Advances in Social & Organizational Psychology A Tribute to Ralph Rosnow This page intentionally left blank Advances in Social & Organizational Psychology A Tribute to Ralph Rosnow Edited by Donald A. Hantula Temple University LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 2006 Mahwah, New Jersey London This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Copyright © 2006 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinany form,byphotostat,microform,retrievalsystem,oranyothermeans, without prior written permission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, New Jersey 07430 www.erlbaum.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Advancesinsocial&organizationalpsychology:atributetoRalph Rosnow/ edited by Donald A.Hantula p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8058-5590-4 (cloth :alk. paper) 1.Socialpsychology.2.Organizationalbehavior.3.Psychology— Research.4.Rosnow,RalphL.I.Rownow,Ralph.II.Hantula, Donald A. HM1033.A39 20062005050732 CIP ISBN 1-4106-1744-0 Master e-book ISBN Contents Preface ix I Context 1 The Bolton Legacy 3 Peter B. Crabb II Methods and Ethics of Research 2 Praising Pearson Properly: Correlations, Contrasts, 25 and Construct Validity Robert Rosenthal 3 Estimating Treatment Effects From Nonrandomized 41 Studies Using Subclassification on Propensity Scores Donald B. Rubin 4 On Model-Based Inferences: A Fitting Tribute to a Giant 61 Howard Wainer 5 Retrieving Literature for Meta-Analysis: Can We Really 75 Find It All? MaryLu C. Rosenthal 6 Rebuilding the Ship at Sea: Coping With Artifacts 93 in Behavioral Research David B. Strohmetz v vi CONTENTS 7 From Artifacts to Ethics: The Delicate Balance Between 113 Methodological and Moral Concerns in Behavioral Research Allan J. Kimmel 8 Science and Ethics in Conducting, Analyzing, and Reporting 141 Disability Policy Research Peter Blanck, Helen A. Schartz, Heather Ritchie, and Robert Rosenthal III Social and Organizational Psychology 9 Meta-Analysis, Moral Panic, Congressional Condemnation, 163 and Science: A Personal Journey Bruce Rind 10 Is Smiling Related to Interpersonal Power? Theory 195 and Meta-Analysis Judith A. Hall, Erik J. Coats, and Lavonia Smith LeBeau 11 Some Observations on the Social Psychological Study 215 of Human Values Charles B. Thomas, Jr. 12 Rumor in Brand Community 227 Albert M. Muñiz, Jr., Thomas C. O’Guinn, and Gary Alan Fine 13 Rumor In Organizational Contexts 249 Nicholas DiFonzo and Prashant Bordia 14 Making Sense of Escalating Commitment to a Failing 275 Course of Action Donald A. Hantula and David Landman 15 Influence Processes in Leadership-Followership: 293 Inclusion and the Idiosyncrasy Credit Model Edwin P. Hollander CONTENTS vii IV Theory and Epistemology 16 An Rx for Advancing and Enriching Psychology 315 Robert Perloff 17 Twenty Questions for Perspectivist Epistemologists 329 William J. McGuire 18 Experiment and Interpretation in Social Psychology: 359 A Paradigm Shift? Robert E. Lana Author Index 369 Subject Index 381 This page intentionally left blank Preface This volume started as an idea on a cool early spring night during a dinner in Ralph Rosnow’s honor. Ralph announced his retirement as the Thaddeus Bolton Professor of Psychology and his longtime friend and co- author, Bob Rosenthal, had come to Philadelphia to deliver the Uriel Foa Memorial Lecture at Temple University and to celebrate Ralph’s retire- ment. After the lecture, we presented Ralph with a folio of letters written by students, colleagues, and friends remembering Ralph’s wisdom, sage advice, and counsel, and his impact on their lives. Ralph’s good works as a colleague, mentor, and teacher were expressed eloquently in those letters by those privileged to know him personally, but his profound influence on Psychology and the practice of social research extends far beyond this cir- cle of friends. Capturing an effect of that size required something more for- mal, such as this volume. Phone calls, emails, and letters went to colleagues, friends, and former students asking for chapters as a tribute to the intellectual legacy of Ralph Rosnow’s career. Those who responded were asked to contribute an origi- nal work of scholarship that showcased how Ralph’s work had informed their own research and writing. The breadth of both the contributors and topics demonstrates how much of a difference Ralph’s work has made across both social and organizational psychology. Three generations of scholarship are represented herein; chapters from Ralph’s dissertation ad- viser, colleagues and coauthors throughout his career, and his students. The topics range from new thinking about data analysis and