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To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00346.x Byline: N. T. Feather (a) Abstract: This study tests a model relating perceived legitimacy of a promotion committee's decision to the deservingness and entitlement of a male or female candidate for promotion and to resentment about the decision. University students responded to scenarios in which deservingness was manipulated by information about the quality of the candidate's performance; entitlement was manipulated by information about an affirmative-action policy. Results showed strong positive effects of perceived deservingness on perceived legitimacy, which were partially mediated by resentment. Perceived entitlement was also a positive predictor of perceived legitimacy. Gender bias occurred, especially in regard to resentment and when the male candidate was promoted. The study extends deservingness theory to a new area and provides evidence for the distinction between deservingness and entitlement. Author Affiliation: (a)Flinders UniversityAdelaide, Australia Article note: (2) Norman T. Feather, School of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Flinders University, GPO, Box 2100, Adelaide, Australia 5346. E-mail: norman.feather@flinders.edu.au

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2007.00372.x Byline: Robert J. Boeckmann (1), N. T. Feather (2) Abstract: Views of a selection committee's decision to promote a woman over a man on the basis of affirmative action were studied in a random sample of Australians (118 men and 111 women). The relations between perceptions of workplace gender discrimination, feelings of collective responsibility and guilt for discrimination, and judgments of entitlement to and, secondarily, deservingness of affirmative action were examined. AMOS analyses indicated that men's reports of collective guilt predicted attitudes toward women's entitlement. No coherent model was observed for women, which suggested ambivalent attitudes toward affirmative action. Gender differences in discrimination beliefs also suggested that women believe men are unfairly advantaged and that men believe women are responsible for their own disadvantage. Implications for research examining collective emotions and their role in social justice judgments are discussed. Author Affiliation: (1)University of Alaska Anchorage (2)Flinders University Article History: Initial submission: August 10, 2004Initial acceptance: July 12, 2006Final acceptance: April 5, 2007 Article note: Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Robert J. Boeckmann, Department of Psychology, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Drive, Anchorage, AK 99508-8224. E-mail: afrjb@uaa.alaska.edu

This study investigated organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) in a sample of 154 school teachers from Victoria, Australia, of whom 101 were in permanent employment and 53 on fixed-term contracts. Participants completed measures of OCBs, job insecurity, organizational commitment, organizational identification, job satisfaction and work values relating to influence, variety and skill utilization. Results showed that the contract teachers reported more job insecurity and more OCBs compared to the permanent teachers. OCBs were positively related to perceived job insecurity and negatively related to opportunities to satisfy influence and skill-utilization work values for the contract teachers, and positively related to organizational commitment, organizational identification and to opportunities to satisfy variety and skill-utilization work values for the permanent teachers. Results were discussed in relation to the different functions that OCBs were assumed to serve for both groups of teachers and the possibility of conceptualizing OCBs using a motivational analysis that takes account of expectations and goal structures., There is now a large body of literature concerned with organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs). These are behaviours that help the organization but may not be directly or explicitly recognized in [...]

This study related measures of hostile sexism, benevolent sexism, hostility toward men, and benevolence toward men to value priorities. It was predicted that these variables would be positively related to the importance of power values for self and negatively related to universalism and benevolence values and that measures of benevolent sexism and benevolence toward men would be positively related to tradition values and negatively related to self-direction values. These predictions were supported in a study in which student participants in Adelaide, South Australia, completed the Glick and Fiske Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, the Ambivalence Toward Men Inventory, and the Schwartz Value Survey. The results demonstrate how values influence attitudes toward gender relations and provide an additional perspective on current discussions of prejudice. Keywords: values; ambivalent attitudes,' gender relations

This research investigated participants' responses to a scenario involving either a high-status elected senator or a public citizen either supporting or opposing uranium mining near a heritage-listed national park in Australia, followed by the subsequent arrest and punishment of the stimulus person for failing to obey a police order. Results show that low authoritarians perceived the low-status offender relative to the high-status offender as less responsible for the offense, and they reported less positive affect about the penalty for the low-status offender. Participants showed more leniency toward offenders whose position on uranium mining was congruent with participants' own attitudes. Relationships between right-wing authoritarianism, own attitudes toward uranium mining, and participants' reactions to the offense were associated with different but somewhat overlapping sets of value priorities.

