The draft and counseling

This article regards draft counseling as a specialized extension of personal, educational, and vocational counseling. It can be a necessary and valuable outreach program and is needed because most students are unaware of their rights under the Selective Service System. Professional counselors have a crucial role to play in draft counseling by helping to establish a Draft Information Center, by training and supervising students and faculty as draft counselors, and by serving as a referral source for individuals needing further counseling. Suggestions are included for the establishment of a Draft Information Center in high schools and colleges.     

SEX DIFFERENCES IN OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE, PAY, AND WORTH: A SUPPLY-SIDE APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING THE MALE-FEMALE WAGE GAP

The purpose of this study was to explore the utility of adopting a supply-side approach to understanding the nature of wage differentials between men and women. Using an expectancy theory framework, a sample of 272 job applicants evaluated a set of job outcomes and rated the instrumentalities and expectancies for each of eight jobs that varied in terms of sex dominance, pay, and worth. Preferences for each job also were obtained using a paired comparison procedure. The results suggested that much of the wage gap between men and women can be explained by (1) evaluations of multiple outcomes other than pay and (2) gender-related differences in expectancies, instrumentalities, and valences with respect to these outcomes. Both the theoretical and practical utility of approaching the issue of comparable worth from a supply as well as a demand side are discussed.     

THE EFFECTS OF VARIABILITY AND RISK IN SELECTION UTILITY ANALYSIS: AN EMPIRICAL COMPARISON

To date, utility analysis research has derived point estimates of the expected utility value for human resource management programs or interventions. Utility estimates are usually quite large, but they fail to reflect the size and shape of the utility distribution. The present study investigated utility estimate variability for the selection utility of using the Programmer Aptitude Test to select computer programmers in a medium-sized computer manufacturing organization. Utility calculations incorporated financial/economic factors as well as employee flows over time. The distributions for each utility parameter were empirically estimated, and these distribution estimates were combined through a Monte Carlo analysis to yield a distribution of total utility values. Monte Carlo results were compared to three other risk assessment approaches: (1) sensitivity analysis, (2) break-even analysis, and (3) algebraic derivation of the distribution. Results suggest that the distribution information provided by the Monte Carlo analysis more completely described the variability and riskiness associated with the expected utility value. Future research suggested by these findings is discussed.     

Creativity, Pathology, and Family Structure: A Cybernetic Metaphor

This paper describes a cybernetic metaphor as a novel paradigm for family theory, linking aspects of cybernetic epistemology as described by Bateson ( 1 ) with the tropes, major figures of speech, as defined by the linguist Jakobson ( 25 ). Jakobson describes two operations characteristic of all human discourse at many levels of organization and abstraction: the metaphoric, linking by similarity; and the metonymic, linking by contiguity.
A cybernetic metaphor suggests a view of individuals as adaptive systems able to transform novelty into expectations ( 49 ) in one of two ways and thereby maintain a relationship with their context. Those who encounter contexts characterized by "dissonances" in structure and basic premises would adopt the metaphoric mode by finding similarities in apparent differences and thus learn to link separate domains. Those learning to orient themselves in a context of consistent basic premises and structure would adopt the metonymic mode, linking by temporal or spacial contiguity within an implicit assumed whole. Clinical examples and the literature on the families of symptomatic and creative individuals will be used as illustrations of this process of learning communicative modes.     

Hospitalization of Single-Parent Families of Disturbed Children

In this paper, six years of experience with well-planned, short-term family hospitalization is described. Each family has at least one identified patient who is a child. The approach to treatment is systemic and structural. Areas discussed are selection of families, planning of the hospitalization, stages of the hospitalization, and the organization of the staff. Illustrations are provided by seven case vignettes.     

black concern with behavior modification

In this article two black psychologists and a white educator explain why the black community should be concerned with and actively involved in behavior modification practices. It is pointed out by use of the Tuskegee study how blacks were used as subjects in a behavior modification study long before these practices became popularized. The concerns specified were that (a) blacks have been and are being used as subjects in behavior modification studies with and without their consent and (b) social value judgments are being made concerning behaviors of blacks without their input. Alternatives are offered for increasing the number of black professionals in the field of behavior modification to help preserve the integrity of the black community.     

FURTHER WITHIN-SETTING EMPIRICAL TESTS OF THE SITUATIONAL SPECIFICITY HYPOTHESIS IN PERSONNEL SELECTION

The situational specificity hypothesis in personnel selection holds that variation in observed validity coefficients across studies for the same test and job is due to subtle variations from setting to setting in what constitutes job performance. This hypothesis therefore predicts that, if the setting does not vary, validity will not vary. Using data from a single large-sample validity study ( N = 1,455), this research generated numerous small-sample studies for which the setting (organization, job, test, criterion measure, applicant pool, time period, and sample size) was held constant. It was found that even under these circumstances there was substantial variability across studies in (a) observed validity coefficients, (b) significance levels, and (c) (using traditional data analytic methods) conclusions about the presence or absence of validity. These findings disconfirm the situational specificity hypothesis and argue strongly against traditional data-analytic procedures and the practice of reliance on single small-sample studies. In contrast to the erroneous conclusions produced by traditional data-analytic procedures, meta-analytic methods correctly estimated the population observed validity at .22 and correctly indicated that all between-study variance in observed validities was due to sampling error alone.