Personnel psychologists have long asked whether workers' own reports about their jobs (i.e., “perceived” information) resemble more “objective” assessments of their work settings. In the present paper convergence among three methods of assessing several job characteristics was examined. While workers' self-reports were significantly correlated with outsiders', i.e., non-incumbents', ratings, and outsiders' ratings, in turn, with behavioral observations, workers' reports were not correlated with the behavioral measures. Workers' reports about their jobs do not resemble behavioral profiles derived from observing them at work.
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