performance judgments
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The cumulative redundancy bias (CRB) refers to people’s difficulty to ignore the redundancy in cumulatively presented information. For instance, when people consider which of two teams is better, they should focus on the total number of points that each team has at the time. Yet, people are also influenced by the sequence of events that led to that accumulated score, such that if one team was ahead most of the season, people consider it better – even if those teams are currently tied. However, an opposite bias emerges when participants focus on performance trends (performance trend bias; PTB): When the trailing team is catching up to the leading team, people judge it as the better team – even if the other team is still ahead. In three experiments where we manipulated slope magnitude, we obtained both effects: the PTB was observed when the slope was big; the CRB emerged when the slope was small. These studies demonstrate a striking malleability of the cognitive system, flexibly weighing different cues. Results are discussed in terms of metacognitive regulation.

Predictions of one’s future memory performance – judgments of learning (JOLs) – are based on the cues that learners regard as diagnostic of memory performance. One of these cues is word frequency or how often words are experienced in the language. It is not clear, however, whether word frequency would affect JOLs when other cues are also available. The current study aims to close this gap by testing whether objective and subjective word frequency affect JOLs in the presence of font size as an additional cue. Across three experiments, participants studied words that varied in word frequency (Experiment 1: high and low objective frequency; Experiment 2: a whole continuum from high to low objective frequency; Experiment 3: high and low subjective and objective frequency) and were presented in a large (48pt) or a small (18pt) font size, made JOLs, and completed a free recall test. Results showed that people based their JOLs on both word frequency and font size. We conclude that word frequency is an important cue that affects metamemory even in multiple-cue situations.

In this paper, the author focuses on the effect of enforceability, in particular in relation to Austrian law. However, insights into German and European law are also provided. Enforceability is an effect of a judgment which is basically only granted to performance judgments. Declaratory and constitutive decisions (with the exception of the decision on costs) are not enforceable as such. As a result, the order for performance contained in the judgment can be enforced by state coercive measures. Enforceability occurs upon termination of the performance period. Enforceability is neither a consequence of, nor necessarily coincides with, res judicata. The introduction of the Brussels Ia Regulation has fundamentally changed the system of enforcement of foreign decisions. Decisions given in the EU Member State and enforceable in that State are now enforceable in another Member States without the need for a declaration of enforceability.

Various solutions have been proposed to “fix” performance management (PM) over the last several decades. Pulakos, Mueller Hanson, Arad, and Moye (2015) have presented a holistic approach to improving PM in organizations. Although this approach addresses several key elements related to the social context of PM, namely the buy-in of organizational stakeholders, timely and regular feedback, and future-directed feedback, we believe that several robust findings from the PM research literature could further improve this process. Are Pulakos et al. looking at the forest but missing the trees? In the following commentary, we offer several reasons that performance judgments and perhaps even informal ratings are still operating and occurring in the proposed holistic system. Therefore, advancements in other areas of PM research may offer additional ways to fix PM.

ABSTRACT:  We conduct two experiments to investigate how readability (high versus low) and benchmark performance consistency (consistent versus inconsistent) influence investors' judgments. Using prior management guidance and year-ago quarter performance as two benchmarks against which to assess actual earnings performance, we manipulate whether the valence of guidance performance (positive or negative) and the valence of trend performance (positive or negative) are consistent with each other. We also manipulate the readability of trend performance in our main experiment. Our results show that when benchmark performance is inconsistent, higher as opposed to lower readability of positive (negative) trend performance leads to more (less) favorable investors' performance judgments. This effect of readability is smaller when benchmark performance is consistent. We also show that higher readability in the inconsistent benchmark performance condition improves investors' understanding of the firm's current-quarter performance, which in turn influences their judgments on the firm's future performance. In a supplementary experiment, we manipulate the readability of guidance performance in an inconsistent benchmark performance setting, and replicate the key finding that higher readability of positive guidance performance leads to more positive judgment on the firm's future performance.