Creating a Career Hotline for Rural Residents

The authors describe a career information hotline for rural and farm residents affected by the farm crisis as one way a university career center and extension division can make their resources more generally available to residents. The rural crisis is real, but a crisis brings opportunities. There are opportunities to provide needed services and help ease the personal cost for families and reduce the declining quality of life in rural communities. (Heffernan & Heffernan, 1985, p. 17)     

Thinking About Gender

I present a way of thinking about gender that I have found helpful in evaluating various proposed feminist projects. By considering gender and value as independent dimensions, relationships of “difference” can be more clearly perceived as involving relationships of lack, of complementarity, or of perversion. I illustrate the use of my gender/value “compass” with applications to questions of self-identity, rationality, and knowledge. This way of thinking about gender allows a conceptualization of feminism that neither erases nor emphasizes gender distinctions.     

Value Development During the College Years: A Cause for Concern and an Opportunity for Growth

The authors examine and propose a synthesis of the theoretical tenets of ecumenical religious principles and cognitive-developmental stages of moral reasoning as a basis for value development. Because the college years represent a major opportunity for such value development, a case is made for formal programs and curriculum development for this period and an example is provided of coursework designed to promote systematic consciousness and the process of value growth.     

ITEM GENERATION PROCEDURES AND BACKGROUND DATA SCALES: IMPLICATIONS FOR CONSTRUCT AND CRITERION-RELATED VALIDITY

Background data measures are one of the best predictors of job performance. Nonetheless, questions have been raised about their content and construct validity. The present effort describes a set of procedures for developing construct and content valid background data items. Data gathered in seven field studies and six laboratory studies are presented bearing on the reliability and validity of the measures constructed using these item generation procedures. Findings in these studies indicate that construct-based item generation procedures yield reliable scales evidencing both content and construct validity. Furthermore, these scales are capable of predicting performance in a variety of settings. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for the development and validation of background data measures are discussed.     

Level of commitment,mutuality of commitment,and couple well-being

Interdependence theory identifies level of dependence and mutuality of dependence as two key properties of interdependent relationships. In ongoing relationships, these structural properties are subjectively experienced in terms of commitment–dependence level is experienced as greater or lesser commitment level, and mutuality of dependence is experienced as greater or lesser perceived mutuality in partners’commitment levels. We examined the associations of these variables with couple well-being using data from two three-wave longitudinal studies. One study examined partners in dating relationships and the second study examined partners in marital relationships. Consistent with predictions, both level of commitment and perceived mutuality of commitment accounted for unique variance in couple well-being: Couples exhibited greater adjustment to the degree that the partners were highly committed to their relationship and to the degree that their commitment levels were mutual. Mediation analyses revealed that the association of mutuality of commitment with couple well-being is partially mediated by negative affect (e.g., anxiety, guilt) and partially to wholly mediated by trust level; perceived mutuality of power is not a reliable mediator of this association.     

The influence of husband and wife personality on marital social support interactions

The influence of extraversion and negative affectivity on support interactions among married couples was examined. One hundred married couples were observed in two 10-minute interactions that were designed to elicit supportive behaviors. Extraverted support providers gave more support to their spouse than did introverts. Reciprocity in the exchange of support behaviors was also observed: The amount of support given by the individual in the first interaction predicted the amount of support provided to him or her during the second interaction. Negative affectivity was negatively correlated with ratings of interaction supportiveness, even when controlling for the number of supportive and negative behaviors received from the spouse. Extraverts showed higher sensitivity to emotional support behaviors than did introverts. The same level of emotional support behaviors from the spouse led to higher ratings of interaction supportiveness among those high on extraversion than among those low on extraversion. Results highlight the importance of integrative models of support that consider characteristics of the individual and his or her social environment.     

More Thinking About Gender: Reply

Patricia Elliot distorts my work, in summarizing my position as one of advocating a revaluing of feminine qualities. After clarifying my position, I flesh out in greater detail my argument that complete gender neutrality is neither necessary nor sufficient for a non-sexist society. The argument focuses on gender as a cognitive category and on the crucial question of “how do we get there from here.”     

Similarity and preference judgments of musical stimuli

Two experiments were performed comparing similarity (technical-structural) and preference personal-affective) judgments of jazz improvizations (Experiment 1) and of classical, pop-rock, and jazz music (Experiment 2). A multidimensional scaling paradigm (INDSCAL) was used for pairwise comparisons of the 12 musical pieces in each experiment. Each 2 minute piece was subdivided into 10 second segments in order to reduce fatigue or boredom and provide better sampling across comparison trials. In general, similarity dimensions reflected greater agreement among the subjects that did preference dimensions and were hierarchically ordered. The dominant dimensions for both similarity and preference judgments of jazz improvizations were: Tempo, Dominant Instrument (Horns-guitar), and Articulation. The dominant dimensions for similarity judgments involving all three genres were: Classical-Contemporary, Jazz-Rock, and Tempo. The dominant dimensions for preference judments were: Rock-Classical, Jazz-Classical, and Tempo. In general, the preference judgments of musically sophisticated subjects were less constrained by salient dimensions.