Sex differences in the levels of generality of values/preferences related to work

The current literature on sex differences in values/preferences related to work appears polarized around two apparently contradictory sets of findings and conclusions. One set of studies fails to detect sex differences. The other set of studies indicates that males are more concerned about money, independence, security, and career goals, while females appear more concerned about people and environmental issues at work. Following W. D. Siegfried, I. MacFarlane, D. B. Graham, N. A. Moore, and P. L. Young (Journal of Vocational Behavior, 1981, 18, 30–42) it is suggested that level of analysis may be a crucial factor accounting for much of the prevailing confusion in the literature. This study investigated sex differences in values/preferences related to work at various levels of generality. A sample of 1081 senior high school students was administered the Work Aspect Preference Scale (WAPS). Complete-link cluster analyses were performed for males and females separately. Comparison of the two dendrograms reveals the substantial similarity of the preference patterns of males and females. However, the basic difference in the patterns focused on the Altruism and Physical Activity subscales. Females appeared more likely to associate helping others with personal achievement whereas males tended to see helping people in terms of controlling and organizing them. Females also linked physical activity with helping others and self-development whereas males tended to associate physical activity with extrinsic rewards of work. It is concluded that the use of cluster analysis techniques may provide the best procedure to effect an adequate reconciliation of the conflicting results to be found in the current literature.     

Values,preferences, needs,work ethics,and orientations to work: Toward a conceptual and empirical integration

There have been comparatively few attempts on either the conceptual or empirical level to integrate values, preferences, needs, work ethics, and orientations to work. A rationale outlining the way these concepts can be related to each other, is presented. It is maintained that these concepts are categories of relations between humans and work. These categories are qualitatively similar and differ principally in the level of generality of the characteristics of work considered. Complete-link cluster analysis is suggested as a method of analysis compatible with the proffered rationale. Two studies are presented with data gathered during the development of two versions of Work Aspect Preference Scale (WAPS). The samples for the two studies both comprised senior high school students, controlled for sex and age, who were administered the WAPS. Study 1 had a sample of 532 while Study 2 had a sample size of 482. Both sets of data were cluster analyzed. Results indicated a very substantial amount of agreement between the two samples, particularly at the more general levels of clustering. The bipartite and tripartite groupings of vocational needs suggested by L. H. Lofquist and R. V. Dawis (Journal of Vocational Behavior, 1978, 12, 12–19) were confirmed as were the findings of J. Mortimer (Sociology of Work and Occupations, 1975, 2, 29–53). Other clusters were also identified with findings from previous research. It is concluded that the investigation of preferences at different levels of generality and the interrelation between these levels shows great promise for both the researcher and the counselor and therefore merits more research effort.     

Dissociable stages of problem solving (II): first evidence for process-contingent temporal order of activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

In a companion study, eye-movement analyses in the Tower of London task (TOL) revealed independent indicators of functionally separable cognitive processes during problem solving, with processes of building up an internal representation of the problem preceding actual planning processes. These results imply that processes of internalization and planning should also be distinguishable in time and space with respect to concomitant brain activation patterns. To investigate this possibility, here we conducted analyses of fMRI data for left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) during problem solving in the TOL task by accounting for the trial-by-trial variability of onsets and durations of the different cognitive processing stages. Comparisons between stimulus-locked and response-locked modeling approaches affirmed that activation in left dlPFC was elicited particularly during early processes of internalization, comprising the extraction of goal information and the generation of an internal problem representation, whereas activation in right dlPFC was predominantly attributable to later processes of mental transformations on this representation, that is planning proper. Thus, present data corroborate the proposal that often observed bilateral dlPFC activation patterns during complex cognitive tasks such as problem solving may reflect functionally and, to some extent, even temporally separable processes with opposing lateralizations.     

Dissociable stages of problem solving (I): temporal characteristics revealed by eye-movement analyses

Understanding the functional neuroanatomy of planning and problem solving may substantially benefit from better insight into the chronology of the cognitive processes involved. Based on the assumption that regularities in cognitive processing are reflected in overtly observable eye-movement patterns, here we recorded eye movements while participants worked on Tower of London (TOL) problems that comprised an experimental manipulation of different task demands. Single-trial saccade-locked analyses revealed that higher demands on forming an internal problem representation were associated with an increased number of gaze alternations between start state and goal state, but did not show any effect on the durations of these inspections of the states. In contrast, higher demands on actual planning in terms of mental manipulations of working memory contents coincided with a prolonged duration of the very last inspection of the start state (i.e., immediately preceding movement execution) but did not show any effect on the number of gaze alterations. Differential task demands on internalization and planning processes during problem solving hence selectively affect different eye-movement parameters. Moreover, these findings complement previous neuroimaging data on dissociable contributions of left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in problem solving with novel evidence for a corresponding dissociation in the eye-movement patterns reflecting the associated cognitive processes.     

