An investigation of two measures of career indecision

The present study compared two recent scales developed to measure career indecision, the Career Decision Scale and the Vocational Decision-Making Difficulty Scale. The subjects were 857 male and female undergraduates. The scales were factor analyzed, the total scores were correlated, and the factor structures were examined for similarities and differences. Test-retest correlations were performed on the items, the total scores, and the factor scores of both measures. Subjects who were satisfied with their career choices were compared with subjects who were unsure, dissatisfied, or undecided about their career choices using the items, total scores, and factor scores. The results are discussed along with the implications for the future development of the scales.     

Predicting compliance behavior from moral judgment scales

Two experiments with college males examined the relationship between moral judgment and compliance in a modified Asch paradigm. In Experiment 1 moral judgment was assessed with the written form of Kohlberg's dilemmas. Stage of moral judgment interacted with type of compliance, with Stage 4 subjects showing a compromise response between their own perceptions and the responses of others. In Experiment 2 moral judgment was assessed with Rest's Defining Issues Test. Compliance was found to be negatively related to level of moral judgment. The relationship found between moral judgment and compliance in the two experiments was interpreted in terms of a trend away from external standards and toward internal standards with higher levels of moral judgment.     

Relational responses in tests of transposition with Rhesus monkeys

Three adult Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), one with nonrelated discrimination learning experience and two experimentally naive, were trained to discriminate between two simultaneously presented stimuli differing only in height. After exceeding the learning criteria on a VR 4 reinforcement schedule and considerable overtraining, subjects were tested for transposition. Both upward and downward and near and far tests were administered to determine the effects of distance from the original training pair on the amount of transposition. In these tests, each of the 24 stimulus pairs contained one or more novel stimuli. Training trials were interpolated to avoid extinction effects and measures were taken to avoid motivational deficits or differential rewards during testing. All three subjects responded relationally at far as well as near distances from the original training pair. Stimulus generalization, on the basis of increments of association, was found to be an inferior explanation for these data. Slight decrements on far tests can be better explained in terms of the learning-performance distinction.     

Effects of previous delay of reward,generalized effort,and deprivation on impulsiveness

Two experiments investigated the effects of learning and motivational variables upon rats' degree of impulsiveness (choice of a small, immediate reward versus a large, delayed reward). In Experiment 1, food was presented in one of four ways for 24 sessions: fixed-ratio lever pressing requirement, continuous-reinforcement lever-pressing requirement, long intervals between free food presentations, or short intervals between free food presentations. Exposure to the long intervals produced less subsequent impulsiveness in 48 choice trials than did the short intervals, there being no effect of the instrumental requirement. In Experiment 2, there were 48 choice trials in which two hunger levels were combined factorially with two delays of reward for the self-control alternative. Hunger level did not affect implusiveness when there was a short delay, but high hunger increased the impulsiveness when there was a long delay. These results indicate that impulsiveness is affected by prior learning and current motivation. Implications for Baum, Rachlin, and Green's matching formula and for frustration theory are discussed.     

Effects of listener feedback on the messages of kindergarten children in a referential communication task

A referential communication paradigm was employed with kindergarten children to determine the effects of systematically varied feedback following inadequate message production. Feedback conditions included three levels of verbal specificity presented either alone or in combination with visual feedback. Results indicated that kindergarten children formulated more adequate referential messages when provided with either highly specific verbal feedback or a chance to view the listener's incorrect choice of referent. The differential effectiveness of various types of feedback was discussed in terms of the role of comparison activities in the referential communication process, and implications for the communicative competency of kindergarten children were considered.     

Moral judgments and self-presentations

Meehan, Woll, and Abbott (Journal of Research in Personality, 1979, 13, 25–38) have shown that scores on Hogan's Survey of Ethical Attitudes (SEA) are affected by instructions to simulate politically liberal or conservative attitudes. They also found that scores are affected by instructions to present one's self in a socially desirable or undesirable light, and that group ratings of the social desirability of the items could account for as much as 78% of the item response variance. Meehan et al. argue from these data that the SEA is a measure of political attitudes rather that moral judgments, and that the SEA is susceptible to dissimulation in the form of role playing and impression management. The present paper argues that test-taking is a form of self-presentation, identical to what goes on in everyday social interaction; this renders the Meehan et al. findings meaningful rather than problematic. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relationship between personality testing, self-presentation, moral judgments, and political attitudes.     

Self-esteem as a moderator of performance-satisfaction relationships

Korman's (Journal of Applied Psychology, 1968, 52, 484–490) prediction that performance and satisfaction should be positively related for high self-esteem individuals and unrelated for low self-esteem individuals was tested with samples of scientists, engineers, homemakers, firefighters, and clerical workers. Although there was a slight tendency for this prediction to be supported with the male scientist, engineer, and firefighter samples, Korman's theory was unsupported in the homemaker and clerical worker samples. Since the correlations found for low and high self-esteem persons significantly differed in only one of eight comparisons, self-esteem did not appear to be a reliable moderator of the performance-satisfaction relationship. Problems with previous studies purporting to test Korman's prediction are discussed, and the possibility of a confound between self-esteem and sex role and/or status is introduced.     

The development of analogical reasoning processes.

Two experiments were conducted to test the generalizability to children of a theory of analogical reasoning processes originally proposed for adults (R. J. Sternberg, Psychological Review, 1977a, 84, 353–378; R. J. Sternberg, Intelligence, information processing, and analogical reasoning: The componential analysis of human abilities, Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1977b) and to examine the development of analogical reasoning processes in terms of five proposed sources of cognitive development: (a) availability of component operations; (b) strategy for combining multiple component operation; (c) strategy for combining multiple executions of the same component operation; (d) consistency in use of strategy; (e) component-operation latency and difficulty. Between 15 and 21 subjects in each of grades 2, 4, 6, and adulthood (ages 8, 10, 12, and 19 years, respectively) were tested in their ability to solve analogies of systematically varied difficulty. Performance was measured in terms of latencies for items solved correctly, latencies for all items solved, and error rates. A slightly modified version of the Stenberg, 1977(a), Stenberg, 1977(b) theory was found to be applicable to the data for each of the age levels tested. In analogies with perceptually separable attributes, change over age was found in sources (d) and (e) noted above. In analogies with perceptually integral attributes, change over age was found in sources (a), (c), (d), and (e). Developmental trends were discussed in terms of past theory and findings, and possible reasons for differences in developmental patterns between the two kinds of analogies were suggested.     

BRAIN, SYMBOL, & EXPERIENCE: A PSYCHIATRIC AND THEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE

Abstract. Brain, Symbol & Experience attempts to solidify the authors' work in the fields of neurophenomenology and consciousness. The interdisciplinary nature of the work dictates less than extensive discussions of individual academic topics, but it does facilitate the identification of mutual points of interest for future pluralistic dialogues. This paper explores the implications of Laughlin, McManus, and d'Aquili for the neurosciences, psycho-pathology, psychotherapy, contemporary literature, theology, and faith development theory. Suggestions for specific interdisciplinary conversations are offered.     

Natural Theology Reconsidered (Again)

Neither the “traditional” nor the “revisionist” accounts of the nature and fate of natural theology are adequate to the task of explaining the peculiar trajectory of its history and, in particular, the consensus view of its apparent terminal decline. Contrary to the accepted narrative, natural theology was not fatally undermined by the scientific revolution. Even if temporarily marginalized by disciplines such as systematics and dogmatics, natural theology never went away. It is still with us, and it provides a healthy grasp of the divine presence in the natural world.