The Limits of the Use of Locus of Control in Industrial Psychology: A Critical Evaluation

Locus of control is a personality variable that is employed by researchers from diverse disciplines. This article examines the limits of the construct’s usage in industrial and organizational psychology. Although locus of control is documented to predict a wide array of workplace behavior such as job satisfaction, job performance and turnover intention, some important conceptual, methodological and empirical flaws raise suspicions on the explanations proposed by researchers. Considering the shortage of experimental and longitudinal evidence, it is argued that the causal direction of the well-established correlations between locus of control and other organizational behavioral variables might be the opposite of the theory’s expectation. It is also claimed that some related constructs such as self-efficacy and belief in a just world might provide further explanations for observed correlations

The roles of social norms and leadership in health communication in the context of COVID-19

The global struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic has lasted for almost three years. Although national and local leaders have often called on the public to comply with preventive measures through health communication, large sections of society sometimes violated precautions and did not adequately follow these calls. We propose that social norms and leaders' identity entrepreneurship characteristics could be essential in effective health communication. In line with this notion, we investigated the effects of social norm types and leadership on complying with preventive measures, the intention to be vaccinated, and prosocial behavioral tendency through a high-powered experiment that focused on three factors: leadership quality (presence/lack of entrepreneurship), descriptive norm (supportive/obstructive), and injunctive norm (supportive/obstructive). Results showed that when support for injunctive and descriptive norms was present, people tended to more readily adhere to preventive measures, get vaccinated, and engage in prosocial behavior. There was also a significant effect of the interaction between descriptive and injunctive norms on compliance with preventive measures. The compliance level was highest when both norm types were supportive and lowest when both were obstructive. The effect decreased in the discrepant norms condition, where one type of norm was supportive and the other obstructive. There is also a significant interaction between leadership and the descriptive norm, indicating that a combination of an entrepreneur leader and a supportive descriptive norm increases compliance with the preventive measure. We discussed the role of leadership and social norms in effective health communication

A Review of Research on Gender Differences in Social Dominance Orientation and the Invariance

A widely documented gender difference in political psychology is that men have higher social dominance orientation than women. Social Dominance Theory claims that this phenomenon reflects the different adaptational challenges men and women faced in the evolutionary history of the human species. Thus, according to the invariance hypothesis, all things being equal, men should have a higher level of social dominance orientation than women. The biological emphasis of SDT was criticized by Social Identity and System Justification theorists, who argued that gender differences stem from social and contextual factors. In this paper, I reviewed the studies that test the invariance hypothesis or alternative explanations of gender differences in social dominance orientation. To this, I searched two online databases for relevant studies published after the invariance hypothesis is proposed and identified 21 studies in 16 articles. The literature indicates that there is considerable evidence that contradicts the invariance hypothesis. Age, academic major, gender identification, gender roles and stereotypes, and intergroup status emerged as alternative explanatory variables. I discussed the implications of these findings for Social Dominance Theory and its alternatives.</p

Research on Sex Differences in Social Dominance Orientation and the Invariance Hypothesis: A Systematic Review

A widely documented sex difference in political psychology is that men have higher social dominance orientation than women. Social Dominance Theory claims that this phenomenon reflects the different adaptational challenges men and women faced in the evolutionary history of the human species. Thus, according to the invariance hypothesis, all things being equal, men should have a higher level of social dominance orientation than women. The biological emphasis of Social Dominance Theory was criticized by Social Identity and System Justification theorists, who argued that gender differences stem from social and contextual factors. In this paper, I systematically reviewed the studies that test the invariance hypothesis or alternative explanations of sex differences in social dominance orientation. To this, I searched two online databases for relevant studies published after the invariance hypothesis is proposed and identified 21 studies in 17 articles. The literature indicates that there is considerable evidence that contradicts the invariance hypothesis. Age, academic major, gender identification, gender roles and stereotypes, and intergroup status emerged as alternative explanatory variables. I discussed the implications of these findings for Social Dominance Theory and its alternatives

Emir Üzümçeker's Quick Files

The Quick Files feature was discontinued and it’s files were migrated into this Project on March 11, 2022. The file URL’s will still resolve properly, and the Quick Files logs are available in the Project’s Recent Activity