The effects of interpersonal skills training on sex-role identity of premarital dating partners

The purpose of the present study was to assess the effects of a problem-solving skills training program on sex-role identity. It was hypothesized that individuals in a problem-solving skills training program would show greater movement toward androgyny relative to a control group. Twenty-six premarital couples were assigned to a problem-solving skills training program and 29 couples served as a contact control group. An analysis of covariance was performed on the Bem Scale masculine and feminine scores to test the effects of group and sex. Results indicated that the experimental group, as compared to the control group, was significantly higher on femininity following treatment. Discussion centered on the implications of being able to change sex-role identity as well as the need to further explore means of facilitating the development of androgyny in adults.     

Reaction time,evoked brain potentials,and psychometric g in the severely retarded

Measurements derived from reaction time (RT), movement time (MT), and an index of neural adaptability (NA) derived from averaged evoked potentials are significantly related to each other as well as to g factor scores extracted from a battery of 15 psychometric tests in a sample of 54 severely retarded adults. The RT-MT and NA variables show a shrunken multiple R of .64 (p < .001) with psychometric g.     

An experimental analysis of impulsivity and impulse control in humans

In choosing between small, immediate and large, delayed reward, an organism behaves impulsively if it chooses the small reward and shows impulse control if it chooses the large reward. Work with nonhumans suggests that impulsivity and impulse control may be derived from gradients of delayed reinforcement. A model developed by Ainslie and by Rachlin suggests that preference for the rewards should be a function of when the choice is made: small reward with no delay may be preferred to large reward with delay X, but adding delay T to both alternatives should shift preference to the large reward. Three experiments investigated this preference reversal in humans, using termination of 90 dba white noise as the reinforcing event. Experiment 1 showed that under some instructional conditions 90-sec noise off with no delay was preferred over 120-sec noise off after a 60-sec delay, but that preference shifted to the large reward when a 15-sec delay (T) was added to both alternatives. Experiment 2 replicated this preference reversal under two conditions of large, delayed reward, and with three rather than two values of T. Experiment 3 confirmed this effect of T and showed that some humans committed themselves to the large reward when commitment could be made some time before presentation of the reward alternatives. These data support the Ainslie-Rachlin model and extend it to human choice behavior.     

A typology of mid-life career changers

This study examines the motivations for and the outcomes of mid-life career change among a sample of 73 men who had left professional and managerial careers between the ages of 34 and 54. Measures of personal desire for change and external pressure to leave were dichotomized to produce a typology of career changers: Drift-outs, Opt-outs, Force-outs, and Bow-outs. The four types of changers were found to differ on a number of variables, including: amount of education completed, additional schooling undertaken to change careers, time taken to make the change, radicalness of change, and the importance of personal values in deciding to leave their former careers. Overall, respondents were found to be highly satisfied with their career redirection.     

Developmental changes in infants' sensitivity to octave-band noises

Localization responses to octave-band noises with center frequencies at 200, 400, 1000, 2000, 4000, and 10,000 Hz were obtained from infants 6, 12, and 18 months of age. During an experimental trial, an octave-band noise was presented on one of two speakers located 45° to each side of the infant. A head turn to the noise (correct response) was rewarded by activating an animated toy on top of the speaker. The intensity of the noise was varied over trials (method of constant stimuli) to determine thresholds at each center frequency. Thresholds for the lower frequencies were approximately 5–8 db higher in the 6-month-old infants compared to the older infants. However, there were no consistent differences among groups at the higher frequencies. Infant thresholds were found to be 20–30 db higher than adult thresholds at the lower frequencies. At the higher frequencies thresholds for infants were approaching those of adults.     

The concept of development in vocational theory and intervention

One of the major problems in the vocational literature is the absence of theoretical formulations which deal with development in more than a superficial manner. Specific problems are that (1) key constructs are adapted from developmental theory without proper attention to the conceptual, empirical, and methodological problems involved; (2) little recognition has been accorded to significant changes in developmental theory during the past 15 years, changes which stress the multidimensional, plastic, contextual, and life-span features of development; (3) there is a paucity of adequately designed, contextually sensitive, longitudinal research; and (4) well-established empirical findings of developmental research have been misrepresented or ignored by vocational researchers. It is proposed that a theory of life-span vocational role development must meet the conceptual and methodological requirements of a developmental approach, that it must contain a contextual perspective, and that it must be relational in the sense that it provides for the examination of the “goodness of fit” between individual and contextual developments. The consequences of this viewpoint for vocational intervention are described as a more pronounced focus on events, processes, and life periods which are identified as antecedents of major vocational decisions. Finally, it is observed that vocational intervention should be viewed as a succession of procedures designed to assist the individual, throughout his/her life, to adapt vocational functioning to changing personal situations as well as to changing economic and contextual circumstances.     

On aspiring to present a developmental theory of occupational aspirations: A reader's guide to Gottfredson

L. S. Gottfredson's preceding comment (Journal of Vocational Behavior 1983, 23, 203–212)is characterized by undocumented and arbitrary assertions. Moreover, we still maintain and cite further evidence that the features of the stages she describes represent an implausible account of development. We conclude that there is nothing in either L. S. Gottfredson's original (Journal of Counseling Psychology 1981, 28, 545–579) article or her preceding paper that leads us to alter our belief that the views we present in our own article (Journal of Vocational Behavior 1983, 23, 179–212) will be useful for the future development of vocational theory and intervention.     

Semantic processing can facilitate free recall in mildly retarded adolescents

The efficacy of semantic processing in free recall was investigated in two experiments with EMR adolescents. In Experiment 1, they were taught to use one of two semantic strategies for memorizing a 15-word list. Compared with controls, neither strategy helped recall either in original learning or transfer. In Experiment 2, one of the semantic strategies, a story mnemonic, was investigated further. Rather than being taught to construct their own stories as in Experiment 1, subjects in Experiment 2 were provided with experimenter-composed stories. They showed better immediate recall and retention after 2 months than did no-strategy controls. However, about 1 year after original learning, the retention of experimental and control subjects no longer differed. Discussion focused on the story mnemonic's potential utility and the criteria for judging such potential, e.g., amount of facilitation, ease of training and performance of the strategy, and the degree of its generalizability.     

The heroic motive: Some experimental demonstrations

The appearance of heroic motives in interpersonal relations is examined. Three experiments were conducted to test the general hypothesis that witnessing the victimization of a partner would impel young men to incur costs in order to confront the transgressor. In each experiment, either the individual, his partner, or an anonymous other was insulted. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that individuals were most willing to confront the insulter when their female partners (Experiment 1) or their male teammates (Experiment 2) were victimized. That pattern occurred despite evidence indicating that the most negative affective reactions were experienced by individuals who had been directly insulted. Experiment 3 revealed that individuals were also more willing to perform a subsequent altruistic act in response to the victimization of their partners than when they or an anonymous other person had been victimized. Taken together, the results indicated that heroic motivations in response to the victimization of a partner were distinguishable from other more negatively oriented processes that were aroused in response to self-victimization by the insulter.