The timing of psychosocial transitions and changes in women's lives: an examination of women aged 45 to 60

Sixty-four middle-class women from four cohorts aged 45, 50, 55, and 60 participated in a retrospective interview concerning psychosocial changes in their adult lives. Their responses provided self-report data relating to specific psychosocial changes, and judges who read the interview protocols provided independent ratings of major psychosocial transitions. The results indicated that major psychosocial transitions were more likely to be associated with phases of the family cycle than with chronological age; within the family cycle, transitions were more likely to occur during the preschool (28% of the women), launching (42% of the women), and postparental (33% of the women) phases than during the no children, school-age, or adolescent phases; transitions associated with the preschool and launching phases were characterized by dissatisfaction, personal disruption, marital unhappiness, and decreased personal development, whereas transitions associated with the postparental phase were characterized by personal mellowing and improved marital relations; and finally, numerous self-reported psychosocial changes were associated with family cycle phase, and a small number of changes was associated with chronological age.     

The role of uncertain self-esteem in self-handicapping

In this article, the hypothesis that some individuals confronted with an intellectual evaluation use a lack of preparation as a "self-handicapping" strategy (Jones & Berglas, 1978) was studied. Sex and both level and certainty of self-esteem were examined in regard to the self-handicapping strategy of lack of effort. Subjects were 54 men and 54 women, certain and uncertain, high and low self-esteem college students, who believed that the experiment was designed to update local norms for a nonverbal test of intellectual ability. After subjects' level of state anxiety was assessed, they were instructed in the benefits of practicing for the evaluation. Subsequently, subjects' state anxiety and preparatory efforts (the primary dependent variables) were measured. Subjects' practice, self-protective attributions, and related affect supported a self-handicapping interpretation for uncertain males but not for uncertain females.     

Effects of exposure to psychophysical scaling on lingual vibrotactile magnitude estimation and magnitude production

The purpose of the present study was to determine if the results obtained by the scaling methods of magnitude estimation and magnitude production could be influenced by providing subjects with prior exposure to psychophysical scaling in the form of magnitude estimation or magnitude production. Group 1 (n = 10, Mage = 21.1 yr.) performed lingual vibrotactile-magnitude estimation followed by lingual vibrotactile magnitude production. Group 2 (n = 10, Mage = 19.7 yr.) performed lingual vibrotactile-magnitude production (using the magnitude-estimation responses provided by Group 1), followed by lingual vibrotactile-magnitude estimation. For the magnitude estimations there was no over-all statistically significant difference between the two groups, but there was for the magnitude-production values. Magnitude-estimation scaling was apparently not influenced by prior exposure to magnitude production, while magnitude-production scaling was influenced by prior exposure to magnitude estimation. The results are discussed in terms of how subjective scaling behavior in psychophysical experimentation may be influenced by the interaction between an absolute internal scaling mechanism and parameters set by the experimenter, such as scaling method and range of stimulus intensity.     

The Perception of Ideal Best Friends by Chinese Adolescents

This study examines the characteristics of ideal best friends endorsed by Chinese adolescents. A comprehensive measure of person perception was used in order to assess those dimensions of personality where gender, similarity, and complementarity might be related to the rating of ideal best friends. Results indicated that ideal female best friends were rated higher on the communal dimension of Helpfulness; ideal male best friends were rated higher on the agentic dimensions of Extroversion, Assertiveness, and Application. Similarity effects were found for Openness to Experience, Extroversion, and Emotional Stability; complementarity effects for Assertiveness. These results were explained in terms of Chinese gender stereotypes and the requirements for harmonious dyadic interaction.     

Psychosocial Development and Black Male Masculinity: Implications for Counseling Economically Disadvantaged African American Male Adolescents

Few articles exist on issues related to counseling African American male adolescents. This article examines developmental and sex role factors and their importance for counseling interventions and the counselor-client relationship. Implications are drawn for counselors desiring to improve their abilities to assist this population.     

Performance, workload, and fatigue changes associated with automation

The experiments discussed in this article addressed the influence of part-task automation on operator performance, workload, and fatigue in a multitask environment. The overall task environment included tracking, resource management, and multiple monitoring subtasks. Slower, more accurate monitoring and better resource management were observed when the tracking subtask was automated. Although lower workload was reported when tracking was automated, fatigue increased equally during periods of manual and automatic tracking. When participants could control workload by shifting between manual and automatic tracking, participants with 7 hr of training switched between automatic and manual tracking. Their performance during optional automation periods was superior to their performance in conditions in which only manual control or only automated control was available. The findings argue for the utility of discretionary control of automated systems.     

The Relationship Between Aggression and Employment Integrity

The relationship between aggression and employment integrity was investigated, in order to assess the construct validity of a employment screening device. Participants (155 male, 151 female) completed an employment screening test and two aggression scales. For both men and women, general aggression negatively correlated with employment integrity. A negative relationship was also found between employment integrity and physical aggression, anger, and verbal aggression. No significant relationship was found between hostility and employment integrity.     

SIGNIFICANCE TESTS HAVE THEIR PLACE

Abstract— Null-hypothesis significance tests (NHST), properly used, tell us whether we have sufficient evidence to be confident of the sign of the population effect—but only if we abandon two-valued logic in favor of Kaiser's (1960) three-alternative hypothesis tests Confidence intervals provide a useful addition to NHSTs, and can be used to provide the same sign-determination function as NHST However, when so used, confidence intervals are subject to exactly the same Type I, II, and III error rates as NHST In addition, NHSTs provide two pieces of information about our data—maximum probability of a Type III error and probability of a successful exact replication—that confidence intervals do not The proposed alternative to NHST is just as susceptible to misinterpretation as is NHST The problem of bias due to censoring of data collection or publication can be handled by providing archives for all methodologically sound data sets, but reserving interpretations and conclusions for statistically significant results.