Context and consistency in absenteeism: studying social and dispositional influences across multiple settings

摘要

We examine the merits of studying absence and attendance behaviors across multiple settings. In this approach, we connect consistent, between-person variance to dispositional influences and contextual, within-person variance to social influences. Using definitions of absence and lateness that focus on how these behaviors violate social expectations, we found that self-reported absenteeism at 11 different settings yielded a consistency estimate comparable to many measures of work-related constructs (coefficient α=.62). Self-reported lateness yielded even greater consistency (α=.76). Supplementary evidence using archival records of attendance and performance showed that response biases were unlikely sources of all of the apparent absence and lateness "proneness." Self-monitoring was unrelated to overall levels of absence or lateness, but was weakly related to modulation of absence and lateness rates across settings (r's=.14 and .10, respectively). Perceived social expectations were correlated at the idiographic level with absence and lateness patterns across the 11 settings (median r's = ― .30 and ―.17, respectively). Findings are discussed in terms of how different research strategies partition and highlight different components of variance in absenteeism behavior.