The inequivalence of self-reports of Type A behavior: Differential relationships of the Jenkins Activity Survey and the Framingham cale with affect,stress, and control

The Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) and the Framingham Type A Scale (FTAS) have been found to have different psychological correlates. The JAS is typically unrelated to anxiety, while the FTAS is consistently correlated with trait anxiety. The present study of 200 male and female college students clarifies further the psychological heterogeneity of these measures. Enhanced motivation to control the environment has been suggested as an underlying psychological component of Type A behavior (Glass, 1977). Dysphoric emotions and the perception of more environmental stresses, on the other hand, are typical of neuroticism or negative affectivity (Watson & Clark, 1984). Although the results indicate that the JAS and FTAS are highly correlated, the JAS is more closely related to control motivation than is the FTAS. Further, compared to the JAS, the FTAS is more closely correlated with dysphoric emotions and perceived daily stresses. Thus, the results indicate that the JAS is closely correlated with core psychological components of the Type A pattern, while the FTAS has a relatively unique association with general emotional distress. Such differences may account for the fact that these measures are related to different disease end points.     

Changes in self-stimulatory behaviors with treatment

For four of six autistic children who underwent intensive behavioral treatment, the nature of their self-stimulatory behavior changed from initial lowlevel motor behaviors (such as rocking, spinning, twirling) to differing kinds of higher-level behaviors (such as lining of objects, echolalic speech, and preoccupation with spelling and numerical values). The children who changed to the highest levels of self-stimulatory behavior also showed the largest gains in treatment (as determined by IQ scores, school placement, etc.). The changes in self-stimulatory behaviors were attributed to the intense teaching of appropriate social behaviors and the explicit therapeutic suppression of low-level, self-stimulatory behaviors. The long-term therapeutic effects of changing from lower-to higher-level forms of self-stimulatory behavior were discussed.This study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (grant MH 11440). We want to express our thanks to the parents who allowed us to study their children. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Maria Audero with the design of the weighted measure, and Tracee Parker with the collection of the data.     

Work site group meetings and the effectiveness of a televised smoking cessation intervention

At the work site, smoking accounts for increased health care expenses and worker absenteeism due to smoking-related illness and reduced productivity and lost wages. Developing comprehensive and accessible smoking cessation programs at the work site is an important objective for health care professionals. In this study, employees of 43 corporations participated in a televised smoking cessation program accompanied by self-help manuals. The media component involved presenting a smoking cessation program on a network television affiliate station during the 4:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. news for 20 days. Employees at half the corporations also had access to semiweekly self-help group meetings. Adding self-help support groups to a program involving self-help manuals and the media reports was found to significantly increase abstinence and its maintenance over time. The implications of using the media, self-help groups, and work site locations in large-scale community-based interventions are discussed.     

Specific language impairment in children: A cross-linguistic study

A common profile in English-speaking specifically language-impaired children is a moderate deficit across a broad range of linguistic features and a more marked, selective impairment in using bound morphemes and components of the verb system. To gain a clearer understanding of the nature of these more serious problems, we examined the speech of monolingual Italian-speaking as well as English-speaking children with specific language impairment. The evidence suggested that phonological factors contributed significantly to these children's extraordinary problems with particular linguistic features. Contrary to expectations, other marked deficits seemed more related to the opacity of the rules involved and homonymity with other morphemes than to problems with formal grammatical devices in general or components of the verb system in particular.     

Toward the more efficient use of assessment center technology in personnel selection

Empirical research has consistently supported the validity and business utility of the assessment center method as a selection instrument. Nonetheless, the method as typically applied may be unnecessarily costly and inflexible. This paper begins by describing how the model for assessment center design that is widely used today came to be accepted as a standard. Then modifications in design and operation are discussed. These suggested modifications are intended to enhance the utility and flexibility of assessment centers, while at the same time maintaining, or even increasing, the validity of the process.Seymour Adler is Associate Professor of Applied Psychology at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, and Vice President of Assessment Systems Incorporated, a New York-based consulting firm.     

The impact of pre-employment integrity testing on employee turnover and inventory shrinkage losses

A major home improvement chain located primarily in the western United States initiated the use of thePersonnel Selection Inventory, a written integrity test, as part of its pre-employment hiring process. For two years only, those job applicants who passed this test and other pre-employment criteria were hired by the chain. Following the introduction of the inventory, there was: (1) a 50% reduction in the number of employee terminations for theft, illegal drug use, and violence over a five year period and (2) a savings in shrinkage losses that amounted to over two million dollars over a two year period.