This study tested the hypothesis that schadenfreude (or pleasure in another's misfortune) would be more closely related to resentment and a wish to correct a perceived injustice than to envy, and that sympathy would involve different processes. Participants were 184 undergraduates who responded to scenarios in which a student with a record of either high or average achievement that followed high or low effort subsequently suffered failure under conditions where there was either high or low personal control. Results showed that resentment about the student's prior achievement could be distinguished from envy. Schadenfreude about the student's subsequent failure was predicted by resentment and not by envy. Sympathy was not predicted by either resentment or envy. Deservingness was a key variable in the models that were tested.

Hypotheses about relations between values, justice variables, and confidence were tested in a study in which 117 university students responded to questions concerning a major industrial conflict between a union and an employer and then completed selected value items and a measure of egalitarian values. Results showed that participants' judgments about the dispute were related to power, prosocial, and egalitarianism values, the form of the relation depending on type Of value and party to the dispute (union or employer). Relations between value types, perceived responsibility for the dispute, deserve a successful outcome, and reported affect were consistent with a structural model, and results concerning procedural fairness also were accommodated within this model. As predicted, participants reported least confidence in their judgments when either power and prosocial values or power and egalitarian values were both high in importance. They were most confident when power values were low in importance and either prosocial or egalitarian values were high in importance.

Results from this comparative study showed that (a) American students gave more emphasis to achievement, competence, and conformity values and were more in favor of rewarding high achievers; (b) Australian students gave less emphasis to conformity values, rated prosocial values as higher in importance, and reported higher equalitarianism; (c) Canadian students gave less emphasis to affiliative contentment values. Gender differences were also obtained on the value, attitude, and self-esteem measures., In a recent article, Feather and Adair (in press) compared Australian and Canadian students with respect to social attitudes, global self-esteem, and value priorities. The questionnaire that was used included [...]

This research investigated situations involving the police and public citizens in which both committed offenses and were punished. Participants responded to either a scenario describing police violence against a 'green' protester (n = 177) or one describing dangerous driving by detectives leading to injury of juveniles in a car chase (n = 149). Results showed that information about following orders mitigated participants' reactions to offenses committed by authority figures. The perceived seriousness of the offenses committed by police authorities was negatively related to participants' level of right-wing authoritarianism and positively related to the importance participants assigned to universalism values. These relations were opposite in direction for the public offenders who refused to obey a police order. Other relations supported a social-cognitive process model in which values, responsibility, seriousness, and deservingness are key variables.

This article reports on a confirmatory analytic study of the Bachman revision (1970) of Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale (1965) that was used in the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ALSA). Participants comprised 1,087 elderly people aged between 70 and 103 years (mean 77 years). Five competing factor models were tested with LISREL8. The best-fitting model was a nested one, with a General Self-esteem second-order factor and two first-order factors, Positive Self-regard and Usefulness/Competence. This model was validated with data from a later wave of ALSA. Usefulness and competence have received little attention in the gerontological literature to date. Preliminary results indicate that usefulness/competence may be an important predictor of well-being. Further work is required on the relationships among usefulness, competence, self-esteem, and well-being in elderly people.

This study investigated reactions to a hypothetical scenario describing a domestic dispute that ended in violence. In the scenario either the husband or the wife was the perpetrator of the physical violence, the violence either occurred under stress or after deliberation, and the perpetrator was subsequently jailed for 2 years. Results from 220 participants (109 males, 111 females) from metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia, showed significant main effects of stimulus person. Participants were more negative to the husband than to the wife in regard to responsibility for the offense, deservingness of the penalty, seriousness of the offense, perceived harshness of the penalty, reported positive affect, and reported sympathy. These main effects were qualified by interaction effects involving stimulus person (husband, wife) and situation (stress, deliberation), and stimulus person and gender of participant. The results suggested that there were different patterns of belief about the dynamics of domestic violence as well as a degree of in-group or same gender favoritism when female participants responded to the scenario involving the wife.

