Graduate Students' Relationships with Their Male and Female Major Professors

Structured interviews of ten female studentswith male major professors, ten female students withfemale major professors, ten male students with malemajor professors, and ten male students with female major professors were content-analyzed forevidence of differences related to student-professorgender combination. These quantitative and qualitativecontent analyses indicated no differences inprofessional relationships. However, with respect topsychosocial relationships, there were some advantagesto male students and disadvantages to female studentsassociated with having male major professors. Forexample, compared to other gender combinations, femaleswith male major professors made the greatest number ofnegative psychosocial comments and met with their majorprofessors in the fewest number of nonacademic environments. Males with male major professorsmet in the greatestnumber of nonacademic environmentsand placed their major professors on their lists ofsupportive people most often.     

Judgments About Sexism: A Policy Capturing Approach

Different definitions of sexism have been usedby different experimenters and little attention has beengiven to the possibility that participants' definitionsof sexism might vary across individuals and across situations, just as the definitions ofinvestigators vary. Judgments about sexism areinextricably based on individual perceptions, values,and beliefs. It would seem reasonable, therefore toexamine individual conceptions of what constitutessexism. A total of 95 primarily middle-class Caucasianparticipants (68 females, 27 males) participated inthree studies investigating what information people use in deciding whether or not a male actor issexist. Six specific categories of information (or cues)were examined: (1) comments (or lack thereof) by theactor on a female target's physical appearance, (2) unwanted or inappropriate physical contact(or lack thereof), (3) assumptions (or lack thereof)about the target's work, personality, etc., based on hergender, (4) the target being interrupted (or not) by the actor, (5) an apparent powerdifferential (or lack thereof) between the actor and thetarget, and (6) assumptions by the actor aboutappropriate gender role behaviors. A policy capturingmethodology was employed in which three different sets ofscenarios, each describing a number of interactions(called profiles) between a target and an actor, werepresented to male and female participants who rated the degree of sexism exhibited by the actor ineach scenario. Policy capturing represents anideographic approach to research in which the primaryfocus is on establishing statistical parameter estimates that describe each individual's behavior in avariety of environmental situations. Only when that isaccomplished does the researcher examine the possiblenomothetic aggregations across participants. Thus many fewer participants are required than intraditional nomothetic approaches. Each profile set useda different subset of the cues which contained eithersubtle (Study 1), overt (Study 2), or very overt (Study 3)levels of the cues. Multipleregression analysis revealed that when relatively overtacts of sexism were described, most participants hadreliable policies; that is, their judgments werepredictable from the cues. However, when relatively subtleacts of sexism were described, most participants did nothave reliable policies; that is, their judgments werenot very predictable from the cues. There were large individual differences in howparticipants weighted the importance of various cues,especially with subtle cue levels, and in participants'mean sexism ratings.     

Use of mental health services among severely emotionally disturbed children and adolescents in San Francisco

This study examined the mental health services available to severely emotionally disturbed children and adolescents in San Francisco. Social, familial, developmental, and clinical data—as well as service use histories—on 192 youths were collected. Results indicated high levels of family dysfunction, physical and sexual abuse, and neglect in the total study population. The study also identified case history and demographic factors that were associated with repeated psychiatric inpatient hospitalizationand high annual rates of change in residential placement. These factors included being male, older, non-English-speaking, and having a history of physical and sexual abuse. The impact of the service system on the lives and course of illness of these youth is discussed and future directions for research are suggested.     

