A qualitative model for the dynamics of cognitive processes

A qualitative model is constructed for adaptive processes and, in particular, for Piaget's theory of cognitive development. One of its main features is to describe the threshold period between stages of development. The basic approach is to isolate some general properties of Piaget's theory, and then use Thom's catastrophe theory as the major tool to obtain a geometric representation for a certain aspect of this theory.     

Concurrent validity of Holland's theory for non-college-degreed working women

This study, using the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and the Self-Directed Search (SDS), explored the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed women. The VPI and SDS were administered to 114 women workers in occupational environments consistent with Holland's vocational environments. The results revealed that three scales of the VPI and five scales of the SDS successfully differentiated the occupational groups consistent with Holland's theoretical notions. In general, the findings lend some support to the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed women.     

Concurrent validity of Holland's theory for non-college-degreed black women

This study, using the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and the Self-Directed Search (SDS), explored the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed black women. The VPI and the SDS were administered to 102 black women workers in occupational environments consistent with Holland's six vocational environments. The results revealed that four scales of the VPI and four scales of the SDS successfully differentiated the occupational groups consistent with Holland's theoretical notions. In general, the findings lend some support to the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed black women.     

The relationship of self and occupational concepts to the occupational preferences of adolescents

This study tested aspects of Super's self-concept theory of career development with a sample of British schoolchildren. Findings suggested that self-concepts and concepts of occupational preferences do have a role in career development, though there were some indications that the theory is more applicable to more able youngsters and to those high in self-esteem, than to others. Agreement between ideal-self-concepts and occupational preference concepts was significantly greater than that between actual-self-concepts and occupational preference concepts. This finding was interpreted as reflecting the youngsters' greater concern for the future and the possible, rather than the present and the given, and it suggested that refinements are needed in Super's theory.     

Concurrent validity of Holland's theory for college-degreed black women

This study, using the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and the Self Directed Search (SDS), explored the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed college-degreed black women. The VPI and SDS were administered to 93 black women workers in occupational environments consistent with Holland's six vocational environments. The results revealed that four scales of the VPI and five scales of the SDS successfully differentiated the occupational groups consistent with Holland's theoretical notions. In general, the findings lend some support to the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed college-degreed black women.     

Frequency estimation in verbal learning

A multicopy theory of frequency estimation and discrimination is applied to some data found in the literature on verbal learning. The main theoretical assumption adopted is that ‘relevant’ copies generated during study have to be discriminated from ‘irrelevant’ copies as are available in memory from other occasions than the study session proper. At retrieval, copies of either type are added and their sum determines the frequency estimates that are actually reported. A formalization of these ideas is presented and applied to Hinztman's (1969) and Underwood, Zimmerman, and Freund's (1971) data. Two specific models that emphasize either storage or retrieval of copy information are studied. The results show that the models provide a close approximation to the frequency discrimination data. With absolute frequency estimation, both the means and standard deviations of the judgements are predicted reasonably well. However, some reservations were dictated by the fact that, in one instance, the tails of the judgement distributions were not accounted for. The theory offers a theoretical framework for Underwood et al.'s method of cross-relating absolute frequency and forced choice judgements; the usefulness of two approaches to this problem is established. Also, possible extensions of the theory are noted.     

Concurrent validity of Holland's theory for college degreed working women

The study was designed to explore two areas: (1) the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed college degreed women using two different operational definitions (Vocational Preference Inventory and the Self-Directed Search) of vocational orientation; and (2) the relationships among same named scales across the VPI and the SDS. Concurrent validity was studied by administering the VPI and the SDS to 179 women workers in occupational environments consistent with Holland's six vocational environments. In general, the findings indicate that the VPI and SDS scales tend to effectively discriminate among the occupational groups consistent with Holland's theoretical framework. In addition, the correlation coefficients for same named scales for the two inventories were all found to be significant. In sum, the results of the study lend some support to the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed college degreed women.     

A comparison of Holland's model using constructs measured by two different methods

The relationship was studied between the set of constructs specified by Holland's 1973 theory (viz, Realistic, Intellectual, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) measured by an Adjective List (AL) derived from Holland's theory and the same set of constructs as measured by the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI). The correspondence of the two measures of Holland's model compared the distances between the constructs as measured by the AL and the constructs measured by the VPI in factor space using an adaptation of a model testing procedure reported by Wakefield and Doughtie 1973. The subjects were 174 undergraduates at a state university. The correspondence between the two separate measures of Holland's model was significant (p < .01). These results provide further support of the construct validity of Holland's theory and offer evidence that the relationships hypothesized by the theory are not tied to any one particular method of measurement.     

A theory of careers encounters sex: Reply to Holland (1976)

This paper is the third in a series beginning with a report (by the authors) of research on the application of Holland's theory of careers to women and men. Holland's response, “The Virtues of the SDS …” is considered, in particular, research he cites on the effect of the Self-Directed Search (SDS) on counselees and his advocacy of raw score reports of personality patterns. The widely divergent career options suggested to men and women by SDS raw scores are noted and misunderstandings concerning the implications of Holland's assessment procedures for his theory are discussed. Holland's defense of raw score reports of personality characteristics is found wanting, especially in light of the support provided for his theory by normed scores.     

Factors within the 1969 SVIB for women and relationships to Holland's theory

The Basic Interest Scales (BIS) and the Occupational Scales (O-S) of the revised Strong Vocational Interest Blank for Women (TW 398) were assigned Holland codes, and component scores for the BIS and O-S were separately developed, intercorrelated, and evaluated along with standardized composite scores representing each of the 11 O-S Groups on the profile. The dimensionality of the BIS and O-S was similar, and similar in number to Holland's theory, but the components were only partially congruent. Some profile Groups provided relatively good representations of BIS and/or Occupational scale components, and the grouping of the O-S provided important information not otherwise readily available. Holland's dimensions are not uniformly represented in either the BIS or O-S, and despite some similarities, fundamental problems of compatibility appeared to exist in relating the structure of this instrument to Holland's formulations. Women's interests are in need of independent study.     

