The effect of a vocational unit on the exploration of nontraditional career options

As part of a community college orientation course, a curriculum model was developed to help male and female students explore career goals with an awareness of the influence of sexism and stereotypic attitudes on their occupational choices. This model was compared to a traditional vocational exploration unit that did not include an examination of stereotypic attitudes. Three criterion measures for male and female subjects were used in this study, including the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), an occupational brief selection form, and a three-item questionnaire to evaluate the selected briefs. Additionally, female students completed the Life Style Index. The findings indicated that although no significant impact can be attributed to the experimental treatment, the sex differences found in this study may provide a point of departure for future programs focusing on increasing nontraditional options in vocational exploration. This research does call into question, however, the value of short-term programs which claim to expand nontraditional career options.     

Sex-role and innovative major choice among college students

This study examined the relationship between sex-role and nontraditional major choice. The sample included 693 male and female students enrolled in traditional and nontraditional majors. In addition to exploring this relationship the study had a methodological intent: Could scales derived from previous factor analyses of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory delineate this relationship as readily as the traditional Bem scoring method. Results indicate significant distributional patterns in sex-role and choice of major, which vary by sex. Men tend to choose male-dominated majors, regardless of sex-role. Patterns for females are more complex. The factored scales used in cross-validated discriminate analysis procedures did demonstrate some power to discriminate students in the two majors, suggesting certain implications for sex-role transcendence in vocational settings.     

Speech in mania: Syntactic aspects

In this study, we observed and linguistically analyzed the verbal behavior of six manic subjects, looking specifically for those linguistic capacities which were intact and for those which were disrupted. From interviews and tape-recordings of manic subjects in both analytic-protocol and discourse situations, we observed a preservation of basic speech capacities, including the ability to comprehend and generate grammatical sentences and to utilize highly complex linguistic transformations. We noted, however, a disruption in the ability to properly utilize ellipsis and semantic (discourse) anaphora such that manic subjects did not maintain a meaningful progression of thought in discourse.     

Korsakoff amnesic syndrome: The result of simultaneous deficits in several independent processes?

Alcoholic Korsakoff patients were presented six verbal list learning tasks (two denotatively and three connotatively organized, and one high-imagery word list). Twelve recall trials and three recognition probes were obtained per list. Results indicate that for Korsakoff patients, (1) recall varied with list organization, (2) recognition memory although poor was further disrupted by proactive inhibition only on denotatively categorized lists, and (3) conceptual deficits disrupted ability to appreciate simple dichotomies in denotatively categorized lists. It is hypothesized that the joint presence of deficts in specific conceptual and semantic processes in necessary although perhaps not sufficient to produce a Korsakoff amnesia.     

Criterion-related and construct validity of the Career Maturity Inventory Competence Test with ninth-grade pupils

The purpose of this study was to examine the criterion-related and construct validity of the Career Maturity Inventory Competence Test. The Competence Test, Attitude Scale, and Cognitive Vocational Maturity Test were administered to 260 ninth-grade pupils in a rural junior high school to determine whether the variables were interrelated as hypothesized in theCrites (Theory and research handbook for the Career Maturity Inventory. Monterey, Calif.: CTB/McGraw-Hill, 1973) model of career maturity. The results show that, as predicted, the Competence Test is more highly correlated with the Cognitive Vocational Maturity Test than it is with the Attitude Scale. Also, as predicted, the subscales of the Competence Test are intercorrelated between .40 and .69. However, the correlations of the Attitude Scale with the Competence Test total score and the Cognitive Vocational Maturity Test total score are higher than the theoretical expectation.     

Short-term memory performance in the absence of phonological coding

These experiments examined the short-term memory performance of an aphasic patient with posterior damage who shows a selective deficit in phonological coding. In recognition memory tests, the patient relied on both visual and semantic coding, and often showed an essentially normal level of accuracy. However, for memory sets consisting of four function words, his performance was quite impaired. Also, his retention of order information was far below that of normal controls. The implications of these deficits in short-term memory for language comprehension and production are discussed.     

A conditional logit model of collegiate major selection

The choice of a major by a college student is viewed as depending upon the quantity of various outputs (such as income and status) each major provides and the taste structure of the student for these outputs. Tradeoffs in outputs occur so that high status may overcome low-income potential in the occupation into which the major provides entry. Different taste structures among students mean tradeoffs occur at different rates, so that taste structues are best associated with student major selection in a probability sense. Changes in the probability of selecting a collegiate major are associated with changes in student taste structures via a conditional logit model. The taste structure of a student is hypothesized to depend upon the environment in which the student was raised and the environment in which the student now lives. The relationship between environment and taste is also best stated in a probability sense and a second logit model is used to describe this relationship. Estimation of the two logit models, using survey data, attempts to quantify the hypothesized route from environment to taste structure to major selection for entry into an occupation. An example of this route is the finding that women students place more importance on obtaining high income than do men students and the greater the importance of high income, the lower the probability of selecting an education major, the greater the probability of selecting a humanities or social science major. Other results of estimation are presented and discussed.     

