PERSONALITY MEASURES AND BIODATA: EVIDENCE REGARDING THEIR INCREMENTAL PREDICTIVE VALUE IN THE LIFE INSURANCE INDUSTRY

This study examines the extent to which a theoretically based set of personality measures can add incremental validity to an existing biodata instrument in terms of predicting both traditional (task) and expanded (contextual) dimensions of performance in the life insurance industry. Four of the Big Five measures of personality predicted contextual performance while just the Extraversion scale predicted task performance. This study demonstrates that personality measures can provide significant incremental prediction of contextual performance over biodata, and vice versa.     

Reported Practices of Creative Problem Solving Facilitators

This study reviews the distinguishing characteristics of successful creative problem solving (CPS) facilitators and provides advice on ways to develop these characteristics. Thirty-seven facilitators were interviewed about their successful use of creative problem solving. These individuals include full-time employees of organizations as well as consultants that were hired by a variety of organizations. The data colleced contained self-reports of effectiveness. No attempt was made to verify the facilitators claims of “success” in facilitation. From the interviews, the characteristics were identified and categorized by logical analysis. These findings were then researched in the literature. The final product was organized around the acronym FACILITATOR. Several synonyms were used to describe characteristics, but the content was not changed for the sake of organization.     

Perceived benefits and costs of romantic relationships for women and men: Implications for exchange theory

This investigation examined the perceived benefits and costs of romantic (i.e., reciprocal dating) relationships. In Study 1, subjects provided open-ended reports regarding the benefits and costs associated with romantic involvement. Different groups of subjects ranked (Study 2) and rated (Study 3) these benefits and costs for importance. Companionship, happiness, and feeling loved or loving another were among the most important benefits accompanying romantic involvement. The most serious costs included stress and worry about the relationship, social and nonsocial sacrifices, and increased dependence on the partner. Compared to males, females regarded intimacy, self-growth, self-understanding, and positive self-esteem as more important benefits, and regarded loss of identity and innocence about relationships and love as more important costs Alternatively, males regarded sexual gratification as a more important benefit, and monetary losses as a more serious cost than did females Implications for exchange theory are highlighted.     

A Follow-up Study of Counseling Effectiveness in Placement Outcomes—Data for Fiscal Years 1973 and 1976

A comparison was made of data from fiscal years 1973 and 1976 to determine if the findings of a study made in 1973 were true also in 1976. Basic findings of the 1973 study were “Your chances of being placed on a job by the Employment Service in Utah are greater if you receive assistance from counseling”; “The chances are even greater when you have more than one counseling interview”; “Personalizing the services seems to be the key to being placed on a job.” Other findings of the 1973 study regarding applicant characteristics often considered barriers to placement were not treated in the present study because of difficulties in obtaining the information from fiscal 1976 records. Results of the current study of 1976 data indicate: Although the advantage in favor of counseled applicants being placed was somewhat less in fiscal year 1976 than in fiscal 1973, counseled applicants' percentage-of-placement rate was still higher than that for all applicants in general, and increased numbers of counseling interviews did seem to have a positive effect on the placement rates of counseled applicants but at a slower rate than was found for fiscal 1973. In the current study an additional factor—renewals—was investigated to determine if higher placement rates accompanied higher numbers of renewals. The findings were positive but deemed inconclusive. Since renewals indicate repeated use of the service, they can be considered to be another measure of the effect of satisfactory service, like placement, rather than a cause of increased placement rates. This additional investigation did determine, however, that at all levels of renewal (except no renewal) the placement rate of counseled applicants was significantly higher than the placement rate of applicants who did not receive counseling.     

Chuck Warnath: Visionary Gadfly of Professional Counseling

Charles F. “Chuck” Warnath, professor emeritus and former university counseling center director, was interviewed about his personal life, early training with Donald Super, counseling center experiences, convictions about professional counseling, dedication to issues of equality, and current struggles with the progressive effects of retinitis pigmentosa.     

Social cliques as mental models

The present research investigates how a mental model derived from patterns of sentiment relations (mental clique model) interacts with social background information (membership in social categories). Testing memory for a set of sentiment relations, the data support the assumption that a strongly polarizing categorization interferes with a mental clique model derived from the learning of these sentiment relations. Such interference was claimed to occur whenever sentiment implications from the social categorization would contradict information contained in the mental clique model. In line with this reasoning, balanced triads were selectively impaired in memory as opposed to relations from unbalanced triads which did not allow construction of any clique model and which were not influenced by category interference.