541 research outputs found
Improving Reactions to Forced-Choice Personality Measures in Simulated Job Application Contexts Through the Satisfaction of Psychological Needs
There is a wealth of evidence justifying the use of personality assessments for selection. Nonetheless, some reluctance to use these assessments stems from their perceived vulnerability to response distortion (i.e., faking) and the somewhat negative applicant reactions they elicit, when compared to other assessments. Adopting a forced-choice personality assessment format appears to alleviate the former problem but exacerbates the latter. In this study, we introduce basic psychological needs as a theoretical foundation to develop interventions to improve reactions to forced-choice personality assessments. We propose that the forced-choice format impedes respondents’ desire to respond to items in a preferred way, interfering with autonomy need satisfaction, and constrains respondents’ opportunity to show their capabilities, interfering with competence need satisfaction. In this pre-registered between-subjects experiment (N = 1565), we investigated two modifications to a ranked forced-choice personality questionnaire and compared these to traditional forced-choice and single-stimulus (Likert) formatted questionnaires. One modification, where participants could write a free-text response following the assessment, did not show significant effects on reactions. The second modification allowed participants to view all items they had ranked last (first) and then identify any the participant believed in fact described them well (poorly). That modification positively affected perceived autonomy- and competence-support, and fairness perceptions, bridging approximately half of the gap between reactions to forced-choice and single-stimulus assessment formats. This study suggests that a modification to forced-choice personality questionnaires may improve applicant reactions and that basic psychological needs theory may be a fruitful lens through which to further understand reactions to assessments
Tidal Marsh Outwelling of Dissolved Organic Matter and Resulting Temporal Variability in Coastal Water Optical and Biogeochemical Properties
Coastal wetlands are highly dynamic environments at the land-ocean interface where human activities, short-term physical forcings and intense episodic events result in high biological and chemical variability. Long being recognized as among the most productive ecosystems in the world, tidally-influenced coastal marshes are hot spots of biogeochemical transformation and exchange. High temporal resolution observations that we performed in several marsh-estuarine systems of the Chesapeake Bay revealed significant variability in water optical and biogeochemical characteristics at hourly time scales, associated with tidally-driven hydrology. Water in the tidal creek draining each marsh was sampled every hour during several semi-diurnal tidal cycles using ISCO automated samplers. Measurements showed that water leaving the marsh during ebbing tide was consistently enriched in dissolved organic carbon (DOC), frequently by more than a factor of two, compared to water entering the marsh during flooding tide. Estimates of DOC fluxes showed a net DOC export from the marsh to the estuary during seasons of both low and high biomass of marsh vegetation. Chlorophyll amounts were typically lower in the water draining the marsh, compared to that entering the marsh during flooding tide, suggesting that marshes act as transformers of particulate to dissolved organic matter. Moreover, detailed optical and compositional analyses demonstrated that marshes are important sources of optically and chemically distinctive, relatively complex, high molecular weight, aromatic-rich and highly colored dissolved organic compounds. Compared to adjacent estuarine waters, marsh-exported colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) was characterized by considerably stronger absorption (more than a factor of three in some cases), larger DOC-specific absorption, lower exponential spectral slope, larger fluorescence signal, lower fluorescence per unit absorbance, and higher fluorescence at visible wavelengths. Observed patterns in water optical and biogeochemical variables were very consistent among different marsh systems and throughout the year, despite continued tidal exchange, implying rapid transformation of marsh DOM in the estuary through both photochemical and microbial processes. These findings illustrate the importance of tidal marsh ecosystems as sources, sinks and/or transformers of biologically important nutrients, carbon and colored dissolved organic compounds, and their influence on short-term biological, optical and biogeochemical variability in coastal waters
Wavelength and Temperature-Dependent Apparent Quantum Yields for Photochemical Formation of Hydrogen Peroxide in Seawater
Wavelength and temperature-dependent apparent quantum yields (AQYs) were determined for the photochemical production of hydrogen peroxide using seawater obtained from coastal and oligotrophic stations in Antarctica, the Pacific Ocean at Station ALOHA, the Gulf of Mexico, and at several sites along the East Coast of the United States. For all samples, AQYs decreased exponentially with increasing wavelength at 25 °C, ranging from 4.6 × 10−4 to 10.4 × 10−4 at 290 nm to 0.17 × 10−4 to 0.97 × 10−4 at 400 nm. AQYs for different seawater samples were remarkably similar irrespective of expected differences in the composition and concentrations of metals and dissolved organic matter (DOM) and in prior light exposure histories; wavelength-dependent AQYs for individual seawater samples differed by less than a factor of two relative to respective mean AQYs. Temperature-dependent AQYs increased between 0 and 35 °C on average by a factor of 1.8 per 10 °C, consistent with a thermal reaction (e.g., superoxide dismutation) controlling H2O2 photochemical production rates in seawater. Taken together, these results suggest that the observed poleward decrease in H2O2photochemical production rates is mainly due to corresponding poleward decreases in irradiance and temperature and not spatial variations in the composition and concentrations of DOM or metals. Hydrogen peroxide photoproduction AQYs and production rates were not constant and not independent of the photon exposure as has been implicitly assumed in many published studies. Therefore, care should be taken when comparing and interpreting published H2O2AQY or photochemical production rate results. Modeled depth-integrated H2O2 photochemical production rates were in excellent agreement with measured rates obtained from in situ free-floating drifter experiments conducted during a Gulf of Maine cruise, with differences (ca. 10%) well within measurement and modeling uncertainties. Results from this study provide a comprehensive data set of wavelength and temperature-dependent AQYs to model and remotely sense hydrogen peroxide photochemical production rates globally
Variability in surface chlorophyll a at a shelf-break front
We report an extensive underway sampling of temperature and chlorophyll a in the region of the shelf/slope front in the New York Bight in early spring. Variability in chlorophyll a and frontal structure is analyzed at three spatial scales…
Recommended from our members
NACA Research Memorandums
Report presenting development tests on a model of the Republic F-105 airplane at a Mach number of 0.20. The purpose of the current investigation is to obtain the longitudinal force and moment characteristics of the model equipped with trailing-edge flaps of various spans and deflections. Results regarding the longitudinal stability characteristics and effect of the horizontal tail are provided
- …