Funciones ejecutivas y sintomatología asociada con los trastornos de la conducta alimentaria

Recent studies agree in that patients with Eating Disorders (ED) suffer from inefficiencies in Executive Functions as a consequence of the disease. In order to determine whether or not such inefficiencies make part of the endophenotype of ED—not that they result as a mere consequence of ED—69 women were evaluated: 23 diagnosed with ED, 23 with symptoms associated to ED and 23 women without any ED or risks for developing them. All participants were administered the Eating Attitude Test (EAT -40), the Interview for Diagnosis of Eating Disorders-IV (IDED -IV), the Tower of London Test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The results showed inefficiencies in executive functions—specifically in planning and cognitive flexibility for both the analogous symptoms group and the diagnosed ED group. The findings suggest that these alterations could be present prior to the establishment of the ED, and that they can actually constitute a risk factor     

Parsing Heuristic and Forward Search in First‐Graders' Game‐Play Behavior

Seventy‐three children between 6 and 7 years of age were presented with a problem having ambiguous subgoal ordering. Performance in this task showed reliable fingerprints: (a) a non‐monotonic dependence of performance as a function of the distance between the beginning and the end‐states of the problem, (b) very high levels of performance when the first move was correct, and (c) states in which accuracy of the first move was significantly below chance. These features are consistent with a non‐Markov planning agent, with an inherently inertial decision process, and that uses heuristics and partial problem knowledge to plan its actions. We applied a statistical framework to fit and test the quality of a proposed planning model (Monte Carlo Tree Search). Our framework allows us to parse out independent contributions to problem‐solving based on the construction of the value function and on general mechanisms of the search process in the tree of solutions. We show that the latter are correlated with children's performance on an independent measure of planning, while the former is highly domain specific.     

Looking ahead from age 6 to 13: A deeper insight into the development of planning ability

Planning ability gradually increases throughout childhood. However, it remains unknown whether this is attributable to global factors such as an increased ability and willingness to inhibit premature, impulsive responding, or due to the availability of specific planning operations, such as being able to mentally plan ahead more steps (‘search depth’) or to derive a clear temporal order of goals by the task layout (‘goal hierarchy’). Here, we studied the development of planning ability with respect to these global and problem‐specific aspects (search depth and goal hierarchy) of performance in 178 children from 6 to 13 years using the Tower of London task. As expected, global performance gradually developed with age. In accordance, planning durations increasingly reflected global problem demands with longer pre‐planning in harder problems. Furthermore, specific planning parameters revealed that children were increasingly capable of mentally searching ahead more steps. In contrast, the ability to derive a goal hierarchy did not show age‐related changes. While the global development of planning performance and adaptive planning durations were proposed to primarily reflect enhanced self‐monitoring, the specific increase in search depth across childhood that most likely proceeds until young adult age represents more directly planning‐related processes. Thus, development of planning ability is supported by multiple contributions.     

Too much anticipation? Large anticipatory adjustments of grasping movements to minimal object manipulations

When humans grasp objects, the grasps foreshadow the intended object manipulation. It has been suggested that grasps are selected that lead to medial arm postures, which facilitate movement speed and precision, during critical phases of the object manipulation. In Experiment 1, it has been tested whether grasp selections lead to medial postures during rotations of a dial. Participants twisted their arms considerably before grasping the dial, even when the upcoming dial rotation was minimal (5°). Participants neither assumed a medial posture at any point during a short rotation, nor did they assume any of the postures involved in short rotations in the opposite direction. Thus, grasp selections did not necessarily lead to specific postures at any point of the object manipulation. Experiment 2 examined the effect of various grasps on the speed of dial rotations. A medial initial grasp resulted in the fastest dial rotations for most rotation angles. Spontaneously selected grasps were more excursed than necessary to maximize dial rotation speed. This apparent overshot might be explained by participants’ sensitive to the variability of their grasps and is in line with the assumption that grasps facilitate control over the grasped object.