Need fulfillment in the career development of women

To test Harmon's proposal that Maslow's needs theory can explain differences in women's career decisions, need importance scores of 481 college graduate women of 1968 were contrasted. Since full-time homemakers are dependent upon another person for fulfillment of basic needs (Maslow's security-safety and social needs), it was hypothesized that these needs would remain prepotent and, therefore, would be higher for homemakers than for women employed outside the home. Esteem and self-actualization needs of employed women were expected to be higher for employed women than for homemakers. The results of the analyses generally supported the hypotheses. The major resulting discriminant function contrasted negative weights on basic needs with positive weights on high-level needs. Homemakers scored highest on security-safety and social needs, while professional-managerial and clerical-sales workers scored highest on the esteem need. In an unexpected finding, self-actualization was found to be the highest-ranked need for all groups of women in the study.     

The home observation for measurement of the environment (HOME) scale: A review of research

Caldwell's Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) scale is perhaps the most widely used instrument to assess the quality of a young child's home learning environment. In this paper, the HOME'S psychometric properties and methodological uses are explored, and its utility as a research and clinical instrument is examined. Strengths of the HOME scale include the relatively wide range of information available pertaining to its psychometric properties and its use in studies of a variety of populations for a variety of purposes. Weaknesses include the fact that most research relating HOME scores to later child development is correlational. Several suggestions for future research are offered.     

Helping behavior in children: Addressing the interaction of a person-situation model

A critical review of major trends and developments in the study of children's helping behavior is presented, with specific emphasis on demand characteristics of different situations (rescue, donation, assistance) and methodological difficulties inherent in such a study. In general, researchers have been able to isolate certain here-and-now situational influences which have led to mean increases in children's sharing behavior. As yet, however, relatively few studies have attempted to isolate personal characteristics of individual children as a means of examining baseline differences of individuals across different helping behaviors. As a start, this paper calls for a person-situation interactional approach to the study of children's helping behavior, examining such key factors as the child's family style, status in the peer group, and personality style as interactive with the characteristics of the particular helping situation.     

Married women's work status: The influence of parents and husbands

The working or nonworking status of married women free of the financial need to work was studied in relation to the balance between their instrumental and expressive needs and in relation to their own and their husbands' attitudes towards women's roles. Also studied were women's needs and attitudes towards women's roles in relation to their parents' child-rearing practices, needs, and attitudes towards women's roles. These variables were rated by 67 working and 48 nonworking women on three sets of scales, each set composed of items reflecting instrumental (I) and expressive (E) orientations. A single score for each set of scales reflected the balance between the sum of the I and E ratings, or (I-E). In 10 of 13 possible correlations, the subjects' I-E needs and attitudes towards women's roles were significantly related to their parents' I-E child-rearing practices, needs, and attitudes towards women's roles. The work status of the subjects was significantly related to their own I-E needs, to their own and their husbands' attitudes towards women's roles, and to whether their mothers worked.     

The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler: Toward an Adlerian vocational theory

Within the past couple of decades, the Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler has become increasingly popular among consultants, educators, and psychotherapists alike. The approach also has gained the attention of several vocational researchers, and some vocational investigations on Adler's theory have appeared. Unfortunately, such empirical studies have been all too few, seemingly because no articulated framework exists of an Adlerian vocational theory. In this article, an Adlerian vocational theory is proposed. Specific hypotheses and corollaries, each derived from the substantive base of Individual Psychology, are presented and explained.     

Self- and other regulation during the infancy period

The “other regulation” views of Lev Vygotsky and of Jerome Bruner are contrasted with Jean Piaget's self-regulatory model of infant development. Examples of adult behavior in Piaget's writings and in mother-infant interactions suggest that adults perform behaviors which are analogous to Piaget's type a and b self-regulation. Data from infant games are provided to illustrate the processes by which mothers regulate the environments for their infants and the consequences of such maternal regulation for infant development.     

Self-directed attention and the comparison of self with standards

Several theorists have assumed that self-directed attention causes a comparison between one's present behavior or state and whatever is salient and relevant as a standard of comparison. Indirect evidence bearing on this assumption was gathered in a series of four studies by monitoring subjects' tendencies to access concrete information needed to make such behavior-standard comparisons. Self-focus was varied in two of these studies by experimental manipulations: a mirrored surface, and a live observer. In the other two studies, self-focus was operationalized in terms of subjects' dispositional tendencies to direct attention to themselves (self-consciousness). Consistent with expectations, in Experiments 1 and 2, self-directed attention led to increased frequency of referring to drawings of geometric figures when attempting to reproduce them. In Experiments 3 and 4, self-focused attention increased subjects' tendencies to seek out information about ostensible performance norms reflecting the behavior of other subjects, also as predicted.     

