PERCEIVED JOB CHARACTERISTICS AND JOB SATISFACTION: AN EXAMINATION OF RECIPROCAL CAUSATION

The following four assumptions were tested (a) satisfaction with job/task events and perceptions of job challenge, autonomy, and importance are direct, reciprocal causes of each other; (b) job perceptions are also caused directly by situation attributes, although perceptual distortions resulting for individual dispositions must also be considered; (c) job satisfaction is also cognitively consistent with (i.e., caused by) individual dispositions, although these individual dispositions are generally different from those associated with job perceptions; and (d) individuals reply on job perceptions, and not situational attributes, for information in formulating job satisfaction attitudes. The assumptions are tested on a sample of nonsupervisory subjects ( n = 642) from divergent work environments (e.g., production-lines and a computer software department). A nonrecursive, structural equation analysis, combined with tests of logical consistency, supported the assumptions above. The results were employed to recommend changes in current perspectives regarding perceptual/affective dichotomies and unidirectional causal models and moderator models that link job perceptions to job satisfaction.     

LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS IN EMPLOYMENT TESTING: Albemarle AND BEYOND

Recent court cases have continued to support the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's employee selection guidelines. The most unambiguous support came in Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody , decided by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1975. The Court's 1976 opinion in Washington v. Davis set forth more relaxed statutory standards than those of the EEOC Guidelines, but subsequent lower court decisions have continued to support the EEOC Guidelines, and the new Federal Executive Agency Guidelines have not supplanted them. The EEOC Guidelines provisions upheld in Albemarle are compared with the APA Test Standards and with APA Division 14's Personnel Selection Principles, and implications for employment testing are discussed.     

Maximizing Staff Resources in Meeting the Needs of Job Seekers in One-Stop Centers

The evolution of one-stop centers is examined in terms of the limitations of existing services and the one-stop response. Levels of support are discussed in relation to the needs of job seekers and options for matching needs with staff support (self-help, brief staff-assisted, and individual case-managed services) are reviewed. This article proposes 2 models for maximizing staff resources in one-stop centers. The first model deals with determining the support necessary for job seekers to make effective use of information and assessment resources. The second model deals with specific service delivery sequences for self-help, brief staff-assisted, and individual case-managed services.     

Are Some Cognitive Styles More Creatively Productive than Others?

The conceptual similarities among several taxonomies of cognitive style were examined, and common themes emerged concerning their expected contributions to creative output. In the first of two studies, 626 adults from a range of creative occupations, including undergraduates, completed a measure of their quantity of creative output in several domains and their dominant cognitive style out of eight options. In the second, 277 undergraduates reported the extent to which they engaged in any of the eight styles along with the same indicator of creative output. Results showed substantial positive correlations between innovator, synthesizer, and planner styles with productivity, with negative and null relationships for other styles. Furthermore, creative output was highest for people who engaged in a wide repertoire of cognitive styles. It is recommended that creativity training or enhancement programs continue to allocate time to repertoire developement.     

Marital Conflict and Differential Treatment of Siblings

Sibling differential experience of the family environment has recently come to the forefront of both the family and the developmental literatures. One hypothesized determinant of such treatment is marital conflict. The present report used structural family therapy as a theoretical framework to examine the relation between marital conflict and differential treatment of siblings in a sample of married couples with preschool and elementary-school children. The results did find a significant, though modest, relation between marital conflict and differential treatment, suggesting that positive marital communication in an environment of mutual respect serves to lower the rate of differential treatment of siblings within the family.     

Practitioners' Value-Orientation: Examination of Core Values and Influence of Theoretical Orientation

Examining Kluckhohn's Value-Orientation Model applied to counseling practitioners, the author hypothesized that practitioners would (a) endorse alternatives within value-orientations according to their counseling orientation, and (b) as a group, endorse certain alternatives within value-orientations over others. One hundred and nineteen practitioners who identified themselves as either cognitive-behavioral, psychoanalytic, humanistic, or family-systems oriented completed the Intercultural Values Inventory (Carter & Helms, 1990). Repeated measures analyses of variance failed to find between-group differences examining theoretical orientation, but found that practitioners, as a group, endorsed certain alternatives within value-orientations over others, and these reflected humanistic values. The lack of differences between counseling orientations, the idea of a practitioner culture, limitations, and future research are discussed.