Searching for target letters in memory: Individual preferences and instructions for text representation

Participants searched for target letters in a short passage held in memory. In Experiment 1, participants were divided into two groups on the basis of a retrospective report concerning the type of representation used to store the passage in memory, and in Experiment 2, participants were instructed concerning the form of memory representation to use. Only participants using a visual representation missed more targets in the wordthe than in other words. Participants instructed to form a visual representation also made fewer content-word or phrase substitutions when learning the passage than did participants instructed to form an auditory representation. These findings show that choice of memory representation is flexible and that the representation used influences what can be retrieved from memory.     

An assessment of parent involvement in local interagency teams

The results of team members' evaluations of Local Interagency Teams in Vermont are used to assess the participation of parents in one level of the system of care. Active participation in discussions and knowledge of their child's legal rights were consistently highly rated aspects of parent participation. The rating of parents' appearing to feel that they were equal members was consistently low. Attendance at meetings and knowledge of services available showed significant growth over time.     

Avoidant control difficulty and aversive incentive appraisals: Additional evidence of an energization effect

There is evidence that certain physiological and subjective indices of stress are relatively great when control over aversive outcomes is moderately difficult and relatively reduced when control over such outcomes is either easy or impossible. A possible explanation is suggested by Brehm's recent theory of motivation, which asserts that energy mobilization and the perceived unpleasantness of an aversive event will (a) increase with the difficulty of avoidant behavior so long as avoidance is believed to be possible and worthwhile, and (b) be low when avoidant behavior is impossible, not worthwhile, or simply unavailable. This article reports two experiments that examined appraisals of an aversive incentive under conditions where avoidance was expected to be easy, difficult, and impossible. The first demonstrated the complete nonmonotonic pattern of appraisals predicted by the energization theory, something that has proved elusive in previous investigations. The second study demonstrated this as well and, in addition, showed a correspondence between subjects' incentive appraisals and their cardiovascular responses immediately before and during an avoidance task period. Implications and alternative interpretations are discussed.This research was supported in part by a Faculty Research Award from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.     

An examination of the predictive criterion-related validity of professional certification tests

This study examines the predictive criterion-related validity of a series of professional certification tests for water and wastewater management operators. Certification test data were obtained on 164 operators holding one of three jobs in water or wastewater management facilities. The certification test scores were broken down into four component scores and a total score. Criterion data consisted of performance evaluations obtained from the operator's supervisor, a self-rating from the operator, or both. Test scores were correlated with the job performance evaluations. The results indicated that scores on the certification tests were not related to rated job performance by job type, job level, source of performance evaluation, or component of job performance. The findings are discussed in the context of establishing an appropriate criterion against which to validate certification tests, and the practical problems of doing so in an applied setting.     

GENDER IS AN ORGANON

Abstract. Gender is a social construct. Technically, it is a grammatical structuring category that may refer to sex, as is typical of Indo-European languages, or to another set of features such as animate versus inanimate, as is typical of Algonkian languages. Gender in language forces speakers of the language to be continually conscious of application of the category, and they tend to project the categorization into their experience of the world and collocate observations under these broad categories. Western science has been developed by speakers of Indo-European languages employing male/female (and sometimes neuter) genders, and in a cultural tradition that at least since the time of Classical Greece has collocated male with active, creative, rational, and public (political)/dominant (Olympian), and female with passive, irrational/emotional, and private (nonpolitical)/subordinate. Religion and science-organons for rendering existential experience intelligible-have always been used by the dominant class as instruments of power, and therefore in Western cultures have been entangled with legitimization of a congeries of concepts collocated with male gender. This paper illustrates the social construction of this congeries by contrasting it with non-Western usages and valuations.     

Proactive Personality, Employee Creativity, and Newcomer Outcomes: A Longitudinal Study

Purpose  To examine the relationship between proactive personality, employee creativity, and newcomer outcomes (i.e., career satisfaction and perceived insider status). Design/methodology/approach   A survey was conducted using a 3-wave longitudinal design with 146 Hong Kong Chinese employees from various organizations. Structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses including the mediation effects. Findings   Proactive personality was positively associated with employee creativity and employee creativity was positively associated with career satisfaction and perceived insider status. In addition, employee creativity fully mediated the relationships between proactive personality and career satisfaction and perceived insider status. Implications   Based on self-reported responses, these data show that newcomers with a proactive personality shape their work environments in part through creative behavior, which in turn leads to feelings of career satisfaction and perceptions of being an organizational insider. Our study’s results also show that employee creativity is positively and significantly related to workers’ career satisfaction and perceived insider status, suggesting that employee creativity can improve employees’ attitudes toward their career and perceptions as valued and contributing organizational insiders. Future research may examine other possible variables that might mediate the relationship between proactive personality and individual outcomes. Originality/value  One of the few studies that have examined the intervening mechanism by which proactive personality leads to employee outcomes and examined the effects of proactive personality on employee outcomes in Asian culture. Received and reviewed by former editor, George Neuman.     

Predicting Homelessness among Emerging Adults Aging Out of Foster Care

This study examines risk and protective factors associated with experiencing homelessness in the year after “aging out” of foster care. Using a state‐level integrated administrative database, we identified 1,202 emerging adults in Washington State who exited foster care between July 2010 and June 2012. Initial bivariate analyses were conducted to assess the association between candidate predictive factors and an indicator of homelessness in a 12‐month follow‐up period. After deploying a stepwise regression process, the final logistic regression model included 15 predictive factors. Youth who were parents, who had recently experienced housing instability, or who were African American had approximately twice the odds of experiencing homelessness in the year after exiting foster care. In addition, youth who had experienced disrupted adoptions, had multiple foster care placements (especially in congregate care settings), or had been involved with the juvenile justice system were more likely to become homeless. In contrast, youth were less likely to experience homelessness if they had ever been placed with a relative while in foster care or had a high cumulative grade point average relative to their peers.     

A distant mirror: Memories of parents and friends across childhood and adolescence

Memories that were easily accessible (i.e., quickly retrieved in a memory‐fluency task) of Italian university students were assessed. They were from four periods of life: preschool, elementary school, middle school, and high school/university. Half of the participants were instructed to recall only memories involving parents, and the other half memories involving friends. Across age at the time of remembered events, only memories of friends increased in frequency. For parental memories (but not friend memories), the proportion with negative affect increased over age, especially for males. There were also differences related to whether memories were episodic or generic. It was concluded that memories of different periods of childhood and adolescence can serve as a reflective mirror for developmental changes in parent–child and friendship relationships.