Graduate attributes of the 4‐year Australian undergraduate psychology program

This paper outlines the background, process and outcomes for a project that delineated a set of graduate attributes of the 4‐year Australian undergraduate psychology program. The nature of the current undergraduate psychology program and its quality assurance system is described, followed by a consideration of current issues in psychology education and training. The processes involved in delineating the six graduate attributes (i.e., knowledge and understanding, research methods, critical thinking, values, communication, and application) are then described. Some issues and suggestions related to their implementation are then outlined. Finally, the authors summarise what has been accomplished in delineating the graduate attributes, and what still needs to be achieved.     

Vocational guidance during the depression: Phrenology versus applied psychology

The paper describes the design and use of a machine, the “Psychograph,” which automatically measured the size and shape of the skull and provided evaluations of mental traits according to phrenological principles. Developed in 1930, the psychograph was billed as a diagnostic tool capable of providing suitable vocational guidance to the thousands of unemployed as a result of the Depression. Its appearance prompted a vigorous opposition from the Psychology Department at the University of Minnesota, especially in the person of Donald L. Paterson. Subsequently, the psychograph was merely exploited for its entertainment value and disappeared after the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago.     

Developmental trends in the salience of meaning versus structural attributes of written words

Summary This study was designed to evaluate Gibson's contention that maximum sensitivity to the meanings of printed words does not occur until the individual has become a fluent reader. Also of interest was the degree to which reading ability would significantly influence the developmental course. These questions were evaluated by means of a sorting task which allowed subjects to group printed words on the basis of either semantic-syntactic (meaning) or graphic-phonologic (structural) attributes, and differential grouping tendencies along the age/grade continuum were the dependent measures specifically evaluated. Subjects consisted of normal and poor readers from grades 1–6, as well as ninth graders and college sophomores. The study was quasi-longitudinal in that available subjects from grades 2–5 were retested a year later to evaluate the reliability of developmental trends.Results were consistent with Gibson's theory. Sensitivity to word meanings was much more stable in fluent readers than it was in less fluent readers, although there was considerable individual variability noted at all levels. Poor readers were inclined to place words they could identify more often in meaning than in structural categories. However, structural categories that were utilized, were often idiosyncratic, suggesting that poor readers are less atuned to orthographic regularities than are normal readers.     

General versus specific victim blaming

The authors investigated (a) whether victim blaming is a general variable in a person's make-up or (b) whether the extent of blaming depends on the kind of victim considered. The authors evaluated scales for blaming (a) victims in general, (b) society in general, (c) a specific kind of victim (i.e., AIDS), and (d) the society in which AIDS victims live. The general and specific scales had favorable psychometric properties, including reliability. General and specific victim blaming were significantly and positively correlated, whereas victim blaming and society blaming were not significantly correlated. Multiple regression analyses provided evidence of construct validity for the scales. All blaming variables were significantly related in the hypothesized directions to social distance, social responsibility, and discrimination (regarding persons with AIDS). The general and specific scales made significant and unique contributions. Implications for attribution theory and research are specified.     

Social psychology of institutional change: General principles for intervention

Six principles for achieving total institutional change are presented as a framework for developing intervention strategies for changing established human-service institutions for deviants. These principles are discussed and then explicated with examples from a total change effort in a state training school for adjudicated male delinquents. It is argued that most human service institutions for deviants are in desperate need of massive change and that all six of these principles must be realized, at least to some degree, if such change is to be effected.Numerous discussions over the years with Seymour B. Sarason, J. Terry Saunders, Brian P. V. Sarata, Charles W. Dean, and Leland Wilkinson have been instrumental in formulating the ideas expressed in this paper. The author is most appreciative of their support and contributions. Some of these ideas were originally presented in a paper of the same title by N. D. Reppucci, J. T. Saunders, and L. Wilkinson as part of a symposium at the Convention of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1972.     

Deceived versus nondeceived participants' perceptions of scientific and applied psychology

Research examining the possible effects of deceptive research participation on participants' perceptions of psychology has yielded equivocal results. The present study's goal was to clarify the possible effects of participation in mildly deceptive research on participants' impressions of scientific and applied psychology. Participants (N = 112) were randomly assigned to one of six experimental conditions: active groups receiving negative, positive, or no feedback, or passive groups receiving negative, positive, or no feedback. Following participation, participants completed measures of impressions of psychotherapy and psychotherapists, researchers, and instructors. The manipulation did not affect attitudes toward psychology on any of the dependent measures, although gender effects resulted on one measure. Participants in general reported very positive attitudes toward the science and practice of psychology. Recommendations are offered for future research on the effects of more extensive deceptions.     

Putting the psychology back into psychological models: Mechanistic versus rational approaches

Two basic approaches to explaining the nature of the mind are the rational and the mechanistic approaches. Rational analyses attempt to characterize the environment and the behavioral outcomes that humans seek to optimize, whereas mechanistic models attempt to simulate human behavior using processes and representations analogous to those used by humans. We compared these approaches with regard to their accounts of how humans learn the variability of categories. The mechanistic model departs in subtle ways from rational principles. In particular, the mechanistic model incrementally updates its estimates of category means and variances through error-driven learning, based on discrepancies between new category members and the current representation of each category. The model yields a prediction, which we verify, regarding the effects of order manipulations that the rational approach does not anticipate. Although both rational and mechanistic models can successfully postdict known findings, we suggest that psychological advances are driven primarily by consideration of process and representation and that rational accounts trail these breakthroughs.     

