Pyramid Power in Career Development

Stewart and Nejedlo discuss the use of the Career Development Pyramid as a model for career development and as a practical aid in career counseling. The model graphically depicts the synergistic relations of career choice factors, life-style, self-concept, and the specific job. The authors discuss the relationship between the quadrihedral model and current career development theories. They suggest applied uses of the pyramid and provide a working plan for copy and use by career development counselors.     

Intracranial cannulation of small animals

Special difficulties are encountered when attempting to provide intracranial cannulation of small animals that have floating or fragile skull bones. The technique described was developed for mice but seems applicable to other species. The cannula system is inexpensive and easy to use. A wound clip anchor seems superior to either skull screws or bonded acrylic, producing less damage to the brain and no necrosis of bone or tissue on the wound margin. Patency data up to 25 days is presented, and the system is as efficacious as other techniques.     

Psychological adjustment in transvestism and transsexualism

Thirty-four transvestites who had shown fetishistic arousal in association with cross-dressing were categorized into two groups on the intensity of feminine gender identity. The two transvestite groups were compared to a group of 24 non-fetishistic transsexuals who sought a full sex change operation. Ss in all three groups reported greater current psychological stress and scored higher on neuroticism and introversion than Ss in a normal population. A large proportion of Ss in the three groups had previously sought psychiatric help. The degree of psychological maladjustment was not related to the intensity of feminine gender identity.     

The object-detection effect: configuration enhances perception.

Line drawings used by Weisstein and Harris (1974) are seen as box-like three-dimensional figures if the lines are arranged properly. A flat two-dimensional pattern is seen when these same lines are disarranged. A target line contained within the three-dimensional figure is identified more readily than is the same line contained within a two-dimensional figure. This finding was extended in the present experiments: The three-dimensional stimulus was detected more quickly than the two-dimensional stimulus, under conditions of visual backward masking. Three-dimensional stimuli were also classified more quickly than two-dimensional stimuli. Just as with the face-detection effect and the word-detection effect, object detection can be affected by the form of the visual stimulus.     

The polyserial correlation coefficient

The polyserial and point polyserial correlations are discussed as generalizations of the biserial and point biserial correlations. The relationship between the polyserial and point polyserial correlation is derived. The maximum likelihood estimator of the polyserial correlation is compared with a two-step estimator and with a computationally convenient ad hoc estimator. All three estimators perform reasonably well in a Monte Carlo simulation. Some practical applications of the polyserial correlation are described.By coincidence, the first author and the second and third authors learned that they were working independently on closely related problems and, consequently, decided to write a jointly authored paper.     

A retrospective survey of students' views on a family therapy training programme

This paper describes the development of the training programme offered at the Family Institute in Cardiff and presents the results of a retrospective survey reflecting the 'consumers' views of the programme. Questionnaires were sent to all students who had trained at the Institute between 1972 and 1977, to elicit information about their views of the placement, as well as their post-qualifying experience, activities and interest in family therapy. A briefer preliminary report has been published earlier (Dowling and Seligman, 1980).     

Emotional Reactions to News Events1

This study was designed to determine (a) what dimensions underlie emotional reactions to news events, (b) whether these dimensions are independent, (c) whether reactions to major news events are similar for different groups of people, and (d) whether a simple method could be developed for evaluating emotional reactions to news events. Subjects rated the similarity of their emotional reactions to 20 page-one newspaper stories in a paired-comparison task. The data were multidimensionally scaled using the KYST computer program. Two dimensions emerged that accounted for 89% of the judgment variance: pleasure/displeasure and degree of arousal. Interpretation of these dimensions was verified using a semantic differential task. The two dimensions were not independent. They were related by a U-shaped function: News events farther from evaluative neutrality were judged more arousing. A second study with 40 news events and a different subject population replicated these findings. Subjects' ratings of news events on three scales (happy, important, and exciting) were sufficient to recover the KYST dimensions. The theoretical and practical implications of these. results are discussed.