Impulsivity,neuroticism, and caffeine: Do they have additive effects on arousal?

The personality dimensions of impulsivity and neuroticism have been linked to differences in basal arousal. The hypothesis tested was whether these personality variables and caffeine have additive effects on arousal. All subjects received three paired-associate trials on each of two neutral control lists, two lists with semantically similar stimuli, and two lists with acoustically similar stimuli. Half of the subjects received caffeine and half placebo. Although significant interactions with personality and drug condition were obtained, the ordering of the conditions was inconsistent with the assumption that the arousal performance curve is single peaked. Further, S. Schwartz's (Journal of Research in Personality, 1975, 9, 217–225) hypothesis that in paired-associate learning high arousal and low arousal subjects process semantic and physical information differentially was not supported. The general issue of how to determine whether individual differences in performance are caused by differences in arousal is discussed.     

Relationship of age,sex, and educational groups to career decisiveness

Five educational groups, composed of a total of 369 students, ranging from high school freshmen to college juniors, were administered the Career Decision Questionnaire, a scale designed to measure antecedents of educational-vocational indecision. It was determined that age was an extremely important factor in career decidedness, sex was not an important variable in determining decidedness, and certain educational groups stood out as significant factors associated with level of career decisiveness. Students enrolled in career orientation classes were clearly more undecided than students enrolled in 12th-grade vocational classes, college preprofessional classes, and more general groups of high school students. Interaction among variables and the measurement of career decidedness are discussed, with applications for counseling considered.     

IQ change and occupational level: A longitudinal study with Third Harvard Growth Study participants

Eighty subjects from a larger number of participants in a longitudinal study were selected according to their 1916 Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test scores, administered in the 1930s, and their 1977 occupations. They were then individually administered the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. The research questions asked were: Did subjects shift their positions relative to age peers with regard to measured intelligence from Time 1 (1930s) testing to Time 2 (1977) testing? And, if they did, were these shifts related to their occupational levels? A secondary question asked whether subjects as a group showed mean T score increments between test times. A Pearson correlation coefficient (r = .62) showed that subjects had significantly maintained their positions relative to peers with regard to measured intelligence over approximately one-half of a century. The hypothesis that persons in higher level occupations should show greater gains in measured intelligence over time was not supported. Using multiple regression procedures, no significant difference was found from analysis of effects of occupational level on D (D = T₂ ? T₁) scores. An 80-subject mean T score increase (M = +8.13) was found. This represented an average increase of four-fifths of a standard deviation in T score units. These data suggest that, on average, persons increase in mental abilities over time while maintaining IQ positions relative to peers and that those changes in IQ which do occur are not related to occupational level experience.     

What's in a face: Individual differences in face perception

White and black females judged the similarity of all pairs of white and black male faces. An individual difference multidimensional scaling analysis of the similarity judgments indicated that most of the dimensions underlying the perceptions of male faces involved affective (honest, tense, attractive) characteristics rather than simple physical features (eye width, mouth height). The major physical dimension was face shape (long vs. wide). The dimensions were similar for black and white subjects. An individual difference hypothesis that we pay attention to those characteristics that we possess was partially confirmed.     

Evidence for direct visual access to letter identities

Subjects were presented with two letters from the set BCDFGHLNPORTVZ, one in upper case and one in lower case. Subjects were required to decide, as quickly as possible, whether the two letters on each trial were the same (e.g., Bb) or different (e.g., Bd). Because letters were always physically different, subjects presumably must name the letters in order to respond. Reaction times were predicted by the visual similarity of the letters, and not by their phonemic distinctive feature similarity. Consistent with previous work showing that a word's meaning can be assessed directly from visual information, the findings suggest that visual analysis of a capital or small letter can result in knowing the latter name without further linguistic processing. These results were interpreted as an example of automatic detection as described by Schneider and Shiffrin (1977).     

Environmental,background, and psychological variables related to optimizing achievement and career motivation for high school girls

The purpose of the study was to investigate some environmental and psychological variables related to optimizing the achievement strivings of high school girls. It was hypothesized that environmental and psychological variables would have significant relationships to achievement strivings. The criterion variables were career motivation and achievement motivation. The predictor variables were: community support, early family socialization (environmental), self-esteem, risk preference, sex role orientation, and fear of success (psychological). Subjects were 10th-grade girls (N = 158) in a suburban midwestern high school district. Procedures involved group test administration involving 2 hr during the regular school day. Multiple regression analysis indicated that high achievement motivation and career choice were significantly associated with perceived support for achievement and career goals in the school and community environment (p < .01). Implications for increasing achievement and career motivation were discussed in relation to the requirements of the Education Amendments of 1972 and 1976 (Title IX).     

Coalition formation in characteristic function games: Competitive tests of three theories

Two experiments tested the bargaining, minimum resource, and minimum power theories of coalition formation in situations involving different payoffs for some of the winning coalitions (characteristic function games). In the first experiment, a triadic resource distribution was employed and payoffs for the coalitions were specified in such a way that each of the three theories predicted the formation of a different coalition. The coalition predicted by minimum power theory formed the most frequently, and the mean divisions of the payoffs among coalition members were also closest to the predictions of minimum power theory. However, the most frequent coalition was not only the one predicted by minimum power theory, it was also the one having the largest payoff per member. There-fore, a second experiment was conducted, which employed a tetradic resource distribution and specified the coalition payoffs in such a way that (a) each of the theories predicted the formation of a different coalition and (b) none of the predicted coalitions was the one with the largest payoff per member. Although the mean payoff divisions in the coalitions in this experiment were closest to those predicted by bargaining theory, the coalition that formed most frequently was not one of those predicted by any of the theories. Rather, it was the one having the largest payoff per member. None of the three theories is able to account adequately for the results of both experiments. The difficulties that the theories have in dealing with coalition formation in situations in which there are different payoffs for winning are discussed.     

The effect of punishment on a factor I stuttering behavior

On each of five days the subject of this experiment read aloud different material during an 18-min A₁ (base rate), B (experimental), and A₂ (extinction) period. No stimulation was delivered during the first three days. On the fourth day, the nonsense word “norg” was presented noncontingently during the experimental period. There was no statistically significant difference between the A₁ and B periods on any of these four days. On day five, “wrong” was made contingent on Factor I prolongations during the experimental period. As a result, there was a statistically significant increase in their frequency. When the response consequence was removed in the A₂ priod, there was a reliable reduction in prolongations and the frequency closely approximated that found in the A₁ period. These data suggest that response-contingent negative stimulation is contraindicated as a clinical tactic for use with Factor I prolongations. It not only failed to suppress them, it increased their frequency.     

Vocational interests of career and homemaker oriented women

Women who had completed the SVIB-W as freshmen in college were contacted 13 to 21 years later and were classified as career (N = 236) or homemaker (N = 527) oriented on the basis of their actual work experiences. Significant differences between the groups were found on 25 of the 44 occupational scales, one of the three nonoccupational scales, and four of the 19 basic interest scales. The interests of the homemaker oriented women were more similar to the interests of women in business, nonprofessional, and home economics occupations while the interests of the career oriented women were more similar to the interests of women in the verbal-linguistic, verbal scientific, and scientific occupations. The results are discussed in terms of previous research and Holland's Occupational Classification system.