The Making of Female Presidents and Prime Ministers: The Impact of Birth Order, Sex, of Siblings, and Father-Daughter Dynamics

Although research into the factors that may affect male achievement of political leadership is relatively robust, very few studies on the making of female presidents and prime ministers exist. This paper examines the literature on birth order, sex of siblings, and parent-daughter dynamics to see whether the findings for male political leaders—that first-born individuals will be overrepresented as compared with later-born siblings—also hold for female ones. Two other hypotheses were tested concerning differences in birth order and sex of siblings between female political leaders and a larger sample of women. A review of the literature on parent-daughter dynamics suggests that this may be another important variable for future research into explanations for the success of women who achieve senior-level positions of power. The findings suggest that first-born women, like first-born men, are overrepresented among political leaders; that first-born women are overrepresented among female political leaders as compared with their numbers in a larger sample population; and that fewer female political leaders have an older brother than would be expected to occur in a larger sample population. The last finding applies only for women who come to power in the period 1960–1989, not those who gained office more recently.     

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNEE: THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF FACTORS PERCEIVED TO CONTRIBUTE TO SUCCESS

The present study sought to empirically identify what factors are important for international assignee perceived success along with their relative importance. Subjects were 338 international assignees from diverse countries (nationality) and organizations, assigned to diverse countries, and performing diverse jobs. Five factors were identified and in a descending order of importance, these were Family Situation, Flexibility/Adaptability, Job Knowledge and Motivation, Relational Skills, and Extra-Cultural Openness. Although importance ratings were not influenced by job type (managerial/nonmanagerial status), they were influenced by organizational type. In general, the pattern of importance ratings for service organization international assignees was different from those of international assignees from other organizational types. Furthermore, service organization international assignees ascribed more importance to relational and psycho-social factors. The perceived relative importance of psycho-social factors reported by the study's participants tends to suggest that more attention should be paid to these factors in the selection and training of international assignees.     

The Effects of Strategic and Behavioral Family Therapies on Child Behavior and Depression

The efficacy of behavioral and strategic approaches to child-focused family therapy for child behavior and depressive symptomatology was investigated. Participants were 49 clinic-referred families who were randomly assigned to either behavioral or strategic family therapy for 8 to 12 weeks and assessed at pre- and post-test. Results showed that both forms of therapy were equally effective in reducing parent-reported behavior problems and depression in children. In addition, the relationship between child and maternal depression was explored. Significant relationships were found between pre-test levels of depression in children as reported by mothers and mothers' self-reported depression, psychological stress and level of interpersonal discomfort. The results support a relationship between child and maternal depression. The findings also suggest that child-focused family therapy can be effective for both behavioral and depressive symptoms.     

EXPERIENCED HIRING VERSUS COLLEGE RECRUITING: PRACTICES AND EMERGING TRENDS

Although much professional and managerial hiring involves experienced workers, previous recruitment research has focused almost exclusively on new college graduates. To remedy this imbalance, 251 staffing professionals were surveyed concerning experienced-versus-college hiring practices in their organizations. Results suggest that a majority of positions requiring a college degree are filled with experienced workers. Experienced hires are evaluated more highly than new graduates on most characteristics (understanding business, knowledge of competition, realistic expectations, technical skills, interpersonal skills, writing skills, work ethic, likelihood of success, personal ethics), although new graduates are evaluated more highly on open-mindedness and willingness and ability to learn new things. Higher proportions of experienced hiring are associated with organizational growth, short-term staffing strategies, older workforces, and less dynamic business environments. Perceived success of experienced hiring is associated with greater use of effective recruitment sources, older workforces, and more competitive salary offers.     

Hierarchical semantic organization in 6-year-olds

Fifty-eight first graders saw eight pictures of things familiar to them. Subsequently they attempted to recall each picture given as retrieval cues the corresponding noun and four other words. Each set of cue words mapped onto a tree-like, class-inclusion structure. Five predictions based on a model of semantic distance in the structure were confirmed. Contrary to what might have been expected from previous research, the results suggest that class-inclusion hierarchies can serve as the functional basis for retrieving information in children as young as 6 years old.     

Semantic universals in sentence processing and interpretation: A study of Chinese,finnish, Japanese,and Slovenian speakers

The universality of certain aspects of sentence interpretation was investigated with native speakers of a variety of language families.Ss were given, in their own language, the same 156 affirmative and 156 corresponding negative sentences to sort into categories solely on the basis of sentence samples. The categories represented semantic sentence interpretations based on information value and nonsensicality.Ss generally sorted the same sentences (translation equivalents) into the same categories: e.g., Informative,The person is a man; Redundant,The man is a person; Contradictory,The chair is a spouse; Amphigorously Redundant,The chair is not a spouse. A semantic feature analysis indicates thatSs base their interpretations on particular interactions of features. Sets of rules and operations utilizing such feature combinations are formulated and attributed to theSs. Such knowledge is postulated to be universal to speakers of all languages.     

Phonology,reading, and Chomsky and Halle's optimal orthography

Chomsky and Halle claim that an orthography based on their underlying phonological representations (UPR) of lexical items would be optimal for English. This paper challenges three of C & H's basic phonological assumptions, that their vowel shift rule is valid, that the UPR is the only sound representation to be listed in the lexicon, and that derived words do not appear as wholes in the lexicon. A less abstract phonological representation level based on the conscious perceptions of speakers, the surface phonemic (SPR), is proposed. An SPR-based orthography has advantages which a UPR-based orthography would not: it is easy to learn and teach, it can be learned at an early age, and it permits rapid detection of rhyme. It is concluded that an orthography based on SPRs, and not UPRs, would be optimal.This research was supported in part by Office of Education contract OEC-9-71-0036(508), project 1-0527, to D. Steinberg and R. Krohn.