Book reviews

Current Psychology -     

Coping behaviors and managers' affective reactions to role stressors

This study assessed the role of adaptive versus maladaptive coping behaviors and personal characteristics in influencing the affective reactions of managers to four role stressors. Maladaptive coping was found to moderate the relationships of several role stressors with felt stress and job satisfaction. Maladaptive coping and trait anxiety also demonstrated independent additive effects on felt stress and job satisfaction over and above that of all four stressors.     

Postpartum and lactational estrus: a comparative analysis in rodentia

Virgin rodents exhibiting cycling estrus have traditionally been used for comparative studies of reproductive behavior. However estrus occurs in other life-history contexts, some of which differ from cycling estrus (CE) in that (a) the female is disposed to behave both maternally and sexually and (b) they result in litter overlap (i.e., the simultaneous gestation and lactation of two litters). In this report, two of these other modes of estrus are examined, with emphasis on their evolutionary and ecological implications. By means of a literature search of the order Rodentia, postpartum estrus (PPE) and lactational estrus (LE) were documented in 15 families, 71 genera, and 141 species. Analysis of these data showed that PPE and LE were nonrandomly distributed across taxa. They were statistically overrepresented in the family Cricetidae and underrepresented in squirrels (Sciuridae) and in pocket mice and kangaroo rats (Heteromyidae). Analysis of the phenotypes by which PPE and LE are achieved suggests important differences between them and CE in several parameters of female reproductive effort and breeding strategy, including maternal and copulatory behavior, optimal timing of litters, and hormonal control of heat and lactation.     

RESCUE AND RECOVERY AS A THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE,AND A KEY TO MORALITY IN EXTRATERRESTRIAL SPECIES

New theological understanding can emerge with the advancement of scientific knowledge and the use of new concepts, or older concepts in new ways. Here, the authors present a proposal to extend the concept of “rescue and recovery” found in the United Nations Law of the High Seas, off-world and within a broader purview of other intelligent and self-aware species that humans may someday encounter. The notion of a morality that extends to off-world species is not new, but in this analysis, rescue and recovery become an imperative when any intelligent and self-aware species is in harm's way. Rescue and recovery encompass a necessary action component except perhaps in those cases where rescuers are in danger. The authors explore three biblical examples of rescue and recovery to derive a fundamental meaning of the concept.     

Guidance in a New Ancient Land

The Republic of China is developing its guidance programs energetically and rapidly. The Chinese Guidance Association, a young but vigorous professional association, is devoted to research and development of China's student and industrial personnel programs. This APGA sister association has taken long strides ahead in the past eight years through organization of experimental school and college guidance programs, counselor education, development of tests, and distribution of vocational information materials. It has an ambitious and promising “five-year development plan” blocked out for the period 1966–71.     

Effects of decision strategy and number of openings on employment selection decisions

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of two factors—decision strategy and the number of openings—on selection decisions. Two hundred graduate and undergraduate students participated in a human resource employment screening simulation. Decision strategy was varied by having candidates evaluate resumes and letters of application for 20 candidates one-at-a-time (sequentially) or all at once (simultaneously). The number of position openings was either one or three. Decision strategy affected the number of candidates accepted, acceptance threshold, and decision time. The number of openings affected selection decisions in the simultaneous but not the sequential context. Implications of these results for selection processes are discussed.     

Orientation-invariant transfer of training in the identification of rotated natural objects

The effects of stimulus orientation on naming were examined in two experiments in which subjects identified line drawings of natural objects following practice with the objects at the same or different orientations. Half the rotated objects were viewed in the orientation that matched the earlier presentations, and half were viewed at an orientation that mismatched the earlier presentations. Systematic effects of orientation on naming time were found during the early presentations. These effects were reduced during later presentations, and the size of this reduction did not depend on the orientation in which the object had been seen originally. The results are consistent with a dual-systems model of object identification in which initially large effects of disorientation are the result of a normalization process such as mental rotation, and in which attenuation of the effects is due to a shift from the normalization system to a feature/part-based     

The role of observer attitudes in judgments of blame in cases of wife assault

This study examines the importance of observer characteristics in determining blame in cases of wife assault. Four independent variables (observer's attitudes toward sex roles, observer sex and age, and victim behavior) were assessed for their influence on the blaming judgments of 128 participants. Subjects completed a questionnaire that contained demographic items and six wife assault vignettes that varied in level of victim provocation (low or high). Questions about blame of the husband and wife followed each vignette. An attitudes toward women scale (AWS-B) was then administered. The main hypothesis, that subjects with traditional attitudes would blame the victim more and the perpetrator less for the assault than their egalitarian counterparts, was supported, as was the prediction of an interaction between provocation and AWS-B. The results are discussed in light of the role of observer attitudes in attribution models.