Two studies involving participants from metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia (Study 1: N = 220, Study 2: N = 181) examined variables that were assumed to influence cognitive and affective reactions to penalties imposed for offenses relating to domestic violence, plagiarism, and shoplifting (in Study 1), and resisting a police order in a protest against logging (in Study 2). Results of path analyses supported a model that assumed paths linking perceived responsibility to the perceived seriousness of an offense; responsibility and seriousness to deservingness of the penalty; deservingness to the perceived harshness of the penalty, to reported positive affect about the penalty, and to reported sympathy for the offender; and perceived harshness of the penalty to reported positive affect and sympathy. Right-wing authoritarianism and relevant values had direct effects on perceived seriousness consistent with the assumption that values affect the way an offense is construed in relation to its negative valence or aversiveness. Deservingness had a central role as a mediator of reactions.

This article describes studies that relate justice-related behavior and experience to the content of human values. The studies are concerned with moral judgment, belief in a just world, distributive justice in the context of allocation decisions, and the nature of deservingness. In each case the focus is on associations between particular values or value types and an aspect of justice. A theoretical analysis of deservingness is presented that takes account of perceived responsibility and the conjunction of positively (or negatively) valued actions and positively (or negatively) valued outcomes. The subjective values (or valences) assigned to the actions and outcomes are assumed to be related to a person's underlying system of values. It is argued that research on justice has tended to ignore the values held by individuals, groups, and cultures, and that this deficiency should be remedied in future research.

In 2 studies 204 Ss completed scales measuring right-wing authoritarianism, general attitudes toward high achievers, global self-esteem, and items concerned with voting preference, causal attributions, personality characteristics, deservingness, responsibility, and affective reactions to the rise and fall of 3 political leaders. Study 1 distinguished between components of right-wing authoritarianism and showed that the nonaggressive rule-follower with high global self-esteem was more likely to favor rewarding high achievers; the more aggressive rebel with low global self-esteem was more likely to favor the fall of high achievers. Study 2 showed that right-wing voting preference moderated relations between authoritarianism and Ss' affective reactions and that prediction of these variables was significantly enhanced when personality, attribution, and deservingness were added to the regression equation after controlling for the effects of age and gender, right-wing political preference, and authoritarianism.

This study compared two samples of Australian and Japanese University students in regard to global self-esteem and their attitudes toward high achievers, or 'tall poppies.' It was predicted that the Japanese students would show lower levels of global self-esteem than the Australian students and would be more in favor of seeing high achievers fall. This prediction was based on the assumption that construals of self tend to be more interdependent and less independent in the Japanese culture than in the Australian culture. Results supported this prediction and also indicated a negative correlation between global self-esteem and the 'favor fall' variable in the Australian sample, which was consistent with theoretical expectation and with previous findings. Results also showed that the Japanese and the Australian students were similar in the extent to which they believed that high achievers should be rewarded.

Australian residents, including expatriate Iranian Baha'is and Australian Baha'is, subscribe to different value systems. Sixty-six Iranian Baha'is, 59 Australian Baha'is and 66 Australians were asked to rate values. Results showed that the Iranian and Australian Baha'is who belonged to the same religious group rated values such as kindness and adherence to religious doctrines higher while the Australian respondents preferred values that focus on gratification of personal wants.

Relations were investigated between global self-esteem, just world beliefs, and value priorities in two large samples of Australian high-school (N = 953) and university students (N = 361). Principal component factor analyses involving the importance ratings for each of the Rokeach terminal and instrumental values showed that values could be classified into the following eight value domains for both samples: positive affiliation, universal prosocial, mature accomplishment, comfort/stimulation, security/salvation, self-directed competence, restrictive conformity, and prosocial concern. These value domains overlapped with but were not identical to the classification of motivational domains proposed by Schwartz and Bilsky (1987). As predicted, global self-esteem (assessed by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) was positively related to the importance of values in domains concerned with achievement, competence, and self-direction, and just world beliefs (assessed by the Just World Scale) were positively related to values in the restrictive conformity domain. Gender differences occurred in regard to the value domains and in the relation of prosocial values to global self-esteem in the older university sample. The results were discussed in relation to other studies of the structure of human values and other research on self-esteem and belief in a just world.

