Unemployed Adults’ Career Thoughts,Career Self‐Efficacy,and Interest: Any Similarity to College Students?

Little empirical knowledge about unemployed adults exists during a time when this group needs substantial career assistance. Because there is greater empirical understanding of college student career development compared with what is known about unemployed adults, a chi square and analyses of covariance were used to compare the career thinking, self‐efficacy, and interests of 169 unemployed adults seeking public job center assistance with that of 200 college students. Additionally, a diverse sample of 2,444 unemployed adults is demographically reviewed. Unemployed adults reported a higher level of Realistic interests and similar levels of negative career thinking and career decision‐making self‐efficacy compared with college students.     

THE EFFECTS OF THE QUESTION “WHAT IS THIS?” ON TACT-TRAINING OUTCOMES OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Tact training is a common element of many habilitative programs for individuals with developmental disabilities. A commonly recommended practice is to include a supplemental question (e.g., “What is this?”) during training trials for tacts of objects. However, the supplemental question is not a defining feature of the tact relation, and prior research suggests that its inclusion might sometimes impede tact acquisition. The present study compared tact training with and without the supplemental question in terms of acquisition and maintenance. Two of 4 children with autism acquired tacts more efficiently in the object-only condition; the remaining 2 children acquired tacts more efficiently in the object + question condition. During maintenance tests in the absence of the supplemental question, all participants emitted tacts at end-of-training levels across conditions with no differential effect observed between training conditions.Key words: autism, language training, stimulus control, tacts, verbal behaviorSkinner (1957) defined the tact as a response “evoked by a particular object or event or property of an object or event” (p. 82) and considered it to be one of the most important verbal operants. Tacts are maintained by generalized social reinforcement and, thus, they are central to many social interactions. For example, the tact “That cloud looks like a horse” (under the control of a visual stimulus) could evoke a short verbal interaction about the sky or horses. The tact “My tummy hurts” (under the control of an interoceptive stimulus) could evoke soothing statements from a parent. A child who tacts “doggie” in the presence of a cat likely would evoke a correction statement from an adult, further refining two stimulus classes (i.e., dog and cat). These examples illustrate that, despite their topographical differences, the tact relations share antecedent control by a nonverbal discriminative stimulus (S^D) and are maintained by generalized social reinforcement.In habilitative programs for individuals with language impairments, autism, and intellectual disabilities, tacts often are taught for objects (e.g., ball), object features (e.g., color, size, shape), activities (e.g., jumping), prepositions (e.g., between), and emotions (e.g., sad) among others. Although conceptualized differently among therapeutic approaches, the tact relation occupies a central position in many early-intervention curricula. For example, Lovaas (2003) and Leaf and McEachin (1999) describe these relations as expressive labels and recommend that they be taught early in language training using three-dimensional objects accompanied by the supplemental questions “What is it?” or “What''s this?” Alternatively, Sundberg and Partington (1998) explicitly refer to the relation as a tact and recommend beginning instruction by including the question “What is it?” before eventually fading the question. In addition to these clinical manuals, the use of supplemental questions during tact training has appeared in some empirical studies on tact or expressive-label training (e.g., Braam & Sundberg, 1991; Coleman & Stedman, 1974), but not others (e.g., Williams & Greer, 1993). Regardless of whether tact training initially includes supplemental questions prior to response opportunities, tacts ultimately should be emitted readily under the sole control of the nonverbal S^D as well as when it happens to be accompanied by a question.Conceptually, at least four potential problems could arise from introducing supplemental questions early and consistently in tact training. First, the acquired responses might not be emitted unless the question is posed (i.e., prompt dependence). This problem would lead to few spontaneous tacts occurring outside the explicit stimulus control of the training environment. Williams and Greer (1993) compared comprehensive language training conducted under the stimulus control specified in Skinner''s (1957) taxonomy of verbal behavior to a more traditional psycholinguistic perspective with supplemental questions and instructions embedded within trials. For all three adolescents with developmental disabilities, the targets taught from the verbal behavior perspective were maintained better in natural contexts than those taught from the psycholinguistic perspective. However, because data were not reported for each individual verbal operant, it is unclear what specific impact their tact-training procedures had on the outcomes.The second potential problem is that the supplemental question might acquire intraverbal control over early responses and interfere with the acquisition of subsequent tact targets. For example, Partington, Sundberg, Newhouse, and Spengler (1994) showed that the tact repertoire of a child with autism had been hindered by prior instruction during which she was asked “What is this?” while being shown an object. The supplemental question subsequently evoked previously acquired responses and blocked the ability of new nonverbal S^Ds (i.e., objects) to evoke new responses. Partington et al. then showed that new tacts were acquired by eliminating the supplemental question from instructional trials.The third potential problem is that learners might imitate part of or the entire supplemental question prior to emitting the target response (e.g., “What is it” → “What is it … ball.”). For example, Coleman and Stedman (1974) demonstrated that a 10-year-old girl with autism imitated the question “What is this?” while being taught to label stimuli depicted in color photographs. Such an outcome results in a socially awkward tact repertoire and requires additional intervention to remedy the problem.Finally, including supplemental questions during tact training might impede skill acquisition, perhaps via a combination of the problems described earlier. Sundberg, Endicott, and Eigenheer (2000) taught sign tacts to two young children with autism who had prior difficulty acquiring tacts. In one condition, the experimenter held up an object and asked, “What is that?” In the comparison condition, the experimenter intraverbally prompted the participant to “sign [object name]” in the presence of the object. Sundberg et al. demonstrated substantially more efficient tact acquisition under the sign-prompt condition than when the question “What is that?” was included in trials; the latter condition sometimes failed to produce mastery-level responding.Teaching an entire tact repertoire while including supplemental questions (e.g., “What is it?”) during training trials could produce a learner who is able to talk about his or her environment only when asked to do so with similar questions. To the extent that this is not a therapist''s clinical goal, teaching the tact under its proper controlling variables may eliminate such problems. Of course, inclusion of supplemental questions during the early phases of language training could be faded over time such that the target tact relation is left intact prior to the end of training (Sundberg & Partington, 1998). However, the aforementioned studies have documented problems with using supplemental questions during tact training. Given the ubiquity of tact training in habilitation programs, the numerous problems that may arise when supplemental questions are included in training trials, and the limited research on the topic, further investigation is warranted. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to compare directly the rate of acquisition and subsequent maintenance of tacts taught using only a nonverbal S^D (i.e., object only) with tacts taught using a question (“What is this?”) in conjunction with the nonverbal S^D (i.e., object + question). The present study extends earlier research by examining both acquisition and maintenance and by including individuals with no prior history of formal tact training.     