Affiliation of opposite-sexed strangers

This study examined the effects of a subject's sex and affiliative tendency and the other's physical attractiveness on the cross-sexual interaction of strangers. Although previous studies showed that one's interest in an opposite-sexed other is a function of the other's physical attractiveness, the actual behavior of individuals in the presence of attractive and unattractive others had not been systematically examined. Subjects were individually placed in a 5-min waiting situation with a physically attractive or unattractive target of the opposite sex who behaved in a standard way. Conversations were recorded and subsequently analyzed; subjects also provided their impressions of the targets following the waiting period. Physical attractiveness of the opposite-sexed other did not significantly influence the subject's verbal affiliative behavior, but the combined influence of a subject's sex and affiliative tendency was predictive of cross-sexual affiliation. Although physical attractiveness did not account for differences in affiliative behavior, subjects preferred attractive over unattractive targets as potential dates or marriage partners.     

A reexamination of the faithful subject role

Fillenbaum (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1966, 4, 532–537; Fillenbaum & Frey, Journal of Personality, 1970, 38, 43–51) has proposed that a relatively large number of subjects within certain experiments will adopt a faithful subject role, that is, they will intentionally avoid basing their behavior on any suspicions they may have regarding the experimenter's hypothesis. However, examination of the studies on which this conclusion was based casts doubt on whether Fillenbaum's subjects were truly faithful or whether they may have become aware of the nature of the deception after all opportunity for awareness to influence their responses had passed. To test this hypothesis, awareness measures were administered to subjects either before they took an incidental learning test or (as in Fillenbaum's studies) after the test. As predicted, fewer subjects were classified as faithful in the first condition than in the second. It was concluded that, in fact, very few if any subjects are actively faithful. Discussion also concerned the problems associated with role analyses of subject behavior.     

Operationalizing the effect of the group on the individual: A self-attention perspective

The effect of the group on the individual is considered from the perspective of self-attention theory. It is proposed that group members will become more self-attentive, and thus become more concerned with matching to standards of appropriate behavior, as the relative size of their subgroup decreases. A simple algorithm, termed the Other-Total Ratio, is presented which numerically describes this effect of the group on the individual. An analysis of group effects on individuals' self-attention supports this perspective, as do analyses of the results of 42 previous studies in four other areas (conformity, prosocial behavior, social loafing, and antisocial behavior). This orientation to the effect of the group on the individual is linked to recent developments in self-attention theory and compared to Latané's social impact theory.     

The effect of children's spontaneous cognitive sets on discrimination learning

Two experiments investigated the role of children's spontaneous cognitive “sets” in pictorial discrimination learning. Lists were constructed to highlight either perceptual or conceptual similarities among the stimuli. In each experiment age by treatment interactions revealed that in comparison to the behavior of older children (sixth graders), that of younger children (kindergartners) is governed more by the perceptible than by the conceptual attributes of stimuli—data in complete accord with Bruner's view of cognitive development.     

Women's self-estimates of competence and the resolution of the career/home conflict

Relationships among women's role factors, self-estimates of competence, and career commitment were investigated. Eighty female business students and 111 business alumnae completed the Attitudes Toward Women Scale, the Performance-Self-Esteem Scale (PSES), and questions regarding home and career choices. As predicted, PSES scores were related to extent of career commitment, and PSES scores mediated the relationship between career commitment and women's role factors. Among high PSES subjects, career commitment was positively related to nontraditional sex-role attitudes and negatively related to family involvement. Among low PSES subjects, the relationship between career commitment and women's role factors was weaker. Implications for women's career development are discussed.     

Category typicality effects in children's memory performance: Qualitative and quantitative differences in the processing of category information

Kindergarten, third, and sixth graders (6, 9, and 12 years of age, respectively) received a cue-at-input/cue-at-output recall task, using category typical and atypical items that were based on either (1) children's conceptions of item typicality, or (2) adults' conceptions of item typicality. At each grade level, recall was greater with the child-defined lists than with the adult-defined lists, and typical items were recalled to a greater extent than atypical items. Further analyses items were recalled to a greater extent than atypical items. Further analyses revealed that the recall of typical items varied as a function of children's typicality ratings of items, and that the “typicality effect” in the adult-norm condition was due primarily to the childrennot realizing that many of the atypical items were appropriate category exemplars. In contrast, typicality effects in the child-norm condition were attributed to qualitative differences in the judged “goodness of example” of the typical and atypical items. The results were discussed in terms of the appropriateness of typicality as a dimension of children's natural language concepts, the role of age differences in knowledge base in affecting performance on a cognitive task, and of the importance of using child-generated norms in studies of children's processing of category information.     

