Predicting vocational performance of engineers from selected vocational interest,personality, and scholastic aptitude variables

The study examines the validity of the ACE and selected subscales of the EPPS and SVIB in predicting the vocational performance of engineers. Multidimensional criteria of vocational performance assessed from both external and internal frames of reference were employed. Six predictors were related to 17 vocational performance criteria; of the 102 tests that were made, 7 were found to be statistically significant. The results indicate that, in general, vocational performance cannot be accurately predicted by vocational interest, personality, and scholastic aptitude variables. The only consistent finding was that subjective ratings of vocational performance were predicted by SVIB Group V scores; a “self-esteem” interpretation was posited. Implications of the results for counselors and employers were discussed.     

Socialization and career orientation among black and white college women

In a study of career orientation among black and white college women, support was found for hypotheses derived from postulates of Rotter's Social Learning Theory. Compared to whites, (1) blacks were less likely to expect the level of work involvement preferred; (2) blacks expected more employment; and (3) blacks were more likely to prefer less employment than they realistically expected. Antecedents of career expectation were categorized as internal, external, or neutral. As hypothesized, variables expressive of external control predicted level of career expectation among blacks, whereas variables expressive of internal control predicted high career expectations among whites.     

Children judge "perspective" transformations of letterlike forms as different from prototypes

Children from 5 to 11 years old made same-different judgments of prototypes of letterlike forms paired with transforms of these prototypes generated on a dimension either critical or noncritical for object identification. For compression transformations (noncritical: as in perspective shift), frequency of correct “different” judgments increased as the degree of compression in the transform increased. This result challenges the view that dimensions irrelevant in object identification are ignored or not detected in graphic discrimination.     

Cardiac orienting responses of 6- and 16-week-old infants

Since previous data suggested that the magnitude of orienting evidenced by cardiac deceleration increased over the first 16 weeks of life, 6- and 16-week-old infants were compared on various characteristics of orienting: habituation, dishabituation, and magnitude of deceleration to stimulus offset as well as to stimulus onset. Neither the change in stimulus following habituation trials nor the stimulus offset produced a large enough response to confidently evaluate age differences suggested by the data. Stimulus onset elicited a pronounced deceleration which for the two age groups was of equivalent magnitude on initial trials and declined similarly with stimulus repetition. It was suggested that similarity of the two age groups on these parameters was due to control of state within a narrow alert range, and that, in general, younger infants are less likely than older infants to show orienting when conditions for orienting are marginal.     

A developmental study of attribute encoding in free recall

In two studies, subjects from second-grade, sixth-grade, and college were presented lists of unrelated words for single-trial free recall. Embedded in the list were critical items that were either semantically or phonemically related or else were completely unrelated. The sets of related items were either massed or distributed in the longer list. For second-graders, recall of Phonemic words was better than recall of Semantic words while the reverse was true for sixth-graders. Recall of Semantic distributed words by second-graders and of Phonemic distributed words by sixth-graders did not differ from recall of unrelated words. College students recalled Phonemic and Semantic words equally well and all related words better than unrelated words. Developmental trends were seen in the salience of particular attributes and in the utilization of low salient attributes.     

Visual masking,mental age,and retardation

Performance of retarded subjects under both forward and backward masking was less accurate than either an equivalent chronological age or equivalent mental age group of normals. It was suggested that the iconic memory impairment of retarded subjects in attributable in part to mental retardation and not simply to low mental age.     

Age related changes in the effectiveness of name and visual codes in recognition memory

In the first of three studies college, third grade, and kindergarten Ss were able to determine that two stimuli presented 700 msec apart were the same more quickly if they were visually identical than if they shared the same name. If 3000 msec elapsed between stimulus presentations third grade and college Ss responded at the same rate in making both types of matches, whereas kindergarten Ss appeared to continue to respond more quickly in making visual matches. Study II was an unsuccessful attempt to replicate the kindergarten finding. A warning signal, presented 500 msec prior to the second stimulus, reduced RTs at both interstimulus intervals, but no significant differences in making visual and name matches occurred. In Study III first-graders, responding either with or without a warning signal, were found to respond like the older Ss in Study I. The warning signal again reduced RT at both intervals. The results suggest that Ss across a wide age range are able to use the visual properties of a stimulus for only a very brief period as the basis for making matching judgments.     

The distracting effect of material reward: An alternative explanation for the superior performance of reward groups in probability learning

To determine whether the distraction effect associated with material rewards in discrimination learning can account for the superior performance of reward groups in probability learning, the performance of 144 school children (preschool, second, and fifth grades) on a two-choice successive discrimination task was compared under three reinforcement conditions (material reward, marker, and knowledge of results). The two events in the task had different frequencies of occurrence, as in probability learning, yet they appeared in a constant order to make 100% payoff possible. The subjects in the reward and marker groups learned the task more slowly, and the nonlearners among them used stereotyped alternation patterns to a greater degree than subjects in the knowledge-of-results condition. These findings suggest that a distracting effect of material reward is present in probability learning and may explain the superior performance of reward groups typically found in probability learning studies.     

On mediation

The mediation-nonmediation dichotomy proposed by the Kendlers (Psychological Review, 1962, 69, 1–16) and subscribed to by Cole and Medin (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1973, 15, 352–355) is reviewed and critiqued. It is proposed that the appropriate question for research is how children mediate, not when they mediate.     

Mistreatment of an esteemed other as a consequence affecting dissonance reduction

Recent research has shown that aversive behavioral consequences affect the magnitude of dissonance reduction. The present experiment was conducted to help clarify the meaning of an aversive consequence. In previous research, an aversive event was manipulated by having a subject believe that a counterattitudinal speech he had delivered was successful in convincing one of the subject's colleagues. In the present study, it was argued that convincing a colleague is aversive only to the extent that the colleague is liked. This reasoning was tested in a 2 × 2 factorial experiment in which subjects delivered a counterattitudinal speech to a recipient whom either was or was not liked by the subject and either was or was not convinced by the subject's speech. It was predicted and found that the subject would evidence attitude change only in the condition in which the speech led to the aversive event of successfully convincing an esteemed other. The results were discussed in terms of refining the relationship between attitude discrepant behavior and attitude change.