Erik Homburger Erikson (1902–1994): Obituary.

Memorializes E. H. Erikson, who significantly revised and extended Freud's psychoanalytic theory and practice and originated the term identity crisis. He began his career as a child analyst and moved on to academic positions at Yale, the University of California and Harvard. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The interface of work and family life.

Dramatic changes in the workforce and workplace contribute to the need for a synthesis of knowledge on the interdependence of family life, work, and the vocational development of children, adolescents, and adults. Four prominent themes in the work and family literature are reviewed with the intention of providing guidance for all applied psychologists. These include (a) the meaning of work embedded in people's lives, (b) multiple life roles, (c) work and family navigation, and (d) supportive family systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young adult identities and their pathways: A developmental and life course model.

Developmental and life course studies of young adult identities have focused on 2 dimensions: subjective age and psychosocial maturity. This study examines the developmental synchrony of these 2 processes. In a longitudinal sample of young adults from Add Health (ages 18–22), a person-centered analysis of indicators of these dimensions identified 4 identity profiles. Two depict early and late patterns of identity; the others represent contrasting types of discordance: pseudo-adult, with subjective age more advanced than maturation level, and anticipatory, with subjective age less advanced than maturational level. The profiles vary by gender, socioeconomic status, and race–ethnicity, as well as by adolescent (ages 12–16) pubertal maturation, psychosocial adjustment, and family context. These results provide support for a more holistic, interdisciplinary understanding of adult identity and show that young adult identities in the Add Health sample follow differentiated paths into the adult years, with largely unknown consequences for the subsequent life course. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Improving quality of work life.

In his article on ameliorating the quality of work life (QWL), E. E. Lawler (see record 1982-31497-001) observed that a major obstacle to the voluntary adoptions of such programs by employers is the priority given to economic performance and that it would be more strategic to promote programs that both improve the QWL and productivity. This article extends that theme further by noting that it would be even more strategic to promote such programs principally on the basis of their demonstrable impact on productivity, with their QWL effects as secondary by-products. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonstandard work schedules and family life.

Data on 1,090 workers from the 1977 Quality of Employment Survey (R. P. Quinn and G. L. Staines, 1979) show that working a nonstandard pattern of days (e.g., weekend work and variable days) was associated with less time in family roles, higher levels of specific types of conflict between work and family life and, in one instance, lower levels of family adjustment. Working a nonstandard pattern of hours (shiftwork) was associated with more time in one family role, housework, yet also with more conflict between work and family life. Findings indicate that the problems shiftwork poses for family life concern the scheduling of available time rather than the amount of time available for family activities. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship of workaholism with work–life conflict, life satisfaction, and purpose in life.

This study examined the differences between 2 types of workaholics (enthusiastic and nonenthusiastic workaholics) and nonworkaholic workers (work enthusiasts, relaxed workers, unengaged workers, and disenchanted workers) with respect to work–life conflict, life satisfaction, and purpose in life in a sample of 171 salaried employees of a high technology organization. Results differed for the 2 types of workaholics, supporting the importance of continued differentiation of workaholic types. Nonenthusiastic workaholics were found to have significantly more work–life conflict and significantly less life satisfaction and purpose in life than 3 of the 4 types of nonworkaholics. Enthusiastic workaholics were found to have significantly more life satisfaction and purpose in life than nonenthusiastic workaholics and significantly more work–life conflict than 3 of the 4 nonworkaholics. Implications for career planning and counseling are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality of work life activities: A research agenda.

Reviews knowledge about quality of work life (QWL) as a guide to the assessment and development of this field of professional activities. Work structuring, humanization of work, and sociotechnical systems are used interchangeably with QWL. Topics considered include evaluation methodology, planned diffusion of QWL activities, and collective bargaining and QWL activities. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disability and autonomy: Priming alternative identities.

Objective: Despite the broad stigmatization that people with disabilities experience, the ways they respond as targets of prejudice have received little attention in the psychological literature. The present study examined the reactions of college students with disabilities to being primed with different aspects of their identity and how individual differences in stigma consciousness moderate this effect. Design: After being primed with their identity as a person with a disability or a student, college students with disabilities (n = 116) completed measures of autonomy-related thoughts, help-seeking, and stigma consciousness. Results: Students primed with their disability status activated autonomy-related thoughts less than the participants primed with their student identity. Moreover, as predicted, the priming manipulation had a stronger impact for participants higher in stigma consciousness. Across all participants, greater activation of autonomy-related thoughts was associated with a lower likelihood of seeking help. Conclusion: Depending on the aspect of their identity that is most salient in a given context and their level of stigma consciousness, people with disabilities can access autonomy-related thoughts to a greater or lesser extent. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Wives' employment and husbands' attitudes toward work and life.

Previous research has established that wives' employment has a positive association with the mental health of wives but a negative association with the mental health of husbands. The present study investigated the connections between wives' employment and husbands' work life, using data from the 1977 Quality of Employment Survey on 208 couples in which both husband and wife worked and 408 couples in which only the husband worked. Data indicate that wives' employment had nonspurious negative associations with husbands' job and life satisfaction. Husbands of working wives felt less adequate as family breadwinners than did husbands of housewives, and this appeared to account for their lower levels of job and life satisfaction. Findings suggest that the occupational domain is particularly important to understanding the negative relations between wives' employment and husbands' job and life satisfaction. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Management of work and personal life: Problems and opportunities.

