Sex role as a mediator of achievement in task performance

Participants in a test of the influence of sex role on performance in a masculine task were 96 male and female undergraduates. Subject sex, norm (challenging or not challenging), and experimenter (male, female, or no experimenter present) were varied in a 2×2×3 design. When challenged, subjects worked more successfully in the presence of a female than before a male or with no experimenter present. Results support the hypothesis that the arousal of achieving tendencies may depend in part on the importance and conspicuousness of role cues. Implications for industrial performance and for future research are discussed.The authors would like to acknowledge the thoughtful assistance of Barbara Moely and Beverly Jafek, who commented on earlier drafts of this paper.All correspondence should be sent to Dr. Laurie Larwood, Claremont Men's College Claremont, California 91711. Portions of this paper were presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, August 1975.     

Subjective career success: A study of managers and support personnel

Despite popular belief that managers are successful by virtue of their positions, few studies have examined the position-success relationship. In this research, it was predicted that subjective career success is a multi-dimensional construct whose facets can be measured by several factors. Moreover, the phenomenon of career success was tested to see if it would relate to an employee's perception of occupational self-concept and job features. The notion that these dimensions would predict some aspects of career success more accurately for either managers or support personnel was also investigated. The confirming results obtained in this study and their implications for future research as well as practitioners are discussed.An earlier version of this article was presented at the 93rd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, California, 1985.     

Enlisting family support in drug treatment

Drug abuse programs often experience difficulties involving clients' families in treatment. This article describes general principles and specific techniques for recruiting family members in drug abuse programs and in other treatment settings. Stanton and Todd's principles of recruiting for family therapy in drug programs generally apply, adapted to a project that involves only one family member in multifamily groups and provides psychoeducational training rather than therapy. Additional principles include: focusing on family members who live with the client, tailoring recruitment to the needs of individual families, emphasizing how the family member will benefit, addressing resistance directly, helping families to build a support network, and informing family members of what is expected of them. The psychoeducational approach shows promise as a beneficial adjunct to client-focused treatment and as a gateway to more extensive family treatment.     

Women as managers: Toward second generation research

A review of women in management research indicates that most studies are concerned with theoretical issues and their implications. This article asserts that the current position of women in management is unstable and might be greatly assisted by an increase in action-oriented research. Such second generation studies can build on the theoretical work, but focus most importantly on the needs of present and potential women managers, investigating the means by which their success may be brought about. Specific research suggestions are offered concerning investigation of the relative task effectiveness of women and men, the career strategies most useful for women managers, the validation of specialized training programs for women, and the institutional qualities most favorable to women.     

Sex discrimination in managerial selection: Testing predictions of the vertical dyad linkage model

The behavior of 60 male and female students in soliciting volunteer leaders for a series of leadership experiments was studied. The solicitation behavior was consistent with the vertical dyad linkage leadership model which predicted that ingroup members would share more responsibilities and benefits with the leader/manager than would outgroup members. Members of the same sex were expected to be more frequently ingroup (operationalized as acquaintances). Results showed that same-sex acquaintances were solicited more often than cross-sex acquaintances. No sex discrimination was found when subjects solicited others who had not been previously known. Acquaintances were most frequently asked to volunteer on highly valued tasks and were more likely than nonacquaintances to agree to participate. The results are interpreted as demonstrating a bias in favor of aiding and promoting members one's own sex in managerial situations.A shorter version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the Academy of Management, Kansas City, 1976. The authors would like to thank Peter Weissenberg of the State University of New York School of Management for his helpful suggestions. This research was completed while the first author was a member of the Organizational Behavior group at State University of New York — Binghamton.     

Frequency-range discriminations and absolute pitch in black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus), mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli), and zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata)

The acoustic frequency ranges in birdsongs provide important absolute pitch cues for the recognition of conspecifics. Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus), mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli), and zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) were trained to sort tones contiguous in frequency into 8 ranges on the basis of associations between response to the tones in each range and reward. All 3 species acquired accurate frequency-range discriminations, but zebra finches acquired the discrimination in fewer trials and to a higher standard than black-capped or mountain chickadees, which did not differ appreciably in the discrimination. Chickadees' relatively poorer accuracy was traced to poorer discrimination of tones in the higher frequency ranges. During transfer tests, the discrimination generalized to novel tones when the training tones were included, but not when they were omitted.     

Prediction of treatment outcome among patients with irritable bowel syndrome treated with group cognitive therapy

Using a sample of over 125 patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) who were treated with cognitive therapy administered in small groups, we sought to predict end of treatment and 3-month follow-up improvement in two changes indices of gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms (Pain/Discomfort Index which assessed change in abdominal pain, abdominal tenderness and bloating and Bowel Regularity Index which assessed change in diarrhea and constipation). We also sought to predict scores on IBS specific quality of life (QOL) and overall level of psychological distress using the Global Severity Index (GSI) of the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). Significant, but modest, levels of prediction were found for prediction of improvement in GI symptoms (4-15% of variance). Stronger significant prediction was obtained for the QOL and global psychological distress measure with R(2)'s ranging from 0.36 to 0.50. A wide variety of demographic, GI symptom, psychological status and psychiatric status variables entered the final prediction equations.     

Spatial and temporal properties of stereoscopic surface interpolation

It is well established that under a wide range of conditions when a sparse collection of texture elements varies smoothly in depth, the spaces between the elements are assigned depth values. This disparity interpolation process has been studied in an effort to define some of its fundamental spatial and temporal constraints. To assess disparity interpolation we employed two tasks: a novel task that relies on the bisection of illusory boundaries created when subjective stereoscopic surfaces intersect, and one that relies on a 3-D shape discrimination. The results of both experiments show that there is no improvement in performance when texture density is increased from near 0.20 to 0.85 or when exposure duration is increased from 50-100 to 1000 ms. This lack of dependence on the addition of features that define the interpolated surface, along with the abrupt decline in performance below a critical value, is consistent with the view that surface interpolation is an important function of human stereoscopic vision.     

Wanting It Both Ways: Do Women Approve of Benevolent Sexism?

An oft-expressed criticism of feminism is thatwomen want it both ways, opposing whatGlick and Fiske (1996) have called hostilesexism, but accepting or approving ofbenevolent sexism. To examine this issue, anethnically and socioeconomically diverse group of onehundred female undergraduate volunteers rated profilesof a hostile sexist, a benevolent sexist and anon-sexist. For the benevolent sexist, ratings were mildlyfavorable, while for the hostile sexist, ratings werehighly unfavorable. Forty-four participants (a categoryreferred to as equivocal egalitarians) approved of the benevolent sexist while disapproving ofthe hostile sexist. Equivocal egalitarianism waspositively related to participants' Attitudes AboutReality (Unger, Draper, & Pendergrass, 1986) andnegatively related to their belief that hostile andbenevolent sexism could coexist. Overall, participantsconsidered it unlikelythat the hostile and benevolentsexist profiles described the same person. Givenprevious findings, these data suggest that women mayunderestimate the coexistence of hostile and benevolentsexism in men (Glick & Fiske, 1996).