Assessing personal work goals in the organizational setting: Development and evaluation of the work concerns inventory

This article reports on the development of an instrument for assessing the personal work goals of employees. The Work Concerns Inventory (WCI) combines idiographic and nomothetic methods to obtain a list of employee work goals and characterizations of those goals on behavior-relevant variables. The goal characteristics assessed on the WCI come from expectancy-value and behavioristic models of goal choice. The internal structure and validity of the WCI for predicting goal-directed behavior were examined in a field study involving 172 employees. The results indicated support for most hypotheses. The hypothesized relationships among the instrument's scales were supported. Goal characteristics predicted the frequency of goal-directed behavior, indicating that optimal prediction of behavior was achieved through the use of both cognitive and operant variables. The findings support the validity of the WCI and promote future research on how personal work goals influence organizational behavior.     

Effects of cognition on the psychophysical function

Previous investigation of the deterministic-sensory and the probability-sensory-learning models of psychophysical relationships have featured the manipulation of a single cognitive cue. The present study sought to expand these findings through the manipulation of multiple cognitive cues. Subjects made magnitude estimations of skin-area contact for each of two sets which varied identically in surface area but differed in that one set also varied in accelerative force. Within sets, three treatments featured systematic variation in the presentation of cognitive cues. Power functions were obtained for all treatments and the results supported the deterministic-sensory model. It was suggested, however, that resolution of the perception versus cognition issue must await the identification of innate and conditioned correlates of the subjective response to specific sensory stimuli.     

Effects of television modeling on residential energy conservation

A combination of social marketing, communications, social learning (particularly modeling), and behavior analysis may provide an effective framework for behavior change via films and television. We used this approach in developing special television programs about residential energy conservation. The programs were tailored and directed to preselected middle-class homeowners (N = 150), and delivered over a public access channel of a cable TV system. The results indicated that after one program exposure (about 20 minutes), viewers adopted simple strategies modeled in the programs which led to savings of approximately 10% on their home energy use for a substantial part of the cooling and heating season. Although the potential benefits to costs of large-scale media efforts seemed great, institutional barriers for such programs were identified. Less expensive, more local programs seem more viable.     

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: A Tool for Appreciating Employee and Client Diversity

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is based on Jungian psychological theory and provides a tool for counselors to understand themselves and appreciate the diversity of their clients. Ways to apply the Indicator in work situations, research on type related to careers, and suggestions for employment counselors' use are presented. The most important reason for using the MBTI is that it provides a way of appreciating human differences and enhancing self-esteem.     

Participant differentiation of nonclinical fear and anxiety

Participants in four studies rated remembered experiences of fear and anxiety on scales reflecting characteristics postulated to distinguish anxiety from fear. Similarities and differences were found in ratings of the two emotion situations. Some obtained rating contrasts might indicate only quantitative differences, but many were consistent with qualitative distinctions in clinical and theoretical literatures and were interpreted as providing consensual validation for them. While both emotions involved pain, threat, uncertainty, and arousal, anxiety entailed greater future orientation, duration, frequency of occurrence, temporal uncertainty, inhibition, and sensitivity of self-concept to evaluation by self and others. A few rating contrasts appeared to contradict theoretical claims: e.g., noxiousness, helplessness, and response unavailability were greater with fear. It was suggested that some qualitative criteria for differentiating the two emotions are context-sensitive and may interact with a quantitative criterion.     

Kinship and affiliative behavior patterns in a captive group of Celebes black apes (Macaca nigra)

The influence of matrilineal kinship on four socially affiliative behavior patterns--grooming, contact, proximity, and play--was studied in a little-known primate species, the Celebes black ape (Macaca nigra). Twenty group-living black apes, comprising four genealogical groups, were observed for more than 100 hr; data were collected by the instantaneous scan technique. Animals spent more time than was expected by chance grooming, in contact with, and in proximity to their matrilineal relatives, but they did not play with relatives more than was expected. The proximal mechanisms responsible for these results are unknown, and increased familiarity among matrilineal relatives may have influenced the interaction patterns in the group. The results obtained in this study are similar to those of many others that demonstrate differential behavior toward kin, and they are consistent with the theory that animals may increase their inclusive fitness by interacting preferentially with relatives.     

