Validation of physical ability tests for high pressure cleaning occupations

This paper describes the development and validation of a physical performance test battery to select high pressure cleaning workers at Tennessee Eastman Company. The research uses a concurrent, criterion-related validation strategy to demonstrate the relationship between test performance and job performance. The study proceeded through four stages, with data collected in one stage used in subsequent stages. The two types of predictor measures included ability tests and work sample simulations. For some analyses, the work sample simulations were also used as criteria. Four samples of incumbents (N=63) were tested on all experimental measures. Using criterion groups of successful incumbents and unsuccessful former incumbents (N=33), all of the work simulation tests and the ability-referenced tests were significant predictors of successful versus unsuccessful job status. In addition, the ability tests predicted performance on the work sample simulations, particularly for those requiring strength and endurance. A battery of three ability tests resulted in R=.68 for job status and in R=.43, .73, .80, and .84, respectively, for each of the work sample simulations. Two of the three ability tests in the final test battery are likely to result in adverse impact against females. However, data collected on female maintenance technicians indicated women, as a group, would not be screened out categorically as a result of implementing the physical ability test battery.     

SEPARATE AND COMBINED EFFECTS OF METHYLPHENIDATE AND A BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION ON DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR IN CHILDREN WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

We investigated the separate and combined effects of a behavioral intervention and methylphenidate (Ritalin®) on disruptive behavior and task engagement in 3 children with severe to profound mental retardation. The behavioral intervention involved differential reinforcement of appropriate behavior and guided compliance. All 3 children demonstrated decreased disruptive behavior and improved task engagement in response to the behavioral intervention. Two of the 3 children demonstrated similar improvement in response to methylphenidate. Although both interventions were highly effective for these 2 participants, the relative efficacy of the interventions varied between the 2 children. There was no evidence of an additive or synergistic effect of the two interventions, but the high efficacy of each intervention alone limited our ability to detect such effects.     

The Preconditions and Consequences of Relative Deprivation: Two Field Studies1

Two field studies assessed the preconditions and behavioral consequences of relative deprivation. A sample of single mothers receiving government assistance participated in Study 1, and a sample of working women participated in Study 2. We found general support for a 2-factor model of the preconditions of relative deprivation, in which wanting the desired state and deserving the desired state were the best predictors of discontent. In both studies, discontent regarding the status of one's group (i.e., single mothers or working women) was specifically predictive of reports of group-directed protest behaviors. In Study 2, discontent regarding one's own status was specifically predictive of willingness to engage in self-improvement behaviors. Participants in both studies reported more group discontent than personal discontent. These findings provide support from naturalistic settings for the construct of relative deprivation.     

A Systems Approach to the Social Difficulties of Transsexuals in Hong Kong

This paper identifies social difficulties commonly faced by a group of forty-two Hong Kong transsexuals who had applied for sex reassignment surgery. It describes the use of a systems perspective to conceptualize their problems and a structural family therapy approach to social work intervention.     

TV commercials as achievement scripts for women

This study suggests that sex stereotypes implicitly enacted, but never explicitly articulated, in TV commercials may inhibit women's achievement aspirations. Men and women (N=180) viewed locally produced replicas of four current, sex-stereotyped commercials, or four replicas that were identical except that the sex roles were reversed, or (control) named their favorite TV programs. All subjects then wrote an essay imagining their lives “10 years from now.” The essays were coded for achievement and homemaking themes. Women who viewed traditional commercials deemphasized achievement in favor of homemaking, compared to men and compared to women who had seen reversed role commercials. The reversed role commercials eliminated the sex difference in net achievement focus. Control subjects were indistinguishable from their same-sex counterparts in the traditional condition. The results identified some social changes needed to make “equality of opportunity” a social reality for women as well as men.     

Assertiveness,self-actualization,and locus of control in women

An intervention program designed to facilitate psychological growth in middle-aged women was implemented and evaluated. Specifically, the study examined the program's effects on the participants in the areas of assertiveness, externality, and self-actualization at the end of the program and five months later. The results showed significant increases in assertiveness and self-actualization in the women at the posttest and five months later. There was no change in locus of control; most of the women were internally oriented at the pretest and remained the same over time.     

Transgression and altruism: A case for hedonism

A model to account for the positive relationship between transgression and altruism was proposed and tested against three alternative formulations—Guilt, Social Justice, and Self-esteem Bolstering. The proposed model, Negative State Relief, asserts that people in a transgression situation behave charitably in order to reduce a general, negative affective state which is induced by exposure to harm-doing and that if the negative state is relieved by some other means, benevolent activity will be rendered unnecessary. All of the experimental subjects were exposed to an act of transgression; half performed the act themselves while half only witnessed it. In one set of experimental conditions (the relief conditions), a positive event—the receipt of either money or approval—was interposed between the harmful act and a fellow-student's request for aid. In another set of experimental conditions (the norelief conditions), no such positive event occurred. It was found, as predicted, that subjects who received a positive event were significantly less helpful than those who did not, but were not different from a control group which had never been exposed to the transgression. It was also found that harm-doers and harm-witnesses were identical in benevolent tendency. The results were interpreted as favoring a hedonistic conception of the nature of altruism. Finally, it was contended that a U-shaped relationship exists between mood state and helping tendency.