Occupational change in mid-career: An exploratory investigation

Twenty-five people who had made voluntary, radical occupational changes in mid-career were interviewed and compared and contrasted with people remaining in matched occupations. Four categories of factors emerged from the data as being important to mid-career occupational change: factors associated with the first occupation, factors associated with the second occupation, obstacles to change, and personal factors. Dissatisfaction with the first occupation and attraction to a second occupation are both necessary for change to occur but do not in all cases cause change. Dissatisfaction results from a lack of congruence between a person's work orientations and the rewards of an occupation, and attraction results from a perceived congruence between the two. Obstacles to change are most financial in nature and can deter or delay change even when dissatisfaction and attraction exist. Differing personal beliefs about the control one has over one's life and one's ability to succeed in new areas in large part determine whether obstacles deter change or not.     

Developmental auditory agnosia in the severely retarded: A further investigation

The hypotheses were investigated that (a) ability to recognize the auditory perceptual stimuli for familiar events is a developmental correlate to language acquisition and (b) the low functioning mentally handicapped suffer from auditory agnosia and are impaired in this ability. The subjects were 42 nonretarded children of ages 3 through 6 and 53 severely and moderately retarded, noninstitutionalized students. The retarded subjects were matched by mental age to the chronological age of the nonretarded children. The stimuli were 49 environmental sounds; the task consisted of sound-and-picture matching-to-sample. Group membership and developmental age were the factors in an analysis of variance design. The results revealed a strong effect of developmental age (p <. 0001). The effect of group was not significant, indicating that auditory agnosia may not be common among the lower functioning retarded. The assumption that agnosia may be a major factor underlying the language disability of the severely retarded was reexamined. It was suggested that the severely retarded achieve the requisite perceptual-semantic knowledge base for language too late, after the critical age for spontaneous and efficient language learning has passed.     

Interactive effects of generalized and situational expectancies on the arousal of cognitive and emotional components of social anxiety

This study examined the arousal of social anxiety in an interview setting as a function of anticipated self-disclosure. Of 88 college students who completed the Social Avoidance and Distress (SAD) scale and other measures of social anxiety, self-disclosure, need to affiliate, and interpersonal trust, 24 volunteered for the interview. During the interview, both components of anxiety (worry and emotionality) were affected by expectancy conditions, and emotionality was higher for high- than for low-SAD subjects. The prediction of an interaction between SAD level and expectancy condition on worry was confirmed: only high-SAD subjects exposed to the negative-expectancy condition experienced significant elevations in worry. Though social anxiety and self-disclosure measures correlated negatively, anxiety did not affect self-disclosure during the interview.     

The role of action lines in children's memory for pictures

The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that memory for pictorial material is dependent on initial comprehension of the depicted relationships. Subjects at three age levels (second, sixth, and ninth grades) were compared on ability to remember cartoon pictures which did or did not contain action lines as clues to the interaction between actors. It was predicted that the older children, because of extensive experience with still cartoons and comics, would benefit from the action lines. The action lines facilitated recall of pictures for only the older students, specifically, the ninth graders. The object of the action was the most efficient probe, even though the action was more frequently remembered. These results are discussed in terms of the action (interaction) being the basis of comprehension and, consequently, the remembering of the picture.     

The relationship between expressed social fears and assertiveness and its treatment implications

Behavior therapists have speculated about the relationship between social fears or social anxieties and lack of assertive behavior. Wolpe (1958) perhaps most clearly suggested such a relationship. “If he [the patient] has been ineffectual in such situations—unable, for instance, to return a faulty garment—I explain how unadaptive fears are at the bottom of this ineffectualness. … p. 116.” Wolpe further assumed that engaging in assertive behavior reciprocally inhibited fear in these same social situations and that assertive responses can be programmed for use in overcoming these fears.In later writings (Wolpe. 1969; Wolpe and Lazarus, 1966) Wolpe seems to have broadened his position concerning the cause of non-assertive behavior. Specifically, he now allows that an individual also may be non-assertive, “… not because of anxiety but because they have never had the opportunity of acquiring the necessary habits. p. 40” (Wolpe and Lazarus, 1966). For these individuals direct efforts in assertive training such as behavior rehearsal, operant conditioning or direct instruction are in order. For these individuals whose lack of assertiveness is due to a ‘phobic reaction’ or strong extrinsic fears, systematic desensitization is recommended in addition to assertive training.Despite this apparent change in position, the intuitively appealing notion that the more socially fearful an individual is the more non-assertive he is likely to be has not received the empirical attention it deserves. Rathus (1973) seems to have provided some indirect evidence pertaining to the relationship between social fears and assertiveness. In the context of evaluating the efficacy of an assertive training method he administered both the 100-item Temple Fear Survey Inventory (TFSI) (Braun and Reynolds, 1969) and the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS) (Rathus, 1973) to groups of female students receiving either assertive training, a placebo treatment or no treatment. He found that at post-test the assertive training group scored significantly higher than either the placebo or no treatment groups on the RAS and that there were no significant differences in post-test Full Scale TSFI Scores. Fear of Social Criticism Factor Scores or Fear of Social Incompetence Factor Scores although in each case the mean changes toward less fear were greater for the group receiving assertive training. This finding gives little support to the reciprocal relationship between social fears and assertiveness. What is needed is a direct determination of the degree to which social fears and assertiveness are related in a sizeable sample of subjects.     

