Personality Types and Vocational Choice: A Test of Holland's Theory

In order to test the adequacy of Holland's theory of vocational choice with reference to a broad segment of entering college students, a sample of the freshman class entering the Pennsylvania State University evaluated themselves in terms of the six personality styles of Holland's theory. Relationships between the personality styles and vocational choices were studied for groups of Decided, Tentative, and Undecided students. While several inversions in the data are evident, the data possess sufficient consistency to indicate that the personality identifications these students made in Holland's frame of reference were related to their initial vocational choices.     

Syntactic influences on stuttering in young child stutterers

This study examined the location and rate of stuttering in the spontaneous speech of nine young stutterers (4.0–6.6 yr) in relation to certain aspects of syntax. It was designed to answer the following questions: Is there more stuttering at clause onset (boundary) than at other points in the clause? Does the type of clause influence rate of stuttering? Is there more stuttering on complex than on simple sentences? The syntactic analysis defined 10 clause types (seven pertaining to complex sentences and three pertaining to simple sentences); clause boundaries (taking into account “filler” words occuring in such positions); and hierarchical constituent structure within sentences. Stuttering was found with significantly greater frequency at clause boundaries than at internal (nonboundary) positions of clauses. This was apparent for nine of the 10 clause types, the exception being complement clauses. The word “and” at the beginning of simple and complex sentences provoked a high rate of stuttering. The hierarchical structure within the clause did not influence the location of stuttering, and sentence complexity was not a factor in the rate of stuttering.     

A comparison of parent and teacher reports of selected adaptive behaviors of children

Assessment of children's adaptive behavior has been recommended for full multidimensional and nondiscriminatory evaluations. Additionally, previous research has reported discrepancies between teacher and parent reports on adaptive behavior. The purpose of this study was to compare mother and teacher reports on two scales from the Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children of the System of Multicultural and Pluralistic Assessment (SOMPA). Black students from second through fourth grades (N = 24; 4 males and 4 females per grade) in an urban, parochial school were selected. The interviewers were two trained female graduate students (one white, one black). Each child's mother and teacher were interviewed in accordance with SOMPA assessment procedures. The results indicated that there was little agreement (.38 to .64) between mother and teacher reports. Additionally, mothers tended to provide higher ratings of adaptive behaviors than did teachers, irrespective of grade level. Implications of these findings for the assessment of children's adaptive behaviors are discussed.     

Homelessness in the United States. An ecological perspective.

This article presents an ecological perspective on homelessness that emphasizes the context in which homeless people live and the complex interactions between personal, social, economic, and service system resources that affect their well-being. The ecological perspective encourages researchers and program developers to assess the problems of homelessness at multiple levels of analysis, to view homelessness as a result of contextual factors that interact with individual and family vulnerabilities, and to assess carefully the social contexts in which researchers and program developers operate. Four ecological principles are described as a heuristic for research, intervention, and policy development. The implications of an ecological perspective for psychologists who wish to get involved in dealing with homelessness are discussed.     

Toward an integrated approach to early childhood stuttering

This article proposes a model that integrates various factors influencing early childhood stuttering. The factors interact in a synergistic manner and can be subsumed under three macrofactors: physiological, psycholinguistic, and psychosocial. Such a model can be clinically applied toward an integrated approach to the assessment and treatment of the young stutterer.     

Black Women and the Pleasures of Intellectual Work

What does it mean for a Black woman to choose to do intellectual work? In the twenty‐first century, Black women, either by virtue of their academic careers or their vocations outside of institutional settings, pursue intellectual work for its own sake as well as in pursuit of collective goals. That is to say, they can acknowledge intellectual work as a source of personal fulfillment, indeed a source of joy in ways that earlier generations of Black women could not. At least that should be true. In fact, it remains difficult for Black women to own the joy that their engagement with ideas produces.