Serial position curve for integration of informaiton about jobs

Abstract

Prospective job seekers judged attractiveness of jobs described y sequences of adjectives. Job descriptions were prepared from a 24 design with serial position as factors and positive and negative pieces of information as the two levels. The serial position curves prepared according to the logic of information integration theory were of bow-shape for both the successive and simultaneous presentation conditions. Individual subject analyses, however, disclosed that all respondents did not have similar serial position curves. Accordingly, the attention-change explanation seemed to be more appropriate than the verbal-memory hypothesis. Implications of these results were discussed for preparation of job descriptions and for job satisfaction.