Vocational maturity and its relationship to Holland's theory of vocational choice

The major purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of vocational maturity with Holland's theory of vocational choice. Specifically, Holland's constructs of consistency, differentiation, and congruency, along with demographic factors of sex and age were examined in relation to vocational maturity. Subjects were students enrolled in high- and midconsistency level programs in two post-secondary institutions. Holland's Occupational Finder, Canadian Classification and Dictionary of Occupations, and Dictionary of Occupational Titles were used to determine program selection, and the Vocational Preference Inventory and the Career Maturity Inventory Attitude Scale were used to identify personality type and vocational maturity. Congruency and age related significantly to vocational maturity. Significant differences also occurred within both personality and program typologies.     

Plagiarism as a Social Contract,a New Way to Approach Plagiarism

Journal of Academic Ethics - Most cases of plagiarism involve a power differential where not every person has the same ability to enter into a social contract. A social contract requires that each...     

Relation‐based intervention with at‐risk mothers: Outcome in the second year of life

It has been shown that the UCLA home visiting/mother–infant group intervention made a significant positive impact during the child's first 2 years of life on two indices of the mother's support and on three areas of mother–child and child development: (1) The mother's responsiveness to the needs of her child and the related development of his or her security of attachment; (2) the mother's encouragement of her child's autonomy and the related development of his or her autonomy; and (3) the mother's encouragement of her child's task involvement and the related development of his or her task orientation. By child age 2 years, the mothers experiencing the intervention, in comparison with those that did not, also used verbally persuasive as opposed to coercive intrusive methods of control and their children responded more positively to these controls. Mothers who did not experience the help of the intervention had significantly more difficulty controlling their child if it was a boy as opposed to a girl. They used the least appropriate methods of control, and the boys responded more negatively to these controls. The nature of the development of the mother's use of appropriate controls and the child's response to that control was elucidated by determining on the total sample where 12‐month antecedents influenced the indices of control either independently of or in interaction with the intervention status. The child's endurance in the test situation was an independent predictor of mother‐appropriate control and the child's positive response to that control, while the absence of maternal intrusiveness further enhanced the impact of the intervention on that control. ©2001 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

The impact of music on learning and consolidation of novel words

Music can be a powerful mnemonic device, as shown by a body of literature demonstrating that listening to text sung to a familiar melody results in better memory for the words compared to conditions where they are spoken. Furthermore, patients with a range of memory impairments appear to be able to form new declarative memories when they are encoded in the form of lyrics in a song, while unable to remember similar materials after hearing them in the spoken modality. Whether music facilitates the acquisition of completely new information, such as new vocabulary, remains unknown. Here we report three experiments in which adult participants learned novel words in the spoken or sung modality. While we found no benefit of musical presentation on free recall or recognition memory of novel words, novel words learned in the sung modality were more strongly integrated in the mental lexicon compared to words learned in the spoken modality. This advantage for the sung words was only present when the training melody was familiar. The impact of musical presentation on learning therefore appears to extend beyond episodic memory and can be reflected in the emergence and properties of new lexical representations.     

Successful detection of verbal and visual concealed knowledge using an RT‐based paradigm

An increasing number of researchers are exploring variations of the Concealed Knowledge Test (CKT) as alternatives to traditional ‘lie‐detector’ tests. For example, the response times (RT)‐based CKT has been previously shown to accurately detect participants who possess privileged knowledge. Although several studies have reported successful RT‐based tests, they have focused on verbal stimuli despite the prevalence of photographic evidence in forensic investigations. Related studies comparing pictures and phrases have yielded inconsistent results. The present work compared an RT‐CKT using verbal phrases as stimuli to one using pictures of faces. This led to equally accurate and efficient tests using either stimulus type. Results also suggest that previous inconsistent findings may be attributable to study procedures that led to better memory for verbal than visual items. When memory for verbal phrases and pictures were equated, we found nearly identical detection accuracies. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relationship‐based intervention with at‐risk mothers: Factors affecting variations in outcome

A previous group comparison had shown that in families experiencing the UCLA Family Development Project intervention as opposed to a group that did not, mothers became more responsive to the needs of their infants, and the infants were more secure in their attachment to their mothers. The present study asks whether variations in these outcomes following participation in a relationally based intervention are anticipated by maternal involvement in the intervention, partner support, personality dimensions, and mother–infant interactions that were assessed early in the intervention process. The sample consists of 46 mothers at risk for inadequate parenting who also were poor and generally lacked support. It was found that variations at 12 months of age in the child's secure response to separation, his or her expectation of being cared for (felt security), and the mother's responsiveness to need are anticipated by variations in the mother's 6‐ to 12‐month involvement in the home‐visiting intervention, the quality of her partner's support as measured at six months, and her own trust, ability to form stable relationships, and lack of self doubt. Parents who, at one month, were responsive to the needs of their more soothable babies were more likely to have secure children at 12 months, but these associations were not as robust as those summarized above. © 2000 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Self-Identity and the Theory of Planned Behavior: A Useful Addition or an Unhelpful Artifice?1

Among the variables proposed as useful additions to the structure of the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), there is evidence for the predictive usefulness of a measure of self-identity. In the study reported here, members of the general population in the United Kingdom (n= 235) completed a questionnaire addressing the consumption of a diet low in animal fats. The questionnaire was structured in terms of the TPB and contained additional variables that previous research has indicated to be useful predictors of intentions and behavior. A multiple regression of intentions (R²= .80) showed self-identification as a health-conscious consumer to have a predictive effect independent of the effects of these other variables. This effect was also found in replication studies.