Relationships between vocational development and self-concept in sixth grade students

Super, in his self-concept theory of vocational development, indicates the existence of a strong relationship between vocational development and the development of self-concept in adolescent and adult subjects. This study was designed to test for this relationship in preadolescent subjects. The study investigated the relationships among a measure of career maturity, self-concept, socioeconomic status, race, sex, place of residence, and age. The research sample included 300 randomly selected sixth grade students enrolled in 22 public schools in the state of Georgia during the fall quarter of 1978. Data were obtained by the administration of two instruments, the Career Maturity Inventory-Attitude Scale (CMI-AS) and the Piers-Harris (P-H) Children's Self-Concept Scale. A multiple regression analysis was utilized to analyze the data. Results of this study indicate a positive but low correlation between the total scores on the CMI-AS and the P-H Scale. All six of the self-concept factors on the P-H Scale were found to be significantly correlated to the CMI-AS score. Socioeconomic status was found to be significantly correlated to the CMI-AS score. Although race was not found to be a significant source of variance on the CMI-AS, the interaction of race and socioeconomic status was found to be significant. Sex, place of residence (urban and rural), and age were not found to be significant sources of variance on the CMI-AS.     

Treatment of urinary urgency and excessive frequency: a case study

A 39-year-old male presenting with a 5 year history of excessive urinary frequency and urgency was treated first with scheduling of urination, use of external urinary catheter and progressive muscular relaxation and then with a urinary retention training procedure. After the first set of procedures, urinary frequency decreased, whereas urgency increased slightly. After completion of retention training, both symptoms were alleviated. Overall, urinary frequency decreased from a baseline average of 14 urinations daily to a post-treatment average of 6.5 urinations per day. Urinary urgency decreased from a baseline average of 35 urges per day to a post-treatment average of 9.3 urges per day. Gains were maintained at 3 and 5 month follow-up.     

Does echoic memory develop?

A series of experiments is reported on the stimulus suffix effect with the primary variables being age of the subject (7 and 11 years), rate of presentation, and list length. While the suffix effect was larger for younger subjects at a slow rate of presentation, the effect was nearly identical across age groups with a fast presentation rate. It was concluded that when the contaminating effects of more central processes are reduced, there is no developmental change in the capacity of echoic memory. An interesting effect of rate of presentation is reported with younger subjects performing better at faster rates of presentation and adults performing better at slower rates.     

Exercise, changes in aerobic capacity, and changes in self-perceptions: An experimental investigation

Subjects in an exercise training condition participated in a 10-week aerobic exercise class, whereas subjects in waiting-list control and independent control conditions did not. The results indicated that subjects in the training condition evidenced reliably greater improvements in physical fitness (aerobic capacity) and reported reliably greater improvements in their abilities and confidence in both the physical area (e.g., ability to run distances) and nonphysical area (e.g., frustration tolerance) than did subjects in the control conditions. On the other hand, improvements in physical fitness were not related to reported improvements in abilities and confidence. These findings are of interest because they indicate that some of the important personal changes that are associated with physical fitness training are not due to changes in fitness, but appear to be due to other factors (e.g., group participation and expectancies).     

Attention to important versus trivial tasks and salience of fatigue-related symptoms for coronary prone individuals

The present study tested the hypothesis that individuals with the Type A coronary prone behavior pattern focus their attention more on important tasks, and less on trivial tasks than do Type B's. The study used a paradigm in which some subjects worked on math problems (important task) and rated intervening mood items (trivial task), whereas others rated mood items they were to memorize (important task) and worked on intervening math problems (trivial task). All subjects were later tested on recall of mood items. Results indicated that Type A's performed better on math problems and recalled more fatigue-related mood items when the task was important than when it was trivial; for Type B subjects, there was no difference in the number of math problems solved correctly or number of mood items recalled between important and trivial task conditions. Moreover, Type A's reported greater fatigue when mood recall was the important task than when math was the important task, whereas fatigue ratings of Type B's did not differ across these conditions. The findings suggest that Type A's suppress their attention to fatigue-related symptoms only when symptoms are not the objects of focus.     

Imposed latencies,interruptions and dyadic interaction: Physiological response and interpersonal attraction

This study explored the impact of paralinguistic phenomena on interpersonal attraction and physiological measures during dyadic interaction. Conversations between undergraduate subjects and same-sex experimenters were either synchronous or asynchronous, with half the asynchronous conversations including imposed long latencies and the remainder frequent interruptions. Results showed that imposed latencies were associated with decreased positive attributions and greater physiological arousal, but interruptions had a moderately positive effect. The findings were discussed in terms of Chapple's theory of interaction, and their implications for psychotherapy and other interviews.     

Self-consciousness and reactance

Two studies examined the effects of dispositional self-consciousness on reactance. In Experiment 1, men who were high in private self-consciousness displayed greater reactance responses to a coercive communication attempt (as reflected by attitude reversal) than did men lower in private self-consciousness. In contrast, the effect of public self-consciousness in this context was to inhibit the expression of reactance. In Experiment 2, women high in private self-consciousness exhibited greater reactance responses to a self-imposed threat to their freedom of choice (as reflected by equivocation over two choice alternatives) than did women lower in private self-consciousness. The effect of public self-consciousness in this context was negligible. These findings replicate and extend a previous self-awareness and reactance finding; they provide additional evidence that manipulated self-awareness and dispositional self-consciousness converge on the same psychological entity; and they provide additional evidence that there are important differences between the dimensions of private and public self-consciousness.