Tag Archives: self efficacy

Waging WARS on Workplace Arrogance

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Topic: Performance, Personality, Self Efficacy
Publication: Human Performance
Article: Acting superior but actually inferior?: Correlates and consequences of workplace arrogance
Authors: R.E. Johnson, S.B. Silverman, A. Shyamsunder, H-Y Swee, O.B. Rodopman, E. Cho, and J. Bauer
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger 

It’s probably safe to say that we’ve all had to work with an arrogant coworker or supervisor at one time in our careers.  It’s also probably safe to say that these run-ins have been unpleasant and disruptive to our work.  Yet, while we arm-chair our theories about the effects of arrogance in the workplace, very little research is available to confirm (or disconfirm) our assumptions and anecdotal evidence.  That is, surprisingly little is known about the consequences of workplace arrogance and its relationship with job performance.

In an effort to facilitate research on workplace arrogance, Johnson et al. (2010) created a scale to measure workplace arrogance (the Workplace Arrogance Scale) with a conveniently clever acronym: WARS.  The authors conducted 4 independent studies to validate their newly created scale and explore the consequences of workplace arrogance.  According to the authors, arrogant employees have exaggerated perceptions of their self-importance and superiority.  At work, arrogant employees may manifest these inflated self-perceptions by discounting others’ ideas/contributions, belittling coworkers, asserting control even in situations beyond their area of expertise, etc. 

Johnson et al.’s findings point to a fascinating trend: while arrogant employees engage in behaviors that exude superiority, they actually appear to be less intelligent and receive lower performance ratings than employees who are less arrogant. 

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Culture Matters When it comes to Stressors and Strains

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Topic:  Culture, Self Efficacy, Work Environment
Publication: Applied Psychology: An International Review (JAN 2010)
Article: A cross-national examination of self-efficacy as a moderator of autonomy/job
strain relationships
Authors: M.M. Nauta, C. Liu, and C. Li
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

In work settings, autonomy refers to the degree of control that employees have over their work.  While research has generally shown that low levels of autonomy are stressful to employees (i.e., leads them to experience strain), this is not necessarily true for all employees.  Indeed, employees who are confident in their ability to exercise control over their lives and work environments (i.e., high generalized self-efficacy) appear to be buffered from the negative effects of low autonomy.  However, most of the research on this topic has been conducted in North America and it is unclear whether these findings are consistent across cultures. Recently, Nauta, Liu, and Li (2010) explored whether culture plays a role in determining how employees respond to low (vs. high) levels of autonomy and self-efficacy. The authors chose to compare American and Chinese employees because they typify individualistic and collectivistic cultures respectively.

That is, employees in the U.S. tend to be more individualistic and place a heavier focus on independence, while Chinese employees tend to be more collectivistic and place a heavier focus on the needs of the group to which they belong. Nauta, Liu, and Li collected data from a wide range of university employees working at a large university in the U.S. and three universities in China.

Much like U.S. employees, low levels of autonomy appear to make highly efficacious Chinese employees uncomfortable. In other words, for employees who feel confident that they can effectively exert control over their work environment, not being able to do so is stressful (regardless of culture).

However, Nauta et al. discovered an interesting difference in how American and Chinese employees, low in self-efficacy, react to autonomy. In other words, American employees who lack confidence in their ability to exert control over their work find low levels of autonomy stressful, while Chinese employees who lack such confidence find high levels of autonomy stressful.

These findings are particularly pertinent to organizations operating globally. If nothing else, Nauta et al.’s study is a reminder that management policies and job characteristics in one country or culture may not have the same effects in another country or for another culture.

Nauta, M.M., Liu, C., & Li, C. (2010). A cross-national examination of self-efficacy as a moderator of autonomy/job strain relationships. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 59(1), 159-179.