Job-seeking behavior: A segment of vocational development

This paper reports two companion studies which establish that there is a significant relationship between an individual's personality characteristics and his pattern of job-seeking behavior. Individuals who are tough-minded, independent and nonneurotic had specified job goals and self-actualized behavior. They were highly successful in obtaining jobs. Individuals who were sensitive, dependent and neurotic had vague goals and passive behavior. They failed to get jobs. Individuals who exhibited a mixture of the cited characteristics and behavior were also exploring career options. They had a modicum of success in obtaining jobs. Job-seeking behavior as a process of vocational development is discussed.     

Modification of cooperation and aggression through teacher attention to children's speech

Two experiments were performed in the naturalistic setting of a preschool classroom in order to assess the effects on children's social behavior of nonevaluative teacher attention to children's cooperative or aggressive speech. In Experiment 1, teachers attended to the children's spontaneous cooperative speech for two weeks. Observation of the children's free-play behaviors revealed an increase over baseline levels in both verbal and physical cooperative behaviors as well as a decrease in both verbal and physical aggressive behaviors. In Experiment 2, teachers attended first to the children's spontaneous aggressive speech for one week and then switched their attention to the children's cooperative speech for a second week. Teacher attention to aggressive speech in the first week led to an increase over baseline levels in the children's verbal aggressive behavior as well as a decrease in both verbal and physical cooperative behaviors; however, physical aggression remained unchanged. Teacher attention to cooperative speech in the following week served to reverse the effects of the first week's treatment. The findings were discussed in terms of the sequential relationship between verbal and nonverbal components of cooperative and aggressive social behaviors and the teacher's role in modifying children's performance on these behaviors in the classroom.     

Spiritual Well-Being and Psychological Adjustment: Mediated by Interpersonal Needs?

Spiritual well-being has been shown to reduce suicidal behavior, depressive symptoms, and hopelessness. Thwarted interpersonal needs have been shown to increase risk of suicidal behavior. This paper aims to explore the interrelationships among spiritual well-being, thwarted interpersonal needs, and negative outcomes including suicidal ideation, hopelessness, and depressive symptoms among African American women. Sixty-six African American women (M = 36.18; SD = 11.70), from a larger study of women who had experienced interpersonal violence within the past year, completed self-report questionnaires. Mediation analyses revealed that thwarted belongingness, but not perceived burdensomeness, significantly mediated the relations between spiritual well-being and the three outcomes. This study provides the first examination of the role of thwarted interpersonal needs on the link between spiritual well-being and negative psychological outcomes. Spiritual well-being serves a protective role against feelings of social isolation, which may reduce one’s risk of negative psychological outcomes. Treatments that bolster a sense of spirituality and social connectedness may reduce suicidal ideation, hopelessness, and depressive symptoms.     

Context and companion's behavior as determinants of cooperation and competition in school-age children

Information about the social context and a companion's actions were studied as determinants of cooperation and competition in middle childhood. In Experiment 1, first-, third-, and fifth-grade children were told that they would play a board game with another same-age, same-sex child (actually a bogus companion). The experimenter's instructions established shared rewards or winner-take-all as outcome conditions. Preprogrammed responses—100% cooperative or 100% competitive—provided information about the companion's actions. Results revealed that the companion's responses alone determined cooperation and competition among the first graders. Third graders used both types of information. Fifth graders, however, demonstrated a bias to respond cooperatively whenever a cooperative cue was present. In Experiment 2, first-grade subjects were given extra rehearsal of the game strategies, a scorekeeping procedure for use during the game, or a combination of the two. Results indicated that, under these conditions, younger subjects were able to use the instructions about reward distribution as well as the companion's actions in guiding their social behavior.     

Figural emphasis and person perception

Based on Jones and Nisbett's (1972) proposition that actor-observer differences in causal attributions derive from differences in attentional focus, it was hypothesized that observers' focus of attention would influence their causal attributions for an actor's behavior. More specifically, it was predicted that the behavior of an actor who was the focus of attention by virtue of some salient physical attribute would be attributed by observers more to dispositional causes and less to situational causes than would the behavior of a less physically salient actor. The manipulations of physical salience were based upon Gestalt laws of figural emphasis in object perception. They included brightness (Study I), motion (Study II), pattern complexity (Study III), and contextual novelty (Studies IV and V). The results revealed that the salinece of the actors' environments (i.e., the other people present) rather than the salience of the actor him/herself had the most consistent influence on causal attributions. When environmental salience was high, behavior was attributed relatively more situationally than when it was low. Prior research findings are considered in light of the proposition that causal attributions for an actor's behavior vary only with the salience of his/her environment, and additional implications of this phenomenon are suggested. Some ambiguities in the application of Gestalt principles to the perception of people are discussed.