The Job Descriptive Index family of job attitude measures includes the Job in General (JIG) scale, a measure of global satisfaction with one’s job. The scale was originally developed and validated by Ironson, Smith, Brannick, Gibson, and Paul. Following structured scale reduction procedures developed by Stanton, Sinar, Balzer, and Smith, the current authors developed an abridged version of the JIG for use by practitioners and researchers of organizational behavior. They report the results of three validation studies documenting the process of scale reduction and the psychometric suitability of the reduced-length scale.

Exposure to pictures of thin-ideal female members of the media has been shown to reduce body satisfaction in women, which in turn has been implicated in various eating disorders. This experiment was designed principally to determine how social comparisons with peers affect general self-esteem, body satisfaction, confidence, and anxiety. In a "dating game" scenario, female undergraduates (N = 67) were randomly assigned to a thin-peer, oversize-peer, or control (no-photo) condition. Through computer manipulation, photos depicted the same woman's face with either a thin or oversize body shape. Results indicated comparison condition did not affect general self-esteem. However, exposure to the thin peer did reduce body satisfaction and confidence and, for those without a boyfriend, raised anxiety. Exposure to an oversize peer produced no compensatory, elevating effects on body satisfaction and confidence. Such an asymmetric comparison effect may contribute to the high prevalence of body dissatisfaction reported among women.

The neuronal apoptosis-inhibitory protein (NAIP) is the founding member of the mammalian family of inhibitor of apoptosis (IAP) proteins (also known as BIRC proteins) and has been shown to be antiapoptotic both in vivo and in vitro. The 160-kDa NAIP contains three distinct regions: an amino-terminal cluster of three baculoviral inhibitory repeat (BIR) domains, a central nucleotide binding oligomerization domain (NOD), and a carboxyl-terminal leucine-rich repeat (LRR) domain. The presence of the NOD and LRR domains renders NAIP unique among the IAPs and suggests that NAIP activity is regulated in a manner distinct from that of other members of the family. In this report, we examined the interaction of various regions of NAIP with caspase-9 and Smac. Recombinant NAIPs with truncations of the carboxyl-terminal LRR or NOD-LRR regions bound to caspase-9. In contrast, the full-length protein did not, suggesting some form of structural autoregulation. However, the association of the wild type fulllength protein with caspase-9 was observed when interaction analysis was performed in the presence of ATP. Furthermore, mutation of the NAIP ATP binding pocket allowed full-length protein to interact with caspase-9. Thus, we conclude that NAIP binds to caspase-9 with a structural requirement for ATP and that in the absence of ATP the LRR domain negatively regulates the caspase-9-inhibiting activity of the BIR domains. Interestingly, and in contrast to the X-chromosome-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP), NAIP-mediated inhibition of caspase-9 was not countered by a peptide containing an amino-terminal IAP binding motif (IBM). Consistent with this observation was the failure of Smac protein to interact with the NAIP BIR domains. These results demonstrate that NAIP is distinct from the other IAPs, both in demonstrating a ligand-dependent caspase-9 interaction and in demonstrating a distinct mechanism of inhibition.

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Although considerable research attention has been directed at understanding perceptions of salary fairness, very little attention has been given to how salary expectations are formed or how trivial elements of the job search context may influence these expectations. Two experiments demonstrated how the simple manipulation of response options for a multiple‐choice item may influence subsequent salary expectations and salary satisfaction. Results are discussed in light of Parducci's (1995) contextual theory.