Rational Choice, Deterrence, and Theoretical Integration

The old version of rational choice theory is that people engage in conscious and deliberate cost–benefit analysis such that they maximize the values and minimize the costs of their actions. The new version of rational choice theory is that people intuit the values and costs of an action; but because they are imperfect processors of information, they pursue what they perceive as most satisfying. The possibility that legal punishments deter is consistent with the new version of rational choice theory, which can be used to integrate deterrence with other criminological theories, such as strain and social learning. An integrated theory of deterrence is presented and tested with experimental data.     

Effects of Internal and External Pay Comparisons on Work Attitudes1

The effects of internal and external pay comparisons on several work attitudes were assessed within an experimental design. Participants responded to hypothetical scenarios in which their pay was greater, less, or equal to an internal and external individual or group referent. As predicted, internal and external pay comparisons predicted pay satisfaction and perceived pay fairness. Also as expected, internal equity was the stronger predictor of work motivation and perceived organizational support, and external equity predicted turnover intention more strongly. Partial support was found for the hypothesis that work attitudes would be impacted more strongly when individuals made pay comparisons with a group referent than with an individual referent other. Implications for the design of compensation systems are discussed.     

Symmetry, direct measurement, and Torgerson's conjecture

Two forms of direct measurement are considered in the article: a strong form in which ratio productions named by number words are interpreted veridically as the numerical ratios they name; and a weak form in which the ratio productions named by number words may have interpretations as ratios that are different from numerical ratios they name. Both forms assume that the responses to instructions to produce ratios are represented numerically by ratios, and thus the word “ratio”—and supposedly the participants concept associated with it—is being “directly” represented. The strong form additionally “directly represents” the number mentioned in the instruction by itself. The article provides an axiomatic theory for the numerical representations produced by both forms. This theory eliminates the need for assuming anything is being “directly represented,” allowing for a purely behavioral approach to ratio production data. It isolates two critical axioms for empirical testing. An measurement-theoretic explanation is provided for the puzzling empirical phenomenon that subjects do not distinguish between ratios and differences in a variety of direct measurement tasks.     

教师组织公民行为与教学效能感的关系研究

文章采用教师组织公民行为与教师教学效能感问卷,对广州市的205名初中教师进行了研究,以探讨学校等级、性别、职称、学历、教龄等背景变量对初中教师组织公民行为、教学效能感的影响,以及教师组织公民行为与教师教学效能感之间的关系。结果发现:教师组织公民行为、教学效能感在学校等级和职称上存在着显著性差异;教师组织公民行为与教师教学效能感之间存在着显著性相关,教师组织公民行为中的认同组织和良心行为因子是教师教学效能感的有效预测变量。     

Manual reaction time to linguistic stimuli in child stutterers and nonstutterers

Ten stuttering and ten nonstuttering children, ages 4–8 yr, served as subjects for a motor reaction task to simple and complex linguistic stimuli. The subjects reacted by pressing one of four panels on a touch-sensitive board that depicted the appropriate semantic relationship in response to 30 simple and complex linguistic stimuli. There was a significant increase in the reaction time of both groups with increasing linguistic complexity. No significant differences were found in the reaction time between the two groups, nor in the interaction between group and complexity. Implications regarding linguistic processing are discussed, and an “overload” hypothesis of stuttering is dispelled. It is concluded that stutterers and nonstutterers in this study did not differ in their reaction time nor in their processing time of linguistic material.     

Development and training of role-taking abilities with emotionally disturbed preschoolers: A pilot study

The purposes of the present study were to verify whether emotionally disturbed preschoolers admitted to a medical day-care center would evidence a developmental lag in role-taking skills as compared to nondisturbed kindergartners and to study the effects of a training program with as its purpose to teach the MDC children to deal with their own and others' emotions. Forty-three children from a kindergarten (n=22; mean age of 4.11 years) and a medical day-care center (n=21; mean age of 4.11 years) participated in this study. The MDC children were randomly assigned to a control (n=9) and to a training condition (n=12). The training for the latter group covered a 10-week period. The results from this pretest and posttest design revealed no differences in performance for emotional role-taking (i.e., Borke-task) and social guessing (i.e., De Vries-task) between the disturbed and nondisturbed children on the pretest. On the posttest, however, a significant developmental lag was evident for the MDC-children who did not receive the training and those who did and the control group.     

Causal Attributions and Parent-Child Relationships in a Self-Help Group for Families of the Mentally III1

A study of a local chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally 111 (NAMI) suggests that parents think about the causes of their offsprings' psychiatric disabilities in terms of psychogenic, organic and moral attributions. Comparisons of retrospective and current self-reports suggest that parents' attributional processes were influenced by their organizational participation. Comparatively stronger endorsement of the organic attribution (that biochemical illness is a primary causal factor) and comparatively weaker endorsement of the psychogenic attribution (that deficits in parenting are a primary causal factor) were associated with participation. Increased comfort in parent-child relationships was also associated with participation. It was speculated that these cognitive and behavioral changes were mediated by learning a comprehensive schema of information about schizophrenia that included information about causes, symptoms and methods of treatment.