Effects of decision strategy and number of openings on employment selection decisions

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of two factors—decision strategy and the number of openings—on selection decisions. Two hundred graduate and undergraduate students participated in a human resource employment screening simulation. Decision strategy was varied by having candidates evaluate resumes and letters of application for 20 candidates one-at-a-time (sequentially) or all at once (simultaneously). The number of position openings was either one or three. Decision strategy affected the number of candidates accepted, acceptance threshold, and decision time. The number of openings affected selection decisions in the simultaneous but not the sequential context. Implications of these results for selection processes are discussed.     

Humility as a psychotherapeutic formulation

Humility training is conceptualized as an appropriate treatment for persons who occasionally describe themselves, but are most frequently described by others as overbearing, insensitive and deceitful. Procedures are outlined to identify unrecognized fears and improve interpersonal skills. Humility is presented as a counterpoint to assertiveness and aggression/anger control interventions.     

A SEARCH FOR PRINCIPLES IN PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY

Principles of Psychology was published as an introductory textbook, with the contemporary virtue of having chapters that "can he assigned in any order." It is a compendium of speculation, with very few connecting threads to tie materials together. This article reports one psychologist's travels through thex Principles, in search of latent organizing structure, using as a guidebook the methodological and substantive content of two recent articles (Kimble. 1989. 1990a). The journey had its low and high points: The methodology encountered was hardly worth the trip. The exciting moments were the views of correspondences between James' insights and what we know today.     

Counseling psychology and employee assistance programs: Previous obstacles and potential contributions

In the last two decades, an important new therapeutic delivery system has been emerging to serve the needs of the American workforce. Known as Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), these company and community based programs were created to provide mental health services to workers whose job performance is impaired due to substance abuse or other difficulties. Although there are obvious similarities between the mission espoused by EAPs and traditions of the counseling psychology profession, many members of our discipline have only recently become involved in these programs. This paper discusses various reasons why counseling psychologists have not become involved with EAPs. It also presents some ways that counseling psychologists may contribute to these programs and it highlights the similarities in the philosophies and the activities of EAP and counseling psychology practitioners and scientists. Additionally, some suggestions for how to prepare counseling psychologists for entrance into the EAP profession are offered. Finally, a brief research agenda designed to guide counseling psychologists who are interested in the study of EAP related variables is presented.We are appreciative of Karen Novak's and Marilyn Bayer's editorial assistance on this paper.     

Sexual addiction: Understanding and treating the phenomenon

The authors describe their multi-faceted treatment of sex addicts and co-dependents, make observations about the needs and issues involved in such therapy, and discuss some of the desired outcomes from the combination of professional help and self-help in the treatment regimen.Ralph H. Earle, PhD, and Gregory M. Crow, PhD, are family therapists and psychologists in private practice in Scottsdale, Arizona     

Relationship between trust in appraisal and appraisal effectiveness: A field study

The current study examined the influence of trust in the appraisal system on ratees' reactions to performance evaluations. One-hundred and sixty eight bank tellers completed an instrument that assessed their trust in the appraisal system, appraisal satisfaction, perceived utility of evaluations, behavioral intention to improve performance, and intention to leave the job. Trust and performance evaluations were significant predictors of ratee reactions to appraisals and intention to improve on performance weaknesses. In addition, performance ratings were a better predictor of intention to improve on performance weaknesses for ratees who had high trust in the appraisal system. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Miami, Florida, April, 1990.     

A clinician''s perspective: Comments on identification of stuttering, prevention, and early intervention

I am responding to the Hamre article on the identification and prevention o stuttering and to what was said by those who commented in the recent Special Forum Issue. My discussion will be in terms of my understanding and one of my major career objectives, that of translating reported research and clinical experience in a meaningful and useful way for students and professional clinicians.     

Converging operations on a basic level in event taxonomies

Research on object concepts has identified one level of abstraction as "basic" in cognition and communication. We investigated whether concepts for routine social events have a basic level by replicating the converging operations used to investigate object concepts. In Experiment 1, subjects were presented with event names from a taxonomy and were asked to list the actions comprising the event. Many more actions were listed at the middle than at the highest taxonomic level, without a further increase at the most specific level, paralleling the pattern of superordinate-, basic-, and subordinate-level object concepts. From these action lists, brief stories were composed for each event. In Experiment 2, subjects made pairwise similarity judgments on the stories. The mean similarity of events increased with specificity, as expected. But differentiation of categories (within-category similarity compared to between-category similarity) was highest for super-ordinates, contrary to results with object categories. In Experiment 3, subjects were fastest in recognizing actions as belonging to events named at the basic level. In Experiment 4, subjects predominantly chose basic-level terms to name stories. We conclude that event taxonomies do show basic-level structure, albeit a less sharply defined and less stable structure than in object taxonomies. The benefits and hazards of extending models of object concepts to other entities, such as social events, are discussed.     

Maladjustment in statistical minorities within ethnically unbalanced classrooms

Ascertained if being a member of a statistical minority influences children's adjustment in school, as measured by the AML, a teacher-administered adjustment rating scale. Teachers from a southwest school district evaluated elementary students on aggressive, acting-out behaviors, moody-internalized behaviors, and learning difficulties. Analyses conducted on 376 students revealed significant effects of statistical minority status on certain dimensions of adjustment ratings for both Hispanic and Anglo students. Hispanic students in the statistical minority received poorer ratings on the moodiness dimension of the AML than nonminority Hispanic students. Anglo students in the statistical minority received poorer ratings on the aggression dimension of the AML than nonminority Anglo students. These results were interpreted in terms of cultural differences in coping with statistical minority status. Traits commonly exhibited within a culture may intensify and be perceived as maladaptive when stress resulting from being a minority occurs. Implications of the finding that statistical minority status within the school environment influences adjustment are discussed.