Surprise,Hurt, and Anger as Emotional Responses to Expectancy Violations Following Feedback Messages

ABSTRACT

Using expectancy violations theory, this study examined how the communication of unexpected feedback messages evoke emotional responses. A convenience sample (N = 309) reported instances of unexpected feedback within the last month. Results showed that receipt of the feedback message types were considered moderate-to-high violations. Violation expectedness and valence were negatively associated with the emotional responses, but violation importance was positively associated with the emotional responses. Finally, hurt and anger (but not surprise) were positively linked to perceptions of relational damage between the message sender and receiver. Taken together, our study demonstrates that expectancy violations are connected to emotions and relational outcomes.     

Reaction Is Not Enough: Decreasing Gendered Harassment in Academic Contexts in Chile,Hong Kong,and the United States

In diverse academic spaces around the world, sexual and gendered harassment is increasingly recognized as a problem. High‐profile cases continue to emerge that underscore how gendered harassment is normalized in elite research contexts. In this article, Liz Jackson and Ana Luisa Muñoz‐García analyze three recent policy cases for decreasing sexual and gendered harassment. These cases involve three levels of analysis and three cultural contexts. The first is that of the higher education community in Chile; the second is the University of Hong Kong; and the third is the Philosophy of Education Society, an international academic society based in North America. In each case we analyze how sexual and gendered harassment has been (1) conceptualized, (2) responded to, and (3) contextualized. Through their analysis of these cases, Jackson and Muñoz‐García invite readers to reflect on practical and philosophical recommendations for moving forward antiharassment policies and programs, seen broadly.     

Hearing Truth from Power? Organisation Theory,School Effectiveness and School Improvement

School effectiveness and school improvement researchers have increasingly looked towards establishing some kind of synergy between their respective fields. However, most recent attempts to create such links have not sufficiently addressed their different perspectives on organisational development and change. School effectiveness research has tended to view organisational development in terms of structural change, while the school improvement field has conversely placed an emphasis upon the cultural dimensions of organisational change. This has resulted in a methodological and theoretical divide that has proved difficult to resolve. This article argues that by incorporating the concept of 'power' into the analysis the two fields can be brought together more successfully. The article suggests that this 'third dimension' provides a bridge between structural and cultural analysis. It also highlights some important research questions that arise out of this tripartite relationship. The article concludes by suggesting that an analysis of power may provide the long awaited conceptual and theoretical fusion sought by both fields.     

Using a discussion about scientific controversy to teach central concepts in experimental design

Students may need explicit training in informal statistical reasoning in order to design experiments or use formal statistical tests effectively. By using scientific scandals and media misinterpretation, we can explore the need for good experimental design in an informal way. This article describes the use of a paper that reviews the measles mumps rubella vaccine and autism controversy in the UK to illustrate a number of threshold concepts underlying good study design and interpretation of scientific evidence. These include the necessity of sufficient sample size, representative and random sampling, appropriate controls and inferring causation.     

An LSA-Based Software Tool for Matching Jobs,People, and Instruction

New LSA-based agent software helps to identify required job knowledge, determine which members of the workforce have the knowledge, pinpoint needed retraining content, and maximize training and retraining efficiency. The LSA-based technology extracts semantic information about people, occupations, and task-experience contained in natural-text databases. The various kinds of information are all represented in the same way in a common semantic space. As a result, the system can match or compare any of these objects with any one or more of the others. To demonstrate and evaluate the system, we analyzed tasks and personnel in three Air Force occupations. We measured the similarity of each airman to each task and estimated how well each airman could replace another. We also demonstrated the potential to match knowledge sub-components needed for new systems with ones contained in training materials and with those possessed by individual airmen. It appears that LSA can successfully characterize tasks, occupations and personnel and measure the overlap in content between instructional courses covering the full range of tasks performed in many different occupations. Such analyses may suggest where training for different occupations might be combined, where training is lacking, and identify components that may not be needed at all. In some instances it may suggest ways in which occupations might be reorganized to increase training efficiency, improve division of labor efficiencies, or redefine specialties to produce personnel capable of a wider set of tasks and easier reassignment.