Young people's perceptions of their vocational guidance needs: I. Priorities and pre-occupations

In spring 1981, 1,712 pupils in the third, fourth and fifth years of secondary education at 20 comprehensive schools in England completed a questionnaire about the priorities they gave to different aspects of vocational choice and preparation. Fifth-year pupils were followed up one year later, and perceived needs again recorded. Consistency between year-groups, and between fifth-year and follow-up, was high, suggesting that the perceived needs of even the third-year group were based on a realistic appraisal of the tasks they faced in entering employment. Systematic differences in ranked priority were found, however, with those who had left school giving much greater priority to work experience and less to discussions with family and teachers than those still at school. All ages reported considerable anxiety about finding work, with levels of rated anxiety on the other items being greatest amongst the third-year pupils.     

Word association and availability of response in an aphasic subject

Confirmation of the claim that verbal responses are elicited more easily in aphasia when the range of possible responses is restricted was obtained by comparing stimulus words from a Word Association Test to which an aphasic subject gave three types of responses and those to which she made no response. Contrary to expectation, words of lower frequency in the language did not present more difficulty as stimuli and were given more often as responses than are such words in the norms. It is suggested that a generative model of semantics may be better able to account for such findings than an interpretive dictionary model.This work was assisted by a grant from the Stroke Research Fund.     

Sex differences in college student-teacher interactions: Fact or fantasy?

On-site observations analyzing student-teacher interaction for 50 college classes, matched by level, subject, and teacher's sex, revealed no difference in number and type of interactions in which male and female students participated. In female-taught classes, style differences were found: Male students' interactions were characterized by more student-teacher exchanges than females' interactions. From student questionnaires, differences in office visitation patterns were revealed, showing an apparent relationship to sex: Female students visited more female than male instructors. However, closer examination showed the student's major to be the key variable influencing visitation patterns. Results point to the need for testing a variety of variables in addition to sex before drawing conclusions about sex-related behavior.Ordering of authors was determined alphabetically. A CETA special project grant from the King-Snohomish Manpower Consortium (P. Dee Boersma, principal investigator) funded the research. The authors thank the Institute for Environmental Studies for providing space.     

Endocrine, cardiovascular, and psychological correlated of olfactory sensitivity changes during the human menstrual cycle

Signal detection measures olfactory sensitivity (d') and measures of blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, nasal airflow, and respiration rate were repeatedly established within approximately 2.5-hr test sessions held every other day across 17 menstrual cycles of women not taking oral contraceptives, 6 menstrual cycles of women taking oral contraceptives, and 6 equivalent time periods of three men. In addition, radioimmunoassay-determined serum levels of luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, estrone, estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone, as well as responses to the Moos Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (MDQ), were established daily or bidaily throughout the study periods. Peaks in olfactory sensitivity were noted during the second half of menses, midcycle, and midluteally in women taking and in women not taking oral contraceptives. The lack of correlation between the fluctuations in d' and the circulating hormone levels in the group using oral contraceptives suggests factors other than gonadal hormones were responsible for these changes. Significant fluctuations were also noted across the cycle phases of the normally cycling women for all the hormones examined, as well as for body temperature, nasal airflow, and the MDZ Water Retention and Pain Scales. In the oral contraceptive group, very small but statistically significant changes were observed across the cycle in body temperature and in circulating levels of luteinizing hormone and estrone. Interrelations between a number of the variables were noted both within and across the test periods in all three subject groups. The results are discussed in relation to fluctuations reported in a number of sensory systems during the menstrual cycle.     

The persistence of loneliness: Self and other determinants1

Four studies (total n= 469) examined correlates of loneliness in order to explore explanations for the persistence of loneliness among college students. Self-report and attitude scales, ratings of others following dyadic interactions, and self and other ratings at two points during an extended period of group interactions indicated that lonely students (a) rated themselves more negatively and reported deficits in social skills and self-concept, (b) rated specific others and people-in-general more negatively and were more alienated and externalized, (c) expected others to rate them negatively, but (d) in general were not differentially rated by others except in the initial phase of group interactions and by lonely others following dyadic interactions. Results suggested that loneliness may be perpetuated by its cognitive and affective concomitants, with some evidence for gender differences, whereas inconclusive evidence was found regarding responses of others to the lonely person.     

Mental effort and task interference in auditory attention

Dual-task performance was examined in three experiments. The primary task was to repeat or to add one to four digits presented auditorily at a rate of 1 digit/second. This primary task was combined with three different secondary tasks in which subjects listened to a list of words either for later recognition of some of the words (Experiment 1) or for detection and a later report of a target word (Experiments 2 and 3). Different patterns of task interference were obtained. Recognition performance was sensitive to between-task variations in capacity demands but did not reflect momentary attentional demands within the primary task. Detection performance reflected both between-task and within-task variation in capacity demands of the primary task. The interference between the primary and the secondary task was mutual, with more interference when the selection-cue in the detection task was a category name than when it was the target word itself. These findings are discussed in terms of effort theory of attention and the role of attentional strategies in dual-task performance.