AN EXAMINATION OF THREE MODELS OF TELEVISION VIEWING AND AGGRESSION1

Three general models of the relationship between television viewing and aggressiveness are described: the Facilitation Model, featuring learning or legitimization of aggression from television violence; the Catharsis Model, or the reduction of innate aggressive drives through vicarious participation in television violence; and the Arousal Model, which considers television programming as an agent of arousal, generating a drive toward activity, with the nature of the activity determined by situational factors. The Arousal Model is further discriminated into an Emotional Arousal Model, in which the agent of arousal is emotional reaction to violent content, and the Form Arousal Model, in which arousal is a result of the cognitive effort involved in decoding programming. The Facilitation, Catharsis, and Form Arousal Models are contrasted on a sample of 597 adolescents. The results indicate independent Facilitation and Form Arousal processes occur. A rather startling result is the finding that levels of aggressiveness can be predicted as well by examining only the form of programming as they can by examining only the violent content. Age and sex differences are associated with different strengths of Facilitation and/or Form Arousal effects, indicating possible socialization or maturation processes affecting the response of adolescents to programming.     

ON MOTIVATED ROLE SELECTION: GENDER BELIEFS, DISTANT GOALS, AND CAREER INTEREST

Despite widespread changes in occupational opportunities, men and women continue to show divergent preferences for careers. This research invoked a motivational framework to explain sex-differentiated career interest. From a role congruity perspective ( Diekman & Eagly, 2008 ), the internalization of gender roles leads people to endorse gender-stereotypic goals, which then lead to interest in occupations that afford the pursuit of those goals. Three studies provided evidence for the hypotheses. Study 1 found that male- and female-stereotypic careers were perceived to afford different goals. Studies 2 and 3 found that men and women endorsed different goals and that this gender-normative goal endorsement predicted gender-stereotypic career interest. In addition, structural equation modeling (Study 3) indicated that internalization of gender roles fully accounted for sex-differentiated goal endorsement. These findings thus extend the social role theory framework to consider processes related to self-selection into specific social roles.     

COLLEGE WOMEN'S AGGRESSION IN RELATIONSHIPS:THE ROLE OF CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENT VICTIMIZATION

Despite growing evidence suggesting that women engage in verbal and physical dating aggression, there is a dearth of research examining the predictors of women's engagement in these behaviors. Utilizing a college sample, the purpose of the current study was to explore women's perpetration of dating aggression within the context of victimization experiences. Women ( N  = 374) completed surveys at the beginning and end of a 10-week academic quarter for course credit. Results from two retrospective regression analyses (all Time 1 variables) suggested that (1) paternal physical abuse and adolescent/adulthood verbal victimization predicted women's reports of verbal perpetration and (2) childhood sexual abuse, adolescent/adulthood verbal victimization, adolescent/adulthood physical victimization, and adolescent/adulthood verbal perpetration predicted women's reports of physical perpetration. Results from the two prospective, longitudinal regression analyses suggested that (1) verbal perpetration (as measured at Time 1) and verbal victimization over the interim predicted women's reports of verbal perpetration over the interim and (2) physical perpetration (as measured at Time 1), verbal perpetration over the interim, and physical victimization over the interim predicted women's reports of physical perpetration over the interim. These data suggest the importance of considering previous victimization experiences, mutual partner aggression, and a history of aggressive behaviors when examining women's use of aggression in dating relationships.     

OCCUPATIONAL AND INDUSTRIAL THERAPY

No abstract available for this article.     

CONTEXTUAL AGE AND TELEVISION USE

The aims of the investigation were to initiate the development of “contextual age” as an alternative life-position concept to chronological age in communication and aging research, and to examine the relationships between contextual age and socio-demographic characteristics, television viewing patterns, and viewing motivations. The sample consisted of 340 non-confined respondents, aged 55 to 92. Factor analysis located four contextual age dimensions: interaction, life satisfaction, economic security, and self-reliance. The results of the Pearson and canonical correlation analyses suggest: the importance of an individual's degree of interpersonal interaction, social activity, life satisfaction, economic security, mobility, and physical health for indicating television usage; a series of interactant associations among contextual age, socio-demographic, viewing pattern, and viewing motivation variables; and the heuristic potential of the contextual age concept for assessing life-position and communication behavior.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SEX ROLE ORIENTATION, SELF ESTEEM, AND SEX-TYPED OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE OF COLLEGE WOMEN

This study assessed the relationship between sex role orientation, self esteem, and occupational choice. A random sample of one hundred forty-four college women in a feminine-typed occupational field of study and 143 college women in a masculine-typed occupational field of study completed self-report measures to assess sex role orientation (androgynous, masculine, feminine, or undifferentiated) and self-esteem. Comparisons of occupational groups revealed a significantly higher level of self-esteem in the feminine-typed occupational group as opposed to the masculinetyped group. The masculine women in the feminine occupational group and the androgynous women in both groups had significantly higher levels of self-esteem than the masculine women in the masculine occupational group. Implications of findings and future research directions are discussed.     

TELEVISION USE BY CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

The investigation explored the relationships between child and adolescent television use motivations and various sociodemographic characteristics, television viewing levels, program preference, and television attitudes. Six viewing motivations were identified: learning, passing time or habit, companionship, escape or forget, arousal, and relaxation. Age was the only demographic correlate of most of these functions. All viewing motivations correlated positively with television viewing levels, medium attachment, and perceived content reality. However, when age and level of viewing were partialed out, habitual viewing was no longer found to correlate with perceived reality. Several significant associations between viewing motivations and program preference were also noted. Arousal viewers preferred dramatic programs, while habitual, escapist, and companionship viewers favored comedies. Habitual viewers also shunned news and public affairs programs. Implications of the findings were discussed within the conceptual rubric of the uses of gratifications research perspective.     