Sex-role self-concept and attitudes related to occupational daydreams and future fantasies of college women

This study explored the relationship of sex-role self-concept and general attitudes toward women's roles to patterns of career preferences and to career salience among 50 undergraduate women. Sex-role self-concept was measured by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, and attitudes by the Attitudes Toward Women Scale. Patterns in career preferences were determined by studying the degree of gender dominance in past occupational daydreams as well as in present college major and intended future occupation. Career salience was measured using a content analysis of written future fantasies. Sex-role self-concept was related to past occupational preferences, with masculine-typed women showing a pattern of nontraditional daydreams compared to those of feminine-typed women. Attitude variables were related to present career choices, with liberal women in more male-dominant fields than conservative women. Both self-concept and attitude variables were related to career salience, measured by the proportion of fantasies about the future devoted to work themes. Masculine women showed evidence of more career salience than androgynous or undifferentiated women, and liberal women more than conservative women.     

Phonological processing during silent reading in aphasic patients

In a task involving the detection of a predesignated letter during the silent reading of a series of passages, left-brain-damaged aphasic patients and right-brain-damaged patients showed patterns of performance consistent with those of normal individuals. Both of the brain-damaged groups were more likely to detect letters when they were pronounced in a typical way (e.g., g in "ago") than in an atypical way (e.g., g in "through"), suggesting the use of phonological recoding during silent reading. In addition, both of these groups were more likely to detect letters when they occurred in content than in function words, suggesting a differential processing of these word types. Possible differences in the strategies predominantly relied on for phonological recoding and for the differential processing of content and function words by different groups of patients are discussed.     

An investigation of repetition and language processing in a case of conduction aphasia

A study is reported of a single case of conduction aphasia. A battery of tasks designed to investigate the parameters of the patient's severe repetition deficit is supplemented by tests of several language functions. The results provide extensive information on a wide range of the patient's language abilities and are used to evaluate the adequacy of four models that have been offered to account for conduction aphasia. An argument is made in support of the suggestion that the syndrome of conduction aphasia should be divided into two subgroups based on patients' ability to select and realize phonemes in speech output. It is concluded that the best explanation for the disorder of patients with repetition deficit but without significant speech output problems is the hypothesis that repetition ability is compromised by a pathological limitation of auditory-verbal short-term memory. This hypothesis is extended to account for the pattern of results obtained in the language tasks.     

Reading and listening comprehension in Broca's aphasia: Lexical versus syntactical errors

Ten agrammatic Broca's aphasics were presented with a series of four picture plates together with a spoken or written sentence stimulus. All sentence stimuli were of the structure, the + N + is/are + V + ing + the + N. The four pictures on each stimulus plate represented (a) the correct response, (b) a reversal of the stimulus sentence subject and object, (c) a change in the number of the subject of the stimulus sentence, and (d) a change in one of the major lexical items of the stimulus sentence. Subjects selected the correct picture most often. When they erred, they usually selected a subject-object reversal. Number errors were less frequent, and the patients seldom selected a change in major lexical item. This pattern occurred with both written and spoken sentences. These results were interpreted as reflecting the dependence of agrammatic Broca's aphasics on the semantic interpretation of the lexicon for decoding sentences in the face of deficits in syntactical-grammatical interpretation, irrespective of comprehension modality.     

Dynamics of hostile aggression: Influence of anger,hurt instructions,and victim pain feedback

The research basically examined some of the dynamics of hostile aggression by looking at the effects of different Buss procedure instructions and levels of victim pain feedback on the aggressive behavior of angered and nonangered men. In a 2 × 2 × 2 completely crossed factorial experiment, male undergraduates were initially either angered or not by an experimental accomplice. When later given the ostensible opportunity to administer shocks to the same accomplice in a typical Buss procedure, the subjects were either told that longer and more intense shocks would probably interfere with the person's learning as well as causing him more pain (hurt instructions) or given no information about the effects of shocks on learning (standard instructions). Finally, after each shock they administered, the subjects were provided with either high or low victim pain feedback. The angered men were significantly more aggressive than their nonangered counterparts, and a significant interaction between anger and instructions indicated this was especially true for the men given hurt instructions. Significant interactions between the other independent variables and trial blocks revealed that the angered men, particularly those receiving hurt instructions and high victim pain feedback, displayed the greates increases in aggression. The results provide qualified support for the derived proposition about hostile aggression that signs and/or knowledge of victim injury and pain can stimulate more intense aggression from angry individuals.     

