Accession Number:

ADA067229

Title:

The Influence of Models' Attitudes on Observers' Judgments about Task Characteristics.

Descriptive Note:

Interim rept. no. 1,

Corporate Author:

PURDUE UNIV LAFAYETTE IND DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Personal Author(s):

• Weiss,Howard M.
• Shaw,James B.

Report Date:

1979-03-01

Pagination or Media Count:

37.0

Abstract:

The importance of social influences on workers perceptions of seemingly objective organizational and task characteristics has recently been suggested by organizational behavior researchers. In a laboratory setting this study examined the effects of workers awareness of other workers models general job attitudes on individual judgments of the motivating potential of tasks. Results showed that subjects task related judgments were significantly influenced by the general attitudes of other workers. Additionally, attitudes of coworker models were significantly more influential among field dependent subjects than among field independent subjects and affected the task judgments of low but not high self esteem subjects. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of information provided by coworker models on workers attempts to structure organizational experiences, factors which might influence the weight given to socially provided information and the problems associated with using perceptual measures of organizational characteristics. Author

Descriptors:

• *ATTITUDES(PSYCHOLOGY)
• *JUDGEMENT(PSYCHOLOGY)
• ORGANIZATIONS
• MODELS
• PERFORMANCE(HUMAN)
• BEHAVIOR
• MOTIVATION
• LEARNING
• JOB ANALYSIS
• PERCEPTION(PSYCHOLOGY)

Subject Categories:

• Psychology
• Personnel Management and Labor Relations

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE