationships and provide empirical evidence illuminating those relationships. They indeed contribute to our understanding of social influences on creativity and innovation and set the stage for future explorations of those issues.

Threat and group creativity

In this paper we briefly review the literature on group creativity under threat, present a perspective designed to suggest a single approach to a reconciliation of the conflicting findings, discuss interventions capable of enhancing group creativity under threat, and conclude with suggestions for future research. The authors are grateful to the San Jose State University Department of Organization and Management and College of Business for research support.

Toward the Resolution of an American Tension: Some applications of the Helping Model of Affirmative Action for Schooling

Publisher Summary This chapter explains some applications of the helping model of affirmative action to schooling toward a resolution of an American tension. There is a fundamental tension in the American schooling system—an unresolved dilemma between the ideals of what a school should be in a democracy and what American schools actually offer its citizens. The demand of democracy that all human beings are endowed with certain unalienable rights is in direct conflict with the belief that one race is superior to another. The chapter believes that a strong public education system is essential for a democracy because it would allow a strong middle class to prosper and thus, thwart attempts to re-establish a monarchy or other forms of autocratic government. Critics of schooling in America, however, have claimed that it does little more than maintain and promote the status. One of the educational facts of life is that in-group members often outperform members of Americas out-groups while they are in school. In college, women drop out of the physical sciences, math, and engineering at a rate two and a half times that of men. The chapter concludes and visualizes education as a way of expanding the horizons of its participants, providing opportunity for people of different social groups to share common interests, and building character appropriate to democratic life including cooperation, flexibility, and concern for the welfare of others.