How does coping help people resist lapses during smoking cessation?

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether types of coping strategies have differential effects on preventing lapses and lowering urge levels and to investigate mechanisms by which coping strategies prevent lapses during smoking cessation. DESIGN: Sixty-one respondents performed ecological momentary assessment using palm-top computers and tape recorders to report their coping strategies and urge levels before and after temptations to smoke. Multilevel linear regression models were used to compare the effects of individual strategy types with the average strategy. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Lapses versus resisted temptations and changes in urge levels. RESULTS: Number of strategies significantly predicted resisting smoking and change in urge levels. Compared with the effect of the average strategy, movement/exercise was marginally worse at preventing lapses, and food/drink was marginally related to higher postcoping urge levels. CONCLUSION: Although using multiple coping strategies helps people resist the urge to smoke, no particular coping strategy works better than any other. Coping strategies prevent lapses by reducing high urge levels during temptations.     

Detection and resolution of audio-visual incompatibility in the perception of vowels

If audio and video recordings of a talker speaking consonant-vowel syllables containing different consontants are approximately synchronised, observers may fail to detect conflict between the modalities and perceive consonants presented in neither individual modality. The present experiments demonstrate an analogous effect in the perception of vowels. Vision can bias the identity of an acoustical vowel to be more like the vowel presented visually, even when observers detect conflict and are instructed to report only what they hear. The size of the effect is positively related to the size of the physical difference between the visible configuration of the lips and the configuration that would naturally accompany the acoustical vowel. In demonstrating these and other phenomena in audio-visual speech perception, observers behave as if they compute a continuous estimate of the filter function of the vocal tract from both visual and acoustical evidence. If the visual evidence is potent, observers may appear to interpret the acoustical evidence in novel ways. However, these compromises can be predicted from known patterns of acoustical similarity and visual distinctiveness and do not require ad hoc explanations involving categorical levels of perceptual process.     

Establishing and Evaluating the Key Functions of an Interactive Systems Framework Using an Assets-Getting to Outcomes Intervention

Community practitioners can face difficulty in achieving outcomes demonstrated by prevention science. Building a community practitioner's prevention capacity—the knowledge and skills needed to conduct critical prevention practices—could improve the quality of prevention and its outcomes. The purpose of this article is to: (1) describe how an intervention called Assets‐Getting To Outcomes (AGTO) was used to establish the key functions of the ISF and present early lessons learned from that intervention's first 6 months and (2) examine whether there is an empirical relationship between practitioner capacity at the individual level and the performance of prevention at the program level—a relationship predicted by the ISF but untested. The article describes an operationalization of the ISF in the context of a five‐year randomized controlled efficacy trial that combines two complementary models designed to build capacity: Getting To Outcomes (GTO) and Developmental Assets. The trial compares programs and individual practitioners from six community‐based coalitions using AGTO with programs and practitioners from six similar coalitions that are not. In this article, we primarily focus on what the ISF calls innovation specific capacity and discuss how the combined AGTO innovation structures and uses feedback about its capacity‐building activities, which can serve as a model for implementing the ISF. Focus group discussions used to gather lessons learned from the first 6 months of the AGTO intervention suggest that while the ISF may have been conceptualized as three distinct systems, in practice they are less distinct. Findings from the baseline wave of data collection of individual capacity and program performance suggest that practitioner capacity predicts, in part, performance of prevention programs. Empirically linking practitioner capacity and performance of prevention provides empirical support for both the ISF and AGTO. Special Issue: Advances in Bridging Research and Practice Using the Interactive System Framework for Dissemination and Implementation; Guest Editors: Abraham Wandersman, Paul Flaspohler, Catherine A. Lesesne, Richard Puddy; Action Editor: Emilie Phillips Smith