An investigation of Holland's vocational theory across and within selected occupational groups

A test of Holland's vocational theory across and within selected occupational groups demonstrated concurrent validity for three of the four groups investigated. Statistically significant coefficients of concordance indicated a degree of agreement among individuals in each of the occupational groups investigated. Statistically significant Page's L statistics indicated that a degree of agreement between the theoretical ordering and the observed ordering of the six types or themes was obtained on three of the four groups tested.     

Contextual Effects in Judgments of Crimes,Criminals, and the Purposes of Sentencing1

Content analyses of crime coverage in the news media (e.g., Graber, 1980) consistently demonstrate the overrepresentation of crimes of violence. It was hypothesized that in addition to direct effects upon members of the public (e.g., leading people to overestimate the number of violent crimes) this would also have several indirect effects. Reading about crimes of high seriousness might lead the public to (a) view other offenses more seriously, (b) regard other offenders more negatively, (c) punish other offenders more severely, and (d) emphasize the importance of retribution as a sentencing goal. Two experiments were conducted, using 90 members of the general public as subjects, to test these hypotheses. In Experiment I, subjects first read a news story about a crime that was of high, medium, or low seriousness. Later they rated an unrelated offender and offense more negatively, and were more punitive in their sentences, if the earlier offense had been very serious. There was equivocal support for the hypothesis that changes in punitiveness are caused by subjects shifting to a punishment-oriented sentencing strategy. Rather, it would appear that harsher penalties resulted from changes in perceptions of offense seriousness. These findings are discussed, as are future research directions.     

Attribution of intention as a function of physiognomy

Ss agree in attributing character traits to strangers’ photographs, but there has been no explication of what such labels imply. Presumably. trait names either mediate or reflect Ss’ expectations of such strangers" likely social behaviors: but that remains undemonstrated, and we may be able to study such physiognomy-tied expectations directly. Sampling problems confront trait studies and intention studies alike, but the present research showed that Ss’ expectations of a person’s behavioral intentions, as measured by alternative interpretations of short “scenarios,” were reliably influenced by that person’s photograph.     

The Effects of Participation in Decision-Making on Worker Satisfaction and Productivity: An Organizational Simulation1

Although correlational evidence of a positive relationship between participation in decision-making and satisfaction is relatively consistent, whether participation in decision-making has a causal effect on satisfaction remains unclear. The present research examined, through an organizational simulation in which high and low levels of participation in decision-making were manipulated, the causal effect of participation on satisfaction and productivity. The subjects were 128 male undergraduates randomly assigned to 32 four-person groups. Results of the experiment showed that participation in decision-making had a significant positive effect on satisfaction. In addition, the correlation between perceived influence and satisfaction was positive (r= .31). Contrary to theoretically derived predictions, participation had no impact on productivity.     

Stimulus specificity in avoidance learning

The present experiments address the issue of stimulus specificity in fear and avoidance learning. First, it was established that light stimuli are effective warning signals (WS) in shuttle avoidance. Then light stimuli were shown to produce conditioned suppression in the conditioned emotional response situation comparable to that produced by noise conditioned stimuli. Finally, the effectiveness of noise onset and noise offset as feedback signals was tested. This was assessed under conditions of immediate and delayed termination of a light WS. Delayed termination of a light WS interfered with avoidance learning and the introduction of noise offset as a feedback signal enhanced it. The only demonstration of stimulus specificity was the failure of noise onset to function as a feedback signal.     

Amnesics Have a Disproportionately Severe Memopry Deficit for Interactive Context

Two experiments were used to compare the recognition memory of amnesic and normal subjects for intentionally encoded words (targets) and for incidentally encoded words that were meaningfully related to the targets and presented at the same time (interactive context). In both experiments the target recognition of the two groups was matched at a high level by presenting the amnesics with much shorter lists of words to remember. Experiment 1 compared 20 amnesics and their matched controls and showed that whereas the amnesics' recognition of the target words did not benefit significantly when they were presented together with their interactive context words (relative to their recognition when the target words were presented alone), that of the controls did. Experiment 2 compared 14 amnesics and their matched controls and showed that when patients and their controls were matched on their target word recognition in isolation, then the patients still showed worse recognition for the interactive context words. These effects were not found only in Korsakoff patients, and their size did not correlate with behavioural measures of frontal-lobe damage. It is concluded that amnesics may be more impaired at recognizing incidentally encoded interactive context than they are at recognizing target material, and this deficit may be an essential feature of the syndrome.     