A New Flavor in Training: Learner Control over Intelligent Agents

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Topic: Training
SIOP Presentation: Trainee-trainer similarity in e-learning: Effects with computerized trainers
Presenters: T.S. Behrend and L.F. Thompson
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

Despite its disadvantages, e-learning is becoming more and more popular in organizational and educational settings and thus the task is for researchers to explore ways that can help trainees benefit from all of e-learning’s many advantages. In a paper presented by Behrend and Thompson, one avenue for helping trainees get the most out of e-learning is the use of intelligent agents which act as virtual tutors to trainees (think of the Microsoft paper clip except human!).  When intelligent agents are created to posses human attributes, they are known as animated pedagogical agents (APAs).

Although some research supports the use of APAs, Behrend and Thompson were interested in how learner choices about the physical appearance of, personality of and feedback received from their own APAs affects training outcomes. In their study, the intelligent agent was named PJ and while some trainees were given control over what PJ looked liked and acted like, others were not. Indeed, Behrend and Thompson found that trainees do benefit from making choices about what PJ looks like!

That is, control over appearance positively impacted trainee self-efficacy.  BUT, trainees who were given control over what kind of feedback PJ gave to them, had lower post-training self-efficacy than trainees who were given no control over this aspect.  Finally, control over PJ‘s personality (humorous vs. unemotional) had no effect on training outcomes.

Interestingly, although Behrend and Thompson expected that trainees would report being more satisfied with the training course when given more control over the characteristics of PJ, no such effects were found. Moreover, control v. no control had no effect on how engaged trainees were during training.

Finally (and perhaps most importantly), participants who were given control over multiple characteristics of PJ (appearance, personality and feedback type) tended to learn more from the training course than learners with fewer choices (no choice or choice over only one characteristics of PJ).

So I wonder what setting PJ‘s appearance to 36-24-36 would do for my self-efficacy?

Behrend, T.S., & Thompson, L.F. (2010). Trainee-trainer similarity in e-learning: Effects with computerized trainers. Paper presented at the 25th annual meeting of the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology.

The Goal Revision Seesaw: What Makes it Move?

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Topic: Self Efficacy, Goals
Publication: The Journal of Applied Psychology (2008)
Article: The role of feedback, causal attributions, and self-efficacy in goal revision .Author: A.P. Tolli, A.M. Schmidt
Reviewed by: Benjamin Granger

One thing that we know is that employees frequently revise their performance goals. But we know less about how and why they do so….until now. In a recent study from Journal of Applied Psychology, Tolli and Schmidt attempted to empirically answer the questions of how and why employees revise their goals over time.  This should be particularly interesting to any manager or supervisor interested in understanding how employees set their goals at work and subsequently perform on the job.

The authors found self-efficacy (the extent to which individuals are confident that they can perform well on a future task) influenced how individuals revised their goals. Employees who have high levels of self-efficacy for performing a task tend to set higher goals (and the managers celebrate!), while those who aren’t very confident tend to set lower goals than before (and the managers….well, we won’t even go there).

The study found that self-efficacy is influenced by causal attribution (the extent to which individuals feel that performance is attributable to them versus the environment) and feedback (positive or negative). When employees don’t perform well and feel that their performance was attributable to themselves, their self-efficacy for the task is substantially lowered and thus following goals will be less aggressive. Self-efficacy, and therefore goals, remain higher when poor performance is attributed to external factors (but boss, it wasn’t my fault!!).

Now that we better understand how and why employees revise their goals, the next issue is figuring out the most effective ways in which organizations and supervisors can influence these motivational factors in order to help employees set aggressive, yet realistic goals.

Questions: Where in this process can a manager or organization intervene? Do these relationships change when we consider multiple goals as opposed to a single goal as was the case in the current study? Do we always want employees to have high self-efficacy for a task? What if high self-efficacy leads to lower performance?

Tolli, A. P., & Schmidt, A. M. (2008). The role of feedback, causal attributions, and self-efficacy in goal revision. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(3), 692-701.