A SURVEY OF MANAGEMENT TRAINING AND EDUCATION PRACTICES IN U.S. COMPANIES

A survey was systematically developed to assess issues related to management training and education, and it was sent to 1,000 randomly selected U.S. companies with at least 1,000 employees. Based on a 61% response rate, findings were obtained regarding issues such as needs assessment, management training and development approaches, reasons for selecting particular programs, characteristics of participants, how decisions are made regarding who will participate, preparation and follow-up of participants, evaluation of management training programs, future management training trends, and needed training content. Significant findings by company size and industry type also are reported.     

Effect of reaction time condition on EMG activities of the biceps brachii muscle in elbow flexion and forearm supination

Under simple- and choice-RT conditions, the biceps brachii muscle was examined in 8 healthy male subjects to determine how the temporal and spatial characteristics of elbow flexion and forearm supination differed at the initial phase of EMG activity and whether preparation or the presence of response uncertainty influenced the EMG outputs of the two movements. In the simple-RT condition, RT of supination was significantly faster than that of flexion but EMG activity of supination was less than that of flexion. In contrast, in the choice-RT condition, RT of flexion was significantly faster than that of supination but EMG activity of flexion was significantly reduced compared to supination. These findings indicate that advanced preparation or motor set facilitates the differentiation of RTs and EMG activities of the response movements and that response uncertainty causes a significant change in the temporal and spatial specificity of both elbow flexion and forearm supination.     

Stress in time

The goals of this research were to determine whether speakers adjust the stress patterns of words within sentences to create an alternation between strong and weak beats and to explore whether this rhythmic alternation contributes to the characteristics stress differences between two major lexical categories of English. Two experiments suggested that speakers do alter lexical stress in accordance with rhythmic biases. When speakers produced disyllabic pseudowords in sentence contexts, they were more likely to place stress on the first syllable when the pseudoword was preceded by a weak stress and followed by a strong one than when the strong stress preceded and the weak followed. This occurred both when the pseudowords served as nouns and when they served as verbs. Text analyses further revealed that weakly stressed elements precede nouns more often than verbs, whereas such elements follow verbs more often than nouns. Thus, disyllabic nouns are more likely than disyllabic verbs to occupy contexts biased toward trochaic rhythm, a finding consistent with leftward dominant stress in disyllabic English nouns. The history of stress changes in English nouns and verbs also conforms with the view that rhythmic context may have contributed to the evolution of stress differences. Together, the findings suggest that the citation stress patterns of words may to some degree reflect adaptations of lexical knowledge to conditions of language performance.     

Learned helplessness in the cockroach (Periplaneta americana)

For 3 consecutive days cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) were exposed to either escapable, inescapable, or no shock in an escape task. Twenty-four hours later they were tested in a shuttlebox escape task. There were reliable differences between escapable and inescapable animals and between inescapable and control animals in both escape latencies and the number of failures to escape.     

Is it smart to play the horses? Comment on "A day at the races: a study of IQ, expertise, and cognitive complexity" (Ceci & Liker, 1986)

Ceci and Liker (1986b) presented data that they contended shows two things: (a) Handicapping harness races is a cognitively complex undertaking that can be captured by a multiple regression model, and (b) neither overall skill at handicapping nor the complexity of the mental model used is related to standard measures of intelligence. The first contention is not at issue. But the second contention, that handicapping performance is unrelated to IQ, is not supported by the data presented; in fact, the opposite conclusion seems more likely. The purpose of this comment is to point out errors frequently made in individual-differences research concerning population definition, sample selection, dependent and independent variable reliability and validity and interpretation of results.     

Selective attention: effects of cuing on the processing of different types of compound stimuli

Pigeons in a matching-to-sample experiment received (a) element samples (one of two colors or vertical or horizontal white lines), (b) separated compound samples (a color and a line element presented together), and (c) unified compound samples (vertical or horizontal colored lines). In Phase I, test stimuli were the two elements from one dimension; the dimension tested varied randomly when the sample was a compound. Element samples were matched better than unified samples, which were matched better than separated samples. In Phase II, two samples preceded the tests. On EC trials, the first sample (S1) was an element, and the second sample (S2) was a compound; on CE trials this order was reversed. One element of the compound sample was always the one appearing as the element sample on that trial (e.g., S1 = red, S2 = red-vertical). This element also served as the correct test alternative (e.g., test = red+ vs. green) except on probe trials when the correct test was the other element appearing in the compound (e.g., test = vertical+ vs. horizontal). Accuracy varied as a function of sample sequence when the compound was separated (EC greater than CE on nonprobe trials and CE greater than EC on prove trials). This pattern was not observed when the compound was unified. The data suggest that the element in EC trials served as a cue that increased processing of the cued dimension and decreased processing of the noncued dimension of separated compounds. However, both dimensions of unified compounds seem to have been processed regardless of cuing.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Naltrexone-reversible pain suppression in the isolated attacking mouse

Fighting pairs of isolated DBA/2 mice showed a significant increase in tail-flick response latencies independent of whether opponents were losing or winning the combat. The effect lasted less than 10 min in both animals. Elevated pain thresholds were also found in isolates that attacked a nonaggressive conspecific, and were prevented by naltrexone (0.2 mg/kg), while a larger dose (1.0 mg/kg) inhibited the attack behavior. A small increase in pain threshold was observed after exposure of isolates to the test box alone, while isolation per se had no effect on baseline tail-flick latencies. The data demonstrate that endogenous pain suppressing systems are activated during attack and suggest that this opioid-mediated antinociception is a correlate of the isolation syndrome, reflecting enhanced arousal of the attacking animal.