Within a large telecommunications company, this study applied the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand managers' intentions to improve their skills following peer/ subordinate feedback. Survey responses from 127 managers who had just received their feedback results showed that three types of variables were associated with managers' intentions to improve their skills. First, perceived favorable outcomes or benefits of improvement had differential relationships with intentions for on-and off-the-job strategies for improvement. Second, and independent of perceived benefits, perceived social pressures for improvement were associated with intentions to improve, illustrating that``voluntary'' development behavior can be related to both perceived rewards (a pull) and social pressures (a push). Third, ratees' perceived control over their own improvement was also related to intentions, illustrating the important role that this factor may play in development. In two subsequent waves of feedback, actual improvement in the managers' peer/subordinate ratings following initial feedback was also examined in relation to intentions. Suggestions for future research are also offered.

Telehealth-based services in community mental health settings are on the rise and growth is expected to continue. Negative clinician attitudes toward telehealth have been identified as a key barrier to overall telehealth acceptance and implementation. The present study examined rural clinical mental health staff members' attitudes toward telehealth. One hundred clinicians participated in a mixed-methods, Internet-based survey. Eighty-nine percent of respondents reported a favorable or neutral opinion of telehealth and 100% of participants reported their agency provided one or more clinical services via telehealth. Clinicians identified telehealth-related concerns about their ability to establish therapeutic alliance, software and equipment usability, associated costs, whether telehealth-delivered services were equivalent to face-to-face treatment, and HIPAA. These concerns were in line with previous research and all represent areas where additional training or knowledge could potentially address clinician apprehension. We found a strong positive correlation, r ϭ .66, p Ͻ .01 between telehealth knowledge and telehealth experience. Telehealth knowledge predicted telehealth opinion (␤ ϭ .430, R 2 ϭ .19, p Ͻ .01) and an agency's technological capability to provide services via telehealth predicted clinicians' willingness to consider providing services via telehealth (␤ ϭ .390, R 2 ϭ .15, p Ͻ .05). Researchers and trainers should focus on increasing knowledge about the effectiveness of telehealth and providing clinicians with safe opportunities to gain comfort and competency with the technology needed to provide these types of specialized services.

The current study investigated the psychometric properties of the Interaction with Disabled Persons Scale (IDP). An exploratory factor analysis (N = 358) found three factors underlying attitudes toward individuals with disabilities as measured by the IDP. These factors were labeled social discomfort, empathy, and fear of having the disability. The estimates of reliability were acceptable for the three factors. The putative factor structure was recovered in a confirmatory factor analysis conducted on a second, independent sample (N = 272). The three factors were related in appropriate directions with other measures of attitudes toward individuals with disabilities, self-esteem, amount of prior contact, experience with, and the closeness of relationships with individuals with disabilities.

Two studies addressed three research questions, (a) Are behavioral diaries or checklists susceptible to between-ratee contrast effects? The studies found that both diaries and checklists are susceptible to between-ratee contrast effects, (b) Can diaries or checklists help reduce between-ratee contrast effects on corresponding performance evaluations? Study 1 illustrated that diaries not only may be ineffective at reducing contrast effects on corresponding ratings but also may actually strengthen those effects. In Study 2, although checklists compared favorably with diaries in their impact on contrast effects on corresponding evaluations, checklists did not eliminate the contrast effect on evaluations, (c) What are the directional influences of context behavior when contrast effects are observed? Significant contrast effects were consistent with the traditional conception of this effect: upward in a poor context and downward in a good context.

The authors investigated the effect of group discussion, such as may occur formally in panel interview scenarios, assessment centers, or 360-degree feedback situations, on judgments of performance. Research on group polarization suggests that the effect of group discussion combined with raters' preexisting impressions of ratees or interviewees should result in an extremitization of impressions. Thus, the authors hypothesized that group discussion would (a) make ratings less accurate, (b) polarize impressions that were already good or poor as reflected by greater contrast effects, and (c) increase positive halo. Results indicated that group discussion resulted in less accurate ratings and greater contrast effects. Additional analyses suggested that group discussion increased positive halo. The authors discuss implications for research on group or panel judgments.