Reliability of electrodermal habituation measures under two conditions of stimulus intensity

The present study investigated test-retest reliability of habituation of the evoked skin conductance response. Subjects received 20 presentations of a 1000-Hz, 3-sec tone at the same time of day on two separate occasions, separated by an interval of 97–160 days. Thirteen subjects received stimuli of 90 dB, while for 24 subjects, stimulus intensity was 70 dB. Interstimulus interval was 21 sec for both groups. Both absolute rate of habituation and trials to criterion displayed moderate reliability, and the relationships between habituation measures and other aspects of electrodermal activity were in agreement with previous findings.     

Person-environment congruence and employee job satisfaction: a test of Holland's theory

Person-environment congruence as assessed by Holland's model of vocational preference was tested in a sample of 362 employees from five environmental typologies (Realistic, Investigative, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional). Employees were classified as having congruent or incongruent person/environment pairings according to their occupation and their responses to Holland's Self-Directed Search. It was hypothesized that congruent employees would be significantly more satisfied with their jobs than incongruent employees. The results indicated that congruent employees were significantly more satisfied with the job facet satisfaction measures of work, pay, promotions, supervision, and coworkers as well as overall satisfaction compared to incongruent employees. In addition, the results revealed several Environment × Congruence interactions, indicating that the effects of person-environment congruence vary across different environmental typologies. The results are discussed in the context of establishing a fit between individual attributes and organizational environments.     

Personality and the effects of stress on recognition memory

The experiment examined the contribution of anxiety, extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism to recognition memory for pictures and words using a signal detection method. Independent groups of subjects performed a recognition memory task under one of four conditions (control, noise, threat, and reward) that was intended to capitalize on dispositions which characterize the personality dimensions. In an ego threat condition involving personal evaluation, introverts displayed a performance decrement relative to noise and reward conditions. Psychoticism was inversely related to performance in the noise and threat conditions and directly related in a reward condition. In general, J. A. Gray's (1981) model of anxiety and impulsiveness accommodates much of the data, but the mechanisms which mediate the influence of personality on memory performance are not clear.     

Parent's report of stress and articulation oscillation as factors in a preschooler's dysfluencies

Recently, one focus of research on dysfluency and stuttering seems to be on the preschooler. One goal of such research should be to determine what factors in the child's language system and what factors in the social environment may put the child at risk for developing dysfluencies and stuttering. The following is a parent's account of the occurrence of dysfluencies in a preschooler. Emphasis is on a language phenomenon that might be labeled “articulation oscillation” and on apparent social environmental stress.     

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.     

The genetic context of perceptual imprinting: Canalization by stimulus preference

Recent data from various sources converge in pointing to constitutional constraints and genetic influences in behavioral development. What are the mechanisms that mediate such constraints and influences? Are they expressed through mechanisms of behavior acquisition and learning? Or are they expressed through genetically determined perceptual capacities and response propensities that guide behavior along species-typical and ontogenetically adaptive developmental trajectories? These alternatives are examined in the context of genetically and environmentally manipulated stimulus preferences and perceptual imprinting in Japanese quail chicks (Coturnix coturnix japonica). Data indicate that the genotype is a source of variation in unconditional stimulus preferences and that there are inhibitory and facilitative interactions between different unconditional preferences and also between unconditional and acquired preferences. Variations in stimulus-specific and stimulus-general learning may guide behavioral development in ways that are genetically preadapted, yet individually variable, and ontogenetically adaptive. Interpretation of data favors a synthesis of earlier psychological and biological concepts of canalization.     

Reciprocal heuristics: A discussion of the relationship of the study of learned behavior in laboratory and field

At the turn of the century, the initiators of laboratory study of animal learning advocated two very different approaches to the subject matter. Willard Small favored the investigation of learning in ecological settings appropriate to individual species. E. L. Thorndike treated the process of association formation in animals as a general one, best studied in situations distant from those to which subject species were adapted. The latter view dominated laboratory study of animal learning for 80 years. The consequent absence of ecological content from laboratory investigations of animal learning, together with recent expansion in knowledge of the behavior of free-living animals, has created opportunities for ecologically sound investigations of animal learning of the type first advocated by Small. Studies of taste-aversion learning, although introducing evolutionary issues into the study of animal learning, do not exemplify such an approach. Integration of field and laboratory studies of behavioral plasticity in animals requires a change in the methods used to select phenomena for analysis. Such integration does not often lead to identification of the behavioral processes underlying the development of particular behaviors observed in nature. Rather, its results are an increase in the variety of learning processes investigated in laboratory settings and enhanced understanding of the behavioral capacities of subject species.     

Stimulus configuration and valence-enhanced pecking by neonatal chicks

Valence-enhanced pecking occurs when hatchling chicks preferentially peck at releasing stimuli that have been assigned increased releasing power or valence. Enhanced valence is assigned by another releasing stimulus—here a “pecking” arrow. Pecking movements by the arrow have two separate effects: the stimulation or release of pecking by chicks and releasing valence enhancement, that is, pecking directed to particular stimuli. Exposure of chicks to the moving arrow yields pecking significantly increased over that accruing to a stationary arrow. A distinctive stimulus placed on the floor at the tip of the arrow, or, most effective, attached to the tip of the moving arrow, produces enhanced valence: pecking by observing chicks that is selectively increased to matching stimuli.