Career commitment processes in the young adult years: An illustration from the ROTC/Army career path

This paper presents and tests a model of career commitment in the young adult years. Data for the study were collected from nationwide stratified random samples of approximately 1000 high school seniors, 1600 college students, and 600 ROTC-graduate Army officers. It was found that the model could predict membership in ROTC and the strength of the individual's commitment to a military career and that hypotheses that had been made about the career commitment process were generally confirmed. Many of the specific findings, differences in the demographic, aptitude, and sociopsychological profile of participants and nonparticipants in a career path, the widening of these differences with the passage of time, the importance of early exposure to the career eventually chosen, the relationship between initial motivation in exploring a career path and subsequent commitment to the career, and the changes in the nature of influential factors as an individual matures, may be generalizable to other types of careers.     

Effects on weight reduction of strong monetary contracts for calorie restriction or weight loss

Thirty-one severely obese adults participated in behavioral weight control groups. In three groups utilizing powerful monetary contracts, subjects deposited substantial sums of money which were returned contingent on either attendance, calorie restriction, or weight loss. Subjects in a fourth no-contract control condition made no monetary deposits. Weight and calorie contract groups lost an average of nearly 20 lb in 10 weeks. They did not differ from each other, but both produced significantly more weight loss than the attendance contract group. High dropout rates in the no-contract condition precluded statistical evaluation of this group. Results are discussed in terms of the potential clinical value of contracting procedures.     

Situational and personality determinants of a victim's identification with a tormentor

The effects of two situational (tormentor legitimacy and tormentor justification) and two personality (victim's belief in the just world and victim's Machiavellianism) factors on several reactions of a victim to his tormentor were explored. Greater conformity by victims to their tormentor's opinions occurred when the victims believed strongly in the just world and when the tormentor was well justified for his behavior; there was a greater conformity towards the tormentor in these conditions than towards a neutral nontormentor. The tormentor received less positive evaluations from the victim when he acquired his role illegitimately or when the victim was Machiavellian; when the tormentor acquired the role legitimately, he was liked no less than the nontormentor. The experimental variables did not affect behavioral imitation of the tormentor or the interpersonal distance maintained by the victim. The results failed to conform to any simple identification process. Several explanations for these results are explored and directions for additional research are discussed.     

Auditory temporal perception, phonics, and reading disabilities in children

Reading-impaired and control children were given an experimental battery of nonverbal auditory perceptual tests which examined discrimination and temporal order perception. Stimulus tones were presented at various rates. There were no significant differences between groups on tests in which stimuli were presented at slow rates. However, when the same stimuli were presented more rapidly, the reading-impaired group made significantly more errors than the controls. The reading-impaired children's ability to use phonics skills (nonsense word reading) was also examined. There was a high correlation between the number of errors made on the phonics reading test and the number of errors made in responding to the rapidly presented stimuli in the auditory perceptual tests. The hypothesis that some reading impairments are related to low-level auditory perceptual dysfunction that affects the ability to learn to use phonics skills adequately is discussed.     

A study of alpha hemispheric asymmetries for verbal and nonverbal stimuli in males and females

The alpha hemispheric asymmetries of males and females were examined with electroencephalographic (EEG) techniques during exposure to connected speech and nonlinguistic stimuli. The subject selection controlled for familial handedness and each subject was administered the Block Design and Vocabulary Subtests of the WAIS as a general measure of “visual-spatial” and “verbal” ability. The results showed that there was less alpha in the right hemisphere for nonverbal tasks and less alpha in the left hemisphere for verbal tasks. The females showed significantly more “lateralization” during the tasks as compared to the males. The results are discussed in terms of processing differences and the possible effects of subject variables, stimulus mode, stimulus presentation, and task requirements on neurolinguistic research results.