Title: Call it Courage: The Effects of Perspective, Humility, Locus of Control, and Social Desirability on Perception of Accolade Courage in Male Student and Military Populations
Chair: Dr. Cindy Pury
Committee: Dr. Charles Starkey, Dr. Patrick Rosopa
Date: Monday, May 7
Time: 12:30 pm
Place: Brackett 419
Abstract: Courage – despite millennia of contemplation – is only now seeing efforts at empirical study and definition. Recent studies have attempted to break down the component parts of courage, but do not address why courage appears to only be bestowed on others and rarely to oneself: a phenomenon known as courage blindness (Biswas-Deiner, in press). This paper examines the relationship between men’s own perceptions of and their assessment of courage, in order to better understand how individuals attribute courage to themselves and how they attribute it to others. Multiple ANOVAs were conducted for scenario courage ratings based on attribution perspective, military involvement, courage type, risk level, and nobility level; correlations with humility, locus of control and social desirability were also conducted. Results showed increased courage ratings when reporting for others rather than self, and lower ratings by military servicemen as compared to civilians. This indicates support for a courage blindness effect as well as a professional attitude separating military and civilian perceptions of courage.

Title: Better Safe Than Sorry: Personality-Based and Overt Predictors of Workplace Safety
Chair: Dr. Thomas W. Britt
Committee: Dr. DeWayne Moore, Dr. Robert Sinclair, Dr. Tracey Tafero
Date: Monday, May 7
Time: 2:00 pm
Place: Brackett 419

Abstract:The current study explores the role of selection in predicting workplace safety using an applied sample of applicants and incumbents in a grocery store chain located in the Southeastern United States. Namely, both personality-based and overt selection assessments, a distinction drawn from the integrity testing literature, will be used in an applied sample to predict on-the-job safety performance and safety outcomes. Both types of assessments are hypothesized to predict two forms of safety performance (compliance and participation), which, in turn, are expected to predict both objective (i.e., work days missed, restricted work days, and micro-accidents) and subjective (i.e., near-miss, minor injuries, and musculoskeletal pain) safety outcomes. In addition, the hypothesized relationships between the selection assessments and safety performance are theorized to be moderated by safety climate strength, which is the degree to which employees view the company and its practices and policies similarly (Siehl & Martin, 1990). A strong climate is expected to weaken the predictor-mediator relationship because strong situations, which provide many cues about how to behave, decrease individual discretion and foster behavioral homogeneity (Hattrup & Jackson, 1996; Meyer, Dalal & Bonaccio, 2009; Mischel, 1977). Three-level multilevel modeling will be used to test the hypotheses.