Volunteerism as an aspect of women's work lives

Results of a mail survey of 292 female volunteers, aged 23–44, indicate that the role of volunteer work may be that of consciously chosen primary work, a supplement to primary work, or a vehicle for entry or return to employment. The three roles are associated with differences in relationship to the labor market, satisfactions sought, nature and amount of volunteer work done, satisfaction, involvement, commitment, and plans for continued membership. The survey instrument incorporated the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire, which was evaluated for its applicability to a volunteer population.     

A reexamination of sex differences in job preferences

Previous research has found conflicting answers to the question of whether males and females share similar preferences for various job characteristics. It is difficult to determine if the different findings are due to the different populations sampled, the various methodologies employed, or to a real change in the phenomenon itself. This study essentially replicates earlier work by having 130 male and 84 female college students rate the importance of 10 job characteristics for both themselves and members of the opposite sex. Both sexes rated motivators as important, but females also placed importance on the hygienes. Males tended to underestimate the importance of the motivators for females, while females overestimated the importance of hygienes for males. The subject's sex could be predicted by both the importance for self and importance for opposite sex ratings, contrary to the earlier study. The difference in results and interpretation was shown to be due to the type of analyses used. Additionally, it was found that females' job preferences were related to their mothers' educational achievement.     

Classes,collections, and distinctive features: Alternative strategies for solving inclusion problems

This study analyzed the strategies that children ages 5 through 8 years used on two modified versions of Inhelder and Piaget's (The early growth of logic in the child. New York: Norton, 1964) class inclusion task. In two experiments, children were tested on Wilkinson's (Cognitive Psychology, 1976, 8, 64–85) “percept” inclusion task in which distinctive features marked both supraordinate and subclasses. It was hypothesized that children who fail standard Piagetian inclusion tasks succeed on the “percept” task by counting and comparing mutually exclusive features rather than using features as markers for classes and subclasses. The hypothesis was supported by children's performances on “percept” tasks in which solutions based on feature counting conflicted with solutions based on consideration of class inclusion relations. In two other experiments, children answered part-whole and part-part comparison questions in which both terms were described as classes and/or subclasses, or in which one of the two terms was described as a collection (e.g., a bunch of grapes). These experiments contrasted Markman and Seibert's (Cognitive Psychology, 1976, 8, 561–577) “organization” hypothesis that the greater psychological integrity of collections facilitates reasoning on part-whole comparison problems with the hypothesis that the faciltative effect results from the “large number” connotation of collective nouns. Results on collection problems in which parts were described as collections supported the “large number” hypothesis. Results were discussed in terms of their implications for Piaget's theory.     

Task-specific strategies of mental “rotation” of facial representations

The effects of task demands on the visual comparison of facial patterns and of comparable nonfacial patterns were explored in two studies. The studies yielded two primary findings. First, faces, despite their holistic properties, are not rotated faster than comparable non-face-like patterns, although subjects’ judgments of them were uniformly more rapid than judgments for nonfaces. Second, the nature of the same-different judgment task required of subjects had a large effect on the pattern of results obtained: When stimuli were compared to their mirror images, results indicative of mental “rotation” were obtained. When stimuli were compared on the basis of similarity of individual features, the pattern of results was very different. This one manipulation produced effects that exceeded those of all of the other manipulations, including that of rotation.     

Stress,coping, and life change in the single-parent family

Self-perceived competence in three roles (parent, social participant, self-supporter) was examined in relation to life satisfaction in a sample of 47 divorced, employed, single parent, middle-income women. Parenting was found to be the role of greatest perceived competence, and self-supporter the role of lowest perceived competence. Competence as a self-supporter was the strongest predictor of life satisfaction. Life satisfaction did not differ significantly between groups defined by length of time as single parents. For women separated less than 3 years, the social participant was the role of least perceived competence and the best predictor of life satisfaction. For those separated more than 3 years, the three roles were nearly equal in perceived competence, but competence as self-supporter was the best predictor of life satisfaction.     

An awareness approach to the covert symptoms of stuttering

Speech-language clinicians working with the confirmed stuttering client are often faced with the clinical management of the covert symptoms of stuttering in addition to the more observable and measurable overt symptoms. The authors report the successful use of awareness techniques to exaggerate the subjective experience of these covert symptoms and encourage the use of these techniques as an adjunct to the counseling and desensitization procedures traditionally employed. A transcribed clinical management session in which several awareness techniques are used to aid the client in an introspective examination of “anticipation of stuttering,” is analyzed in order to reach some specific recommendations for using awareness techniques in the clinical management of the covert symptoms of stuttering.     

Manifestations, acquisition and diagnostic categories of dental fear in a self-referred population

This study aimed to clarify how manifestations and acquisition relate to diagnostic categories of dental fear in a population of self-referred dental fear patients, since diagnostic criteria specifically related to dental fear have not been validated. DSM III-R diagnostic criteria for phobias were used to compare with four existing dental fear diagnostic categories, referred to as the Seattle system. Subjects were 208 persons with dental fear who were telephone interviewed, of whom a subsample of 155 responded to a mailed Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and a modified FSS-II Geer Fear Scale (GFS). Personal interviews and a Dental Beliefs Scale of perceived trust and social interaction with dentists were also used to evaluate a subsample of 80 patients selected by sex and high dental fear. Results showed that the majority of the 80 patients (66%), suffered from social embarrassment about their dental fear problem and their inability to do something about it. The largest cause of their fear (84%) was reported to be traumatic dental experiences, especially in childhood (70%). A minority of patients (16%) could not isolate traumatic experiences and had a history of general fearfulness or anxiety. Analysis of GFS data for the 155 subjects showed that fear of snakes and injuries were highest among women; heights and injections among men. Fear of blood was rarely reported. Spearman correlations between GFS individual items and DAS scores indicated functional independence between dental fear and common fears such as blood, injections and enclosures in most cases. Only in specific types of dental fear did these results support Rachman and Lopatka's contention that fears are thought to summate.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Adolescent Smoking Behavior and the Recognition of Cigarette Advertisements1

In a study designed to assess the relationship between smoking status and correct identification of cigarette brands, junior high school students from two schools viewed cigarette and automobile advertisements with brand and model identification deleted. Results showed that adolescents with higher ad recognition scores were more likely to smoke cigarettes. In addition, a relationship was found between age and correct identification of cigarette advertisements, with older students identifying more ads correctly than younger students. No significant effects emerged for identification of automobile advertisements except for sex, with boys identifying more advertisements than girls. Additional findings indicated that even “experimental” smokers, who smoked as little as once per year, recognized significantly more cigarette advertisements than nonsmokers. These and other results are discussed in terms of their implications for prevention and policy issues. It is argued that society's allowance of printed cigarette advertising overlooks adolescents' heightened vulnerability to the kinds of appeals used in cigarette advertisements. Present policy also overlooks adolescents' relative unresponsiveness to the health risk information required in cigarette advertisements.