Managerial career stage and facets of job satisfaction

The purpose of the present study was to assess the relationship between a three-stage model of careers (establishment, advancement, and maintenance) and facets of managers' job satisfaction. Four hundred eighty-three managers responded to a questionnaire regarding the length of time they had been in their occupation and their satisfaction with various aspects of work. The results indicated that career stage moderated managers' satisfaction with all facets of work. Specifically, managers in the establishment stage were significantly more satisfied than those in the advancement and maintenance stages with five of the six facets studied. Further analyses indicated that the first year in the occupation accounted for the differences in satisfaction obtained in the three-stage model. The results are discussed in terms of the implications for the study of managerial careers and the need for consistency in the operational definition of career stages.     

Do birds of a feather flock together? A test of the similarities within and the differences between five occupations

Two sets of samples of 40 women from each of five different occupations were subjected to J. H. Ward's (Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1963, 58, 236–244) hierarchical cluster analysis, using an index of similarity from Kuder, 1977, Kuder, 1980, 40, 1–8). The five-group solution in neither case adequately recaptured the occupational membership of the original groups. This finding was interpreted to mean that there may be important differences in the interests of person in the same occupation, which in turn has implications for occupational scaling on interest inventories and theories of career development and counseling.     

Effects of career orientation on retirement attitudes and retirement planning

The impact of career orientation and demographic variables on retirement attitudes, intended age of retirement, and retirement preparation is examined among a sample of university employees. Results indicate that occupational status is associated with unique patterns of career orientation as well as differences in anticipated age of retirement. Career orientation variables are observed to be stronger predictors than demographic characteristics of retirement attitudes, while the demographic factors are found to be more efficient in predicting retirement age and level of preparation. Use of career orientation variables in the retirement preparation process is discussed.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1982: A review

This paper reviews the research published on vocational behavior and career development in 1982. A total of 278 studies published in 31 journals are reviewed. The literature is presented in the following major categories: discrimination; performance; turnover; satisfaction; commitment and involvement; job analysis and evaluation; selection and classification; life history experiences; performance appraisal; assessment centers; training; unions and collective bargaining; alternate work schedules; job design; pay; motivation; leadership; stress; Type A behavior; career preference, choice and behavior; consistency; maturity; indecision; work orientation; assessment; interventions; instrumentation; and methodology. Trends in current research and possible directions for future research are discussed.     

Brief “response prevention” in a novel place can facilitate avoidance extinction

Three experiments in which rats learned an active avoidance response and were then confined for a brief period in the shock chamber (response prevention) prior to extinction testing are presented. Control groups of rats were confined for equal time periods in other locations. Response prevention reliably facilitated extinction. Groups confined in novel or fear-eliciting locations also showed facilitated extinction, but groups confined in familiar locations did not. Results are discussed in relation to fear-reduction, competing-response, and species-specific-defense-reaction (SSDR) explanations for the effect of response prevention, and are shown to be most consistent with the SSDR hypothesis.     

The influence of introversion/extraversion on the skin conductance response to stress and stimulus intensity

A series of studies compared skin conductance level (SCL) for introverts and extraverts during a series of tones varying in both stimulus intensity (SI) and the amount of stress preceding the tones. When a difficult paired-associate task preceded the tones, both groups were about the same for 83 dB tones but extraverts were much higher at 103 dB, introverts failing to show an increase as a function of SI. There were no differences between the two groups following a simple paired-associate task, both groups showing a similar increase with increased SI. Finally, SCL was higher for introverts than extraverts during tones preceded by a rest period, and this was especially true for the early trials and for lower SI (75 and 83 dB compared with 100 and 103 dB). Taken together, these results suggest that SCL is higher for extraverts at higher levels of arousal but that the reverse is true for lower levels of arousal. This relationship is consistent with the theory that introverts have a “weak nervous system” which develops transmarginal or protective inhibition under stress.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1977: A review

This review covers several books and selections from several journals published in 1977 on topics in vocational behavior and career development. Coverage includes theoretical contributions in vocational choice, development and correlates of choice, decision and indecision, assessment of career skills and interests, self-estimates, and sex bias. Material relating to the vocational behavior of adults contains sections on theory, satisfaction, performance, career development, and mid-career change. A final section is devoted to a review of studies of interventions.     

Effect of an auditory stimulus on the processing of a visual stimulus under single- and dual-tasks conditions

The Sternberg Additive Factor Method was used to draw inferences about the flow of information under single- and dual-tasks conditions which were identical in terms of the stimuli involved but different in terms of response requirements. In both conditions, subjects pressed a left- or right-hand key in response to the onset of an X or O (intact or degraded) which was accompanied by a monaural or binaural tone. In the dual-tasks condition, subjects responded verbally to the tone location while also making the key-press response, whereas, in the single-task condition, no response to the tone was required. The pattern of main effects and interactions suggested that the same model of information flow described both single- and dual-tasks conditions; i.e., visual and auditory stimuli were encoded separately but shared capacity at the response selection stage.