Integrating systems of care in California for youth with severe emotional disturbance. I. A descriptive overview of the California AB377 evaluation project

This paper presents an overview and an initial set of findings from an evaluation in three California counties of a replication of an integrated system of care for youth suffering from serious emotional disturbance. The development of the innovative system of care was pioneered in Ventura County, California, and the replications were legislatively enabled through AB377 (Assembly Bill 377). This paper focuses on one set of variables being studied in the evaluation: the characteristics of the youth enrolled in the care systems. This variable is important because personnel in the counties are explicitly deciding which youth are eligible for services given limited available public resources. Within the model system of care, clinical severity and risk status (being at-risk ofor in out-of-home placement) are used as the criteria for enrollment with the intent of serving those most in need as effectively as possible. The gender, age, clinical diagnosis, ethnicity, and global assessment of functioning (GAF) scores of these youth are presented. In general, the youth served are male, have low GAF scores, and predominantly receive clinical diagnoses of affective disorders and disruptive behavior disorders. African-Americans are overrepresented in the care systems relative to the general population and Asian-Americans are underrepresented.     

Integrating systems of care in california for youth with severe emotional disturbance II: Initial group home expenditure and utilization findings from the California AB377 Evaluation Project

The California AB377 Evaluation Project was established to study the replication of an innovative system of care in three California counties for youth suffering from severe emotional disturbance. Development of the innovative system of care was pioneered in Ventura County, California, and the replications were legislatively enabled through Assembly Bill 377 (AB377). This paper reports evaluative findings about a central goal of the innovative care system: the reduction of use of highly restrictive out-of-home placements though creation and maintenance of coordinated and effective community-based services. Group home facilities are the focus of the evaluation work because these facilities consume the largest proportion of all public expenditures for youth in residential placements in California. More than 10 years of aggregate county and state level monthly expenditure and utilization data are presented. The results indicate that the demonstration counties have generated lower per capita inflation adjusted rates of expenditures and per capita group home placements than California as a whole. The evaluation results provide evidence that an integrated system of care can reduce group home placements. However, the nature, quality and effectiveness of any and/or all alternative services provided remains a topic for further investigation.     

Situational and Dispositional Predictors of Performance: A Test of the Hypothesized Machiavellianism Structure Interaction Among Sales Persons1

The hypothesized interaction found in laboratory studies between situational structure and Machiavellianism was tested on working samples of sales representatives. The results suggested that success or failure of Machiavellian tactics used in sales organizations appears to depend on the organization's structure: In loosely structured sales organizations high Machiavellians significantly outperformed low Machiavellians, but in tightly structured sales organizations, high Machiavellians failed to outperform low Machiavellians. These results and implications for future research are discussed.     

Activity settings as the unit of analysis: A theoretical basis for community intervention and development

Theory, methods, and action develop within context, one of which is the intellectual climate of an era. Community psychology is directly and indirectly interactive with many intellectual currents, such as postmodernism, semiotics, hermeneutics, and dialogism. These ideas are discussed as they impact on community psychology, with an emphasis on the reemergence of meaning as a central condition of psychology and community. Meaning is of key importance to the unifying concept in the transactional theoretical model which is presented. How this model might serve as a conceptual framework for an asset approach to community intervention and development is discussed. Increasingly, it is recognized that the development of theory to guide community research and action is necessary to advance intervention and to realize the potential of community psychology. It is argued that community psychology is positioned by concepts and practice squarely at the point of emerging thought, and can make fuondational contributions to general social science. The next article in this special section illustrates concepts of this model in an early education program and the remaining article illustrates the influence of ecocultural factors.     

A model system for psychotherapy research data management

An on-line data management system was developed to provide optimal access to research data. The specific application involved collecting data on four outcome measures from patients receiving brief psychotherapy to ameliorate a stress response syndrome. The on-line data management system also was designed to be transported to other research settings; a variety of other applications of this system are suggested. The need for such a system, the elements that it comprises, its operation, and its availability also are covered.     

Improving Prediction of Academic Achievement for Transfer Students

The most widely used index for admission of transfer students, grade-point average at prior college, was found to be minimally correlated with subsequent grades. Better predictors of transfer GPA were high school GPA and scores on tests of English usage and mechanical reasoning. While based on 260 transfers at one university, these results suggest that a combination of other academic and intellective variables should replace the traditional transfer predictor—a C average at some other school.