interpreta- tion, to substantive theoretical issues in social and organizational psychol- ogy, to more philosophical treatments of the future direction of psychological research and theory. ix x PREFACE While this volume was being assembled some contributors changed their topics and chapters, new contributors were added, and some had to drop out of the project for various reasons. For those who had to withdraw, your pub- lished works throughout your careers stand as powerful testimony to Ralph’s influence, and your desire to be part of this volume is appreciated. In one particularly sad instance, Ralph’s longtime colleague Phil Bersh passed away before his chapter was completed. Professor Bersh’s intended topic was a re- view and critique of classical conditioning paradigms within social psychol- ogy. Phil Bersh studied basic Pavlovian processes during his long and illustrious career and was fond of pointing out that Ralph’s first publications were in verbal conditioning, and that although each started at nearly the same place and had taken seemingly divergent paths, by the end their meta- theoretical bases were not altogether that different. The chapters illustrate the wide rage of Ralph’s influence. Some summa- rize robust research programs and point toward future directions, whereas others are careful reconsiderations and point to the tentativeness of our knowledge. All chapters acknowledge Ralph’s considerable theoretical and methodological acumen and strive to emulate his subtle but powerful com- mand of the language. As a tribute to both Ralph’s contextualist perspective and his apprecia- tion of history, the first chapter reviews Thaddeus Bolton’s legacy. Bolton was a pioneer of American psychology and Ralph held the Bolton chair at Temple University. As Peter Crabb points out, both Thaddeus Bolton and Ralph Rosnow had an abiding interest in measurement issues and applica- tion of psychological knowledge. The first major section of the volume focuses on what is perhaps Ralph’s greatest contribution to psychology, advancing our knowledge of the meth- ods and ethics of research. Chapters by longtime collaborators Bob Rosenthal and Don Rubin and by Howard Wainer and MaryLu Rosenthal introduce refinements in research methodology. The chapters by David Strohmetz, Allan Kimmel, and Peter Blanck, and colleagues raise ongoing ethical issues in the conduct of psychological research. Those by Strohmetz and Kimmel revisit the thorny problems of artifact in behavioral research that Ralph identified and pursued some 3 decades ago and still challenge re- searchers today. Although perhaps best known for his methodological acumen, Ralph also studied substantive areas within both social and organizational psy- chology. He encouraged his students and colleagues to pursue their own particular interests in social and organizational psychology. The variety of topics that Ralph did not necessarily study, but instead inspired others to tackle, is well represented in this section. Four of the chapters cover topics in organizational psychology (consumer behavior, rumor, decision making, and leadership) and three are in the domain of social psychology PREFACE xi (science and social issues, smiling, and values). It is noteworthy that only one chapter, by former students Nick DiFonzo and Prashant Bordia on rumor in organizational contexts, summarizes advances in a research program identified with Ralph Rosnow. The fourth and final section includes sage contributions from eminent psychologists who bring the perspectives of their long careers to bear on is- sues of theory and epistemology that Ralph wrestled with throughout his ca- reer. Each author offers a humble optimism about what we can know within the epistemological limits of psychology. Bob Perloff’s chapter shows how the strains of Ralph Rosnow’s work will be heard in generations to come and William McGuire uses a perspectivist position to raise 20 questions on epis- temology for future generations to solve. The volume ends as Ralph’s career began, with Bob Lana’s re-examination of the experiment and its interpreta- tion in social psychology. Bob was Ralph’s dissertation adviser (and also long-time colleague as well as precedent in the Bolton chair). Ralph learned the craft of experimental research and importance of epistemology from Bob—their later collaborations led to a re-evaluation of the experiment in social psychology and a paradigm shift in the interpretation and evaluation of knowledge gleaned from experiments. The following chapters place Ralph’s career and work in the context of 20th century Psychology and show how his influence will guide the field into the 21st