Take a Job,Any Job: Exploring the Importance of Matched Interests to Career Paths and Work Satisfaction

Employment counselors often face the conundrum of whether to advise people to take a job or to hold out for something that better matches their interests. This study investigated whether matched interests in an initial job predicted the subsequent career journey of 336 sales engineers and whether this made a difference to longer term work satisfaction and tenure. Results showed that although the first job significantly influenced people's future career journey, personality and job characteristics were likely to be more influential than matched interests in predicting work satisfaction. Thus, people may be better off taking well‐designed jobs than holding out for matched interests.     

Typing Problems

Guided by the work of William Alston, Jonathan Adler and Michael Levin propose a solution to the generality problem for reliabilism. In some respects their proposal improves on those we have discussed. We argue that the problem remains unsolved.     

Self-reported changes in subjective health and anthrax vaccination as reported by over 900 Persian Gulf War era veterans

A 1999 study of United Kingdom servicemembers by Unwin, et al. recently found significant relationships between anthrax and other vaccinations, reactions to those vaccines, and later health problems for male current or former active military Gulf War veterans. Likewise, in 2000 Steele and in 1998 Gilroy found possible adverse effects of vaccinations on Gulf War veterans. However, the role of such vaccinations remains controversial; more recent government reports continue to dispute the existence of any data that might reflect adversely on the role of vaccinations on the health of Gulf War veterans. To address this controversy, the current study assessed similar relationships for over 900 Reserve Component Gulf War Era veterans from Ohio and nearby states. Gulf War veterans were more likely to report poorer health than non-Gulf veterans. Female veterans were more likely to report mild or severe reactions to vaccines than male veterans. Those veterans who received anthrax vaccine reported more reactions to vaccines than those who did not receive anthrax vaccine. Declines in long-term subjective health were associated with receipt of anthrax vaccine by Gulf War veterans but not for those who did not deploy to the Gulf, although few of the latter received anthrax vaccine. Regardless of deployment status, veterans who reported more severe reactions to vaccines were more likely to report declines in subjective health. Female veterans reported poorer health during the Gulf War than did male veterans, but sex was not related to veterans' reports of subjective health at subsequent times. It is recommended that servicemembers who experience severe reactions to anthrax vaccine be medically reevaluated before receiving further anthrax vaccine and that careful follow-ups be conducted of those receiving the vaccine currently, in accordance with Nass's 1999 recommendations. We also recommend that safer alternatives to thimerosal (a mercury sodium salt, 50% mercury) be used to preserve all vaccines.     

The DIAGNOSER project: Combining assessment and learning

DIAGNOSER is an Internet-based tool for classroom instruction. It delivers continuous formative assessment and feedback to high school physics students and their teachers about the correct and incorrect concepts and ideas the students may hold regarding physical situations. That is, it diagnoses misconceptions that underlie wrong answers of students, such as a confusion of velocity with acceleration. We use data about patterns of student responses, particularly consistency of errors from question to question, to improve the system’s understanding of student concepts.     

Improvement of arithmetic self concept through combined positive reinforcement, peer interaction, and sequential curriculum

This study investigated the development of arithmetic self concept and achievement among seven- to nine-year-old children who had problems or who were at the bottom of the lowest track of a third grade. Ss were two girls and two boys from a class of 24 low track children, who completed a one-dimensional five-point scale for self concept and were administered 20-item tests for achivement in arithmetic repeatedly throughout eight weeks of instruction. Formation of small groups, peer interaction, individual curriculum adjustment, and positive reinforcement both at individual and group level were applied. Effective, correlated results were recorded along both scales for each child, and the gains for the four target children were shown in comparison to the class as a whole.     

Reviews of current books

Pastoral Psychology -     

Difficult Patients in Group Analysis: The Personification of (ba) I:A/M

Following a discussion of the treatment of difficult patients in group analysis, two theories are proposed concerning a fourth basic assumption in the unconscious life of groups, called Incohesion: Aggregation/Massification or (ba) I:A/M and the personification of basic assumption processes, in particular that of (ba) I:A/M by difficult patients. These theories are illustrated with clinical data. Special attention is given to crustacean and amoeboid forms of encapsulation as a defence against the fear of annihilation within the context of the traumatogenic process. It is suggested that for difficult patients the treatment of choice is dyadic psychotherapy/psychoanalysis followed by group analysis.     

Vindicating the Absent Qualia Objection

Metaphysical functionalism holds that the nature of the mental is its functional role. Proponents of the absent qualia objection to functionalism assert that mental states with essential phenomenal qualities might have had functional duplicates without qualia. Michael Tye has argued that this purported possibility is incoherent. Robert van Gulick has criticized Tye's argument. It is contended here that although van Gulick's criticism does not refute the argument, Tye's argument is unsuccessful. It is also contended that our evidence very strongly supports the possibility of absent qualia.