Job-seeking behavior: A segment of vocational development

This paper reports two companion studies which establish that there is a significant relationship between an individual's personality characteristics and his pattern of job-seeking behavior. Individuals who are tough-minded, independent and nonneurotic had specified job goals and self-actualized behavior. They were highly successful in obtaining jobs. Individuals who were sensitive, dependent and neurotic had vague goals and passive behavior. They failed to get jobs. Individuals who exhibited a mixture of the cited characteristics and behavior were also exploring career options. They had a modicum of success in obtaining jobs. Job-seeking behavior as a process of vocational development is discussed.     

Adolescent correlates of occupational stability and change

Using Super's Career Pattern Study data, this study investigated the high-school age correlates of occupational stability and change among 148 men between the ages of 25 to 35. Only high-school grades were positively, though weakly, associated with both occupational stability and the degree of vocational progress that resulted from changing fields. In contrast to previous, shorter-term prediction studies, the lack of consistent relationships between high-school age correlates and adult occupational stability and change was probably due to the overriding effects of intervening events and experiences occurring between the high-school years and adulthood.     

Reacting to reactance: An Interpersonal interpretation of the need for freedom

This study was designed to investigate the conditions under which the negative consequences of social influence attempts can be mitigated by freedom-affirming interventions. Eighty-eight high school girls received an influence message, presumably written by a co-worker, containing either a threat or a promise. In addition, subjects were or were not given a choice option as to mode of compliance, if they chose to comply with the message. In half the cases, the Interpersonal condition, subjects received their choice/no choice option from their co-worker; in the other half of the cases, the Noninterpersonal condition, subjects were assigned the choice/no choice option by a random event unknown to the influencing agent. As anticipated, in the Interpersonal as compared to the Noninterpersonal condition, (a) threats produced greater compliance when a choice was offered than when it was not, and (b) promises and threats were more equivalent in gaining compliance when a choice was offered than when it was not. These results, which suggest that in a social setting individuals' concerns about freedom are interpersonally motivated, are discussed in terms of their relation to and implications for reactance theory.     

Verbal retention deficits in aphasic and amnesic patients.

Five different groups of patients (aphasics, alcoholic Korsakoffs, nondominant hemisphere patients, alcoholics, and control patients) were asked to detect either repeated letters, repeated words, rhyming words, or words from the same category during the reading of a list. It was discovered that the number of intervening words had a greater effect on the aphasics for all conditions than it did for the other groups. However, when the rate of presentation was slowed, the aphasics showed considerable improvement while the other groups maintained their same level of performance. The Korsakoff patients were impaired only on the semantic task (same category inclusion) and did not improve at the slower presentation rate. An interpretation based on speed and level of information processing abilities is given.     

Relation between intelligence and short-term memory

Several prior studies have concluded that the correlation between IQ and STM depends on differences in encoding or rehearsal strategies. Low IQ subjects use less effective strategies than high IQ subjects. One basis for these conclusions is that IQ exerts its greatest influence on the recall of early items in to-be-remembered lists, having little effect on the recall of recency items. The present study measured IQ/STM correlations in children, using probed serial recall of supraspan digit lists. The results showed the predictive power of IQ to range from a maximum in the case of recall for recency items to practically zero in the case of primacy items. Several explanations for the data are discussed, taking account of the possible roles of individual differences in rehearsal, in item persistence, and in the ability to access specified information in a short-term store.     

Effect of intensification of annoyance through unrelated residual excitation on substantially delayed hostile behavior

In a field-experimental setting, male and female subjects were provoked or not at a time when residual excitation from prior exposure to communication was of relatively low, intermediate, or high magnitude. Eight days later, subjects were provided with an opportunity to treat their annoyer or nonannoyer in a hostile or beneficial manner. It was found that excitatory residues had no appreciable effect on the behavior of unprovoked subjects. In contrast, excitatory residues prevailing at the time of provocation produced an intensification of delayed hostile behavior. Provoked subjects in the high and intermediate residue conditions retaliated more severely than those in the low residue condition. Retaliation in the high residue condition tended to be more severe than in the intermediate residue condition. No appreciable sex differences were observed. The findings were interpreted as supporting the proposal that the excitatory intensity of acute annoyance critically influences the magnitude of retaliation for considerable periods of time after the dissipation of excitation associated with the initial annoyance.     

Career satisfaction and role harmony in a sample of young women physicians

In a sample of young women physicians, self-ratings of Career Satisfaction and Role Harmony were correlated with a group of situational, achievement, and personality variables. Career Satisfaction was extremely high with about 88% reporting they are satisfied or very satisfied. However, over half experienced at least a moderate amount of strain in integrating professional and sex roles. In addition women who were high on both Career Satisfaction and Role Harmony were compared with the others in the sample and individual differences were apparent: These women were exceptionally confident, intellectually resourceful, and tolerant; they tended to have clear priorities with either family or work coming first. Overall their current level of personality adjustment was superior to the others who, as a group, were very well-functioning women.     

Training the disturbed enuretic

Twenty-two disturbed enuretic children were treated for their bedwetting with training procedures. Eighteen of 22 (81.8%) reached the initial success criterion in an average of 57.5 days. Ten of the 18 (55.6%) met the retraining criteria of relapse, and 9 of the relapses were successfully retrained, while I stopped wetting spontaneously. As compared to non-relapsed children, relapsed children had a significantly higher number of initial symptoms checked. The results indicate that a training approach is effective for the treatment of enuresis in disturbed children, but the more disturbed have a greater likelihood of relapse.     

Disorders of oculomotor scanning and graphic orientation in developmental Gerstmann syndrome

A patient with developmental Gerstmann syndrome who experiences great difficulty in performing tasks requiring visuoconstructive and reading abilities is described. Neuropsychological assessment revealed normal range verbal abilities but severe deficits in directional orientation, finger differentiation, calculational ability, copying, and reading ability. Achievement in reading was measured at the sixth-grade level despite the fact that this patient is a third-year college student. Using infrared photoelectric sensors, we monitored the horizontal saccades of this patient while reading from a standardized reading test. Fixation durations were not abnormal. However, instances of reverse-staircase movement were exhibited. While reading from an inverted test, she showed a normal eye-movement pattern (although in the reverse direction since the task now called for right-to-left saccades). The processing of spatial information in this patient is severely disturbed and this may account for the apparently abnormal oculomotor scanning, an “irrepressible tendency” to move her eyes in a right-to-left direction.     

The game of the name: An examination of linguistic reference after brain damage

Two aspects of naming have generally been examined in aphasics: the appreciation of a single property of a concept and the ability to use the names of fully elaborated concepts. In applying to aphasics a recently proposed model of semantic organization—one which allows the simultaneous examination of these two aspects—two studies were conducted: Anterior and posterior aphasics were asked (1) to name members of superordinate categories, their responses being converted into prototypicality scores (the degree to which a member of a category resembles an ideal member of that category) and (2) to differentiate between more or less prototypical members of a category and their superordinates. The results revealed that, while anterior and posterior aphasics differ in their use of the names representing fully elaborated concepts, these groups show no differences in terms of the appreciation of a single property of a concept. The implications of these findings for reference were discussed.