Attitude bolstering when behavior is inconsistent with central attitudes

An experiment was conducted to study the effects of behaving inconsistently with a central attitude. In a theoretical account, it is suggested that subjects who score high on a feminism scale and who fail to solve a sex-role problem and thus demonstrate sexist thinking will be motivated to adopt feminist (nonsexist) behavior more than subjects who are either lower in feminism or who don't fail such a problem. Since the attitude is central, attitude bolstering rather than change in the direction of the behavior should be the preferred mode of inconsistency reduction for such subjects. Bolstering, in the form of positive affirmative action decisions, was generally demonstrated by subjects who failed the sex-role problem. This effect was more pronounced for those highest in feminism. No such effects on affirmative action decisions were observed for subjects who didn't fail the sex-role problem. Results support the view that threats to one's self-image caused by one's own counter-attitudinal actions lead to attempts to reestablish those threatened values. A conceptual analysis of the conditions under which bolstering rather than attitude change in the direction of the behavior should be expected is presented.     

Career perceptions of managerial and professional personnel

Stages of career development consistent with age were found in a group of employed managers and professionals. They tended to attribute career success to inherent abilities, education, and developmental experiences in the company studied. Trends among three age groups were similar in regard to factors they perceived as enhancing or adversely affecting their career development.     

Perception of temporally competing speech stimuli in preschool children

The aim of this study was to investigate the perception of competing speech stimuli in 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old normally developing children. A dichotic listening paradigm was used in which the temporal alignment between the two stimuli was varied to represent three levels of competition. Minimal, moderate, and maximal levels of temporal competition were represented by a Separation, Lag, and Simultaneous test condition, respectively. The subjects were behaviorally set to listen for and to report the two stimuli on each trial. The incidence of double correct responses in the test conditions was the measure of interest. The results show a sharp and linear drop in double correct scores from the Separation, to the Lag, and to the Simultaneous condition. There were no age-related differences in the Separation and the Simultaneous conditions. In the Lag condition, the performance of the 3-year-olds was significantly lower than the 4- and 5-year-olds. The findings were interpreted to be indicative of limited auditory processing ability in preschoolers for moderately and maximally competing speech stimuli.     

Dementia in Parkinson disease: A neuropsychological analysis

An extensive set of neuropsychological measures was administered to 60 Parkinson's disease patients and age-, sex-, and education-matched controls in order to investigate the nature and prevalence of the cognitive deficit in the disease. Parkinsonian patients performed significantly poorer on all measures with the exception of tests for apraxia and object recognition, and on a test of vocabulary knowledge. Discriminant analysis of the test data revealed that over 93% of patients are impaired relative to matched controls, but that assigning a prevalence rate for dementia in the disease may be difficult due to the continuous distribution of cognitive deficits.     

Lateralization effects in the perception of Hebrew and English words

A series of four experiments was conducted on Israelis with a good knowledge of English, Anglo-Saxons with a good knowledge of Hebrew, and full Bilinguals of the two languages. In all experiments words were presented vertically and measurements of both accuracy and response times were taken. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the perception of Hebrew words in unilateral and bilateral conditions, respectively; Experiments 3 and 4 examined the perception of both Hebrew and English words in these two conditions. The results revealed right visual field advantage in the perception of words in both languages and in all groups. A reversal between the two conditions was not found. The data support the hypothesis whereby nonnative languages are less lateralized than native ones, but they indicate that full bilinguals are more, not less, lateralized than monolinguals. Various hypothesis regarding the relationship between lateralization and bilingualism are discussed.     

Neutralizing sexist titles in Holland's Self-Directed Search: What difference does it make?

Sex-role stereotyping in the linguistic structure of Holland's Self-Directed Search (SDS) was examined. A revised SDS was constructed involving the removal of all masculine-toned terminology from the items and test-taking instructions, as well as the affixing of the letters M/F and F/M to all occupational titles and terms commonly perceived as gender specific. Subjects were 266 lower division female students at a large state university; 133 subjects completed the standard SDS and 133 completed the revised form. Following SDS assessment, subjects rated their inventory with respect to perceived sexual equality. Comparison variables included: daydreams, occupations' scores, summary codes, and subsequent occupational choices. Occupational choices at each stage of the assessment process were classified as nontraditional or traditional choices for women. Results indicated that across all indices derived from the standard and revised versions of the SDS, there were no significant differences in these subjects' performance. The subjects did perceive the two inventories differently, with subjects completing the standard SDS viewing it as slightly less equitable.     

The selective impairment of phonological processing: A case study

A case study is reported of an aphasic patient with fluent speech and markedly superior comprehension of written vs. spoken words. Results of extensive testing supported the hypothesis that the patient suffers from a phonological processing deficit that affects performance in all tasks that require the generation of a phonological code. This selective deficit is interpreted as the underlying cause of diverse symptoms such as asyntactic comprehension of written sentences, the commission of spelling errors in writing, and the production of literal paraphasias and neologisms in spontaneous speech. Alternative possibilities for the classification of this patient are discussed.