The validity of the Crites model of career maturity

To test the validity of the Crites model of career maturity, career maturity and noncareer maturity measures were administered to 312 ninth graders and to 200 technical college students. Scores on all measures were intercorrelated and factor analyzed. The results show that, as predicted, most of the Career Choice Competencies have more in common with each other than they have with Career Choice Attitudes; Career Choice Competencies are fairly highly positively related to each other; Career Choice Attitudes and Career Choice Competencies have more in common with each other in grade 9 than they do in the post-secondary grades; and there is a relationship between career maturity and sex and race of ninth graders and technical college students. The results do not support the hypothesized multidimensional structure of the Crites model or the hypothesis that variables in the Crites model have more in common with each other than they have with noncareer maturity variables. Discussion includes several possible explanations for failure to support the Crites model, and suggestions for further research.     

Evaluation of a parent's manual for training enuretic children

An operant method of training enuretic children had previously been evaluated by direct training of the child and parent. A manual describing the method was used by 13 parents in the present study with no professional assistance. Bedwetting was reduced from its pre-treatment level of 68% of the nights to 27% during the first week. 10% during the third month and 7% the sixth month. These results closely approximated those obtained previously with direct training.     

Quota vs positional power in four-person apex games

In coalition formation experiments, which coalitions will form and how players in coalitions will allocate their jointly gained rewards are typically predicted as a function of the players' relative power. In this paper, we isolated two logically independent sources of a player's power: the player's contribution to the rewards obtainable by coalitions of which he may be a member (“quota power”), and the number of distinct coalitions which a player may join (“positional power”). The separation of the two types of power is clearly shown in apex games, where a single player (Apex) attempts to lure any of the other players (Base) from the coalition of all Bases. A series of four-person computer-controlled apex and nonapex characteristic function games, varying with respect to the relationship of quota power to positional power, were played by 15 quartets of male players. Quota power was strongly manifested in all outcome measures, while positional power appeared only as a bias toward equal allocations of reward when coalitions among players of equal positional power formed. Neither of two social psychological theories that are applicable, pivotal power and weighted probability theory, predicted coalition frequencies. In a test of five solution concepts, the competitive bargaining set predicted payoff allocations better than either of the two aforementioned theories, the kernel, or an equal-split model.     

Cerebral lateralization and reading dysfunction

The laterality preference patterns and types of oral reading errors were examined for 90 seventh-grade males. Specifically, scores on a self-report measure of lateral preference for 30 readers with adequate decoding skills but low comprehension and 30 readers who lacked decoding skills were compared with each other and with 30 good readers. As predicted, poor readers with grade appropriate word recognition scores were found to be generally more confused in their lateral preference than were good readers or poor readers who lacked decoding skills. Results of oral reading errors confirmed a visual integration problem for the more bilateral reader. Poor comprehenders with word recognition skills also reported significantly greater mixed lateral patterns for their fathers than did other readers. The results were interpreted as supporting the initial argument that difference-poor readers fail to comprehend because of problems in organizing visual input, which seems intimately tied to a bilateralization of functions.     

Reactions to objective self-awareness

In order to determine reactions to objective self-awareness, 96 female undergraduates received either positive or negative feedback on a “creativity” task prior to being given an opportunity to write a response to a visual cue. Half of the subjects were made objectively self-aware, via a mirror, during the visual cue task; half were not. In addition, half of the subjects were led to believe that the visual cue task was highly related to creativity, while half learned that the task was low in relevance. A “longer the response, the better” standard of correctness was established for all subjects. As predicted, the results indicated that when made objectively self-aware, subjects who received negative feedback wrote more in response to the visual cue than did those who received positive feedback, a difference which was not obtained for the subjectively self-aware subjects. The task relevance manipulation also produced a significant main effect. A similar pattern of results was obtained on a measure of the time spent on the task. The implications of the results for objective self-awareness theory are considered.     

Influence of stuttering therapy on clinicians'' disfluencies: Effects of client modeling

This study investigated whether student clinicians working with stutterers subsequently produce more disfluencies than student clinicians providing therapy to clients with other speech and language disorders. Seventeen graduate students working in a 6-wk summer camp setting were divided into two groups: eight who provided treatment for stutterers (group 1) and nine who provided therapy for clients with other communication disorders (group 2). All student clinicians were recorded during spontaneous speaking and oral reading tasks prior to camper arrival and following camper departure. An eight-category classification system was used to determine disfluency types. Findings revealed that Group 1 clinicians significantly decreased their total disfluencies between pre- and post-camp recordings on the spontaneous speaking task. Unexpectedly, this same group also substantially increased part-word repetitions and sound prolongations. The possibilities of incidental learning, reverse modeling, and overidentification with stuttering clients are discussed.     

The word order problem in agrammatism : II. Production

This study demonstrates that agrammatic aphasics have difficulty describing relations that are signified by the order of noun phrases around verbs or prepositions. The word order deficit is found in a Sentence Order Task, in which written words must be arranged linearly to form a sentence, as well as in oral production. Ordering tendencies reflect factors like animacy or potency, rather than the systematic use of syntactic rules. These results point to a fundamental syntactic disorder in agrammatism.     

Developmental verbal control of behavior: Implications for self-instructional training

Kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade children (5, 6, and 7 years of age, respectively) performed a Luria-type verbal control task in which motor responses are initiated to positive stimuli and inhibited to negative stimuli. The task was performed by motor responding only and verbal self-directed motor responding, with these conditions reversed in sequence for one half of each grade group. Although motor responding and verbal-motor responding by the two younger groups were generally poor, their performance equalled that of the second graders when the verbalizing condition followed the silent, motor-only condition. For these children, verbalizing appeared to constitute a second task which interfered with motor responding. Prior practice on motor-only responding, however, facilitated subsequent, concurrent performance of the two tasks. No interference or practice effects were found for the second graders. The results suggested that self-instructional training programs are likely to be successful when adequate verbal-motor coordination can be assumed or when the motor response is within the child's repertoire.