Some processes in children's comprehension of linguistically and visually depicted relationships

A type of paired-associate task was given to 64 kindergarteners and 64 fifth-graders. In four conditions both linguistic and pictorial stimuli were presented simultaneously. In one condition, both a linguistic and pictorial relationship between two objects was depicted; in a second, only the linguistic aspect of the stimuli depicted a relationship; in the third condition, only the picture was relational; and in the fourth, neither the sentences nor the pictures portrayed a relationship between the objects. The results indicate that a relationship in both modes facilitated recall more than the presentation of a relationship in only one mode. A relationship in either mode enhanced recall more than no relationship at all. There were general significant age and IQ effects. The results are interpreted as favoring a duo-system model, with both representation and comprehension occurring within the context of relatively independent systems.     

TWO PSYCHOTIC PLAYWRIGHTS AT WORK: THE LATE PLAYS OF AUGUST STRINDBERG AND TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

August Strindberg and Tennessee Williams both became severely deranged during their playwriting careers. Both emerged from the most intense form of their derangement and wrote plays afterward. Strindberg, however, wrote his greatest plays after his psychosis; Williams, before his. Strindberg's psychosis spurred his creativity; that of Williams severely damaged his. This paper proposes that Strindberg mastered his psychosis and that in his late plays he dramatically symbolized psychotic processes. Williams, on the other hand, could neither access nor master his, and his late plays embody the repeated, unsymbolized acting out of his psychosis within an aesthetic context. These differences between the two playwrights become clear not through analysis of dramatic characters, but through changes that each playwright made to the dramatic medium itself.     

Creativity, “Twinning,” and Self-Destruction in the Life and Work of Tennessee Williams

Applying an eclectic psychoanalytic framework, this paper provides a thematic link between the core experiences of Williams' early life and his creative work. Both preoedipal and Oedipal themes are elucidated. The central issue that dominated Williams' mental life was his struggle between a sense of suffocation and confinement, on the one hand, and having artistic and sexual freedom, on the other. The experience of suffocation extended to his dread of becoming mad. This dread derived from his intense twinning or twinship merger with his schizophrenic sister who was confined in an asylum. The study focuses attention on a number of Williams' one-act and full-length plays, written during each of the decades of his public career, as representative of his overall dramatic opus. These works are indicative of his special relationship with his sister as well as of his obsession about self-indulgence and fear of confinement. The later plays suggest that he was subject to identity confusion.     

Information processing in reading-disabled and nondisabled children

Reading disabled and nondisabled children (13-14 years of age) were presented lists of 10 words each at different rates (one word per 1, 2, and 4 sec), and immediately after the last word of each list they recalled the words in any order. Recall of the first few words presented from each list (the primacy effect) was lower in reading-disabled than nondisabled children, and slower presentation rates increased the primacy effect in both groups. These findings suggest that reading-disabled children are not completely failing to use elaborative encoding but are using less effective elaborative encoding than nondisabled readers. With all presentation rates, recall of the last few words (the recency effect) was comparable in both groups, suggesting that older reading-disabled children encode and recognize the stimuli and that elaborative encoding is deficient in reading-disabled in spite of adequate stimulus encoding and recognition.     

Operant theory and methodology in infant vocal conditioning

The numerous mechanisms of behavior change in infant development are sometimes difficult to distinguish. Although it is agreed that elicitation and reinforcement both influence infant learning, the distinction between these two learning mechanisms was clarified in response to K. Bloom's (1984, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 38, 93-102) commentary. The theoretical and methodological assumptions of an functional analysis of infant behavior were made explicit in the context of the C. L. Poulson study (1983, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 36, 471-489). The rationale for the use of DRO schedules to control for elicitation effects of continuous reinforcement and the inadequacy of noncontingent schedules for this purpose were also discussed.