Who is protected by the law and what aspects of the law an organization would need to be aware of when selecting individuals to fill positions.

You are the Human Resources Specialist of a start-up training & development organization (Human Relations Training, Inc.) which will be providing Human Resources training. You will be working with the president and operating manager of the company with regard to the recruitment and selection of new personnel, as well as their job performance evaluations after they are hired. As the HR Specialist, it is your job to ensure that you hire the best candidates while also protecting the organization from any legal challenges to your HR practices. The positions you will be filling are five training & development specialists; one secretary/receptionist; and one information technology specialist. R... click for more

Applied Social Psychology - Can expectation effects be exploited for good purposes?

Most times when social psychologists talk about expectation effects and self-fulfilling prophecies (e.g., Rosenthal, 2003), they emphasize the dangers that are implicit in these phenomena. And surely there are bad things that can happen as a result of the communication biases that expectations produce. But what about the flip side? Are there ways in which expectation effects (and communication biases that they produce) might be harnessed for the greater good? Might expectations be created strategically and built into interventions in order to create positive societal outcomes? Any ideas? I am looking for more of personal notes instead of outside sources. Although it needs to be em... click for more

How can social psychology be applied to improve the packaging of products?

Strahan et al. (2002) talks about ways in which social psychological findings can be exploited to improve the labelling on cigarette packages. But surely that's not the only domain in which social psychological findings can be applied to improve the packaging of products that have implications for health. Lots of other products may adversely affect health. And lots of additional products may have positive impacts on health. In what additional clever ways might specific pieces of social psychological knowledge be applied to the packaging of of health-relevant products? I am looking for more of personal notes instead of outside sources. Although, it needs to be empirically based. It ... click for more

Applied Social Psychology - Social Loafing and Personality

I was just thinking about the articles on social loafing and how they may relate to personality. The articles mentioned that individuals with more incentive and motivation are less likely to loaf and more likely to put in maximal effort relative to those with no or less motivation. Perhaps individuals who are more motivated rely on positive feedback (in this case grades) to maintain their self esteem or possess higher conscientiousness in terms of the big 5 traits. I was thinking of some related experience where people have told me that when they work on group projects they end up doing all of the work. In fact, these individuals seem to take the responsibility of the project upon themselves... click for more

A Meta-Analysis of Outcome Studies Comparing Bona Fide Psychotherapies: Empirically, "All Must Have Prizes"

I have questions re this article: • What is the purpose of the study? • What is the problem, theory, and/or research context that gave rise to the study. • What is the research question(s) and major hypotheses. • What are the methods used: e.g., subjects, measures, & procedures. • What are the analyses and findings: statistics (e.g. means, R's, F's, etc.) as appropriate, and reported p values. • Please summarize the author's discussion. • Can you please help me evaluate the study concentrating on: 1. worthwhileness of the study; 2. adequacy of methods used; 3. confounding variables and/or limitations on the generalizability of findings; 4. whether or not discussion an... click for more