Career maturity aspects of the Kuder Occupational Interest Survey

The Kuder Occupational Interest Survey (1979) (KOIS) is used in counseling services as an aid in career counseling, but the KOIS does not have a measure of career maturity. The purpose of this study was to determine if selected scores from the KOIS could be indicative of client career maturity. The data for each subject included three scores from the KOIS and one measure of career maturity. The three scores from the KOIS included the highest Occupation score, the highest College Major score, and either the Father score for male subjects or the Mother score for female subjects. Career maturity was assessed with the Career Maturity Inventory Attitude Scale (1973) (CMI). The three scores from the KOIS were correlated with the score from the CMI to determine the relationship between the KOIS and career maturity. t tests were used to test for significant differences between men and women on the four measures. Significant correlations were found between the KOIS scores and career maturity, supporting the statements in the KOIS manual regarding the relationship between high KOIS scores and maturity. There was no significant difference between females and males on the CMI, Occupation, or College Major scores, but females scored significantly higher on the Mother scale than males did on the Father scale. Implications for career counseling were discussed.     

Information availability,goodness of outcome,and attributions of causality

H. H. Kelley's (American Psychologist, 1973, 28, 107–128) framework for studying attribution processes is introduced as a means of accounting for characteristic asymmetries in success/failure attributions. It is argued that while success/failure asymmetries should occur in the presence of single-observation information, asymmetries should be eliminated when individuals are allowed to observe the covariation between their own actions and outcomes. Subjects participated in a 15-trial stock market simulation in which type of information (single-observation or covariation) and goodness of outcome (relative success or failure) were manipulated. The obtained results supported the experimental hypotheses. Given single-observation information, subjects were more likely to accept personal responsibility for good than for poor outcomes. However, subjects' attributions were not affected by goodness of outcome when they were provided with covariation information. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the current debate between motivational and information-processing explanations of asymmetries in success/failure attributions.     

Attribution bias: On the inconclusiveness of the cognition-motivation debate

Social psychologists have given considerable theoretical and research attention to whether motivational variables bias the attributions people make for behavior. Some theorists maintain that motivational constructs must be invoked to explain certain attributional phenomena; other theorists maintain that information-processing variables can adequately explain these phenomena. The present article critically examines existing cognitive and motivational approaches to attribution and analyzes the assumptions underlying the cognition-motivation debate. We argue that cognitive and motivational theories are currently empirically indistinguishable. In particular, its is possible to construct information-processing explanations for virtually all evidence for motivated bias. We conclude by examining the implications of this indeterminacy of cognitive and motivational explanations. Future research in the area can most profitably be addressed to improving the specificity of cognitive and motivational theories rather than to resolving the between-theory confrontation.     

The bias of an estimate of coupled slack in stochastic PERT networks

An earlier paper presented a method for using response times to construct a PERT network representing the mental activities in a task. A key role in this method is played by parameters called coupled slacks. The magnitudes of the coupled slacks are used to test the validity of a PERT model and to deduce aspects of the structure of the network. In a stochastic PERT network, the usual estimate of coupled slack based on the mean completion times can be biased. Distribution-free upper and lower bounds are derived for the bias, and it is shown that the bias approaches zero as the probability of relatively long prolongations increases. It is also shown that the expected value of the estimate of coupled slack between two activities is negative only if the two activities are in a Wheatstone bridge. Finally, an estimate of the increase in completion time due to prolonging an activity, given that the prolongation did in fact increase the completion time, is derived.     

Individual response patterns and the effects of different behavioral methods in the treatment of claustrophobia

The importance of individual response patterns in claustrophobic patients was examined in the present study. Thirty-four psychiatric outpatients with a phobia of enclosed spaces were assessed in a small test chamber. During the test their overt behavior was video-taped, heart-rate was measured continuously, and self-ratings of experienced anxiety were made at certain intervals. On the basis of their reactions in the test situation, the patients were divided into two groups showing different response patterns—behavioral and physiological reactors. Within each group the patients were randomly assigned to one behaviorally-focused method (exposure), one physiologically-focused method (applied relaxation) and a waiting-list control group. The patients were treated individually in eight sessions. The between-group comparisons showed that both exposure and applied relaxation were significantly better than the waiting-list condition. Furthermore, exposure yielded better results than applied relaxation for the behavioral reactors, while applied relaxation was better than exposure for the physiological reactors. The improvements were maintained at a follow-up assessment 14 months after the end of treatment. The results support the hypothesis that greater effects are achieved when the method used fits the patient's response pattern than when it does not.     

Blowing in the wind: Perceiving structure in trees and bushes

When lights are mounted at the ends of the limbs of a tree and the surround darkened such that branches and trunk are not visible, viewers can nonetheless make systematic and precise judgments about the unseen structure of the tree through its motion. They seem to perform this task by picking up information about the relative arborization of the tree through the vector paths of the lights on the limbs. Theoretically speaking, the focus of this study is on the perception of second-order centers of moment; previous studies have focused on the perception of first-order centers. A second-order center in a tree-like structure is the location where limb meets trunk, and it is these that perceivers can infer from the dynamic display. The importance of this study is to demonstrate further that the study of centers of moment makes possible a detailed and differential study of event perception.