Performance expectancies and affect associated with outcomes as a function of time perspective

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of time perspective on performance expectancies and the subjective evaluation of outcomes in regard to a task at which subjects had previously succeeded or failed. Prior research has produced conflicting findings on the subjective evaluation of positive and negative outcomes, but some of the research has dealt with tangible rewards and punishments while other work has been concerned with performance outcomes involving tasks with which subjects were unfamiliar. In the current study subjects first succeeded or failed on either an easy or difficult task. They then stated performance expectancies and made evaluations of the affect associated with success and failure in regard to performing the task again immediately, in 3 wk, or in 21 wk. Results indicated a significant decrease over time for both the satisfaction associated with passing and the dissatisfaction associated with failure. Performance expectancies were significantly higher for the testing period of 21 wk in the future than for either the immediate or 3-wk testing period, but this difference was evidenced only for subjects who initially passed the test.     

The effects of aversive conditioned stimuli on the timing of unsignalled avoidance responding in rats

Rats received unsignalled avoidance training in a shuttlebox. After acquisition, classical conditioning sessions were administered. The Excitatory Group received signals paired with shock, the Inhibitory Group received signals explicitly unpaired with shock, while the Random Control Group received signals and shocks randomly in time. When subsequently superimposed on the avoidance baseline, the excitatory signal increased response rate, the inhibitory signal decreased rate and the random signal had no effect compared to signal-only control data. Unsignalled avoidance generates temporal gradients of responding; the major purpose of this study was to determine how these rate changes were reflected in the baseline temporal behavior. Very clear and simple summation rules emerged: In the presence of the excitatory signal, rats acted as if they were ahead of their actual location in the response-shock interval regardless of where the signal occurred; the inhibitory signal had the opposite effect while the random signal did not change the temporal behavior relative to signal-only control data. These results were interpreted within a motivational framework.     

Effect of locus of control,expectancy confirmation-disconfirmation,and type of goal on causal attributions of failure

Two experiments demonstrated interactive effects between locus of control and expectancy confirmation-disconfirmation in determining attribution of failure. Experiencing an expected versus an unexpected failure significantly influenced the performance attributions of internals but not externals. The first experiment also demonstrated an interaction between locus of control and type of performance goal (self-determined versus other-determined) in determining failure attribution. When the performance goal was other-determined, there were significant differences between internals and externals in their attributions of failure, but these differences did not materialize when the performance goals were selfdetermined, in the absence of any externally defined standard. Interpretation of results focused on the differences between internals and externals in regard to information processing and certain cognitive characteristics as they are related to the attribution of outcomes.     

Emotional stimulation, defensive orientation, and hemispheric activation

Lateral eye movements (LEM) were measured for 32 right-handed subjects while responding to questions rated for verbal and visual-spatial cognitive content and for varying levels of emotionally stimulating content. The results indicated that eye movements were distributed to the right and left in response to verbal and spatial items, respectively, and that emotional content enhanced leftward responding. In addition, the defensive style of subjects, as measured by a defense mechanism inventory, interacted with the cognitive and affective dimensions of questions and was a determinant of LEM.     

Reading and listening comprehension in Broca's aphasia: Lexical versus syntactical errors

Ten agrammatic Broca's aphasics were presented with a series of four picture plates together with a spoken or written sentence stimulus. All sentence stimuli were of the structure, the + N + is/are + V + ing + the + N. The four pictures on each stimulus plate represented (a) the correct response, (b) a reversal of the stimulus sentence subject and object, (c) a change in the number of the subject of the stimulus sentence, and (d) a change in one of the major lexical items of the stimulus sentence. Subjects selected the correct picture most often. When they erred, they usually selected a subject-object reversal. Number errors were less frequent, and the patients seldom selected a change in major lexical item. This pattern occurred with both written and spoken sentences. These results were interpreted as reflecting the dependence of agrammatic Broca's aphasics on the semantic interpretation of the lexicon for decoding sentences in the face of deficits in syntactical-grammatical interpretation, irrespective of comprehension modality.     

