The Motivations to Volunteer: Theoretical and Practical Considerations

Why do significant numbers of people engage in the unpaid helping activities known as volunteerism? Drawing on functional theorizing about the reasons, purposes, and motivations underlying human behavior, we have identified six personal and social functions potentially served by volunteering. In addition to developing an inventory to assess these motivational functions, our program of research has explored the role of motivation in the processes of volunteerism, especially decisions about becoming a volunteer in the first place and decisions about continuing to volunteer.     

Direct comparison of episodic encoding and retrieval of words: an event-related fMRI study

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to compare directly episodic encoding and retrieval. During encoding, subjects studied visually presented words and reported via keypress whether each word represented a pleasant or unpleasant concept (intentional, deep encoding). During the retrieval phase, subjects indicated (via keypress) whether visually presented words had previously been studied. No reliable differences were found during the recognition phase for words that had been previously studied and those that had not been studied. Areas preferentially active during encoding (relative to retrieval) included left superior frontal cortex, medial frontal cortex, left superior temporal cortex, posterior cingulate, left parahippocampal gyrus, and left inferior frontal gyrus. Regions more active in retrieval than encoding included bilateral inferior parietal cortex, bilateral precuneus, right frontal polar cortex, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and right inferior frontal/insular cortex.     

MESA: a new configuration for measuring electromagnetic field fluctuations

This paper describes how the multi-energy sensor array has been refitted to meet the needs of measuring geomagnetic and other types of electromagnetic phenomena in an environment. This portable laptop computer system was designed to measure the interaction of multiple frequencies with the psychological and physiological processes that underlie human exposure to electromagnetic fields across the spectra. New sensors and analytical software have been implemented in the new configuration.     

Attributions and affective reactions of family members and course of schizophrenia.

The authors tested an attribution-affect model of schizophrenic relapse attending to the role of families' positive affect (warmth) and negative affect (criticism). Coders listened to interviews of 40 family members taken from C. E. Vaughn, K. S. Synder, S. Jones, W. B. Freeman, and I. R. Falloon (1984) and rated their attributions of controllability for the symptoms and behaviors of their relatives with schizophrenia. For family members not designated as emotionally overinvolved, perceptions that their ill relatives' symptoms and behaviors were under the patients' control were related to family members' warmth and criticism and to patients' clinical outcomes. Of the affective reactions, only criticism predicted outcome. In addition, patients' use of street drugs was related to attributions, criticism, and outcome. Together these findings suggest that families' attributions and criticism are important in understanding the relationship between family factors and course of illness.     

COMPETITION BETWEEN POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT IN THE TREATMENT OF ESCAPE BEHAVIOR

We compared the effects of reinforcing compliance with either positive reinforcement (edible items) or negative reinforcement (a break) on 5 participants' escape-maintained problem behavior. Both procedures were assessed with or without extinction. Results showed that compliance was higher and problem behavior was lower for all participants when compliance produced an edible item rather than a break. Treatment gains were achieved without the use of extinction. Results are discussed regarding the use of positive reinforcement to treat escape behavior.     

THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS, GENERAL MENTAL ABILITY, AND CAREER SUCCESS ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN

The present study investigated the relationship of traits from the 5-factor model of personality (often termed the "Big Five") and general mental ability with career success. Career success was argued to be comprised of intrinsic success (job satisfaction) and extrinsic success (income and occupational status) dimensions. Data were obtained from the Intergenerational Studies, a set of 3 studies that followed participants from early childhood to retirement. The most general findings were that conscientiousness positively predicted intrinsic and extrinsic career success, neuroticism negatively predicted extrinsic success, and general mental ability positively predicted extrinsic career success. Personality was related to career success controlling for general mental ability and, though adulthood measures of the Big Five traits were more strongly related to career success than were childhood measures, both contributed unique variance in explaining career success.     

Rape Myths and Hookup Culture: An Exploratory Study of U.S. College Students' Perceptions

The present study provides the first known systematic examination of the association of hookup culture endorsement and rape myth acceptance. Multivariate regression analysis was conducted to test the primary hypothesis that hookup culture endorsement would be the primary predictor of rape myth acceptance levels among a sample of 422 U.S. college students. Findings indicated the existence of a complex relationship in which rape myth acceptance increases or decreases based upon the form of hookup culture endorsement examined. Beliefs that hookups are harmless and elevate social status increased rape myth acceptance, whereas beliefs that hookups express sexual freedom decreased rape myth acceptance. Furthermore, results supported the hypothesis that hookup culture endorsement was the largest predictor of rape myth acceptance. Consistent with previous studies, the predictive power of gender and religiosity in determining levels of rape myth acceptance were shown to be significant. When controlling for levels of hookup culture endorsement, the explanatory power of these variables decreased, and hookup culture endorsement had the largest effect upon rape myth acceptance levels.     

Does the level at which cognitive change occurs change with age?

Increased age in adulthood is associated with systematically more negative cognitive change, but relatively little is known about the nature of change at different ages. The present study capitalized on the hierarchical structure of cognitive abilities to investigate possible age differences in the level at which change operates. Reductions in the longitudinal associations between test scores when across-time relations were specified at different levels in the hierarchical structure were used to infer contributions to change from the level of abilities and from the level of a general factor. Although the pattern of influences varied across different cognitive abilities, the results revealed little or no age differences in the relative contributions to change from different levels in the hierarchy.