Lenney (1977) concluded that achievement gender differences were predicted by females' lower self confidence and expectancies in competitive situations, identifying three variables that mediated female self confidence in achievement situations, (1) task appropriateness. (2) social comparison, and (3) feedback. The present study manipulated all three mediating variables with 240 undergraduate 18-25 year old female subjects with the pursuit rotor task that requires tracking a moving (40 rpm's) white light with a hand-held stylus for 60 seconds. Response measurement was based upon time on target. Subjects were tested over five trials while setting goals for each trial. Females were randomly assigned to a male appropriate, female appropriate, or gender neutral task condition, a competition or alone condition, and to one of four feedback conditions (no feedback, feedback about own performance only, feedback about own performance that provided the perception that subject was performing better than an opponent and/or average on each trial, or feedback about own performance that provided the perception that subject was performing poorer than an opponent and/or average on each of the five trials). Results from the 2 (social comparison) X 3 (task appropriateness) X 4 (feedback) ANOVA were contradictory to previous findings (Corbin, 1981; Petruzzello & Corbin, …

After an intelligence test battery, the sixty right-handed subjects (30 males, 30 females) performed two visual field (VF) reaction time (RT) tasks requiring odd-even judgments concerning the whole numbers 1 through 8. Numbers were presented as words, a right VF left-hemisphere (LH) advantage task, or as bargraphs, a left, VF right-hemisphere (RH) advantage task, the height of the bargraphs indicating the number.

Recently, multi-source feedback has been a popular way of providing performance-related feedback to individuals in many organizations. Many who use multi-source feedback consider Rating Convergence, others seeing target individuals as they see themselves, to be a positive outcome of this process. However, the variables that account for Rating Convergence are not known. This study investigated whether the personality factor Extroversion and Behavioral Consistency, acting as a moderator variable, could account for Self-other Rating Convergence, particularly the Convergence between self and peer Ratings. The sample consisted of 235 mid-level managers from a variety of industries who were participants in individual career development workshops. Using structural equation modeling, the results indicated that a model consisting of a single Extroversion factor could account for the convergence of self-peer ratings. This finding calls into question the significance of Rating Convergence when using multi-source rating instruments that provide feedback on trait characteristics since it may be heavily influenced by a single personality factor rather than observers' comprehensive understanding of the ratee's performance.