Prenatal dysthymia versus major depression effects on the neonate

Depressed pregnant women were classified as dysthymic or major depression disorder based on the Structured Clinical Interview for Depression and followed to the newborn period. The newborns of dysthymic versus major depression disorder mothers had a significantly shorter gestational age, a lower birthweight, shorter birth length and less optimal obstetric complications scores. The neonates of dysthymic mothers also had lower orientation and motor scores and more depressive symptoms on the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale. These findings were not surprising given the elevated cortisol levels and the inferior fetal measures including lower fetal weight, fetal length, femur length and abdominal circumference noted in our earlier study on fetuses of dysthymic pregnant women.     

Strategies and attributes of highly productive scholars and contributors to the school psychology literature: recommendations for increasing scholarly productivity

In all academic fields, there are scholars who contribute to the research literature at exceptionally high levels. The goal of the current study was to discover what school psychology researchers with remarkably high levels of journal publication do to be so productive. In Study 1, 94 highly productive school psychology scholars were identified from past research, and 51 (39 men, 12 women) submitted individual, short-answer responses to a 5-item questionnaire regarding their research strategies. A constant comparative approach was employed to sort and code individual sentiments (N=479) into categories. Seven broad categories of counsel for increasing productivity emerged: (a) research and publication practices and strategies, (b) collaboration, mentoring and building relationships, (c) navigating the peer-review process, (d) strategies to bolster writing productivity and excellence, (e) personal character traits that foster productivity, (f) preparation before entering the professoriate, and (g) other noteworthy sentiments. Results are discussed in terms of nine recommendations for scholars and graduate students who wish to increase their productivity. In Study 2, five of the most productive scholars (1 woman, 4 men) participated in a semi-structured interview about their high levels of productivity. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed, and a case analysis approach employed to profile each scholar. Study limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Needs versus deeds: The unfulfilled research potential in school psychology

A nationwide sample of school psychology practitioners and one of authors of recent journal articles, from three main school psychology journals, were asked to rate the importance of the types of needed research in school psychology. Close agreement was found between the priorities assigned by the two groups. Prevention of school-related problems and improvement in the functioning of non-referred populations were the areas identified as most in need of research by both authors and practitioners. A comparison of the priorities for needed research with a previously published study of types of articles actually published in the school psychology press revealed little agreement between perceived needs and actual publications. The results are discussed in terms of implications for collaborative research between field-based practitioners and researchers, and possible actions by journal editorial boards and professional organizations that would facilitate greater research productivity in areas of great need.     

Procedural justice and the hedonic principle: how approach versus avoidance motivation influences the psychology of voice

The authors investigate the relation between the hedonic principle (people's motivations to approach pleasure and to avoid pain) and procedural justice. They explore whether approach or avoidance motivation increases the effect that people feel they were treated more fairly following procedures that do versus do not allow them an opportunity to voice their opinion. Experiments 1 and 2 reveal that these procedures influence procedural justice judgments more strongly when people conduct approach motor action (arm flexion) than when they conduct avoidance motor action (arm extension). Experiment 3 indicates that individual-difference measures of participants' approach motivations predicted procedural justice judgments following voice versus no-voice procedures. The authors conclude that people's motivational orientations stimulate their fairness-based reactions to voice procedures.     

Mapping European social psychology: Co-word analysis of the communications at the 10th General Meeting of the EAESP

This study aims to provide a picture of the present European research topics in Social Psychology, using the 339 papers presented at the 1993 General Meeting of the EAESP. The most frequent themes of research are analysed and the structure of the association of those themes are described in a two-factor structure. The first factor differentiates research in terms of level of analysis and the second factor contrasts types of applied research.     

An observation of gender-specific teacher behavior in the ESL classroom

For the most part, gender-differentiated teacher behavior in English as a Second Language classrooms in the United States has not been examined. Does the preference for male students demonstrated by both male and female teachers in American classrooms (Sadker et. al., 1992) also occur in ESL classrooms? If so, are ESL teachers aware they show such bias? To find out, the author observed and evaluated, both quantitatively and qualitatively, classroom interactions of four ESL teachers. The teachers, two males and two females, were white, American-born, and had finished graduate studies. All but one of the ESL teachers observed showed remarkable equality in their classroom interactions with the genders. The results are discussed, and future research directions proposed.     

Assessing knowledge-intensive work environment: General versus situation-specific instruments

The aim of the present study is to examine to what extent general and situation-specific work environment instruments capture the salient work characteristics in a knowledge-intensive context. We conducted qualitative open-ended interviews with 30 employees (24 men and six women) from a Norwegian university department. The information from the interviews was content-analysed and coded on the scales of five work environment instruments; two general instruments (the General Nordic Questionnaire for Psychological and Social Factors at Work [QPSNordic] and the Job Diagnostic Survey [JDS]) and three situation-specific instruments (Assessing the climate for creativity [KEYS], Situational Outlook Questionnaire [SOQ], and the Organizational Climate Measure [OCM]). The results showed that situation-specific work environment instruments covered significantly more statements about the work environment than the general instruments. More statements could be categorized on the organization and individual levels, compared to group and leadership levels. The situation-specific instruments covered more statements than general instruments at the organization level. These statements were mainly related to the organizational context, social and relational characteristics, and encouragement of creativity and organizational impediments to creativity. The findings support the value of situation-specific instruments for assessing the work environment in knowledge-intensive organizations.