Micro | Management & Social Psychology

Personality In Class : Discussing Traits through Examples

Examples go a long way to make things clearer for the students. To liven things up in the class room and engage the students, it’s helpful to actually have your students think up examples in class, write those on the board in brainstorming style and then offer an example of your own as a wrap [...]

Inclass Experiments #1 : Goal Setting Theory

One of the best ways for students to learn about social psychology and management is to experience things first hand. In my "Introduction to Management" undergraduate course I ran several famous social psychology and management in-class experiments that demonstrate the material we studied in class.

As a first example, we did an inclass experiment in [...]

Readings on Affect (Emotions and Mood)

I put together a reading list about an evolving trend in micro organizational behavior research – Affect. Browsing through Google Scholar, reading through abstracts and looking through some syllabuses for psychology and OB courses I found on the web, following is the plan I came up with for a seminar.

Week 1 –General [...]

Paradox – Organizational Change & Managerial Sense-making

The following post is a review/critique of :

Luscher, S.L. & Lewis, M.W. 2008. Organizational Change and Managerial Sensemaking: Working through Paradox. Academy of Management Journal, 51: 221-240

Luscher & Lewis go into a somewhat different and unique investigation of the organizational change process by applying action research to Lego which was undergoing a [...]

Consumer Ambivalence & Mixed Feelings

The following post is a review/critique of :

Otnes, C., Lowrey, T., and Shrum, L.J. 1997. Towards an understanding of Consumer Ambivalence. Journal of Consumer Research, 24: 80-

First, I enjoyed reading the article. It articulates the main ideas in a clear, straightforward and convincing manner and the qualitative flavored quotes provide richness and [...]

Risky Decision Making : Risk Perceptions & Propensity

The following post is a review/critique of :

Sitkin, S. B., & Weingart, L. R. (1995). Determinants of risky decision-making behavior: A test of the mediating role of risk perceptions and propensity. Academy of Management Journal, 38 (6), 1573-1592.

This article aims to contribute to the extensive research on human risk taking behaviors by [...]

Emotions & Escalation of Commitment – A Coping Perspective on Negative Affect

The following post is a review/critique of :

Wong, K. F. E., Yik, M., & Kwong, J. Y. Y. (2006). Understanding the emotional aspects of escalation of commitment: The role of negative affect. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 282-297.

The article contributes to escalation of commitment research by investigating the integration of an emotional [...]

Rater goals as affecting rating patterns

The following post is a review/critique of :

Wong, K. F. E., & Kwong, J.Y. Y. (2007). Effects of rater goals on rating patterns: Evidence from an experimental field study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 577-585.

This article builds on the theoretical suggestion by Murphy et. al (2004) to show that raters with different [...]

Semantics in Anchoring Effects

The following post is a review/critique of :

Wong, K. F. E., & Kwong, J. Y. Y. (2000). Is 7300 m equal to 7.3 km? Same semantics but different anchoring effects. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82 (2), 314-333.

The article aims to clarify some of the confusing finds regarding anchoring effects. Although [...]

Factors influencing unsafe behaviors and accidents

The following post is a review/critique of :

Hofmann, D.A. & Stetzer, A. (1996).

A cross-level investigation of factors influencing unsafe behaviors and accidents.

Personnel Psychology, 49(2), 307-339.

Hoffmann & Stetzer (1996) offer an in-depth multi-level HLM based analysis of the factors underlying safety related behaviors. Probably among the first comprehensive studies [...]