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Underlying assumptions and rationale of psychological climate are addressed from the perspectives of cognitive social learning theory and interactional psychology. Major emphasis is placed on the implications of these theoretical models for psychological climate. It is suggested that psychological climate (a) reflects psychologically meaningful, cognitive representations of situations rather than automatic reflections of specific situational events; (b) is generally more important than the objective situation in the prediction of many salient individual dependent variables; (c) is predicated on developmental experience, and frequently involves conflicting orientations generated by the preservation of valued and familiar schemas, on one hand, and openness to change in the interest of achieving adaptive and functional person‐environment fits, on the other; and (d) is related reciprocally to memory, affect, and behavior in a causal model which predicts a reciprocal causation between perception and affect, and between individuals and environments. The suggestions above are employed to provide recommendations for future research.

Correlates of subordinates' perceptions of their psychological influence on supervisors' decisions were examined for 126 subordinates in high technology jobs and 205 subordinates in low technology, production line jobs. Based on the psychological climate perspective of work environment perceptions, it was predicted that perceptions of psychological influence would be related significantly to (a) situational attributes, including supervisor behaviors, (b) individual characteristics, and (c) person by situation interactions. Results supported these assumptions and suggested that a cognitive information processing model assists in explaining environmental perceptions.

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