Processing of English inflectional morphology

The present paper explores the representation of inflectional morphology in the English lexicon. There has been a long-standing debate about how these inflectional relationships might be involved during on-line processing. Inflected forms may be derived from an uninflected base form by rule application; by contrast, both regular and irregular inflection may be treated in the same way, with morphological patterns emerging from mappings between base and inflected forms. The present series of experiments investigated these issues using a lexical decision task. The first experiment showed that response latencies to nouns were significantly shorter than those to verbs. A possible explanation for these results can be found in differences in inflectional structure between English nouns and verbs. Namely, the relative frequency of uninflected compared with inflected forms is greater for nouns than for verbs. Two additional experiments compared noun stimuli with different inflectional structures. In all cases, differences in response latencies were predicted by the frequency of the surface form, whether uninflected or inflected. The pattern of results lends support for a unitary associative system for processing regular inflection of nouns in English and argues against the view that regular inflected plurals are derived by rule from a single, uninflected lexical entry.     

A Concurrent Validity Study Applied to a Secretarial Position in a State Universities Civil Service System

In a concurrent validity study, a comprehensive job analysis of a mid-level secretarial position resulted in the development of highly valid employment selection instruments. Six hundred fifty-nine supervisors and 883 incumbents in 20 locations participated in the job analysis. Scores from the selection test correlated with composite ratings from a research performance appraisal (RPA) .41 (p<.001). Two forms of the test (A and B) were developed. Form A and Form B test scores and RPA composite ratings correlated .55 and .48 (p<.001) respectively. The unbiased estimate of equivalence reliability of Form A and Form B was .94. The two tests correlated .89 (p<.001).     

The Family Environment in Chronic Pain Patients: Comparison to Controls and Relationship to Patient Functioning

Operant and cognitive-behavioral models of chronic pain have called attention to the importance of examining the marital and family environments of chronic pain patients. In this study, 50 chronic pain patients and their spouses and 33 control participants and their spouses completed measures of the family environment, marital satisfaction, and patient physical and psychological functioning. Patients' overt pain behaviors were coded from videotapes of patient–spouse interactions. Compared to controls, pain patients and their spouses rated their family environments as lower in cohesion and higher in control, and there was a trend for spouses to report more marital dissatisfaction. Chronic pain patient depression was associated negatively with patient-rated family cohesion and expressiveness and spouse-rated family organization and positively with patient-rated family conflict. Overt patient pain behaviors and spouse-rated patient disability were related negatively to spouse-rated family cohesion. Spouse marital satisfaction was associated negatively with patient depression and with spouse ratings of patient disability and pain behaviors.     

Discipline and the use of sanctions

Children must be taught how to act, and it is easy to assume that such teaching requires the use of rewards and punishments. Yet research shows that rewards and punishments are likely to have unintended and, often, undesirable consequences. The paper discusses some of this research and casts the results into a context that integrates language learning, value transmission, and behavior. Alternatives to the use of sanctions are suggested.     

Feeling Economically Dependent on One's Job: Its Origins and Functions With Regard to Worker Well-Being

The origins and functions of feeling economically dependent on one's job were examined among a sample of 168 hospital workers. As predicted, economic dependency was found to be greater the more dependents workers have, the less money they earn from their jobs, the less other income they have in their family units, the more they adhere to an instrumental work orientation, and the less mobile they perceive themselves to be. Also as predicted, it was found that economic dependency fully mediated the relationship between 4 of the 5 antecedents (number of dependents, other income, instrumental values, and perceived mobility) and the subjective well-being of workers. Job-related income was observed to have both direct and indirect effects. Further, the relationship between economic dependency and subjective well-being was negative. These latter findings are discussed and implications drawn for the future use of the economic dependency construct.     

On networks: Network therapy,network intervention and networking

The theories, techniques, and applications of interventions in social networks have multiplied in recent years. This brief paper traces the significant clinical literature on networks, at the same time pointing out similarities with tribal healing in primitive societies. Present-day applications to human support systems, from half-way houses to therapeutic family reunions, are included. Network therapy is a system model of psychotherapy and as such is an older, more public model than the one to one therapies. This has important implications for differing views of privacy and confidentiality, and of holistic versus scientific healing.     

Advantages of difficult tasks1

If people work on a hard task before proceeding to one of intermediate difficulty, success will be relevant (predictive of future success) while failure will be irrelevant (not predictive of future failure). However, if they work first on an easy task, success will be irrelevant (not predictive of future success) while failure will be relevant (predictive of future failure). Previous research thus suggests that experience with hard tasks should always lead to more favorable evaluations of one's performance and better future performance than experience with easy tasks. The present study tested these predictions by manipulating initial expectancy (high or low), perceived difficulty of a set of practice problems (practice problems easier, harder, or equal in difficulty to those on a subsequent test), and practice problem feedback (success or failure). As predicted, experience with hard practice problems was most beneficial, regardless of the level of the feedback which students received. This was more true for males than females and for students with high ability than students with low ability.     

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater: The catharsis hypothesis revisited1

Boys between the ages of 9 and 10 participated in one of three experimental activities. One involved movement and aggression, the second movement devoid of aggression, and the third minimal movement of a nonaggressive nature. Aggressive fantasy decreased in the aggressive movement and minimal movement groups but increased in the nonaggressive movement group. The results are consistent with a cathartic view of the functional relationship between aggressive behavior and aggressive fantasy when the effects of movement and completion of an aggressive response are considered. This study supports the notion that the enactment of an aggressive goal response is essential to the occurrence of a cathartic effect and points up the importance of controlling for movement in investigations of the relationship between aggressive fantasy and aggressive behavior. An additional, exploratory investigation of daydreaming suggests that children who are high in aggressive fantasy are likely to daydream more frequently than children low in aggressive fantasy.     

Nonacademic Career Counseling for Graduate Students

At the University of Michigan, an innovative career counseling service is offered to graduate students. The Office of Non-Academic Career Counseling and Placement assists graduate students expand career options in response to a tight academic market. The career counseling method promotes self-directed behavior and proceeds through a series of four major job-search stages. A brief statement of the effectiveness of our services is included in the discussion.