the needs of women returning to school

Many women who have experienced an extended interruption in their formal education find that their decision to return to school is both serious and significant. This article describes the special needs of women returning to school and analyzes these needs on both psychological and practical levels. The author offers suggestions about how colleges in general and student personnel workers in particular might help meet these needs, and she highlights programs and practices developed at one college. The discussion is based primarily on the experiences of women who are regular matriculated day session students at an urban commuter college. Observations are drawn from interviews, group discussions, and a questionnaire.     

Personnel Executives: Personality,Vocational Interests,and Job Satisfaction

The Conducted two surveys of personnel executives to demonstrate the relationships between their job activities and job satisfaction and their vocational interests and personalities.     

WOMEN'S ATTITUDES TOWARD THEIR JOBS: SOME LONGITUDINAL DATA ON A NATIONAL SAMPLE1

This study examines a number of aspects of job satisfaction among women in their thirties and forties over the 1967–1972 period using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys. The data presented suggest that black women were less satisfied with their jobs than whites, and that levels of job satisfaction declined between 1967 and 1972. When asked which aspects of their jobs they liked best, these women were most likely to mention a dimension of their work which stemmed from the job content. Also of particular importance were the socio-emotional aspects of their jobs. There were remarkably few changes in the pattern of responses over the 5-year period. Furthermore, there is evidence that women whose skills were underutilized tended to be more dissatisfied than women for whom this was not the case. Conflicting demands between responsibilities at home and at work also appear to result in lower-than-average levels of job satisfaction. The greatest conflict in this regard appeared to result from an unfavorable attitude of the woman's husband toward her working, indeed more so than by the presence of young children or by her own attitude toward the propriety of women working. The lack of certain straightforward relationships between job satisfaction and such dimensions as family circumstances, skills and labor market characteristics is interpreted in the context of the conceptual framework of Lawler (1973).     

The Relationship of Clinicians' Values to Therapy Outcome Ratings

The purpose of this study was to explore the interpersonal values of a sample of experienced clinicians. Clinician ratings of hypothetical, value-based therapy outcome vignettes were also investigated. Consistent with previous values research, clinicians showed greater endorsement of independence and lower endorsement of conformity in the Survey of Interpersonal Values. Clinicians' own values were positively correlated with their outcome ratings on the conformity dimension. Discussion is made of factors that may influence whether clinicians reinforce particular values in therapeutic contexts.     

MOTIVATION TO MANAGE AT THE TOP EXECUTIVE LEVEL: A TEST OF THE HIERARCHIC ROLE-MOTIVATION THEORY

Measures of managerial motivation (the Miner Sentence Completion Scale - Form H) were obtained from a sample composed of 75 chief executive and operating officers, executive vice presidents, and group vice presidents. Within this sample, 49 individuals had clearly worked their way up a bureaucratic hierarchy, and thus were congruent with managerial role motivation theory, while 26 were either the original entrepreneur or relatives of the entrepreneur. Comparisons were made with a sample of 65 managers in the same companies who, although of similar ages, had not reached the same high levels. The theory congruent top executives proved to have higher managerial motivation than either of the other two groups. These results support the hierarchic role-motivation theory and reinforce one of its most central propositions; they also support the use of the MSCS-Form H in the selection of managerial talent and in executive assessment.     

THE THOUGHT SPACE OF GOD: THE HAUNTING BELOW THE I‐THOU RELATION

This essay attempts a phenomenological analysis of Descartes' statement, ‘my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself,’ and Buber's claim that God ‘is also the mystery of the self‐evident, nearer to me than my I.’ I radicalize the implications of Descartes' and Buber's claims by drawing on the thought of Husserl and Levinas, and couching the analysis in terms of Merleau‐Ponty's experiential notions of haunting and reversibility. This forces us to interrogate the subjective space in which we think God qua recognize the other, and shows us a kind of necessity that underlies the I‐Thou relation. My conclusion leaves us in a place of powerless subjective inwardness and awe.     

Religious Activities, Religious Orientation, and Aggressive Behavior

Theorists and clinicians have long believed that religious practice may reduce aggression and other destructive behaviors. To date, most evidence for a relationship between religiosity and aggression comes from nonexperimental studies. The purpose of this exploratory study was twofold. First, to examine experimentally whether two religious practices reduce aggressive behavior; second, to determine if specific aspects of religious orientation and spiritual transcendence are related to level of aggression, expressed under controlled laboratory conditions. Sixty-two participants assigned to one of three experimental groups (memorize Bible passages, prayer/meditation, or control group) completed a laboratory task of aggression. Participants also completed religious and spirituality instruments, along with self-ratings of aggressive disposition. Results indicated that neither memorization of biblical passages nor meditation reduced aggression. Intrinsic-oriented religiosity participants self-reported lower aggression than extrinsic-oriented participants, but no differences were found on the laboratory task of aggression. Spiritual transcendence showed no behavioral aggression differences .     

Temporal Phase Pluralism*

Some theories of personal identity allow some variation in what it takes for a person to survive from context to context; and sometimes this is determined by the desires of person‐stages or the practices of communities. This leads to problems for decision making in contexts where what is chosen will affect personal identity. ‘Temporal Phase Pluralism’ solves such problems by allowing that there can be a plurality of persons constituted by a sequence of person stages. This illuminates difficult decision making problems when persons have to choose between different life‐altering choices.