Compassion: An east‐west comparison

Compassion is an emotion that occupies a central position in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy while it is often a neglected subject in contemporary western philosophy. This essay is a comparison between an Eastern view of compassion based upon Mahāyāna Buddhist perspectives and a western view of the same emotion. Certain principles found in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy such as the Bodhisattva Ideal, and suffering (dukkha) to name two, are explored for the information they contain about compassion. An essay by Lawrence Blum is taken as representative of a Western view (but not exclusively) and it is analyzed for its shortcomings in light of the Buddhist view. The conclusion briefly describes the value of understanding an eastern view on compassion as a means of filling the void one finds in western medical ethics discourse which focuses so heavily, and redundantly, upon issues such as patient autonomy and paternalism.     

Credentialing Career Counselors

The credentialing of career counselors is an important step in ensuring quality service to individuals entering the work environment for the first time as well as individuals making midlife career changes. With over 50 million jobs changing in the next two decades, the need for credentialed career counselors is expected to multiply.     

Psychopathology in childhood and adolescence as reflected in projected afterimage serials

A serial visual afterimage (AI) test was administered to 136 normal and 75 anxiety-ridden children 4–16 years of age. The scoring of the AI serials involved signs of primitive functioning (size-constant and positive AIs), anxiety (large and dark AIs together with primitive AIs in older children) and process discontinuity (intermittent regressions to small, positive, or physiognomic AIs). Differences between normal and clinical children were generally highly significant in these respects. Special attention was directed to the difference between subjects with intermittent regressions to primitive functioning and subjects where regression represented a lasting functional alternative. The former subjects were more often characterized by paroxysmal or primary anxiety.     

Misperceptions of Motivation of Economically Disadvantaged Employees in Work Settings

The present study was designed to assess the cross-cultural perceptions of appropriate and inappropriate behaviors for three sets of role relationships. Employers and economically-disadvantaged job trainees were asked to rate the appropriateness of various behaviors for superordinate/subordinate, subordinate/superordinate, and peer/peer relationships. Results suggest that job trainees perceived the role of a superordinate as being more punitive, more deceitful, and less friendly than the employers thought would be appropriate. The findings are discussed in light of the concept of “ecosystem distrust”.     

A faith for all seasons

A FAITH FOR ALL SEASONS:ISLAM AND WESTERN MODERNITY. By Shabbir Akhtar. London: Bellew Publishing, 1990. 251pp. Hb. £25.00. ISBN 0–947792–41–4.     

CONVERGENCE AMONG DATA SOURCES, RESPONSE BIAS, AND RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF A STRUCTURED JOB ANALYSIS QUESTIONNAIRE

Research examined both the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) and the possible analyst sources for gathering job analysis information. 25 state government jobs were examined using job incumbents, supervisors, job analysts, and a comparison group of college students. Reliability and validity (judge convergence and prediction of present pay levels) information was determined for each of the four analyst categories. Results indicate that there is little difference between analyst sources, including students, in terms of their ability to reliably analyze a job using the PAQ. Convergent validity results showed a high degree of agreement among all judge categories when summing item frequencies across all 25 jobs. The prediction of present pay levels was significant for all judge categories but was noticeably smaller than previously reported studies. This seemed to be primarily due to the restriction in salary range of the present study. An analysis of judge response bias showed that supervisors and incumbents rate all or most PAQ items higher than their analyst counterparts. These findings suggest that who furnishes responses to a job analysis inventory makes little practical difference. The exception is that the determination of pay levels and human requirements for test construction purposes should be viewed with caution when different analyst sources are utilized for different jobs.