This chapter describes how a structural model of deservingness governed by a principle of balance may be applied to the analysis of emotions relating to deserved or undeserved outcomes of other or of self. In each case perceived deservingness/undeservingness is assumed to mediate both general emotional reactions such as pleasure and dissatisfaction and discrete emotions such as sympathy, resentment, disappointment, and guilt, depending on outcome (positive, negative), the evaluative structure of action/outcome relations, and whether outcomes relate to other or to self. Evidence from studies of reactions to success or failure, and reactions to penalties for offences, supports the analysis, as does earlier research on tall poppies or high achievers. The theoretical analysis is then related to the wider psychological literature on justice and emotions, especially to appraisal theory as exemplified in Weiner's approach. Also discussed are issues concerned with reciprocal relations between affect and deservingness, thoughtful versus automatic processing, new extensions of balance theory, and variables such as like/dislike relations, ingroup/outgroup relations, and perceived responsibility that would moderate perceived deservingness/undeservingness, thereby influencing the emotions that are assumed to be activated in each case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the reactions of lay persons to a serious corporate offense, such as food poisoning, by executives and their organizations in Adelaide, South Australia. Prediction of individual-level penalties; Prediction of compensation at the organizational level; Correlations between judgments about jail sentence and level of compensation.

Investigates the reactions of student participants to a hypothetical scenario in which either an Anglo-Australian or an Asian, who either acted intentionally or was duped by another, carried drugs into Australia and was apprehended by customs officers. Reporting of more positive affect about the penalty among high authoritarians.

A questionnaire based on the Backman self-esteem scale, a brief edition of the Beck Depression Inventory, and other considerations of employment importance, was given to employed and unemployed university graduates of both sexes. The effect of unemployment at present is likened to those functional fifty years ago, and include: apathy, resignation, self-doubt, depression, lowered self-esteem and fatalism. Recent research points to increased incidence of psychiatric problems in young unemployed persons. Former research on unemployment effects noted the loss of a sense of time and punctuality. Former research believed in the ability of employment to furnish reality ties. Social changes may have fostered institutions, which replace some of the needs formerly covered by employment. This research focuses on the consequences of employment, which may be different as to their manifest and latent qualities. It also considers personal variables in the uses of time and purposefulness in the unemployed. These variables can change the meaning of employment and unemployment. Questionnaire responses are intercorrelated, a matrix is developed and factor analysis is used. Tables of mean scores and standard deviation data are featured.

Tests the hypothesis concerned with the use of advantaged or disadvantaged status as a cue for attributions concerning the moral character of an offender. Degree to which status followed positively or negatively valued voluntary actions rather than uncontrollable causes; Importance of attributed moral character and justice variables in regard to how subjects reacted to each offense.

Investigates correlates of the degree to which participants favored the products and achievements of their own nation. Samples of undergraduate students in Adelaide, Australia comparing their country with other countries in regard to economic and cultural development; General measure of in group bias and measures of national identity.

Presents information on a field study of high school students from schools in metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia, on differences in identifying with group and ingroup bias in majority and minority groups. Evaluation of Australian products; Completion of Cultural Cringe Scale (CCS) by students; Why the the CCS was used in the study; References.

Comments on the social motivation analysis conducted by social psychologist Bernard Weiner. Focus on the research on an actor's causal judgments about events and outcomes that concerns another person; Argument that there is a common pattern to the processes that underlie social motivation.

Investigates the frequency of job seeking in young unemployed men and women in Adelaide, South Australia. Person's expectation of finding a job; Perceived attractiveness or desirability of employment.

Presents a longitudinal analysis of the effects of different patterns of employment and unemployment on school-leavers in Adelaide, South Australia. Measures of aspect of self-concept, desired work values and stress symptoms; Effects of shift from employment to unemployment on psychological well-being.

