Career choice and orality

The field of vocational psychology is replete with schemata for the determinants of career choice in adulthood (e.g., A. Roe, The psychology of occupations. New York: Wiley, 1956; D. E. Super, The psychology of careers. New York: Harper &Row, 1957; J. O. Crites, Vocational psychology: The study of vocational behavior and development. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969). A view not given much weight in empirical research in this area is that of psychoanalytic theory relating career choice to unresolved childhood conflicts and their derivatives. To examine the validity of this psychoanalytic prediction, students' Rorschach protocols were analyzed to yield an index of frustrated oral needs. The students were given decks of careers to rank from most to least preferable. Results showed that the ranking of the oral careers was a function of the Rorschach index of frustrated oral needs for women only but not for men.     

Career stage as a moderator of performance relationships with facets of job satisfaction and role perceptions

The relationship between performance indices and facets of job satisfaction, role ambiguity, and role conflict was studied among 102 full-time faculty members across three career stages. Results indicate that an individual's career stage within a profession has an important moderating effect on facets of job satisfaction and role perception relationships with role-related performance.     

An empirical evaluation of multidimensional successive intervals

The multidimensional method of successive intervals and the method of complete triads are applied to similarity judgments of Munsell colors varying in brightness, saturation, and hue. Both methods yield configurations that correlate highly with the Munsell color structure. This validation of these scaling methods in an area of known dimensionality indicates their applicability for exploration in areas of unknown dimensionality. This study was supported in part by the Office of Naval Research contract N6onr-270-20 with Princeton University and also in part by funds from the National Science Foundation. The research was carried out when the author was an Educational Testing Service Psychometric Fellow at Princeton University.     

An axiomatic formulation and generalization of successive intervals scaling

A formal set of axioms is presented for the method of successive intervals, and directly testable consequences of the scaling assumptions are derived. Then by a systematic modification of basic axioms the scaling model is generalized to non-normal stimulus distributions of both specified and unspecified form.     

An evaluation of reality orientation therapy

An evaluation was made of reality orientation therapy utilizing 14 male patients with dementias of various types. The therapy is designed to improve memory and reduce confusion in elderly and demented individuals. Utilizing a group comparison with crossover design, it was found that the patients improved significantly over sessions on orientation items actually taught during those sessions. However, no significant improvement was found on a series of generalization items consisting of orientation-related questions that were not asked during sessions. Furthermore, there was no generalization to ward activities. It was noted that individual responses to the treatment were quite varied, and so three cases reflecting highly different responses are presented.Indebtedness is expressed to the Veterans Administration for support of this research.     

Accuracy of observational data with whole interval,partial interval,and momentary time-sampling recording techniques

The purpose of the study was to compare the accuracies obtained from whole interval, partial interval, and momentary time-sample recording procedures. Two types of accuracies were defined. Between-methods accuracy is the degree to which an observer using a particular recording method agrees with a standard using a continuous recording method. Within-methods accuracy is the degree to which an observer and a standard agree when both use the same recording method. Fifty-four undergraduate students viewed a videotape of a woman twisting her hair and recorded the occurrence or nonoccurrence of the behavior using one of the three recording methods. Tapes were divided into segments with low, intermediate, and high rates of behavior. Partial and whole interval recording obtained poorer between-methods accuracies than momentary time sampling. Results showed that whole interval and momentary time-sampling procedures yielded higher within-method accuracies than partial interval recording. Thus, momentary time-sampling recording provided the advantages of both greater representativeness and as few or fewer observer errors than whole or partial interval recording procedures. Use of the interval recording methods by researchers must be justifiable within this framework.     

The role of bottom-up confirmation in the phonemic restoration illusion

Phonemic restoration is an illusion in which listeners hear spoken words as intact, even though parts of them have been replaced by an extraneous sound. An improved methodology was used to investigate how much the illusion depends upon the bottom-up confirmation of expectations generated at higher levels. A powerful bottom-up factor was phone class of the sound to be restored, and its acoustic similarity to the sound that replaced it. When white noise was the replacement sound, fricatives were better restored than vowels, whereas the pattern reversed with a pure tone replacement. Including a short silence period increased restoration of stop consonants. The data indicate that phonemic restoration depends upon the interplay between the listener's expectations and the acoustic signal.     

Behavioral treatment of obsessive-compulsive neurosis

Three chronic and severe obsessive-compulsive neurotics were treated with behavioral intervention strategies and psychotropic medication. The effects of treatment were evaluated in three separate experiments with single case experimental designs. The results suggest that response prevention was effective in reducing ritualistic behavior while the effects of flooding and antidepressant medication added little to outcome. The results also suggest that strategies aimed only at reducing compulsive behavior per se are insufficient in eliminating other associated difficulties (e.g., depressive symptoms, interpersonal problems) and that a comprehensive approach to treatment is needed.     

A base-free measure of change

A model for the measurement of the discrepancy between two scores is presented and discussed as a paradigm for the study of growth or experimentally produced change. The model assumes two tests or measures differing in complexity, and it analyzes the true difference between the test scores into a component that is entirely dependent on the first or base-line test and a second component that is entirely independent of it. Equations for estimating both components are given and these are compared with other measurement efforts with similar goals.