Zvonimir Galić

Working in the hidden economy: Associations with the latent benefits and psychological health

Hidden economy working can provide income and cushion the financial hardship during unemployment; can it also substitute for some latent functions of regular employment? According to Jahodas theory, the latent functions include the time structure, regular shared experience, information about personal identity, a link with the collective purpose, and enforced regular activity. This article explores whether the undeclared working reduces the degree of deprivation of these functions during unemployment and, consequently, improves the psychological health of a person. The data were collected from a sample of unemployed persons (N = 1138) registered with the Croatian Employment Bureau. A series of questions about their day-to-day activities were used to estimate the amount of undeclared working, an ad hoc developed scale to assess the extent of their latent deprivation, and the SF-36 Health Survey to measure their psychological health. The ANCOVA revealed that the participants who were often engaged in the hidden economy working exhibited reduced latent deprivation and improved psychological health compared to those who were sometimes engaged. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that their better psychological health was partially mediated through reduced latent deprivation. However, the unemployed who were never engaged in undeclared working exhibited a relatively high psychological health as well.

Social Desirability Scales as Indicators of Self-Enhancement and Impression Management

This article presents 2 studies testing Paulhuss (2002) assumption that unconscious self-enhancement and conscious impression management represent separate processes of socially desirable responding (SDR) that can be observed within 2 content domains (egoistic and moralistic bias). In Study 1, we devised egoistic and moralistic SDR scales intended to measure self-enhancement in honest responding and impression management under demands for positive self-presentation. In Study 2, we correlated scores on these scales with external indicators of self-enhancement and impression management. In honest responding, both SDR scales most strongly correlated with self-enhancement indicators, whereas under demands for positive self-presentation they correlated more strongly with external measures of impression management.

Validity Evidence for a Croatian Version of the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression

The Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT‐A) is based on the idea that aggressive individuals use motive‐based cognitive biases to see their behavior as reasonable and that those biases can be measured with inductive reasoning tasks. Although the initial validation efforts for the CRT‐A in the United States have been reasonably successful, there has been no attempt to determine if the evidence of validity and reliability generalizes to other cultural contexts. In this paper, we describe four studies designed to systematically accumulate validity evidence for the CRT‐A using Croatian participants. Our analyses revealed that the Croatian adaptation of the CRT‐A yielded psychometric characteristics that were similar to those obtained on the US samples (Study 1). CRT‐A scores that predicted counterproductive work behaviors occurrence beyond self‐reported personality (Study 2) were independent from general mental ability as measured with an abstract reasoning test (Study 3), and not susceptible to faking (Study 4).

Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression: Further Evidence About Incremental Validity

The Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression has shown significant correlations with various counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) and seems to be potentially very useful for screening out applicants inclined to deviant behaviors at work. However, there is a lack of research testing its overlap with other personality determinants of CWBs. In this article, we report the results of three studies testing incremental validity of the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT�?A). Our results have shown that the CRT�?A was mostly unrelated to the Dark Triad traits (Study 1), the HEXACO traits (Study 2), or trait self�?control (Study 3). However, the CRT�?A score was still a significant predictor of CWBs�?related attitudes (Study 1) and self�?reported interpersonal and organizational deviance (Study 3).

Disentangling the Relationship Between Implicit Aggressiveness and Counterproductive Work Behaviors: The Role of Job Attitudes

ABSTRACT Implicit aggressiveness, measured by the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT-A), has been shown to be important for understanding counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). However, it is not clear how employees justify CWBs that stem from their unconscious tendencies. We tested the idea that implicitly aggressive individuals develop negative job attitudes (JAs) to justify their CWBs. In Study 1, 333 employees completed the CRT-A, a battery of JAs, and a CWBs scale. In Study 2, another sample (n = 341) completed the CRT-A and different measures of JAs and CWBs. In both studies, implicit aggressiveness explained JAs and self-reported CWBs. Although the design did not allow establishment of exact causal sequence, both studies were more consistent with the model where CWBs mediated the CRT-A and JA relationship.

When Employers Betray: A Study of Psychological Contract Breach Among Croatian Employees

Abstract In this paper we report the results of a study exploring psychological contract breach (PCB) in a heterogeneous sample of Croatian employees (N=363). In addition to reporting PCB, the participants informed us about their basic demographic characteristics, job attitudes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and reported three aspects of their job performance (in-role performance, organizational citizenship behavior, counterproductive work behavior). Our analyses showed that PCB experience depended on participants’ characteristics, and, more importantly, was negatively related to job attitudes and job performance. Thus, the detrimental effect of PCB reported in the organizational behavior literature was replicated among Croatian employees.

1st European PostDoc Summer School for Advanced Work and Organizational Psychology (Berlin, Germany, 6–12 September 2008): A short report

In September 2008 in Berlin, the First European PostDoc Summer School for Advanced Work and Organizational Psychology took place. The Summer School participants were 40 work and organizational (W/O) psychology PostDocs from 19 European and three non-European countries (India, Mexico, and China). The School lasted 6 days, during which participants had the opportunity to discuss current issues and their research interests with senior scholars, other participants, and practitioners. The event was organized by a team from Leuphana University of Lüneburg headed by Jürgen Deller, supported by EAWOP and the German Psychological Society, and funded by Volkswagen Foundation. The Summer School programme was a mixture of different elements intended to broaden the knowledge and support the development of participants’ future careers in W/O psychology. The programme was divided into five parts: Keynote Discussions, Fireside Chats, Group Sessions, Poster Session, and Practitioner Meetings. In the Keynote Discussions, five outstanding senior scholars focused on the following issues and ongoing debates: the science–practice divide in W/O psychology (Neil Anderson, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands); validation, meta-analyses, and the scientific status of selection (Neal Schmitt, Michigan State University, USA); emotional intelligence at work (Adrian Furnham, University College London, UK); detecting and correcting the lies that data tell (Frank Schmidt, University of Iowa, USA); and global leadership (Joyce Osland, San Jose State University, USA). All Keynote Discussions were followed by active exchange between scholars and PostDocs. On the other side, the three Fireside Chats dealt with the knowledge and skills necessary for gaining successful scientific careers. Within this part of the programme, participants and scholars discussed issues connected with publishing in top-tier journals (moderated by N. Anderson and N. Schmitt); writing-up successful research proposals and raising grants from national and international funding organizations (moderated by Martin Kleinmann, University of Zurich, EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 2009, 18 (1), 122 – 124