Effects of Gender,Socioeconomic Status,and Early Academic Performance on Postsecondary Educational Choice

National data were used to study the effects of gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and 4 types of eighth‐grade academic performance on postsecondary educational choices at late adolescence. Educational choices were classified by predominant Holland type (R, I, A, S, E, C). Gender had strongest independent influences on educational choice. Gender also interacted with SES and academic performance. Relationships between SES and educational choice were stronger for women than for men. For women, eighth‐grade reading scores were the strongest predictor of educational choice, whereas for men, mathematics scores were the strongest predictor. Implications for theory and counseling practice are discussed.     

Multicultural Counseling Competencies: An Exploratory Factor Analysis

The author examined the underlying factors of the Association of Multicultural Counseling and Development's (AMCD) Multicultural Competencies. One hundred fifty‐one professional counselors who are members of the American Counseling Association responded to a survey that included items reflecting AMCD's multicultural competencies and Explanatory Statements. An exploratory factor analysis revealed 5 multicultural competencies factors: Awareness, Knowledge, Definitions of Terms, Racial Identity Development, and Skills.     

Alcohol and Male Acceptance of Sexual Aggression: The Role of Perceptual Ambiguity1

The present study assessed the effects of drinking and behavioral ambiguity on perceptions of sexual aggression. Male participants, randomly assigned to 1 of 4 alcohol conditions (low, moderate, placebo, or control) viewed a videotaped interaction involving a couple meeting before a blind date. In the receptive condition, the female was friendly and excited. In the nonreceptive condition, she showed rigid posture and lacked enthusiasm. Participants then judged the acceptability of sexual aggression against the female and the attribution of the female's responsibility. Findings indicated a significant interaction such that in the receptive condition, higher alcohol doses elicited both greater acceptance of sexual aggression and greater attribution of female responsibility. There was no impact of alcohol dosage in the nonreceptive condition.     

Reading Irigaray,Dancing

My essay incorporates Irigaray's notion of the sensible transcendental, a dynamic attempt to reconstitute the body/mind dualism which founds Western thought, into a reading of the practice of European concert dance. I contend that Irigaray's efforts toward articulating a language of the body as active agent have much to offer (feminist) analyses of dance practice, and develop this claim through a reading which reflects philosophically on the changing nature of my own dance activity.     

Quality control and the practice of clinical psychology

Because of current health care reforms, quality control, accountability, and cost-effectiveness have become important issues in the practice of clinical psychology. It is imperative that practicing clinicians begin to evaluate their services to assess whether they demonstrate high quality and cost-effectiveness, as well as a continued commitment to qualify improvement. Deming's (1986) approach to quality control is discussed as a useful strategy for improving effectiveness in the practice of clinical psychology. This approach emphasizes the process of identification of the client population, improvements through incremental processes, and evaluation of outcomes. Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) techniques are also reviewed as useful ways in which to supplement and improve on Deming's approach to quality control. Science and quality control are discussed as being inherently coherent. The scientist—practitioner model dictates that services provided to clients should be rigorously evaluated. Various procedures for evaluating the quality of services provided in clinical practice are discussed.     

Preschool experience: A facilitator of very low birthweight infants' development?

Parents of preterm, very low birthweight (VLBW <1,500 grams) babies are often uncertain about the relative merits (versus risks) of preschool experience for their infant. To examine this issue, the academic and social functioning at age seven, of 74 VLBW infants who had attended an informal preschool setting was compared to that of 42 VLBW nonattenders of equivalent neonatal medical severity and family milieu, as well as to that of 154 normal birthweight children (NBW >2,500 grams) of similar background. VLBW attenders scored significantly higher than VLBW nonattenders on the cognitive measures of Mean School Performance, Works Hard, and Learns a Lot (Teacher Report Form—Achenbach, 1991), and also on Cognitive Competence (Teacher's Rating Scale—Harter & Pike, 1984). In the case of girls, but not boys, attenders also had lower social nonparticipation scores than nonattenders on the Selective Classmate Evaluation Procedure (Hoy, Sykes, Bill, Halliday, McClure, & McReid, 1992) completed by classmates. While attenders still scored less optimally than the NBW group, their better scores suggest the need to examine prospectively whether exposing VLBW toddlers to child‐paced preschool experience prior to more formal teaching may encourage their openness to new experience and learning. © 2000 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

How do investors make predictions? Insights from analogical reasoning research

Previous work on investor decision making has focused almost exclusively on information specific to the company being judged. Consequently, every decision is viewed as a novel event, disconnected from the investor's existing knowledge. In this study, the analogical reasoning literature provides the theoretical support for arguing that investors frequently utilize existing knowledge as a basis for generating predictions about a company's future. The specific proposal is that investors transfer their existing knowledge via two different forms of analogical reasoning. The first, relational reasoning, is based primarily on structural correspondence between a novel company and an existing schema. The second, literal similarity reasoning, is based primarily on surface correspondence of a novel company and a previously encountered company. Our theoretical framework is tested in a study in which experienced investors predict the outcome of a novel company's strategy after reading about the experiences of other companies who implemented a similar strategy. The results are consistent with the occurrence of both relational and literal similarity reasoning, with relational reasoning emerging as the dominant approach to generating investors' predictions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of contact and personality on intergroup attitudes of different professionals†

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of intergroup contact, personality, and demographic characteristics on the intergroup attitudes of police officers, medical doctors and nurses (N=421; 274 females, 147 males). Following the contact hypothesis, intergroup contact in and of itself was not expected to be sufficient for reducing intergroup prejudice, especially in unequal contacts between professionals and their clients. It was argued that the quality of contact required for the improvement of intergroup attitudes is not equal status or emotional closeness of the participants, but rather that of individuation and familiarity of the outgroup member. The results showed that both level of authoritarianism and individuation of an outgroup member affected intergroup attitudes across all types of contact. For authoritarianism, this result did not hold separately for males, but the individuation effect was very stable; those who knew an outgroup member only superficially held more negative intergroup attitudes than those who knew him or her well, even in unequal and non‐voluntary contacts, and even when controlling for authoritarianism, gender, education and professional field. The effect was non‐significant in voluntary contacts. No differences in intergroup attitudes were found between males and females or between the professional groups among males after controlling for authoritarianism. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cognitive adaptation and its consequences: a test of cognitive continuum theory

Cognitive Continuum Theory (CCT) is an adaptive theory of human judgement and posits a continuum of cognitive modes anchored by intuition and analysis. The theory specifies surface and depth task characteristics that are likely to induce cognitive modes at different points along the cognitive continuum. The current study manipulated both the surface (information representation) and depth (task structure) characteristics of a multiple‐cue integration threat assessment task. The surface manipulation influenced cognitive mode in the predicted direction with an iconic information display inducing a more intuitive mode than a numeric information display. The depth manipulation influenced cognitive mode in a pattern not predicted by CCT. Results indicate this difference was due to a combination of task complexity and participant satisfacing. As predicted, analysis produced a more leptokurtic error distribution than intuition. Task achievement was a function of the extent to which participants demonstrated an analytic cognitive mode index, and not a function of correspondence, as predicted. This difference was likely due to the quantitative nature of the task manipulations. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.