Psychological Climate: Implications From Cognitive Social Learning Theory and Interactional Psychology

Abstract

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.

Aggregation bias in estimates of perceptual agreement.

“…The Interestingly, these estimates, particularly the latter, are in line with the median value of perceptual agreement found in the reviews by Hater (Note 3), James et al (1978), James and Sells (in press), and Jones and James (1979 -2 The correlation ry x is an estimate of agreement between managers and agents at the individual level of analysis (i.e., no scores have been aggregated), the square of Qk reflects the proportion of variance in agents' climate scores accounted for by differences in the K agencies, and ry is the correlation between managers' climate scores and mean climate scores for agents, based on the total agent sample. Given equal ni, the latter correlation, r x' provides the same value as the statistic used by Evans (1972), Oldham (1976), Schneider (1970), and Schneider and Bartlett (1970) to compute estimates of perceptual agreement.…”

“…Reviews of these studies indicate that the range of estimates of perceptual agreement among individuals is .00 to .50, with a median of approximately .12 (James, Hater, Gent, & Bruni, 1978;James & Sells, in press;Jones & James, 1979; Hater, Note 3). These reviews were based on estimates of interrater reliability for a single rater (intraclass correlations) and proportions of variance in individuals' perceptions associated with variation among environments (eta-squares and omegasquares).…”

Climas éticos e comportamentos de cidadania organizacional

“…Duas posições podem ser detectadas (Dansereau Jr. e Alutto, 1990): a) Uma considera que o acordo entre os indivíduos é desnecessário porque a variância interindividual pode ser considerada um erro em torno duma "verdadeira" cotação na variável organizacional em causa (v.g., Glick, 1985). b) A outra (v.g., James et al, 1978;Kristoff, 1996) defende que, quando a variável organização é perceptual por natureza, não existe uma verdadeira cotação organizacional. A variância entre as pessoas não é um erro, antes deriva das reais diferenças intra-organizacionais que são representadas pelos indivíduos.…”

Organizational culture and climate and mental health provider attitudes toward evidence-based practice.

“…Although definitions of culture and climate vary (Verbeke, Volgering, & Hessels, 1998), organizational culture can be defined as the organizational norms and expectations regarding how people behave and how things are done in an organization (Glisson & James, 2002). In contrast, organizational climate reflects workers' perceptions of, and emotional responses to, the characteristics of their work environment (Glisson & James, 2002;James, Hater, Gent, & Bruni, 1978;James & Sells, 1981). Thus, culture and climate are held to influence attitudes in the workplace.…”