Mid-career change in academia: The decision to become an administrator

This study explored the reasons why professors would leave their teaching/ research occupations to begin new careers as administrators. Valence-Instrumentality-Expectancy theory of occupational preference and choice was used as a framework to examine mid-career change among professors and department chairmen at a major university. Data showed that professors' intentions to change careers and become administrators could be explained by the theory. Analyses of job characteristics demonstrated that professors who want a mid-career change are primarily attracted by the power and formal authority vested in the administrative position, while professors who prefer to remain in their career paths do so because of the autonomy it offers.     

Geometric and semantic similarity in visual masking

Semantic and geometric or physical similarity were manipulated separately in a backward-masking situation. When the target was a word to be read aloud, formal similarity between the letters of target and mask facilitated target recognition, as did associative similarity. Masking a target word by its own anagram also facilitated whole word report. In contrast, formal similarity was inhibitory rather than facilitatory of report when the target was spelled letter-by-letter, rather than read whole. This was true even for the same target words whose whole report was facilitated by formal similarity. A model to account for this reversal in the broader context of the neural substrate of reading is advanced. It is proposed that letter and word processing are fundamentally different in that letters are recognized by hierarchical feature analysis while words are stored and recognized wholistically by diffuse and redundant networks. Implications of the results for the study of reading are discussed.     

The Barnum effect in a group setting

The present study expands the typical Barnum effect paradigm by investigating reactions to feedback in a group setting. People initially participated in a group experience (8 per group), and then were given bogus positive or negative feedback (the favorability manipulation) purportedly prepared by either the group leader or another group member (the source status manipulation). The answerability manipulation led participants to believe that they either would or would not have to share their reactions to the feedback with the person who prepared it. Positive feedback was rated as more accurate and accepted more highly than the negative feedback, though no differences in recall of either the positive or negative feedback emerged. Additionally, a pattern of results revealed that the feedback from the group leader generated greater perceived accuracy, acceptance, and recall than did feedback from another group member. Implications for the impact of feedback given by a high status person in group settings are discussed.     

Testing hypotheses about the self: Assessments of job suitability1

This investigation examined the strategies employed by individuals when testing hypotheses about the self. Participants known to possess masculine, feminine, or androgynous sex role identities tested hypotheses about their suitability for one of two jobs: either a job characterized in terms of the attributes and aptitudes typically associated with a “masculine” personality, or one characterized in terms of those typically associated with a “feminine” personality. When testing these hypotheses about themselves, participants preferentially reported those aspects of themselves that would suggest their suitedness rather than their unsuitedness for the job under consideration regardless of their sex role identity. Moreover, subsequent judgments of job suitability were positively related to the amount of suitedness evidence reported, but unrelated to the amount of unsuitedness evidence reported. Some consequences of these strategies for testing hypotheses about the self are discussed.     

A CULTURAL DIFFERENCE IN VISUAL MEMORY: ON LE VOIT,ON NE LE VOIT PLUS

Further to the debate between Kearins (1978) and Drinkwater (1978), visual memory skills of Aboriginal and white Australian children were examined using Drinkwater's version of Kim's game with desert Aboriginal and rural white children. Older children remembered more than younger ones, and Aboriginal children recalled more natural objects than white children. There was no difference between the groups in recall of manufactured objects, nor between recall of manufactured and natural objects within each group. Aboriginal children remembered significantly more objects overall than white children when the task was first administered. On a second occasion, after a procedure designed to orient children towards the use of predominantly visual rather than verbal memorising strategies, there was no significant difference between the groups.