Selwyn W. Becker

The heroism of women and men

Heroism consists of actions undertaken to help others, despite the possibility that they may result in the helpers death or injury. The authors examine heroism by women and men in 2 extremely dangerous settings: the emergency situations in which Carnegie medalists rescued others and the holocaust in which some non-Jews risked their lives to rescue Jews. The authors also consider 3 risky but less dangerous prosocial actions: living kidney donations, volunteering for the Peace Corps, and volunteering for Doctors of the World. Although the Carnegie medalists were disproportionately men, the other actions yielded representations of women that were at least equal to and in most cases higher than those of men. These findings have important implications for the psychology of heroism and of gender.

An Index to Measure Contingency of English Sentences

Several indexes to measure contingency of sentences were constructed by considering nouns, repeated nouns, and total number of words. Contingency was operationally defined as reconstructibility in order to test the several indexes against a criterion. The best form of the index was then selected and retested. The contingency ranking, based on the index, of ten sections of text correlated 0 84 with the reconstructibility ranking. It was concluded that the index is a valid initial approximation to a measure of contingency if contingency is defined as reconstructibility.

Innovation in organizations : innovation adoption in school organizations

George Downs and Lawrence Mohr (1976) published a major critique of research on organizational innovation in which several major suggestions for the modification of innovation research toward the ends of theory development and cumulativeness were made. Although they developed several of the prescriptions independentlyDowns and Mohr are not referenced Richard Daft and Selwyn Becker have demonstrated the validity of many of Downs and Mohrs suggestions in their major new book, The Innovative Organization.

On the Futility of Aggregating Individual Learning Curves

It is argued that a mean or aggregate learning curve yields little information about the form of the individual curves from which it arose. Hypothetical examples and empirical evidence in support of the argument are discussed. Also cited is a mathematical argument showing that aggregation of certain forms of individual curves systematically results in an aggregate curve of a different functional form. Finally, it is argued that drawing conclusions about the effects of different treatments on the parameters of the learning curve is risky unless the form of the individual curves is known.

A model of group adaptation to problem-solving tasks

Abstract The efficiency of the power-function model in describing and predicting the adaptation of existing groups to new technologies has been demonstrated in a large number of industrial settings. The generality of this function in describing a second category of adaptation—that of newly established groups to existing technologies—is investigated in this paper. The adaptation of different sets of newly formed groups to two experimental tasks was investigated; twelve groups of three subjects were given a business simulation task and 11 groups of five subjects were given a common symbol task of the Bavelas-Leavitt type. It is concluded that the power-function model describes the adaptation of both sets of groups very efficiently and that a strong relationship between the parameters of this model may provide a method of predicting group adaptation curves at the initiation of task performance. The practical implication of these findings for organizational planning, co-ordination, and control are described. A set of behavioral elements common to the industrial and experimental processes are identified and discussed as a possible beginning in the development of a theory of group adaptation.

The Parable of the Pill.

There once was a land in which wisdom was revered. Thus there was great excitement in the land when one of its inhabitants announced that he had invented a pill which made people wiser. His claim was based on an experiment he conducted. The report of the experiment explained that (1) the experimenter secured a volunteer, (2) the volunteer was first given an IQ test, (3) then he swallowed a pill which he was told would make him more intelligent, (4) finally he was given another IQ test. The score on the second IQ test was higher than on the first, so the report concluded that the pill increased wisdom. Alas, there were two skeptics in the land. One secured a volunteer; gave him an IQ test; waited an appropriate length of time; then gave him another IQ test. The volunteers score on the second test exceeded that of the first. Skeptic One reported his experiment and concluded that taking the first test was an experience for the subject and that the time between the tests allowed the subject to assimilate and adjust to that experience so that when he encountered the situation again he responded more efficiently. Time alone, the skeptic argued, was sufficient to produce the increase in test score. The skeptic also pointed out that time alone could have produced the change reported in the experiment on the wisdom pill. Skeptic Two held the opinion that most people were to some extent suggestible or gullible and that they readily would accept a suggestion that they possessed a desired attribute. He further believed that people who accept such a suggestion might behave in a way such as to make it appear, for a time at least, that they indeed did possess the suggested ability. Therefore, the skeptic secured a volunteer; gave him an IQ test; had him ingest a pill composed of inert ingredients; told him the pill would increase his intelligence; then gave him another IQ test. The subject achieved a higher score on the second test, and Skeptic Two, based on his hypothesis, explained how the disparity arose. He also pointed out that the increase in test score in the wisdom pill experiment could have been due to the taking of the pill and expectations associated with taking the pill, rather than to the pills ingredients. The inventor of the wisdom pill drafted a reply to the two skeptics. He wrote that, although he did not employ a control group or a placebo group, he was confident that the pills ingredients caused the observed change, because the change was consistent with the theory from which he deduced the formula for his pill.

Managers at Risk: The Hidden Costs of Normatively Justified Harm Doing

In this article it is argued that the harm done to those who have lost their jobs due to downsizing is perceived as unjust by those who have suffered the loss. It is also argued that the decision-making, surviving managers are perceived by themselves an..

The Effects of High and Low Sentence Contingency on Learning and Attitudes

By a logical analysis it was shown that the sentence contingency index is roughly equivalent to Shannons measure of redundancy. In two independent experiments it was demonstrated that a significantly greater number of multiple-choice questions are answered by those who study text characterized by higher sentence contingency, or redundancy. The findings were compared to those found in investigations of the effects of redundancy on words and syllables. Data from a third experiment provided support for the conclusion that preference for text material also is related to sentence contingency.

Teaching Strategy and Policy Using the Baldrige Award Criteria

Prior to teaching an MBA course in business policy, it was decided that direct experience building a strategic plan was superior to endless analyses of case histories. Students were instructed to solicit organizations as clients and to constitute themselves into two to six person teams. To guide students in the strategy development process, a how-to model was sought in textbooks on strategic planning, but none was found. Therefore, the implicit model contained in the Baldrige Award criteria for excellence was used to extract a how-to model. After analyzing the demands required in criteria 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7, the class determined how to proceed. Students collected data from company files, management interviews, industry and business publications, and library references. The problems with incomplete data, recalcitrant managers, conflicting priorities, motivational avoidance, and so on were encountered, and methods were developed by students for dealing with them. The collected data were analyzed utilizing methods from the assigned textbook. By the end of the semester, students had developed complete strategic plans and presented them to the client companies. Both the companies and the students felt enriched by the experience.

Solving "simple" problems with simple solutions: an illustration

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