The Rokeach Value Survey was administered to a sample of 140 students at Hinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, and, in translated form, to a sample of 68 students at Shaanxi Teachers University in Xi'an, China. The Australian students ranked the following values as significantly higher in importance compared with the Chinese students: an exciting life, a world at peace, family security, happiness, inner harmony, being cheerful, being forgiving, being helpful, being honest, being loving, and being responsible. The Chinese students assigned significantly higher importance than the Australian sample to a world of beauty, national security, pleasure, social recognition, wisdom, being ambitious, being capable, being courageous, being imaginative, being intellectual, being logical, and being self-controlled. These results are related to other evidence about the two cultures. Implications are discussed, specifically in regard to the dimension of individualism-collectivism and more generally in terms of the need to sample a range of evidence when studying values across cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian expatriate students and indigenous Niuginean students in the higher grades of secondary schools in Papua New Guinea ranked either the terminal or instrumental values from the Rokeach Value Survey, first for self then for the other group. Results indicated that there were distinctive differences in the average value systems pertaining to self when the two groups were compared and that neither group was able to make accurate judgments of the value priorities of the other. These results were discussed in terms of the various influences affecting value systems in different national groups, the effects of limited social contact on accuracy of judgment, and the difficulty of making accurate judgments about the value priorities of other groups considered in the aggregate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study explores the question of why do people prefer to use a particular title in reference to themselves and others rather than an alternative title also available for use. The study investigates the effects of three variables on male and female preference for using the Ms title: attitude toward the Women's Liberation Movement, general conservatism and psychological androgyny. There are probably a number of reasons for the introduction of the Ms title. It is a convenient form of address when communicating with a woman whose marital status is unknown, enabling one to avoid possible social embarrassment or affront to the addressee.

This article investigates the degree to which a person's evaluation of communication is influenced by his knowledge of the source's group affiliation. The study was conducted in situ using students from four residential colleges on the campus of the University of New England. Two of these colleges house male students and the study will designate them as North College and South College. The other two colleges house female students and the study will designate them as East College and West College. Most students living in the colleges are undergraduates from different faculties although a small number of graduate students is also housed. The basic procedure of the present study was as follows, students from one college evaluated a set of communications which were represented in one case as coming from a student member of their own college and, in the other case, from a student member of the other college. For male students, communications were represented as coming either from their own college or from the other male college. All communications were concerned with some aspect of the college system.

This article focuses on the prediction of interpersonal interaction. Some studies in social psychology have shown that people in general are pretty good at making guesses and predictions about the behavior of other people and the relationships between them. The purpose of this experiment is to learn something about how they do it. The questionnaires were randomly distributed among a class of 178 male students attending a vacation school at the University of New England in August 1964. The distinctive contribution of the present article is its detailed examination of a basic question in balance theory. In an attempt to answer this question the article has related the strength and sign of a predicted attitudinal relation to the strength and sign of given relations in a wide variety of structures. Ample support has been found for a principle of structural balance in structures where complete balance is possible. Results provide convincing support for a principle of structural balance and show that knowledge of the attitudinal relation of one person to another is especially important in influencing subjects' predictions about reciprocated attraction.

This article describes two studies which were designed to examine a structural balance model of communication effects. The structural balance model uses the theory of linear graphs to represent the basic communication situation in which a source (S) is sending a communication (C) about an issue (I) to a receiver (R). The S, C, I, and R elements of the communication structure are coordinated to points of the graph and the relations between these elements are coordinated to lines of the graph. The resulting graph is termed a signed digraph or s-digraph. The first study was designed by providing subjects with information concerning the attitudinal relations of S, R, and C towards I. Eight possible sets of these attitudinal relations, taking account of both positive and negative relations, are represented by s-digraphs. The first study is aimed to discover whether subjects, given information about these relations under role-playing conditions, would predict the sign of the remaining attitudinal relations in accordance with the balanced structures represented in s-digraphs. The second study was designed based on the assumption that each of the communication situations presented to subjects could be represented by the eight structures, represented in the first study.