Human Relations Training for the Elderly

The authors desribe a structured group experience designed to improve communication and to encourage support among a population of elderly persons residing in a retirement community. Group activities and suggestions for counselors are provided.     

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF JOB SELECTION METHODS ON SIZE, PRODUCTIVITY, AND PAYROLL COSTS OF THE FEDERAL WORK FORCE: AN EMPIRICALLY BASED DEMONSTRATION

In this study, job performance increases resulting from improved selection validity were measured empirically rather than estimated from the standard linear regression utility equations. Selection utility analyses based on these empirical measurements were carried out for most white-collar jobs in the federal government. Results indicate that selection of a one-year cohort based on valid measures of cognitive ability, rather than on non-test procedures (mostly evaluations of education and experience), produces increases in output worth up to $600 million for each year that the new employees remain employed by the government. Newly hired federal employees remain with the government an average of approximately 13 years, resulting in a total gain in output of almost $8 billion over this period. This gain represents a 9.7% increase in output among new hires. If total output is held constant rather than increased, new hiring can be reduced by up to 20,044 per year (a 9% decrease), resulting in payroll savings of $272 million for every year the new cohort of employees remains on the job. The percentage of new hires in the bottom decile of the non-test-selected job performance distribution     

Feminism and Religion

Religion—capital R—effectively eliminated the feminine experience in its process of institutionalization as church; religion—small r—the whole human view, cannot be adequately reflected through such a myopic institution. All humans will not be equally respected, given unequal status. Thus, the church becomes a powerful contributor to inherently unjust social, legal, and economic systems. Feminism, negated as a philosophical and religious world view by Western religions, challenges the status quo insofar as it calls for endorsement of full human equality.     

Farm Families in Career Transitions: Descriptive Characteristics and an Intervention

Characteristics of farm family members involved in workshops that are designed to assist them in developing career plans and making transitions to other careers are described. Age, sex, educational level, and career change characteristics of workshop participants are presented. Vocational identity scores using My Vocational Situation, interest patterns based on the Self-Directed Search, and 6-month follow-up data are also presented to describe the farm family members served through this intervention. My family went back four generations on this piece of land. Farming wasn't a job; it was a way of life. I couldn't go to the auction. I couldn't see it all being taken. I feel like such a failure.     

Do “Womanist” Identity Attitudes Influence College Women's Self-Esteem and Perceptions of Environmental Bias?

Helms (1990) proposed a four-stage model of womanist identity in which she hypothesized that development of healthy identity in women involves movement from external standards of gender identity to internal standards. Attitudes derived from her model were used to predict undergraduate women's self-esteem and perceptions of sex bias in the campus environment. Female undergraduates (N = 659), freshmen through seniors, were surveyed in classes at a large eastern university. Results indicated that Encounter (characterized by questioning of previously held stereotypical views about gender and dawning awareness of alternative perspectives) and Immersion-Emersion (characterized by an active rejection of male supremacist values and beliefs and the search for a positive self-affirming definition of womanhood) attitudes were inversely related to perceptions of environmental gender bias and positively related to self-esteem. Implications for counseling and future research are discussed.     

Sequential analysis of autonomy-interdependence and affiliation-disaffiliation in couples' social support interactions

Sequential patterns of social support interactions between satisfied (n= 33) and dissatisfied (n= 23) husbands and wives were observed as the spouses took turns confiding about personal problems. The interactions were coded with an adaptation of Benjamin's Structural Analysis of Social Behavior, which evaluates interpersonal behaviors along two dimensions of independence-interdependence and affiliation-disaffiliation. Log-linear analysis verified expected complementary sequential exchanges of behaviors that fell in the mid-ranges of independence, interdependence, affiliation, and disaffiliation, although extreme forms of independent and interdependent behavior showed unexpected functional associations with non-complementary behaviors. Dissatisfied wives displayed imbalanced levels of independent and interdependent behaviors, and both spouses showed relatively less support for each other's independent initiative. Dissatisfied spouses also had difficulty providing and accepting assistance in affiliative ways. The findings are discussed in terms of the balance of autonomy and interconnectedness in marriage, and the implications for improving supportive interactions for dissatisfied couples.     

Attachment style in married couples: Relation to current marital functioning,stability over time,and method of assessment

We examined several aspects of attachment in marriage, including the association among attachment style, mental models of the spouse, satisfaction, affect regulation within the marriage, the stability of attachment style, and its operationalization. Fifty-three married couples completed initial assessments, and 44 participated in a 24-month follow-up. Attachment style was related to positive and negative affect immediately preceding a potentially stressful event and to the mental model of the spouse. Approximately 35% of the subjects changed their attachment style rating over a 2-year period; later attachment style was related to changes in mental models of the spouse. Categorical and dimensional measures of attachment style did not yield equivalent results. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.     

A Framework for the Study of Relationships Between Organizational Characteristics and Organizational Innovation

This paper presents a taxonomy of organizational characteristics that was developed as part of a large scale job analysis project conducted for the Department of Labor (DOL). Based on research and theory related to organizations, a hierarchical taxonomy of organizational characteristics was developed with six construct domains at the highest level: organizational structure, leadership, human resources (HR) systems and practices, goals, and organizational values. The taxonomy has been empirically tested using data from over 300 organizations, and a summary of these results is presented. This taxonomy is then used to organize and review research on the relationships between organizational variables and innovation. Implications of the taxonomy for understanding relationships between organizational size, industry type, “high-performance” practices, and innovation are discussed.     

The Battered Committed Christian Woman: The Value Difference

Many studies have been conducted to examine why some battered women return to abusive relationships (Alsdurf & Alsdurf, 1989a, 1989b; Herbert, Silver, & Ellard, 1991; Hoffman, 1992; Strube, 1988; Strube & Barbour, 1983; Walker, 1977–1978). The authors review factors linked to the battered woman's return to the abusive environment and suggest an additional factor—the values of the woman. Moral development and some of the beliefs of the committed Christian woman are examined. The influence of these factors on her decision to remain in the abusive relationship are discussed. Interventions that accommodate to the framework of the committed Christian woman's value/belief system are explored. Counselors are also encouraged to explore their own value systems in relation to their clients to ascertain if and how these values may influence their clients.