Stephen M. Colarelli

Career Commitment Functions, Correlates, and Management

Because of the longitudinal nature of careers, career commitment would seem to be important for career development and progression. Yet it has received little attention in the career literature. This article addresses the role of career commitment in career development and examines some personal and situational correlates of career commitment. The sample includes both managerial (n = 341) and professional (n = 85) employees. Among the variables examined, one of the strongest correlates of career commitment was having a mentor. Practical implications are discussed, including those for mentoring and organizational career development programs.

Comparative Effects of Personal and Situational Influences on Job Outcomes of New Professionals

We investigated the relative and combined effects of personal and situational variables on job outcomes of new professionals. The personal variables were cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, and career goals; the situational variables were job feedback, autonomy, and job context. Data were collected at two times from 280 newly hired, entry-level accountants at Big Eight firms. Both personal and situational variables predict job outcomes, but their relative influence depends on the outcome measure. Situational variables account for the most variance in job performance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment; personal variables account for the most variance in promotability, internal work motivation, and turnover. The findings indicate that job performance does not take care of itself by selecting bright people, but requires constant vigilance and effective systems. The results also suggest that a given result can be achieved through a variety of behavioral science

Team member selection decisions for virtual versus face-to-face teams

We compared the importance placed on task skills and four personal characteristics when selecting members of virtual and face-to-face teams. We expected that task skills would be most important in selection decisions for virtual teams due to the lack of physical proximity and visibility, whereas personal characteristics would be more important for face-to-face team selection. In a policy capturing study, 100 undergraduates decision policies indicated that task skills had a greater impact on selection decisions for virtual teams. Gender also influenced selection decisions, with women choosing more female than male applicants for both types of teams. Applicants race, physical attractiveness, and attitudinal similarity to participants did not influence selection decisions for either type of team; however, when assessed by self-report evaluations, these characteristics and gender, had a greater influence for face-to-face teams.

Some contextual influences on training utilization

Although behavioral scientists and policymakers have long stressed the importance of more and better worker training, American establishments provide little formal training to their employees. Yet, curiously, little theory or research exists on what might influence the use of training practices. The purposes of this research were to develop a conceptual framework for understanding training utilization and to empirically investigate the frameworks suggestions about the role of context in training utilization. Four hypotheses were derived and tested on data collected from 53 establishments. The results indicated that turnover; organization size, and technological complexity correlated with the use of formal training programs; the relationship between technological complexity and training utilization was the most robust. The article concludes with implications for research and practice.

Differential item functioning by sex and race in the Hogan Personality Inventory.

The authors examined measurement bias in the Hogan Personality Inventory by investigating differential item functioning (DIF) across sex and two racial groups (Caucasian and Black). The sample consisted of 1,579 Caucasians (1,023 men, 556 women) and 523 Blacks (321 men, 202 women) who were applying for entry-level, unskilled jobs in factories. Although the group mean differences were trivial, more than a third of the items showed DIF by sex (38.4%) and by race (37.3%). A content analysis of potentially biased items indicated that the themes of items displaying DIF were slightly more cohesive for sex than for race. The authors discuss possible explanations for differing clustering tendencies of items displaying DIF and some practical and theoretical implications of DIF in the development and interpretation of personality inventories.

Organizational Centrality: A Third Dimension of Intraorganizational Career Movement

Organizational centrality, the extent to which an employee is integrated into the network of interpersonal relationships within the work system, has rarely been examined empirically. A survey measuring centrality as well as career attitudes and expectations was completed by 392 full-time employees of a county government. Superiors also rated respondents on three components of centrality. Both self-report and supervisory measures of centrality were related to hierarchical level, career satisfaction, and intention to turnover Organizational centrality holds promise for increasing understanding of employees intraorganizational careers.

Letters of Recommendation: An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective:

This article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the appeal and tone of letters of recommendation using an evolutionary psychological perspective. Several hypotheses derived from this framework are developed and tested. The authors’ theoretical argument makes two major points. First, over the course of human evolution, people developed a preference for narrative information about people, and the format of letters of recommendation is compatible with that preference. Second, because recommenders are acquaintances of applicants, the tone of letters should reflect the degree to which the relationship with the applicant favors the recommender’s interests. We hypothesized that, over and above an applicant’s objective qualifications, letters of recommendation will reflect cooperative, status and mating interests of recommenders. We used 532 letters of recommendation written for 169 applicants for faculty positions to test our hypotheses. The results indicated that the strength of the cooperative relationship between recommenders and applicants influenced the favorability and length of letters. In addition, male recommenders wrote more favorable letters for female than male applicants, suggesting that male mating interests may influence letter favorability. We conclude with implications for practice and future research.

Biologically Costly Altruism Depends on Emotional Closeness among Step but Not Half or Full Sibling

We studied altruistic behaviors of varying biological cost (high, medium, and low) among siblings of varying genetic relatedness (full, half, and step). In agreement with inclusive fitness theory, the relative importance of either reliable (such as co-residence) or heuristic (such as emotional closeness) kinship cues depended crucially on the costs of help. When help did not endanger the altruists life, thus making reciprocation possible, emotional closeness was the strongest predictor of altruism; perceived physical and psychological similarity to the sibling amplified altruistic behavior via their association with emotional closeness. When help endangered the altruists life, thus making reciprocation unlikely, the strongest predictor of altruism was the ancestrally valid kinship cue of co-residence duration. Emotional closeness predicted costly altruism only for step siblings; its effects were nonsignificant when siblings were genetically related. Our findings support the idea that emotional closeness promotes costly altruistic behavior by serving as a surrogate kinship cue when more reliable cues are missing.

Altruism and Reproductive Limitations

We examined how different types of reproductive limitations — functional (schizoid personality disorder and schizophrenia), physical (malnutrition), and sexual (bisexuality and homosexuality) — influenced altruistic intentions toward hypothetical target individuals of differing degrees of relatedness (r = 0, .25, and .50). Participants were 312 undergraduate students who completed a questionnaire on altruism toward hypothetical friends, half-siblings, and siblings with these different types of reproductive limitations. Genetic relatedness and reproductive limitations did not influence altruistic decision-making when the cost of altruism was low but did as the cost of altruism increased, with participants being more likely to help a sibling over a half-sibling and a half-sibling over a friend. Participants also indicated they were more likely to help a healthy (control) person over people with a reproductive limitation. Of the three types of reproductive limitations, functional limitations had the strongest effect on altruistic decision-making, indicating that people were less likely to help those who exhibit abnormal social behavior.

The Evolutionary Mismatch Hypothesis: Implications for Psychological Science:

Human psychological mechanisms are adaptations that evolved to process environmental inputs, turning them into behavioral outputs that, on average, increase survival or reproductive prospects. Modern contexts, however, differ vastly from the environments that existed as human psychological mechanisms evolved. Many inputs now differ in quantity and intensity or no longer have the same fitness associations, thereby leading many mechanisms to produce maladaptive output. We present the precepts of this evolutionary mismatch process, highlight areas of mismatch, and consider implications for psychological science and policy.