EFFECTS OF FEEDBACK AND COGNITIVE PLAYFULNESS ON PERFORMANCE IN MICROCOMPUTER SOFTWARE TRAINING

A field experiment of 68 full-time employees studied the effects of performance feedback and cognitive playfulness (that is, cognitive spontaneity in human-computer interactions) on microcomputer training performance. In addition, this research examined the impacts of performance feedback and cognitive playfulness on software efficacy perceptions and on a variety of affective outcomes, including satisfaction with feedback, satisfaction with training, and positive mood. The findings suggest that positive feedback generally results in higher test performance and more positive affective outcomes, than does negative feedback. Similarly, employees higher in cognitive playfulness demonstrated higher test performance and more positive affective outcomes than those lower in cognitive playfulness. Finally, a significant feedback × playfulness interaction on test performance was found. Specifically, employees lower in cognitive playfulness benefited more from the positive feedback than did those higher in cognitive playfulness. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Psychosocial Aspects of Death among the Elderly: A Review of the Literature

Counselors who work with older persons often find if necessary to help them cope with concerns related to death and dying. They may become more effective facilitators by learning about psychosocial aspects of death and dying.     

Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop: Help for the Job-Insecure Employee

Although the U.S. economy is flourishing, a segment of the workforce still faces job insecurity as a salient feature of employment. As companies focus on competition and profit margins, workers are confronted with threats to their identities based on real or anticipated job loss. This article focuses on features of job insecurity that affect threatened workers, those who remain, and the organizations in which they work. Recommendations are given regarding assisting job-insecure employees using career counselors, consultants, or outplacement specialists.     

The Buros Institute of Mental Measurements: Commitment to the Tradition of Excellence

This article reviews briefly the history of the Buros Institute of Mental Measurements and then provides an overview of the expanded mission of the Buros Institute. The origins of the Mental Measurements Yearbook series are highlighted, along with discussions of goals and the evolving structure of the Yearbook series. In addition, the bibliographic reference series, Tests in Print, and the specialized monograph series are placed in historic perspective. Goals of the “new” Buros Institute of Mental Measurements, located at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, are also presented.     

Humanness: the one essential

The author of this article explains his counseling ideology: that the only essential requirement for counseling is humanness, which is the capacity of an individual to be open to another human being without judging and without losing his own individuality.     

Towards a Feminist Reassessment of Intellectual Virtue

This paper presents an argument for reconceptualizing (human) intelligence as intellectual virtue, and makes same proposals as to how we would understand intellectual virtue if feminist values were taken into account. Several abilities are identified which are closely connected to one aim that is common to most feminists: the building of communities in which well-being is possible.     

Anne Viscountess Conway: A Seventeenth Century Rationalist

The work of Spinoza, Descartes and Leibniz is cited in an attempt to develop, both expositorily and critically, the philosophy of Anne Viscountess Conway. Broadly, it is contended that Conway's metaphysics, epistemology and account of the passions not only bear intriguing comparison with the work of the other well-known rationalists, but supersede them in some ways, particularly insofar as the notions of substance and ontological hierarchy are concerned. Citing the commentary of Loptson and Carolyn Merchant, and alluding to other commentary on the Cambridge Platonists whose work was done in tandem with Conway's, it is contended that Conway's conception of the “monad” preceded and influenced Leibniz's, and that her monistic vitalism was in many respects a superior metaphysics to the Cartesian system. It is concluded that we owe Conway more attention and celebration than she has thus far received.