Manipulation checks. There were three
manipulation checks: (1) perceived uncertainty
about the situation, (2) perceived
gain or loss, and (3) perceived control or
limited control. For perceived uncertainty,
I used four items (Caplan et al.
1975): ‘‘Based on what you have learned
so far about this situation, how certain
are you about (1) what your specific job
responsibilities will be six months in the
future?; (2) what your future career picture
in this organization looks like?; (3)
how much the financial rewards you
could expect to receive will change?; and
(4) how much your status in the organization
will change?’’ Responses could range
from 1 = not at all certain to 4 =very certain.
I then created a composite measure,
perceived uncertainty (alpha = .84; mean
= 1.65; SD = .66), from these four items.
There were no significant differences in
perceptions of uncertainty across the
four conditions. Because the hypotheses
are about uncertain situations of gain/
loss or control/limited control and given
that participants reported varying levels
of perceived uncertainty, I included perceived
uncertainty as a control in the
analyses presented in the following.
(Comparable results were obtained when
it was excluded as a control.)