Limit properties of Luce's choice theory

Luce's Axiom is interpreted in terms of a sequence of measures on the unit interval, and their limit properties are discussed. In particular, all limit laws are found to be either absolutely continuous with density x^α for α ∈ (?1, ∞) or else degenerate laws consisting of a point mass at 0 or 1. A close connection between Luce's choice theory and Karamata's theory of regularly varying functions is established and systematically used.     

Sorting out what's in a word from what's not: Evaluating Clark's Semantic Features Acquisition theory

The Semantic Features Acquisition theory of semantic development which is due to E. Clark (e.g., 1973b) is reviewed and evaluated against the recent experimental literature, with special reference to the acquisition of English antonyms. The review critically examines the three major ontogenetic principles of Clark's theory in light of numerous recent findings, many of which are at variance in some major way with predictions from the theory. In many instances, new data are available which call into question previous findings. A recurrent problem has been that children's comprehension task performance is confounded with their response biases which are specific to the linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts in which the lexical terms are presented. Methodological implications are discussed, with recommendations for employing the logic of converging operations.     

A descriptive model for perception of optical illusions

The apparent curves of stable geometrical illusions of angle are modeled by a first-order differential equation depending on a single parameter, called the strength of the illusion. The model is based on Brentano's theory that the human visual system tends to overestimate acute angles. It is mathematically equivalent to Hoffman's Lie-theoretic model (SIAM Review, 13 (1971), pp. 169–184) except for some deficiencies of detail in Hoffman's approach which are noted and corrected. By reversing the sign of the strength parameter, “correction” curves may be plotted which cause the illusion to “disappear,” thereby demonstrating the effectiveness and accuracy of the model. The method is illustrated with the classical illusions of Poggendorff, Zöllner, Hering, Orbison, Ponzo, and Müller-Lyer.     

Activity measures in stress-attenuated novelty tests as possible analogues for extraversion in rats: Some experimental results

In an attempt to extend and validate Garcia-Sevilla's (1974) hypothesis proposing ambulation in a non-stressful open field (OF) as an animal analogue of human extraversion, ambulatory behaviour and rearing behaviour were studied and compared in several experiments with genetically-unselected rats. The effects of variation of OF auditory stimulation level, the correlation with a two-way avoidance-learning situation and the effects of a stimulant dose of d-amphetamine and an anxiolytic one of diazepam upon rearing and ambulatory behaviours were studied. All in all, our results support some of the requirements of the hypothesis, but also generate some additional problems. The results show that the number of rearings could be a better and more sensitive measure of variations in the level of arousal and a better predictor of shuttle-avoidance conditioning than ambulation. However, all activity measures are at least moderately intercorrelated, and they become grouped when results are factor analysed. All the results are discussed with reference to Eysenck's personality theory and Gray's anxiety theory, and it is concluded that these measures are too multidetermined and too poorly controlled to represent correctly and in a direct form a personality dimension such as Extraversion. Anyway, this attempt could be a good point of departure for discovering more efficient animal behavioural measures of arousability.     

On the adequacy of prototype theory as a theory of concepts

Prototype theory construes membership in a concept's extension as graded, determined by similarity to the concept's “best” exemplar (or by some other measure of central tendency). The present paper is concerned with the compatibility of this view of concept membership with two criteria of adequacy for theories of concepts. The first criterion concerns the relationship between complex concepts and their conceptual constituents. The second concerns the truth conditions for thoughts corresponding to simple inclusions.     

Moral judgment: Theory and research on differences between males and females

That men and women differ in their moral orientations is a commonly held stereotype. The view that men are morally superior can be found in the writings of philosophers and psychologists (most notably Freud). Recently, Carol Gilligan (Harvard Educational Review, 1977, 47, 431–517) has entered this discussion bringing to it what she calls a “different [woman's] voice.” In this paper, the theory of an ethic of care is described and contrasted with Kohlberg's morality of justice. The empirical support for Gilligan's claim that men and women differ in their moral orientations is examined and a discussion of Gilligan's contribution to an integrated theory of morality is offered.     

The relation of vocational aspirations and assessments to employment reality

A typology was used to organize Census data about kinds of employment, survey data about people's aspirations, and the results of vocational assessments made with and without norms for men and women at two educational levels-some high school or above, and some college or above. Results indicate that kinds of employment differ greatly for different educational levels and between the sexes. The distribution of people's aspirations resembles the distribution of actual employment with some notable exceptions. Results also indicate that the use of sex-based interest inventory norms is unrealistic because they create distributions that diverge greatly from the distribution of actual employment. Some implications of the congruence between kinds of people and their employment are discussed for vocational guidance, test development, and career development research and theory.     

Career perspectives of male prison inmates in college courses

The article presents a profile of college-attending prison inmates' personality and vocational interests based on Holland's theory of careers and an assessment of their attitudes that are critical in realistic career decision-making.     

Personality variables and cognitive inconsistency

The present research studied the relationships between personality variables and cognitive inconsistency. Cognitive inconsistency was defined on the basis of the cognitive orientation theory of Kreitler and Kreitler (1972, 1976) as inconsistency and three personality variables: Extraversion, Cattell's factor “Independence” and Cattell's factor “Radicalism- Conservatism”. The implications of these results to Eysenck's and Cattell's theories were discussed.