A Validity and Multiple Regression Study of Performance in the GEPI as a Predictor for Performance on the GED

This study attempts to determine the relationship between the subtests of the General Education Performance Index (GEPI) and the revised version of the General Educational Development Test (GED), and reports a technique whereby performance on the GEPI may be used to predict performance on the GED. Participants were men and women, aged 16 to 62, who were given the GEPI and then the GED. Multiple regression equations were generated to predict GED scores using age and each GEPI score. No significant correlation was found between age and GED scores or between age and GEPI scores, but a highly significant correlation (p > .001) was found between each GEPI subtest score and the subsequent score attained on the GED. Regression equations for each subtest and cross validation that demonstrated high predictive validity for each regression equation are reported.     

The Relationship of Work Values to Occupational Level in Young Adult Workers

This research was designed to assess the relationship of work values as measured by Super's Work Values Inventory to job level. A total of 202 young adult workers (136 males, 66 females) between the ages of 18 and 25 in unskilled, semiskilled, skilled, and clerical-sales positions were surveyed. Differences in work values by sex and job level were found. Implications for counselors are discussed.     

Social cliques as mental models

The present research investigates how a mental model derived from patterns of sentiment relations (mental clique model) interacts with social background information (membership in social categories). Testing memory for a set of sentiment relations, the data support the assumption that a strongly polarizing categorization interferes with a mental clique model derived from the learning of these sentiment relations. Such interference was claimed to occur whenever sentiment implications from the social categorization would contradict information contained in the mental clique model. In line with this reasoning, balanced triads were selectively impaired in memory as opposed to relations from unbalanced triads which did not allow construction of any clique model and which were not influenced by category interference.     

Gossip and the Self

The relationship between self‐reported gossip, evaluative conversation about other people, and the self was examined with 243 university students completing questionnaires measuring gossip from 2 theoretical viewpoints: as an individual‐difference characteristic, or as having social functions. The self was examined using several perspectives: self‐concept clarity, self‐efficacy, locus of control, and self‐monitoring. Using structural equation modeling, gossip was related to external locus of control, high‐self‐monitoring, low self‐concept clarity, and low self‐efficacy. The final model is that high self‐monitoring and locus of control mediate the relationship between self‐clarity/efficacy and gossip. The study demonstrates the important role of self‐monitoring and locus of control in gossip and that negative gossip may be associated with a more externalized, unclear sense of self.     

The Problematic Role of Responsibility in Contexts of Distributive Justice

It would be surprising if our idea of ourselves as responsible agents did not have a significant place in our understanding of one another as members of a political community with common claims and obligations. We see this idea at work, for example, in disputes about the extent to which the poor are or are not responsible for their lot or smokers for their ill-health. Its most common use, it seems, is to explain and justify differences in shares of economic and other social goods. We see this use implicitly in the following letter to the Editor during the recent Presidential campaign. The author of the letter declares:     

DISPOSITIONAL INFLUENCES ON TRANSFER OF LEARNING IN MULTISTAGE TRAINING PROGRAMS

The training effectiveness literature has paid little attention to the potentially dynamic interaction of individual differences with various phases of training in determining ultimate training success. This study investigates the role of individual differences in explaining the transfer of learning from 1 phase of training to another among pilot trainees in a multistage, aviation training program. Using 3 of the Big Five factors (Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness to Experience), the results showed these measures to contribute to the prediction of the number of hours it took for trainees to attain their private pilot's license. Significant interactions between some of these measures and success on an earlier, simulator phase of the training program were also found. The results are discussed in terms of both the role of individual differences in training research as well as the broader issue of transfer of learning between phases of training.