A survey of psychologists employed in business and industry

Responses to a questionnaire from 78 members of the Metropolitan New York Association for Applied Psychology provided the following results. A majority of respondents found their first jobs as applied psychologists through informal networking techniques such as personal recommendations or self-starter methods such as sending out resumes. Over 75% of the respondents rated their graduate institutions as good or excellent. However, an increase in the applied focus of these programs was strongly urged, and opinions about graduate faculties were mixed. Obtaining applied work experience or relevant internships was the most often mentioned advice for seekers of similar positions.Appreciation is expressed to Harold Takooshian of Fordham University who first aroused our interests in this topic as an area for research and to Bruce Biskin of AICPA, Dennis Hawver and Tony Zinsser of the Hawver Group, Ted Grant and Michael Secunda of Manufacturers Hanover, and Tom Novak of Young & Rubicam for serving as pre-test subjects for the questionnaire of this study.     

Cognitive, perceptual, and personal-social development of prematurely born preschoolers

This study was designed to determine possible differences in the cognitive, perceptual, and personal-social development of prematurely and maturely born 3-yr.-olds which might foreshadow later learning problems. The subjects were 40 prematurely born graduates of a neonatal intensive care unit (birth weight less than 2,500 gm, less than 37 wk. gestation) matched on the pair-level with full-term controls on sex, race, post-conceptual age, and socioeconomic background. All subjects were singletons and parity was matched at the group level. No differences were found between the groups on tests of higher mental processes including the General Cognitive, Verbal, Quantitative, and Memory Scales of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, and researcher-devised measures of problem-solving competence. No differences in parental reports of personal-social development were noted. Prematures did not perform as well as controls on perceptual performance tasks, and this difference was interpreted as reflecting relatively impaired visual-motor coordination.     

Mapping physical characteristics in face images to social judgements

Sutherland and Young (Br. J. Psychol., 113, 2022, 1056) provide a comprehensive and timely overview of recent developments in research on social judgements of faces, emphasizing the utility of data-driven approaches. Here, we expand on this theme, focusing on how data-driven approaches can provide new insights into the physical characteristics in face images that best predict social judgements.     

A comparison of leverpress and head-poke discriminated Sidman avoidance

A discriminated Sidman avoidance procedure used by Forgione (1970) was replicated using a head-poke response instead of a leverpress as the avoidance operant. The resultant data were described in terms of the five dependent measures reported by Forgione. Head-poke avoidance was found to be more efficient than its leverpress counterpart and compared very favorably with the lever-disabling (or shock-timer-on) procedure used by Forgione to break up inefficient leverpress behavior patterns.     

Factor analysis of the revised UCLA loneliness scale

The Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (R-UCLA) is described and used as a unidimensional measure of loneliness; conceptualizing and assessing loneliness as a unitary, global experience. The present study suggests that the R-UCLA is a multidimensional measure of loneliness that assesses more than one construct of the loneliness experience. Results of principal axis factor analysis suggest that the R-UCLA measures three dimensions of loneliness: loneliness related to (a) “intimate others,” (b) “social others,” and (c) the “affiliative environment.” These findings may affect the utilization of the R-UCLA in future assessment, research, and intervention. These implications are discussed. This article is based on the author’s master’s thesis, submitted for the Master of Counseling degree at Arizona State University.     

Factor analysis of the revised UCLA loneliness scale

The Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (R-UCLA) is described and used as a unidimensional measure of loneliness; conceptualizing and assessing loneliness as a unitary, global experience. The present study suggests that the R-UCLA is a multidimensional measure of loneliness that assesses more than one construct of the loneliness experience. Results of principal axis factor analysis suggest that the R-UCLA measures three dimensions of loneliness: loneliness related to (a) “intimate others,” (b) “social others,” and (c) the “affiliative environment.” These findings may affect the utilization of the R-UCLA in future assessment, research, and intervention. These implications are discussed. This article is based on the author’s master’s thesis, submitted for the Master of Counseling degree at Arizona State University. This research was supported by a grant from the Arizona State University Graduate Student Association Research Development Program.     

Youth at Risk: Another Point of View

In this rejoinder to Tidwell and Corona Garrett (1994), the authors discuss three important aspects of the term at risk that help to clarify its meaning.     

Cognitive function after open-heart surgery: Are postoperative neuropsychological deficits caused by cardiopulmonary bypass?

Despite the many technological developments in arterial perfusion and cardiac surgical procedures, open-heart surgery is still believed to pose a significant risk for cerebral injury. There are several potential causes of brain damage during open-heart surgery, including prolonged or severe arterial hypotension, as well as emboli emanating from the cardiopulmonary bypass circuit or the operative field. This article reviews the available neuropsychological studies of outcome following cardiac valve replacement and coronary artery bypass grafting. Because both procedures are life-saving operations, the research in this area has been quasi-experimental and fraught with methodological problems. Nonetheless, the findings converge to suggest that cognitive dysfunction occurs after open-heart surgery, and that the deficits are attributable, at least in part, to factors specific to the operation or to the patient being maintained on cardiopulmonary bypass. Preliminary findings suggest that embolization is the primary cause of perioperative deficits in uncomplicated operations. Studies have also consistently found preoperative deficits in this population, suggesting that neuropsychological dysfunction is caused by severe chronic cardiac disease as well as open-heart surgery.