Vibrotactile magnitude production scaling: A method for studying sensory-perceptual responses of stutterers and fluent speakers

The method of vibrotactile mangitude production scaling was used to determine the tactile sensory-perceptual integrity for the dorsum of the tongue and thenar eminence of the right hand for 10 fluent speakers and 10 stutterers. It was discovered that both groups performed the task in a similar manner for the thenar eminence of the hand (a nonoral structure) but in a dissimilar manner for the tongue (an oral structure). From these data, it is suggested that the stutterers may maintain a different internal sensory-perceptual process for the tactile system involved in the speech process. The possibility exists that stuttering, for some, may be an “internal disorder” of the tactile-proprioceptive feedback mechanism that is directly involved in speech production.     

Time perspective in vocational maturity and career decision making

This study investigated the hypothesis that time perspective is a component in vocational maturity and career decision making. Ninety-seven college freshmen responded to two measures of time perspective and seven measures selected to represent attitudinal vocational maturity, cognitive vocational maturity, and career decision making. The nine variables were intercorrelated and the resulting matrix was subjected to alpha factor analysis. Three factors were extracted and titled Attitudinal Vocational Maturity, Cognitive Vocational Maturity, and Career Decision Making. As predicted, time perspective was a component in the Attitudinal Vocational Maturity and Career Decision-Making factors. The results supported the hypothesis and specifically linked time perspective to planfulness and degree of indecision.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1978: A review

In sum, the research in 1978 was diverse and of good quality and quantity. However, there continues to be a clear need for longitudinal research of all kinds (in particular on the career development process) and a need for additional research with the employed adult population, although the past few years demonstrate improvement in the latter area.In 1978 the most productive research area as suggested by this review was associated with the women's movement and manifested by research primarily on sex stereotyping and women's careers. Ranking second was the topic of theoretical developments in vocational behavior led by the research on Holland's constructs. These two research trends accounted for about 50 studies; 26 and 24, respectively. Job satisfaction assumed the third position with some concentration on satisfaction and work motivation. Next and very much clustered were life-span aspects, assessment, and job performance. Each of these research themes stimulated about 17 studies that were reviewed here. Vocational interventions and race differences received moderate attention while job interview variables and occupational environments sparked very limited work in the more psychologically oriented journals.The major contributor to the 1978 review was of course the Journal of Vocational Behavior (62 studies), followed by the Journal of Applied Psychology (25 studies). Five other journals contributed an average of about 10 studies. These were the Journal of Counseling Psychology, Journal of Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance, the Journal of Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, Personnel Psychology, and the Vocational Guidance Quarterly. These appear to be the major journals publishing work on vocational behavior and career development.Finally, the volume of research on vocational psychology continued on an upward trend in 1978. This review and the previous reviews (Betz, 1977; Osipow, 1976; Zytowski, 1978) clearly document this trend.     

Comparison of the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for men and women in an enterprising occupation

This study examined the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for men and women employed in an enterprising occupation. Using Holland-theme scores obtained from both the Self-Directed Search (SDS) and the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII), the degree of personality-environment correspondence and the relationships of personality type to job satisfaction were examined in a sample of 45 male and 43 female sales managers. In general, the findings suggested that, at least within an employed sample, Holland's theory is valid for women as well as for men. Using both the SDS and the SCII, women and men obtained their highest scores on the enterprising theme, and the mean E-theme scores of women were at least as high as were those of men. Significant sex differences on the Realistic, Artistic, and Social scales, found using SDS scores and SCII standard scores, were in the direction of generally-found sex differences. Both men and women were highly satisfied with their jobs, and moderate relationships between job satisfaction and enterprising and social scores were also found. While the results of this study suggest optimism regarding the theoretical and practical utility of Holland's theory for women as well as for men, differences in results as a function of different instruments and scoring methods suggest the need for further studies of this kind.     

Students' ratings of occupational dimensions of traditionally male and traditionally female occupations

The purpose of the present study was to investigate four traditionally male occupations and four traditionally female occupations on a number of dimensions which people use to judge the prestige or importance of a job. Workers were pictured on one form in their traditional roles and on a second form in nontraditional roles. Results indicated a tendency for subjects to give lower ratings to workers in nontraditional jobs. More importantly, for the two “objective” dimensions, money and education, boys and girls agreed on job ratings; however, on the two more “subjective” dimensions, respect and importance to the community, boys gave higher ratings to the male jobs, while girls gave higher ratings to the female jobs.