UNDERSTANDING WOMEN'S EDUCATIONAL AND OCCUPATIONAL CHOICES

Despite recent efforts to increase the participation of women in advanced educational training and high-status professional fields, women and men are still concentrated in different occupations and educational programs, and women are still underrepresented in many high-status occupational fields-particularly those associated with physical science, engineering, and applied mathematics. Many factors, ranging from outright discrimination to the processes associated with gender role socialization, contribute to these gendered patterns of educational and occupational choices. This paper summarizes a set of social and psychological factors that Eccles and her colleagues have been studying for the past 15 years in an effort to understand the occupational and educational choices of women and men. The paper summarizes the key features of the theoretical model they developed and provides an overview of the empirical support now available for key aspects of this model. The implications of this model for understanding the link between gender roles and gendered educational and occupational decisions are discussed.     

VISUAL COMPLEXITY AND YOUNG CHILDREN'S LEARNING FROM TELEVISION

The impact of both the static and dynamic visual complexity of a half-hour sequence of “Sesame Street” segments upon viewers' visual attention, recall, and recognition are assessed in this study of 48 four and five year olds. Previous research has produced inconsistent results with respect to the links among the three sets of variables in this observational learning process. Results of a path analysis indicated strong negative relationships between static complexity and all three viewer variables, positive relationships between dynamic complexity and both attention and recognition, and between attention and both types of learning. No significant relationship emerged between dynamic complexity and recall. Implications for television production aimed at young children are discussed.     

ON THE MEANING AND VALIDITY OF TELEVISION VIEWING

The construct validity of “television viewing” is developed and explicated. It is suggested that while this concept is usually used as a strict behavioral variable, many different constructs are implied by it. The construct validity of television viewing can be derived from a conceptualization of what it is in television which, when viewed, or exposed to, interacts with human behavior and attributes. Four such conceptualizations are illustrated, each leading to a different construct of “viewing”: (1) television as a social-situational factor involving choice behavior between activities; (2) television as a transmission of a content repertoire, implying decision-making regarding messages; (3) television as a source of content-messages dealing with recall, comprehension, and attitude change; and (4) television as a “language” pertaining to the processes of encoding messages in the service of extracting knowledge.     

WORK ADJUSTMENT AND THE EDUCABLE MENTALLY RETARDED ADOLESCENT

Various attempts to measure the vocational adjustment of educable mentally retarded adolescents are reported. Most of the research conducted was found to be restricted to the identification of problems in job adjustment or the skills and habits which contributed to such adjustment. Most work maladjustments of educable mentally retarded adolescents were, in general, attributed to poor interpersonal skills. Attempts to construct various tests which would measure job success for these adolescents are also reported.     

EMPLOYMENT AND ROLE SATISFACTION

A path analytic model was used to examine the impact of three domains of life satisfaction and three employment-related variables on general well-being in a sample of 1,145 Army wives. The life domains included marital, financial, and role satisfaction. The employment-related variables included: (a) time spent employed (none, part, or full); (b) role fit; and (c) satisfaction with overall career development prospects. The employment-related variables were hypothesized to impact on general well-being both directly and indirectly through their relationship to role satisfaction. Time spent employed and role fit were found to be significantly related to role satisfaction, which in turn, was significantly related to general well-being. One variable–satisfaction with overall career development prospects–had a significant direct impact on general well-being.     

THE PREDICTION OF OCCUPATIONAL SUCCESS AND PROFICIENCY

Neither standardized test data nor grades made in required courses in high school contribute significantly to the prediction of occupational success or proficiency. The General Aptitude Test Battery makes practically no contribution to the prediction of success although the instrument is widely used to predict trainability. Intelligence test scores are of little value in predicting success in the labor market. It may be that efforts to predict occupational success and proficiency are in reality exercises in futility since workers tend to be successful regardless of test results. Apparently workers find places where they are considered successful. Possibly new research designs will be required before success can be predicted. Success should not be considered an entity, however, because it does not lend itself to exact measurement.     

AGE, GENDER, AND OCCUPATIONAL LABEL

Two studies tested the social role theory (Eagly, 1987) prediction that role information would override the age-related agency stereotype. Although results of Study 1 showed that employed people were viewed similarly in agency regardless of target age, interpretation was limited because employed targets were most often imagined to be male and young homemaker targets were most often imagined to be female. To control for this, target gender was added as an independent variable in Study 2. As expected, agency and communion ratings of employed targets and targets who cared for a home did not differ by target age, but agency ratings of average targets were higher for 35-year-old than for 70-year-old targets. Communion ratings for average targets did not differ by target age. Target gender effects on the agency measure replicated Eagly and Steffen's (1984, 1988) results. The importance of context to understanding stereotypes of the elderly is illustrated.     

《青少年心理健康素质调查表》动力系统分量表的编制

本文旨在介绍青少年心理健康素质动力系统量表的编制及其标准化过程。量表编制的重要理论基础为马斯洛的五级动机理论和弗兰克尔的自我超越动机理论。研究的测量工具有:自尊量表,自我超越生命意义量表,指向自我生命意义量表和对意义的追寻量表。被试为北京市某中学的334名初中高中学生。结果显示:青少年心理健康素质动力系统量表的内部一致性Cronbach′sα=0.90,效标效度较理想。研究结论:该量表可以作为测量青少年心理健康素质动力系统的一个较为可靠的工具。