Personnel Executives: Personality,Vocational Interests,and Job Satisfaction

The Conducted two surveys of personnel executives to demonstrate the relationships between their job activities and job satisfaction and their vocational interests and personalities.     

PERCEIVING CINEMATIC EPISODES: A CROSS-CULTURAL REPERTORY GRID STUDY OF A NARRATIVE FILM SEGMENT*

Film theory has advanced concepts for explaining how it is possible for film viewers to understand what they are seeing. Many of these concepts strongly imply that the production of meaning of a film lies within the film itself - the viewer's role being reduced to that of passive spectator. This study tests that assumption using a repertory grid analysis of constructs elicited from Australian and Hong Kong Chinese subjects as they interpreted a segment of a commercial film. The results showed that the Australian sample construed more emotionally than did the Hong Kong Chinese, who responded more at the level of the film's characterisation. They were also more specific in their construals while the Australians were more diffuse. Further analysis suggested that differences between the two groups were the result of judgments about different attributes of the film, rather than because of different patterns of construing. It was concluded that since there are major differences in the two groups' interpretations of the same film, in the field of film/spectator studies where semiotics and psychology come together, the repertory grid analysis is a useful research tool.     

WOMEN'S ATTITUDES TOWARD THEIR JOBS: SOME LONGITUDINAL DATA ON A NATIONAL SAMPLE1

This study examines a number of aspects of job satisfaction among women in their thirties and forties over the 1967–1972 period using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys. The data presented suggest that black women were less satisfied with their jobs than whites, and that levels of job satisfaction declined between 1967 and 1972. When asked which aspects of their jobs they liked best, these women were most likely to mention a dimension of their work which stemmed from the job content. Also of particular importance were the socio-emotional aspects of their jobs. There were remarkably few changes in the pattern of responses over the 5-year period. Furthermore, there is evidence that women whose skills were underutilized tended to be more dissatisfied than women for whom this was not the case. Conflicting demands between responsibilities at home and at work also appear to result in lower-than-average levels of job satisfaction. The greatest conflict in this regard appeared to result from an unfavorable attitude of the woman's husband toward her working, indeed more so than by the presence of young children or by her own attitude toward the propriety of women working. The lack of certain straightforward relationships between job satisfaction and such dimensions as family circumstances, skills and labor market characteristics is interpreted in the context of the conceptual framework of Lawler (1973).     

The Relationship of Clinicians' Values to Therapy Outcome Ratings

The purpose of this study was to explore the interpersonal values of a sample of experienced clinicians. Clinician ratings of hypothetical, value-based therapy outcome vignettes were also investigated. Consistent with previous values research, clinicians showed greater endorsement of independence and lower endorsement of conformity in the Survey of Interpersonal Values. Clinicians' own values were positively correlated with their outcome ratings on the conformity dimension. Discussion is made of factors that may influence whether clinicians reinforce particular values in therapeutic contexts.     

Religious Activities, Religious Orientation, and Aggressive Behavior

Theorists and clinicians have long believed that religious practice may reduce aggression and other destructive behaviors. To date, most evidence for a relationship between religiosity and aggression comes from nonexperimental studies. The purpose of this exploratory study was twofold. First, to examine experimentally whether two religious practices reduce aggressive behavior; second, to determine if specific aspects of religious orientation and spiritual transcendence are related to level of aggression, expressed under controlled laboratory conditions. Sixty-two participants assigned to one of three experimental groups (memorize Bible passages, prayer/meditation, or control group) completed a laboratory task of aggression. Participants also completed religious and spirituality instruments, along with self-ratings of aggressive disposition. Results indicated that neither memorization of biblical passages nor meditation reduced aggression. Intrinsic-oriented religiosity participants self-reported lower aggression than extrinsic-oriented participants, but no differences were found on the laboratory task of aggression. Spiritual transcendence showed no behavioral aggression differences .     

Temporal Phase Pluralism*

Some theories of personal identity allow some variation in what it takes for a person to survive from context to context; and sometimes this is determined by the desires of person‐stages or the practices of communities. This leads to problems for decision making in contexts where what is chosen will affect personal identity. ‘Temporal Phase Pluralism’ solves such problems by allowing that there can be a plurality of persons constituted by a sequence of person stages. This illuminates difficult decision making problems when persons have to choose between different life‐altering choices.     

We Are a Religious People; We Are a Vengeful People

We evaluate the relation between religiousness and vengeance using multiple indicators of religiousness (religious orientation and church variables) and behavioral as well as self-reports of vengeance. Results from hierarchical regression analyses revealed that intrinsic religious orientation was negatively and extrinsic religious orientation positively related to self-reports of revenge but not to behavioral indicators of revenge. Only quest orientation was related to behavioral indicators of revenge with those higher on quest setting relatively lower levels of shock following a provocation and giving more money to an obnoxious confederate. Of the church variables, the number of religious activities was negatively and frequency of monetary donations positively related to self-reported vengeance. Only frequency of monetary donations, however, was uniquely related to one of the behavioral indicators of revenge, level of shock, with those who give more frequently also retaliating with higher levels of shock.