On Categories and A Posteriori Necessity: A Phenomenological Echo

This article argues for two related theses. First, it defends a general thesis: any kind of necessity, including metaphysical necessity, can only be known a priori. Second, however, it also argues that the sort of a priori involved in modal metaphysical knowledge is not related to imagination or any sort of so‐called epistemic possibility. Imagination is neither a proof of possibility nor a limit to necessity. Rather, modal metaphysical knowledge is built on intuition of philosophical categories and the structures they form.     

Psychological Profiles of Individuals Seeking Ordination in the Episcopal or Presbyterian (PCUSA) Churches: Comparisons and Contrasts

The present study examined the psychological profiles of 138 candidates for ordained ministry from the Episcopal (n = 90) and Presbyterian Church (USA) (n = 48). Employing scales scores from the MMPI-2, MCMI-III, and 16PF-5, we used a series of one-way ANOVAs to test for differences between genders, denominations, and (for Episcopalians) ordination type and completion versus non-completion of the ordination process. Our results suggest that, consistent with the literature, these future clergy were generally well-adjusted and socially skilled. Denominational differences in our sample were virtually non-existent. While similar on most dimensions, female candidates may appraise their circumstances and relationships with a greater emphasis on emotional considerations than their male counterparts. Differences between Episcopal candidates for the Priesthood and the Deaconate were consistent with differences in their respective leadership and support roles. Finally, discriminant function analysis indicated that candidates who completed their ordination appeared to have a more realistic and positive attitude toward the process as well as a more deferential and less independent orientation than those who did not.