ABSTRACT
Despite the lip service paid to the fair definition and accurate appraisal of target behaviors, these two steps are often glossed over when setting up motivational programs. Yet, both the industrial/organization (I/O) and applied behavior analysis (ABA) communities emphasize the importance of what and how performance is measured. In I/O psychology, performance appraisal is one of five major areas (Campbell, 1990; Cardy and Dobbins, 1994; Dunnette, 1963; James, 1973; Latham, Skarlicki, Irvine, and Siegel, 1993; Latham and Latham, 2000; Murphy and Cleveland, 1995; Shaw, Schneier, Beatty, and Baird, 1995; Smither, 1998). I/O psychologists constantly grapple with their failure to develop decent indices of performance, what they refer to as the "criterion problem" (Blum and Naylor, 1968). Steers, Porter, and Bigley (1996) admit that even in "the bestdesigned reward systems . . . , the evaluation or appraisal of performance [is] perhaps the most basic concern" (p. 500). ABA researchers agree that the way in which targets are defined and measured profoundly influence the ultimate goal of enhancing desired performance (Bellack and Hersen, 1988; Ciminero, Calhoun, and Adams, 1986; Goldfried and Kent, 1972; Johnston and Pennypacker, 1993). Weist, Ollendick, and Finney (1991) frown on such dubious practices as basing definitions on expediency and choosing erroneous or irrelevant indices. Foster and Cone (1986) question whether the expectations of the raters will bias the results.
