A Dilemma of Late Life Memory

ABSTRACT Unexpected but vivid and compelling memories are a wide-spread experience in late life. The experience has often been described in literature, and in recent years has been the object of extensive gerontological research under the label ‘life review’. Such memories often include a reversal of judgment about a past act, relationship, event, etc. What earlier was judged to be so is, in the retrospect of late life, judged not to have been so after all. This presents a question: which judgment—the earlier or the later—has better epistemological credentials in such cases? Some obvious possible answers are considered and rejected. It would seem that the issue is not resolvable on epistemological grounds. A parallel dilemma seems to appear in other dimensions of experience. An example from aesthetic experience is briefly considered.     

THE MORAL REQUIREMENT IN THEISTIC AND SECULAR ETHICS

One of the central tasks of meta‐ethical inquiry is to accommodate the common‐sense assumptions deeply embedded in our moral discourse. A comparison of the potential of secular and theistic ethics shows that, in the end, theists have a greater facility in achieving this accommodation task; it is easier to appreciate the action‐guiding authority and binding nature of morality in a theistic rather than in a secular context. Theistic ethics has a further advantage in being able to accommodate not only this essential conceptual feature of morality, but also the existence of moral requirements and their source of normativity.     

EDUCATION AND THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY

Various systemic aspects of animal and human minds are explored. Formulation of a replicative evolutionary model of the mind is presented which is based upon the recognition of this entity as a component system. It can be demonstrated that interactions of neurons have replicative organization. It was concluded that intelligent activity of the animal brain manifest itself in producing and maintaining a kind of environmental model. The environmental model is a higher organization above the level of neurons, its basic functional units are called concepts. Each single concept consists of three parts: (1( cue; (2) referential‐structure; and (3) behavioral‐instructions. Interactions among the various concepts of the brain create a concept‐superstructure which behaves as a dynamic replicative component system in controlling animal and human actions. It is assumed that selection operating in the replicative process of concept making which acts as the main factor in creating ontogenetic variability of behavior. The essential process of learning is selection of concepts generated by the brain and in that way the construction of the evolutionary dynamic concept‐superstructures of the brain's environmental model.     

THE IMPACT OF MOTIVATION,EMPOWERMENT, AND SKILL‐ENHANCING PRACTICES ON AGGREGATE VOLUNTARY TURNOVER: THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF COLLECTIVE AFFECTIVE COMMITMENT

This study advances research on macro human resource management by examining collective commitment as a mediator of motivation, empowerment, and skill‐enhancing practices and aggregate voluntary turnover. Findings from 20 top HR managers and 1,748 employees in 93 different job groups suggest collective affective commitment independently mediates the negative relationships between motivation and empowerment‐enhancing practices and aggregate voluntary turnover. Human resource practices functioning to enhance the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the workforce are positively associated with voluntary turnover but are not mediated by collective affective commitment. Functionally, this paper resolves the divergent thinking of 4 streams of research regarding HR practices, collective commitment and aggregate turnover. The implications for macro‐HRM theory and practice are discussed.     

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN AND WILLIAM FROUDE,F.R.S.

I discuss John Henry Newman's correspondence with William Froude, F.R.S., (1810–79) and his family. Froude remained an unbeliever, and I argue that Newman's disputes with him about the ethics of belief and the relationship between religion and science not only reveal important aspects of his thought, but also anticipate modern discussions on foundationalism, the ethics of beliefs and scientism.     

IS THERE METHOD TO THE MADNESS? EXAMINING HOW RACIOETHNIC MATCHING INFLUENCES RETAIL STORE PRODUCTIVITY

This article considers the efficacy of matching the racioethnicity of employees and the customer base as a human resource strategy within service organizations. Despite being advocated widely, the literature on its effectiveness is scant and riddled with conflicting findings. We revisit the theoretical rationale underlying this strategy, formulate new theory, and introduce the demographic representativeness construct (i.e., the congruence between employee and customer base profiles) to the organizational literature to test our hypotheses. Using multisource data pertaining to 739 stores of a U.S. retailer, the results indicate a positive effect of racioethnic representativeness on productivity, which is accounted for by improved customer satisfaction. Moreover, additional analyses showed this indirect relationship to be more pronounced in stores with larger minority customer bases.     

Computerized Career Information Systems on the College Campus: A Low-Cost,Do-It-Yourself Approach

For a variety of reasons, computerized career information systems have not made any significant impact on college or university campuses. This article attempts to describe an economically feasible approach to designing computerized systems. The actual design and development of such a system on the campus of Virginia Tech University is outlined. We include a discussion of development rationale, cost, program offerings, and potential applications.     

Mutual and unrequited love in adolescence and young adulthood

The purpose of the study was to examine the frequency of experiencing passionate love during adolescence and young adulthood as recalled by young adults, and to examine gender differences in this frequency. Female and male US. introductory psychology students, several of whom were of nontraditional age, responded to a questionnaire that asked about the frequency of their mutual and unrequited love experiences. Respondents provided information for four age periods ranging from childhood to age 25 years. Although the frequency of recalled mutual love experiences increased for both genders from childhood through the 16-to-20-year-age period, men reported more episodes or unrequited love during the 16-to-20-year-age period compared to (a) other age periods, (b) their reports of mutual love during that age period, and (c) the reports of unrequited love for 16-to-20-year-old women.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HR PRACTICES AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: EXAMINING CAUSAL ORDER

Significant research attention has been devoted to examining the relationship between HR practices and firm performance, and research support has assumed HR as the causal variable. Using data from 45 business units (with 62 data points), this study examines how measures of HR practices correlate with past, concurrent, and future operational performance measures. The results indicate that correlations with performance measures at all 3 times are both high and invariant, and that controlling for past or concurrent performance virtually eliminates the correlation of HR practices with future performance. Implications are discussed.