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.     

Worldviews about change: Their structure and their implications for understanding responses to sustainability,technology, and political change

People hold different perspectives about how they think the world is changing or should change. We examined five of these “worldviews” about change: Progress, Golden Age, Endless Cycle, Maintenance, and Balance. In Studies 1–4 (total N = 2733) we established reliable measures of each change worldview, and showed how these help explain when people will support or oppose social change in contexts spanning sustainability, technological innovations, and political elections. In mapping out these relationships we identify how the importance of different change worldviews varies across contexts, with Balance most critical for understanding support for sustainability, Progress/Golden Age important for understanding responses to innovations, and Golden Age uniquely important for preferring Trump/Republicans in the 2016 US election. These relationships were independent of prominent individual differences (e.g., values, political orientation for elections) or context-specific factors (e.g., self-reported innovativeness for responses to innovations). Study 5 (N = 2140) examined generalizability in 10 countries/regions spanning five continents, establishing that these worldviews exhibited metric invariance, but with country/region differences in how change worldviews were related to support for sustainability. These findings show that change worldviews can act as a general “lens” people use to help determine whether to support or oppose social change.     

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.     

Attitudinal and behavioral resistance: A marketing perspective

Resistance to ritual practice and related consumption behavior has been under‐researched in both marketing and consumer research, although it has significant implications for business and consumers. In this paper, the authors offer an explanation of attitudinal and behavioral resistance by reporting on the findings of a qualitative interpretative study of those self‐identifying as high school prom resistors. Four types of resistance are posited, that is, identity‐positioning resistors, identity‐protecting resistors, emotional resistors, and apathetic resistors. Characteristics of the typology are developed and consequences of their behaviors discussed. Theoretical and managerial consequences are proposed. Understanding resistance to prom may lead to improved service provision, better targeting of communication messages (e.g., advertising), overcoming event dilution as well as generating positive word of mouth, and reducing consumer regret. This research expands the theoretical understanding of attitudinal and behavioral resistance by bringing new evidence as to the individual and social identity processes by which resistance develops. This study helps to better understand opposition to positional consumption as well as extending our understanding of why individuals resist consumption and related practice. Two new concepts are also identified and discussed, namely “event dilution” and “regret through resistance”. Managerial implications (contextual and for marketplace rituals) are posited. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.