The Family Stress Model as it Applies to Custodial Grandfamilies: A Cross Validation

There is scant research on how the parenting practices of custodial grandmothers affect the psychological adjustment of grandchildren in their care. Yet, the findings from a handful of prior studies suggest the relevance of the Family Stress Model (FSM) to these caregivers. The present study further tested the FSM with baseline data from 343 custodial grandmothers (M_age?=?58.5 years) enrolled in a clinical trial of the efficacy of interventions for improving the well-being of their families. Not only was this “help-seeking” sample atypical of prior FSM studies, but also unique to the present study was our addition of multiple parenting practices, self-reported and clinical ratings of grandmothers’ distress, and reports of grandchildren’s internalizing and externalizing difficulties from grandchildren and grandmothers. Mplus 7.31 was used to test a model where the effect of grandmother distress on grandchildren’s internalizing and externalizing difficulties was hypothesized to be indirect through five distinct parenting practices. The findings regarding both the measurement and structural models fit the observed data well, and invariance was largely found across grandchildren’s gender and age (4–7 vs. 8–12). Although grandchildren’s self-reported internalizing and externalizing difficulties were unrelated to grandmothers’ distress and parenting practices, the grandmothers’ reports of these outcomes were generally related to their own distress and parenting practices as hypothesized. However, considerable variation was found across the five parenting practices in terms of their relationships to the other FSM constructs. We conclude that data from multiple informants and measures of assorted parenting practices are essential to future research and practice.     

The Role of Leisure Interest and Engagement for Subjective Well-Being

During the last decades, the association between leisure engagement and subjective well-being (SWB) has been examined. Yet, the role of the interest in specific leisure activities for SWB has been neglected. Thus, we examined whether the pure leisure engagement or the opportunity to realize the longing to pursue a leisure activity is linked to well-being. A sample of 402 participants completed an online survey about interests and the frequency of engagement in diverse leisure activities as well as physical, cognitive, and affective well-being. The study revealed that leisure engagement showed stronger associations with all aspects of well-being than leisure interest per se. More specifically, interest and engagement in social activities and sports showed robust associations with different facets of well-being. Furthermore, a high individual fit between leisure interest and engagement across diverse activities incrementally predicted SWB beyond leisure engagement per se. Analyses of nonlinear associations indicated that too much leisure engagement was associated with lower levels of SWB, but high interest in leisure activities buffered this effect. Thus, the intrinsic motivation to leisure activities may play an important role for well-being in addition to the sheer leisure engagement.     

The Caregivers' Attachment and Relationship Education Class: A New and Promising Group Therapy for Caregivers of Individuals with Parkinson's Disease

The authors examined whether a newly developed group therapy, based on principles of attachment theory and emotionally focused couples therapy, can potentially address the unique mental health and relationship difficulties in caregivers of individuals with Parkinson's disease. A comprehensive outreach effort, involving a review of 251 military veterans' medical records, yielded enrollment of seven spousal caregivers in the group therapy. At 1-month follow-up, caregivers who initially reported mild or greater levels of caregiver burden demonstrated statistically reliable declines in psychological distress, relationship distress, or both. Posttreatment surveys indicated positive perceptions in overall helpfulness of treatment goals, as well as positive changes in insight (e.g., greater understanding of the patient's attachment needs) and behaviors (e.g., greater social contact and self-care of the caregiver). Results are considered in the context of inadequate access to treatment for caregivers of spouses with Parkinson's disease or other major medical issues.