Vocational interest orientations: A comparison of rural university and junior college freshmen

The increase in junior colleges imposed new demands on counselors. Some areas to be investigated are the differences in counseling programs between junior colleges and universities; the differences in student bodies; and the importance of vocational guidance. This study addresses itself to elements of those areas.Male and female samples were drawn from two rural educational institutions: a four year university and a junior college. Differences in vocational interest orientations were explored through the nonoccupational scales of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB). For males significant differences were found on the academic achievement, diversity of interest, managerial orientation, and occupational level scales. Females differed on the diversity of interest scales.     

Transferability of a role-oriented interest Inventory from men to women in church-related occupations

This study considers the feasibility of using the Inventory of Religious Activities of Interests and the extensive data for men associated therewith in the counseling of women who may be interested in entering occupations related to the Protestant Church. Mean scores on the ten scales of the Inventory for men and women in nine categories of church-related occupations and for the total sex groups were compared in respect to similarity of shape of mean score profile and in respect to the level of mean scores. In addition, the ability of the Inventory to differentiate among groups (11 for women; 10 for men) for the sexes separately was considered. The results suggest that while men and women as total groups appear to differ in their interests as measured by the IRAI, the data for men and women in the respective specialties are sufficiently similar in respect to profile shape and mean score level to justify the use of the Inventory and the normative data for men in the counseling of women. The results suggest the Inventory differentiates among subgroups of men more effectively than it does among subgroups of women. But there are data to suggest that this difference may be more apparent than real.     

Vocational decision-making patterns among noncollege-aspiring adolescents

Vocational decision-making (VDM) behavior reported by noncollege-aspiring adolescents was measured by 32 indices derived from decision theory. Patterned differences were especially evident on indices assessing range of planning activities. Infrequent correlations were noted among indices representing each of five theoretical VDM dimensions. Cluster analysis grouped indices into four VDM clusters describing separate decision situations. A speculative model was developed to describe the relationship between VDM Clusters and performances variables. Hypotheses for later study were developed.     

Acoustic memory and the perception of speech

The nature of acoustic memory and its relationship to the categorizing process in speech perception is investigated in three experiments on the serial recall of lists of syllables. The first study confirms previous reports that sequences comprising the syllables, bah, dah, and gah show neither enhanced retention when presented auditorily rather than visually, nor a recency effect—both occurred with sequences in which vowel sounds differed (bee, bih, boo). This was found not to be a simple vowel-consonant difference since acoustic memory effects did occur with consonant sequences that were acoustically more discriminable (sha, ma, ga and ash, am, ag). Further experiments used the stimulus suffix effect to provide evidence of acoustic memory, and showed (1), increasing the acoustic similarity of the set grossly impairs acoustic memory effects for vowels as well as consonants, and (2) such memory effects are no greater for steady-state vowels than for continuously changing diphthongs. It is concluded that the usefulness of the information that can be retrieved from acoustic memory depends on the acoustic similarity of the items in the list rather than on their phonetic class or whether or not they have “encoded” acoustic cues. These results question whether there is any psychological evidence for “encoded” speech sounds being categorized in ways different from other speech sounds.     

Visual placing by human infants

Prior research has not agreed that extension of the arms by the human infant on approach to a surface is a visual response. In this research, human infants 8 to 11-months-old extended their arms on approach to a patterned surface covered with glass. The arms did not extend to a patterned surface 14 in. below the glass. Thus, the response is a visual, not a vestibular, proprioceptive one. Ambiguity of the visual stimulus that elicits the response is shown by the finding that the infants also extended their arms almost as much to a gray surface just beneath the glass as they did to the patterned one.     

"Mirror-image" errors without mirror-image stimuli

Recent work has indicated that discrimination between upright and inverted stimuli is difficult when stimuli are one above the other, and discrimination between stimuli turned left and right is difficult when stimuli are side by side. That is, errors are frequent under conditions in which mirror-image confusions can be made. Young children were given a task requiring the matching of orientation of (a) identical realistic figures that could form mirror images of each other or (b) nonidentical realistic figures that could not form mirror images. The same pattern of errors appeared for the identical and nonidentical figures, indicating that the errors are not mirror-image confusions. It is argued that the errors are due to a strategy of matching analogous parts of the two figures.     

The effect of failure and frustration on reflective and impulsive children

Failure was hypothesized to be an antecedent of a reflective style of responding and frustration an antecedent of an impulsive style. Failure and frustration were manipulated with an anagrams task and their effect on latency and errors on the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF) was assessed. The Failure group increased its latency on the MFF, replicating Messer's (1970) research, while the Frustration group showed a nonsignificant decrease in latency. There was a relation between an increase in latency and a decrease in errors on the MFF. The findings were related to research on the “frustration effect” in children and were interpreted as suggesting the need for research on the effects of the amount and patterning of failure on reflection-impulsivity.