Career Aspirations of Pregnant Teens

This study examined the career aspirations of pregnant teens enrolled in a program designed to minimize their chances of dropping out of high school. The teens completed a demographic data form that included questions on their career aspirations. The data were coded by Holland type using the Dictionary of Holland Occupational Codes. Trends were discussed in light of the future labor market and critical need for career counseling for this at-risk population.     

Moderated regression analysis and Likert scales: too coarse for comfort.

One of the most commonly accepted models of relationships among three variables in applied industrial and organizational psychology is the simple moderator effect. However, many authors have expressed concern over the general lack of empirical support for interaction effects reported in the literature. We demonstrate in the current sample that use of a continuous, dependent-response scale instead of a discrete, Likert-type scale, causes moderated regression analysis effect sizes to increase an average of 93%. We suggest that use of relatively coarse Likert scales to measure fine dependent responses causes information loss that, although varying widely across subjects, greatly reduces the probability of detecting true interaction effects. Specific recommendations for alternate research strategies are made.     

Ratings of Orally Presented Verbal Expressions of Probability by a Heterogeneous Sample

Verbal expressions of probability are used in daily conversations, physician-physician and physician-patient communications, and questionnaire and interview responses. To assess the degree of agreement among English-speaking Australian adults in allocating numerical probabilities to these verbal expressions of probability, 966 interviewees provided estimates for 60 isolated expressions of probability and a sequence of seven items placed in a sequence. Means and median scores appeared to be consistent with common sense and with findings from other countries. Mirror-imaged terms were neither symmetrical nor equidistant, with the means and medians for the positive terms being closer to the mid-points of the scale than the means and medians of the negative terms. Items in a sequence of probability terms showed greater symmetry and less variability than isolated expressions. For most items, there was an unacceptably high level of within-subject and between-subject variability. Although subjects with higher levels of education and/ or mathematics education showed less variability, these factors accounted for very little of the variance. The greater variability in Australian results relative to those reported elsewhere was partly attributed to the use of interviews rather than questionnaires. There were no particular stems that yielded greater consistency. It was concluded that the use of these expressions leads to very imprecise communication.     

The Influence of Applicant Communication Style and Interviewer Characteristics on Hiring Decisions1

This study examined the influence of the gender and communication style of job applicants, as well as the gender and sex-role stereotyping of interviewers, on hiring decisions. Fifty-six personnel officers viewed videotapes of simulated employment interviews, in which male and female candidates used either aggressive, assertive, or nonassertive styles of communication. Personnel officers rated job candidates on likeability, similarity to the officers themselves, and hireability. Interviewers were most likely to employ assertive applicants, and the sex-role stereotypes of interviewers did not influence their perceptions of these candidates. Sex-role beliefs, however, did affect evaluations of aggressive and nonassertive job applicants. Interviewers who were low in sex-role stereotyping were more likely to hire a nonassertive than an aggressive candidate, while interviewers with higher levels of sex-role stereotyping were more likely to hire aggressive candidates. For assertive candidates, judgments by the interviewers of the perceived similarity of the candidate to themselves and their liking for the applicant both influenced their decision to hire the candidate. For aggressive and nonassertive candidates, however, the interviewers' liking toward the candidate mediated the relationship between perceived similarity and hiring decisions.     

An "Epidemic" Model of Adolescent Cigarette Smoking

The prevalence of regular smoking increases rapidly during adolescence. We applied modeling methods from the study of epidemic infectious disease to smoking behavior. Our "epidemic" models dealt with the process of transition among four states: nonsmoker (susceptible), trier (exposed), regular smoker (infected), and ex-smoker (recovered). The best fitting model was one in which the transition from nonsmoker to trier was a social contagion process where nonsmokers contacted either triers or regular smokers. All other transitions were treated as constant rate processes in which a constant proportion of eligible individuals made the transition in a given year. The recursive equation model embodying these assumptions was able to predict accurately the proportion of adolescents in each state in Grades 6–11. Our results support a "stage" model of smoking, suggesting that different psychological and physiological processes are involved in the initiation of smoking than in developing a habit of regular smoking. A possible sex difference was found in the non-contact transition between trier and smoker states, with the transition being more probable in females than in males.     

Social support, depressed mood, and adjustment to stress: a genetic epidemiologic investigation.

A survey of 821 same-sex female twin pairs from a population-based registry assessed 8 dimensions of social support and social integration. Twin analyses documented significant common environmental influences on 5 of these 8 measures and significant genetic influences on 5 of the 8. A decomposition of the multiplicative association between support and a measure of stressful life experiences in predicting depressed mood--an association typically interpreted as providing evidence for a stress-buffering effect of social support--shows clearly that it is the environmental and genetic factors that cause support, rather than support itself, that buffer the effects of stress on mood in most cases. We discuss the implications of this result for future research on the relationship between social support and psychopathology.     

Evidence for an error deadzone in compensatory tracking

Humans and monkeys show intermittent arm movements while tracking moving targets. This intermittency has been explained by postulating either a psychological refractory period after each movement and/or an error deadzone, an area surrounding the target within which movements are not initiated. We present a technique to detect and quantify the size of this deadzone, using a compensatory tracking paradigm that distinguishes it from a psychological refractory period. An artificial deadzone of variable size was added around a visual target displayed on a computer screen. While the subject was within this area, he received visual feedback that showed him to be directly on target. The presence of this artificial deadzone could affect tracking performance only if it exceeded the size of his intrinsic deadzone. Therefore, the size of artificial deadzone at which performance began to be affected revealed the size of the intrinsic deadzone. Measured at the subjects' eye, the deadzone was found to vary between 0.06 and 0.38 degrees, depending on the tracking task and viewing conditions; on the screen, this range was 1.3 mm to 3.3 mm. It increased with increasing speed of the target, with increasing viewing distance, and when the amplitude of the movement required was reduced. However, the deadzone size was not significantly correlated with the subjects' level of performance. We conclude that an intrinsic deadzone exists during compensatory tracking, and we suggest that its size is set by a cognitive process not simply related to the difficulty of the tracking task.     

Mothers with hostile, Type A predisposing child-rearing practices.

The authors examined characteristics of Finnish mothers (N = 924) who use hostile child-rearing practices (i.e., they ignore the child, are punitive and irritable, and perceive the child as a burden), practices that have been shown (R?ikk?nen & Keltikangas-J?rvinen, 1992) to predispose children to Type A behavior. The results of this study indicate that two factors--Type A behavior in the mothers and the mothers' sociodemographic background (low occupational status, low educational level and young age)--increase the probability of the mothers' treating their children in a hostile manner. Also, the mothers of boys in this study reported more hostile child-rearing practices than the mothers of girls did.     

Self-report, peer-report, and teacher-report measures of childhood depression: an analysis by item.

We explored the low correlation among different types of childhood depression measures at the item level. The items from the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), Peer Nomination Inventory of Depression (PNID), and the Child Behavior Checklist-Teacher Report Form (CBCL-T) were combined, and both first- and second-order factor analyses were conducted. Results indicate that self-report, peer-report, and teacher-report assessments of depression measure generally uncorrelated constructs. Second-order analysis suggests that depression as a global construct is being measured to some degree by items from all three instruments. Canonical analysis was employed to identify items that best predicted CDI, PNID, and CBL-T summary scores simultaneously. Also, the relationship between specific items with similar content was investigated. Results from these analyses generally supported a conclusion that the three types of measures yield scores that are primarily independent and that the use of summary scores is not masking stronger relationships within measures. These findings have implications for clinical practice and construct elaboration.