The Occupational Information Network: An Updated Dictionary of Occupational Titles

All of the articles in this issue demonstrate the richness of military research being conducted in the area of occupational analysis. Several of them also present findings and observations that have implications for the utility of an important occupational database currently being developed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Labor. This database is called the Occupational Information Network (O*Net; Peterson, Mumford, Borman, Jeanneret, & Fleishman, 1995) and is intended to supplant the Dictionary of Occupational Titles.     

The extension of Holland's Occupational Classification to all occupations in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles

Two methods are presented for extending Holland's occupational classification to include all occupations in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT).     

It Won't Happen to Me: An Investigation of Optimism Bias in Occupational Health and Safety

Optimism bias is the tendency to think that negative events are less likely to happen to oneself than to one's peers. Optimism bias concerning occupational health and safety (OHS) hazards was assessed in 105 postgraduate students and university employees. Significant levels of optimism bias were found for several events (e.g., suffering/causing injury). Though optimism bias was not related to perceived controllability, administration of OHS by management may explain why this observation differs from findings in other domains. While further study is required, the present study demonstrates that people tend to think hazardous events at work are less likely to happen to themselves compared to others doing the same job, which has important implications for management of safety at work.     

Ask and You Shall Find Out: Some Multicultural Dynamics in Catholic Theological Education

The theological classroom is a place where dynamics of diversity and multiculturalism enter not only the understanding and interpretation of the course material, but also the very processes of teaching and learning. But how is one to learn and assess what students and professors are experiencing as cultural differences, and how is one to sort out the personal characteristics from the cultural? This essay, underscoring the importance of asking students about cultural issues, discusses a few such issues via some anecdotal data.     

Seek,and You Will Find: The Influence of Expectations on Evaluations of Physical Activity

Despite hundreds of studies on the effects of expectations on evaluations, few commentaries have focused on summarising the relevance of these findings for physical activity pursuits. Moreover, a parsimonious framework on the nature of these relationships in physical activity is yet to be developed. Such a framework is important given the significance of physical activity evaluations in predicting future physical activity participation. Based on existing models on persuasion, it is premised that the self can be persuaded by one's own expectations about physical activity and that such persuasion can support or refute those expectations. Which of these effects are created, and the extent of one's psychological and physical involvement in the creation of physical activity evaluations, is likely to hinge on motivation and ability to confirm or disconfirm expectations. Evidence from related bodies of literature is presented to support the primary tenets of the model, which is termed the expectation‐to‐evaluation model, and recommendations for practitioners and future research are offered.     

《论语》篇序传

读诵和研究《论语》的人通常认为《论语》每一篇的篇名是随机截取的,各篇之间没有内在逻辑联系,每一篇中的各章也是随意罗列的。作者通过多年的研究发现:每一篇的篇名其实是精心挑选的,它形象地表达出该篇的主题;各篇之间存在着严密的因果逻辑联系;每一篇中的各章都是围绕主题而采撷编排的。一言以蔽之,《论语》乃编撰者精心构划之作。     

Where Emerging Adults in the United States Find Meaning in Life

We explored the most important sources of meaning among emerging adults and whether time spent on social media had an effect on life meaning dimensions. Results showed that the majority of emerging adults mentioned family and friends when asked in an open‐ended question about things that make their life meaningful.     

Why You Can't Kick the Bucket as You Slowly Die: Verbs in Idiom Comprehension

Idiomatic phrases differ in their degree of analyzability. Some idioms are highly decomposable with their parts independently contributing to their overall figurative meaning (e.g. pop the question) while other idioms are nondecomposable with parts that do not contribute to their idiomatic meaning (e.g. kick the bucket). Nonetheless, even the parts of nondecomposable idioms might have a role in determining what they specifically mean. For example, the verb kick, in kick the bucket implies a quickness or suddenness to the death such that kick the bucket means to die suddenly rather than to die slowly. We report the findings of three experiments showing, in different ways, how the action of the verb contributes to the overall figurative meaning for some nondecomposable idioms. Together, these studies suggest that even nondecomposable idioms are not truly frozen as, at least, part of their overall figurative meanings are shaped by the particular verbs used in these phrases.     

The More You Ask For,the More You Get: Anchoring in Personal Injury Verdicts

The ‘anchoring and adjustment’ bias was demonstrated in a personal injury case using mock jurors. In Experiment 1, the ad damnum, or requested compensation, was manipulated across participants. In Experiment 2, anchors were operationalized as the strength of the legal evidence. Both monetary and causal anchors systematically influenced judgments of the probability that the defendant caused the plaintiff's injuries, compensation awarded, and perceptions of the litigants. These results indicate that anchoring occurs in legal applications, and that plaintiffs would do well to request large compensation awards. In addition, anchors expressed on one scale affected judgments expressed on another scale. This cross-modality anchoring stands in contrast to previous studies. Finally, these anchoring effects are unlikely to be explained by either demand effects or perceived relevance of the anchor.     

Occupational Therapy in the Treatment of Schizophrenia

A review of Occupational Therapy literature on the treatment of schizophrenia identified four loosely defined treatment categories: (1) sensory integration, (2) activity groups, (3) social skills training, and (4) living skills training. From available data is appears that sensory integration therapy has been able to improve the motivation and affect of schizophrenic patients and structured activity programs can contribute to a reduction in positive symptomatology. Social and living skills training show promise as treatment methods to promote the community functioning of this population. A future need to establish which schizophrenic patients and what schizophrenic symptomatology respond to different types of treatment is identified.     

Economically organized hierarchies in WordNet and the Oxford English Dictionary

Good definitions consist of words that are more basic than the defined word. There are, however, many ways of satisfying this desideratum. For example, at one extreme, there could be a small set of atomic words that are used to define all other words; i.e., there would be just two hierarchical levels. Alternatively, there could be many hierarchical levels, where a small set of atomic words is used to define a larger set of words, and these are, in turn, used to define the next hierarchically higher set of words, and so on to the top-level of very specific, complex words. Importantly, some possible organizations are more economical than others in the amount of space required to record all the definitions. Here I ask, How economical are dictionaries? I present a simple model for an optimal set of definitions, predicting on the order of seven hierarchical levels. I test the model via measurements from WordNet and the Oxford English Dictionary, and find that the organization of each possesses the signature features expected for an economical dictionary.     

The Role of Occupational Characteristics and Occupational Imbalance in Explaining Well-being

One of the key factors for promoting well-being lies in balancing one’s daily life occupations and the nature of these occupations. Occupation refers to a group of everyday life goal-directed activities which may be associated to any life domain, not necessarily work, such as leisure, education, or self-care. Yet it is not clear what constitutes occupational imbalance, and its association to other factors has not been examined systematically. This study proposed and tested a theoretical model for specifying the structural relationships between occupational imbalance, occupational characteristics, personality and well-being. 288 working adults completed the following questionnaires: Inter-goal Relations Questionnaire (occupational imbalance), Personal Projects Analysis (occupational characteristics), the Big Five Inventory (personality traits) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (well-being). Twenty-five models were tested using structural equation modeling. All the models fit the data well. Occupational characteristics, with the exception of stress, served as significant mediators between personality and well-being, yet occupational imbalance did not play a significant role across all models. Our findings provide substantial support for the importance of occupation to well-being, however occupational imbalance is still an elusive concept that requires further investigation theoretically and empirically.