Percept-percept inflation in microorganizational research: An investigation of prevalence and effect.

Abstract

Analysis of 42,934 correlations published in 581 articles not only revealed general evidence that selfreport methods have produced percept-percept inflation in microresearch on organizations but also suggested that this effect is diminished when 1 or both covariates are demographic variables. Further analysis of a subsample of 11,710 correlations indicated that percept-percept inflation has influenced research on particular bivariate relationships but has not had the broad, comprehensive effects envisioned by critics. These findings challenge the validity of general condemnations of self-report methods, suggesting instead that domain-specific investigations are required to determine which areas of research are especially susceptible to percept-percept effects.In his remarks as outgoing editor of the Journal of Applied Psychology, Campbell (1982) made these comments:with perhaps one or two exceptions there has been very little opportunity to exercise any professional biases [during my tenure as editor]. One possible exception pertains to the use of a self-report questionnaire to measure all the variables in a study. If there is no evident construct validity for the questionnaire measure or no variables that are measured independently of the questionnaire, I am biased against the study and believe that it contributes very little. Many people share this bias. (p. 692)In the following decade, numerous researchers have sought to determine whether self-report questionnaire methods truly merit such general condemnation. Typically, studies have been conducted to test the hypothesis that self-report methods, if used as the sole means of data collection, artificially elevate measures of covariation, producing percept-percept inflation in published correlations (e.g., Spector, 1987;Spector & Jex, 1991;Wagner & Gooding, 1987b). Theoretical support for this hypothesis derives from several perspectives, one of which proposes that respondents answering conceptually different but semantically synonymous questionnaire items-for instance, scale items that measure global workplace satisfaction and satisfaction with opportunities to participate in decision makingattempt to provide logically consistent, synonymous answers (Wagner & Gooding, 1987a). From this perspective, perceptpercept inflation can be stimulated by similarity in the wording of self-report items (Spector, Chen, & Brannick, 1990). A second perspective suggests that percept-percept inflation may be produced instead by respondents' attempts to provide superficially intelligent answers to peculiar queries (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). In particular, when social cues suggest that variables measured through self-report should covary and when true conditions are ambiguous or poorly understood, priming respon-

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Educational status and organizational safety climate: Does educational attainment influence workers’ perceptions of workplace safety?

“…The possibility thus exists for the findings to be distorted by participants' desire to respond in a consistent manner. However, recent meta-analytic research by Crampton and Wagner (1994) indicates that while this problem continues to be cited regularly, the magnitude of distortions may be overestimated. Selfreported measures have been effectively used in accident and safety analyses (e.g., Gyekye, 2005Gyekye, , 2006Siu et al, 2003).…”

Serving two organizations: Exploring the employment relationship of contracted employees

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