The role of anxiety in the Career Decision Making of liberal arts students

Liberal arts students (N = 341) completed parallel halves of the A-State portion of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-S) before and after completion of either a career-planning questionnaire consisting largely of Harren's Assessment of Career Decision-Making (ACDM) instrument (treatment group) or a set of consumer preference marketing questions (control group). As hypothesized, the treatment group showed an increase in post-test anxiety as compared to pretest responses; level of expressed anxiety in the control group pre- and post-test did not change significantly. Additionally, state anxiety (at both points in time) in the treatment group was found to relate to most of the ACDM measures operationalizing the career-planning model of Harren and his associates, thus confirming that anxiety is both another indicator of student lack of success in the career planning process and a justifiable extension of their model. Anxiety was found to relate more weakly to specific career concerns, suggesting that students are not fully aware of the source(s) of their anxiousness. Further, two key scales from Harren's model (dependent decision-making style and occupational commitment) were found to be related to specific career concerns, indicating that those measures are reftective of actual student concerns in successful career planning. Further research should seek to demonstrate the development of these relationships between career planning and anxiety over time.     

Evaluation of a course in sex roles for secondary school students

As powerful socializing agents, schools can be important facilitators in changing social norms of gender-role expectations. This research study was designed to determine the impact of an interdisciplinary course in the effects of sex-role stereotyping on awareness and attitudes of the participants. The high school students in the experimental program increased their awareness of the stereotyping process and the effects of narrowly defined sex roles. These students perceived the roles of males and females in a more socially androgynous context than did students who did not take the course.     

TOCRS—The therapy-oriented computer record system

A computerized system has been developed to provide treatment records for patients in the Duke Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic. Demographic, diagnostic, and therapeutic data are incorporated into a concise summary provided to the therapist for each patient visit. Variables were carefully chosen to capture essential therapeutic information while minimizing the burden of data entry on the therapist. Suggestions by the users have led to a number of modifications in the system, including the addition of special data-keeping functions for therapy groups and record generations of summary reports for clinicians and administrators. Essential information is gathered in a format well suited to analysis by standard computerized statistical techniques. Record keeping, in this fashion, provides an information base that describes the process of psychiatric treatment.     

Sex and achievement domain: Cognitive patterns of success and failure

Subjects (N=439) were asked to write an account of an achievement of failure, and to describe it in terms of locus of standards (internal-external), conceptual focus (process-impact), and initial expectations for success (or failure). Additionally, accounts were classified on the basis of achievement domain (personal, interpersonal, mastery). Analyses of variance [2 (sex)×3 (domain)] for each cognitive measure revealed few sex differences. However, cognitive responses did vary as a function of achievement domain. Main effects for domain were observed under success instructions for locus of control (p<.0002) and under failure instructions for locus of control (p<.05), conceptual focus (p<.05), and expectations (p<.06). Interaction effects of sex and achievement domain were observed on locus of standards for success (p<.0002) and initial expectations preceding failure (p<.025), indicating that women were more responsive to domain differences than were men. Discriminant analyses indicated that cognitions were more readily patterned in terms of achievement domain than sex. Elaboration and incorporation of the concept of domain in cognitive models of achievement is suggested.     

Discriminative effectiveness of the Senior Apperception Test with impaired and nonimpaired elderly persons.

A means was devised of assessing elderly individuals' responses to the Senior Apperception Test (SAT) that would discriminate emotionally-cognitively impaired from nonimpaired. With a matched sample of known impaired and nonimpaired nursing home residents, SAT protocols were scored on four dimensions, and the best discriminating cut-off scores established. Protocols from a second similar matched sample were tested for discriminative effectiveness of previously established criterion scores. Significant discrimination at .01 or better was obtained for all four dimensions in the predicted direction. False positives and false negatives ranged from 7 to 33%. The best predictor score was Interpersonal-relationships, the poorest was mood. This procedure with the SAT appears to be an effective screening method for impairment, and it provides additional useful clinical information.     

Adding Affect to Assertion Training

Cognitive-behavioral approaches to assertion training may be enhanced by the addition of affective techniques. Contrasted role play and Gestalt two-chair role play are suggested for unassertive clients. Training in affective expressiveness and resolution of internal conflicts enables clients to discover feelings of personal power to support assertive behaviors.     

Parietal lobe contributions to episodic memory retrieval

Although the parietal lobe is not traditionally thought to support declarative memory, recent event-related fMRI studies of episodic retrieval have consistently revealed a range of memory-related influences on activation in lateral posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and precuneus extending into posterior cingulate and retrosplenial cortex. This article surveys the fMRI literature on PPC activation during remembering, a literature that complements earlier electroencephalography data. We consider these recent memory-related fMRI responses within the context of classical ideas about parietal function that emphasize space-based attention and motor intention. We conclude by proposing three hypotheses concerning how parietal cortex might contribute to memory.     

The Apple of Kant's Ethics: i-Maxims as the Locus of Assessment

I want to distinguish between maxims at three levels of abstraction. At the first level are what I shall call individual maxims, or i-maxims: maxim tokens as adopted by particular rational beings. At the second level are abstract maxims, or a-maxims: abstract principles distinct from any individual who adopts them. At the third level are maxim kinds, or k-maxims: sets of various action-guiding principles that are grouped on the basis of their content. In this paper, I argue for the thesis that i-maxims are the locus of assessment in Kant's ethics.