Occupational floundering

The phenomenon of occupational floundering occurs when a person enters the labor market in search of full-time work without a chosen commitment to an occupational goal. It is a period of effort in which job seekers experience varying degrees of need deprivation and frustration. Floundering can be divided into three stages: the period of initial entry into the labor market; the shopping period; and the mid-career stage. Floundering is not necessarily as destructive a phenomenon as current vocational theories tend to imply, since it sometimes provides experiences that facilitate personal growth and self-acceptance as well as providing a means by which a significant portion of the labor force eventually becomes stabilized.     

Occupational Choice and Occupational Success in Slow-Learning School-Leavers

Educationally sub normal adolescents in special schools are compared with others of the same ability in the remedial groups of comprehensive schools, with regard to their choice of jobs and success in employment after leaving school. ESN pupils from special schools were found to be more realistic in their choice of occupation and to do better in their subsequent employment than those from comprehensive schools. Some possible reasons for this difference are proposed.     

Army Occupational Therapy

An understanding of organization subsystems, is necessary to effect change within those subsystems. In describing the complex systems under which Army therapists function, some of the difficulties of a bureaucratic structure are identified and integrating techniques described. Because of the existing organization structure that blends both professional and military identification, Army therapists have been successful in achieving a considerable amount of cohesion and commitment through a self-imposed developmental process. The process resulted in the development of a long range plan which gives direction for the management of Army occupational therapy.     

Occupational Therapy Treatment

This paper describes borderline phenomenon as it relates to occupational therapy treatment groups. The author discusses the genesis of the syndrome from the separation-individuation phase, its relation to adult functioning, subsequent treatment design and recommended therapeutic interventions. A case illustration will highlight these elements.     

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 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.     

Occupational injury among immigrants

The growth in immigrant populations demands an understandign of determinants of their health, including occupational health. The study reported here involved a survey of a non-probability non-clinical sample of immigrants. The results indicate that length of stay, a proxy for acculturation, had no relationship to injury, but working in a language other than English and professing Buddhism did; thus, lack of congruence between individual level culture and workplace culture affects rates of injury. The conclusion is that looking for individual level explanations of differences in workplace injury will do little to advance the field of occupational health promotion.     

Occupational status and suicide

The relationship between occupational status and suicide was examined using data from Sacramento County, California. Data were obtained from coroner's records filed routinely on all cases of sudden, violent, or unexpected death since 1925. Occupation- and age-specific suicide rates were calculated for males and age-adjusted for overall comparison for the decades 1945-1954, 1955-1964, and 1965-1974. Findings show an inverse relationship between occupational status and suicide for all age groups over the past 30 years. Over time, male suicide rates have increased particularly for employed males over 65, employed males aged 14 to 24, and males in low-status occupations. General economic insecurity among workers of low socioeconomic status (SES), particularly the elderly, is suggested as a contributing factor to these trends.     

正当与相称:公正之内涵界定

公正是当前伦理学研究的热点问题,又是个跨学科的难题解决这个难题的起点就是——公正是什么？本人认为公正是人们社会交往活动中利益的正当的相称关系（或行为）“正当”是其质的规定;“相称”是其量的规定,“正当与相称”体现了公正范畴之历史性和客观性的统一。     

Occupational stress in clinical nurses

The present study was based on an integrative work stress model proposed by Cooper and his associates (Cooper et al., 1988), which focused on stress perception and outcomes, as well as potential moderating variables such as personality and coping efforts. Specifically, this article examines occupational stress in clinical nurses who worked in various hospitals in southern Taiwan. When compared with Chinese industrial white and blue-collar workers, nurses experienced higher work stress, more physical and mental ill-health, lower job satisfaction, and also made more efforts to cope with work stress. There were also some interesting differences in types of stressors experienced by nurses and industrial workers.     

Occupational Therapy and Victim Advocacy

ABSTRACT

This article provides an orientation to increase the profession's awareness of occupational therapy's role in victim advocacy, an emerging area of community-based practice. Analysis and comparison of OT's core assumptions and values with general principles of victim advocacy and empowerment demonstrate striking similarities: Each acknowledges holism and a profound connection between the individual and society, as well as their ability to interact and influence each other. In addition, the cultures of OT and victim advocacy both value the dignity and worth of persons, self-determination, freedom and autonomy, latent capacity, human uniqueness and subjectivity, and active and mutual cooperation in restoration or recovery. The compatibility of OT and victim advocacy is further demonstrated in the context of one therapist's work with survivors of domestic and sexual violence.     

Employee Control and Occupational Stress

Occupational stress has been recognized as a major health issue for modern work organizations. Conditions of the workplace have been shown to lead to negative emotional reactions (e.g., anxiety), physical health problems in both the short term (e.g., headache or stomach distress) and the long term (cardiovascular disease), and counterproductive behavior at work. Perceptions of control play an important role in this process, being associated with all of these variables. Evidence is growing that enhanced control at work can be an important element in employees'health and well–being. These relationships can be understood in the context of the control–stress model.     

Occupational perceptions of academic disciplines

This study investigated the way in which various academic disciplines are viewed by students with respect to their “specificity,” i.e., the degree to which each is related to all occupations after graduation, and their “utility,” i.e., the extent to which each facilitates obtaining employment after graduation. A consensus concerning the specificity and utility of 17 academic disciplines was found for a sample of 485 sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds. This consensus was reliably demonstrated on other independent samples; nevertheless, some differences between individual disciplines were found as a function of sex and type of school attended.     

Occupational information for Church vocations

Pastoral Psychology -