Academic Locus of Control,Self-Esteem,and Perceived Distance From Home as Predictors of College Adjustment

Eighty-eight female college freshmen completed questionnaires designed to assess academic locus of control, self-esteem, and geographical distance from home (actual and perceived) as predictors of college adjustment. Results indicated that an internal academic locus of control, a high level of self-esteem, and a perception that the distance from home was “just right” were related to four dimensions of college adjustment (Personal, Academic, Social, and Attachment). Regression analysis revealed that each predictor variable significantly increased the overall predictive accuracy of college adjustment. No associations, however, were found between actual distance and the various dimensions of college adjustment. Finally, the implications of using multiple predictors of college adjustment are discussed.     

Marital conflict patterns: Links with family conflict and family members’perceptions of one another

The goal of this study was to explore the effects of marital conflict on conflict patterns in the family, and on family members’perceptions of one another. Sixty‐eight two‐parent families with adolescent twins participated, with parents reporting on the conflict patterns used by the marital dyad, and by themselves in interaction with each of their twins, and adolescent twins reporting on their interactions with each other. In addition, all four family members engaged in a videotaped decision‐making interaction and then made global ratings of each other on five dimensions. Links were obtained between marital conflict patterns and parent‐child conflict patterns, and between parent‐child conflict patterns and those used in sibling relationships. In contrast, marital conflict patterns were unrelated to sibling conflict patterns. Similarly, links were found between marital conflict and fathers’perceptions of their children, and between father‐child conflict and children's perceptions of each other. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical models of conflict resolution and the transmission of conflict patterns within the family.     

Memory for Orientation in the Natural Environment

Previous work has demonstrated that memory for information to which people have been exposed for a prolonged period in everyday life may be very poor. One interpretation of such findings is that we tend to remember only information that is likely to be of future functional relevance. However, it is also noticeable that previous investigations have in general studied memory concerning artefacts of arbitrary design rather than the natural environment. As the product of an evolutionary process, it is possible that memory is in general adapted towards dealing with the natural rather than the artificial. For example, in the case of one frequently encountered artefact it has been shown that people retain little information as to whether the head on a coin faces to left or right. The present study probed a naturally occurring counterpart to this, by examining recall of the orientation of the crescent moon. For a new moon it is the right-hand side of the moon that is illuminated whereas for an old moon it is the left-hand side, in the northern hemisphere. The results of Experiment 1 indicated no retention of this information by participants (though, as the results of Experiment 4 confirmed, participants did remember that the new and old moons have opposite orientations). The results of Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed the absence of retention when recall was cued by reference to the solar cycle rather than the lunar cycle, either singly or in combination. It is concluded that, contrary to expectation, memory for the natural environment is in this case no better than memory for the artificial environment, consistent with the primary role in determining the content of everyday memory being taken by functional relevance. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

GENERAL MENTAL ABILITY,NARROWER COGNITIVE ABILITIES,AND JOB PERFORMANCE: THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE NESTED-FACTORS MODEL OF COGNITIVE ABILITIES

The nested-factors model is a well-established structural model of cognitive abilities in cognitive ability research but has not yet been used to investigate the role of cognitive abilities in job performance. Core assumptions of the nested-factors model are that a broad general mental ability (GMA) exists besides narrower abilities and that this GMA differs from the narrower cognitive abilities in breadth but not in subordination. The authors of this article propose that a recently emerging statistical technique—relative importance analysis—corresponds to the assumptions of the nested-factors model. To empirically study the implications of using the nested-factors model, the authors applied relative importance analysis to a meta-analytic matrix linking measures of 7 narrower cognitive abilities from an established ability taxonomy (Thurstone's primary mental abilities), GMA, and job performance. Results revealed that GMA accounted for 10.9% to 28.6% of the total variance explained in job performance and that GMA was not consistently the most important predictor. The discussion focuses on potential theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of the nested-factors model for personnel psychology.