Abstract
This paper investigates the ability of perceivers to form impressions of tasks as part of the process of forming a task attitude. This ability is described as being partly given by a syntactic grammar that specifies both the primitive elements of tasks and the rules that structure these elements to form meaningful task impressions. The proposed grammar is shown to generate representations of task structure that can be mapped readily onto task attitudes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of task grammar for research on task attitudes.
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This research was supported by a grant from the Center for Career Research, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University. The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of Jane Dutton, Ralph Stablein, Jim Walsh, and two anonymous reviewers on an earlier draft of this manuscript.
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Sandelands, L.E. Task grammar and attitude. Motiv Emot 11, 121–143 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992339
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992339