The availability explanation of excessive plausibility assessments

The assessment of hypotheses in hypothesis generation involves a comparison between those hypotheses that have been generated (specified) and those that are not generated (unspecified). Experiment 1 was an investigation of an “availability explanation” for subjects' overconfidence in the probability of specified hypotheses. The conjecture is that subjects have difficulty retrieving unspecified hypotheses from memory. Therefore, the underpopulated set of unspecified hypotheses is assessed as less probable then it actually is and the specified set is assessed as more probable. Two manipulations to increase the availability of unspecified hypotheses were investigated. One involved explicitly requesting subjects to populate the unspecified set; the other was a computer presentation of candidate unspecified hypotheses. Results of experiment 1 were that assessment overconfidence for both experimental groups was reduced. The results support the conjecture that the availability heuristic is at least partially responsible for subjects' overconfidence. The main result of experiment 2 was that the overconfidence bias persisted with different assessment methods for both subject-generated and experimenter-supplied hypotheses.     

A challenge to vocational psychology: How important are aspirations in determining male career development?

Nationally representative longitudinal data on 1394 employed white men aged 15 to 24 in 1966 were used to assess whether job opportunities or vocational aspirations are the more important determinants of later job held. Support was found for two hypotheses: (a) men more often achieve congruence between their aspiration and their field of employment by changing aspirations to match the job rather than vice versa; and (b) aspirations for field of work generally are not as useful as actual job field for predicting the field of jobs held 1 to 5 years later. Contrary to expectation, middle-class young men were no more able to attain their aspirations either for field of employment or for status level of occupation than were lower-class male youths. These results suggest that although aspirations have some predictive power, the opportunity structure—which both conditions aspirations to narrow ranges early in life and affects the direction of early career development—is too often neglected by vocational psychology. One suggestion for counseling practice is that interest and maturity assessments be used as sources of information to both client and counselor about past influences. Attempts to actually counteract those influences should be clearly specified as such and separated from the assessment process.     

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).