JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND PSYCHOLOGY Volume 13, No. 3, Spring 1999 ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE OF ATTITUDINAL INFLUENCES IN PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL Aharon Tziner Universite de Montreal Kevin R. Murphy Colorado State University ABSTRACT: The attitudes of twenty-nine managers toward performance ap- praisal and toward their organization were used to predict differences in mean ratings and measures of discrimination among ratees and performance dimen- sions. Substantial multiple correlations were obtained for all three dependent variables (between 32 and 46% of the variance in each measure was explained), and several individual correlations were statistically significant. Raters who showed low levels of confidence in the appraisal system, high levels of discom- fort, or high levels of instrumental commitment were more likely to provide rat- ings that were unusually high or that did not discriminate well among ratees and/or dimensions. Raters who showed higher levels of attitudinal commitment or who perceived more risks associated with distorting ratings tended to provide lower ratings and to discriminate among ratees and/or dimensions. INTRODUCTION Recent models of the appraisal process (e.g., Cleveland & Murphy, 1992; Murphy & Cleveland, 1991,1995; Murphy, Cleveland, Henle, Mor- gan, Orth & Tziner, 1996) have highlighted the importance of under- standing raters' and ratees' attitudes and beliefs about performance ap- praisal and about the organizational contexts in which appraisal occurs. The authors thank Martine Villeneuve and Marc Trepanier for helping with data col- lected and analysis. This study was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Address correspondence to Kevin R. Murphy, Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Port Collins, Colorado 80523-1876. 407 © 1999 Human Sciences Press, Inc.