Review of Management of work and personal life: Problems and opportunities edited by Mary Dean Lee and Rabindra N. Kanungo (1984). This book is a selected "proceedings" of a conference on the work-non-work relationships hosted by McGill University in 1983. The fundamental objective of the conference (and hence this book) was to provide a critical overvue of the research on the management and co-ordination of the different life spheres of the individual and to stimulate new ideas at the conceptual, methodological, and or practical level. From a practical point of view, even though most of us recognize that we are living in a changing world, we know very little about what to do about it. Most of the chapters do try to address this practical issue but the vast majority of suggestions are speculative. Again the lack of data is an overwhelming barrier. Overall, however, this is a good book which is recommended to anyone wishing to conduct research in the area. It may also serve as a basic text in graduate courses on the management of work and personal lives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Speak of me as I am: The life and work of Masud Khan.

Reviews the book, Speak of me as I am: The life and work of Masud Khan by Judy Cooper (1993). Controversy surrounding M. Masud R. Khan the person usually crowds out serious consideration of his psychoanalytic writings. In Speak of me as I am, Judy Cooper, a psychotherapist in London, convincingly demonstrates that, despite his life, Khan's work has enduring value and would amply reward anyone who studies it. She has a difficult task, to give the reader a familiarity--and even sympathy--with Khan while not minimizing his always off-putting and frequently repulsive behavior. One would think that the task would be all the more daunting because she herself had an analysis with Khan from 1967 to 1973. Far from providing an idealized portrait of her former analyst, however, Cooper openly discusses Khan's shortcomings. The book is so successful in part because her years of closeness with him enable her to convey an insider's sense of what Khan was like. In a compact space--only 122 pages of text--Cooper achieves her main purposes: familiarizing the reader with Khan's life and work while also evaluating his contributions to psychoanalysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strategies for improving the quality of work life.

Presents a number of legislative and public policy approaches to improving the quality of work life (QOWL). Voluntary dissemination of new practices is limited in effectiveness by a lack of knowledge and incentive for adopting practices directed toward improving the QOWL. Significant work life improvement can best be achieved by a combination of more evaluation research and new legislation designed to encourage experimentation with new approaches to designing work organizations. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Management of work and personal life: Problems & opportunities.

Reviews the book, Management of work and personal life: Problems & opportunities edited by Mary Dean Lee and Rabindra N. Kanungo (1984). Management of work and personal life is a timely book that breaks new ground in a much neglected but increasingly important area for research and problem solving. This book represents a distillation of selected symposium contributions from several participants from various disciplines. The purpose of this symposium, held at McGill University in April 1983, was "to stimulate, develop, and diffuse new ideas that might help individuals and organizations adapt to a changing society in which the traditional idealized models for coordinating work and personal life are passé." This book will also be of considerable interest to professionals involved in such activities as life-style counselling and career planning. In general, the editors have selected symposium contributions that attempt to summarize what is known in six different areas related to management of work and personal life, and then suggest directions for future research. The six areas are work and family roles, work and leisure, quality of life, occupational stress, career and adult development, and behavioural patterns of structuring daily life. Overall, the reviewer feels that this book is important reading for scholars who wish to study or do research in the general area of improving quality of life through integrated management of different life facets. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development and vocational behavior.

Empirically explored the relationship between psychosocial development as described by E. H. Erikson (1963, 1968) and vocational-choice behavior and development. Ss were 123 male undergraduates. Stage resolution attitudes, derived from the 1st 6 stage crises outlined by Erikson, were explored as variables influencing problems in vocational choice and vocational maturity. Ss classified in different vocational-choice adjustment groups and Ss scoring at different levels on the Career Maturity Inventory were compared for differences among Eriksonian stage resolution attitudes as measured by the Inventory of Psychosocial Development and the Dignan Ego Identity Scale. Findings indicate that Ss who had made adjusted vocational choices and developed mature career attitudes had also been more successful in positively resolving the 1st 6 psychosocial stage crises outlined by Erikson. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Women's work and caregiving roles: a life course approach

This study drew on a life course approach and a sample of 293 women from four birth cohorts in upstate New York to examine the relationship over time between women's paid work and their informal caregiving of aging or infirm relatives. We find that such caregiving is an increasingly likely role for women, both as they age and across birth cohorts. One in four (24%) women became caregivers at some time between ages 35-44, and over one in three (36%) of these same women became caregivers between ages 55-64. Only 45 percent of the oldest cohort (born 1905-1917) were ever caregivers, compared to 64 percent of the most cohort (born 1927-1934), an increase of almost 20 percent. Clearly changes in the labor force participation of more recent cohorts of women do not appear to alter their caregiving responsibilities. In fact, women in this sample were equally likely to become caregivers, regardless of whether or not they were employed.     

The class analysis of poverty: a response to Erik Olin Wright

In Erik Olin Wright's recent essay "The Class Analysis of Poverty," his principal argument was about the centrality of class for understanding and analyzing poverty. While agreeing with this central argument, the author of this article takes issue with Wright's analysis of class relations and in particular the position of the so-called underclass. The author offers instead an analysis that identifies poverty as a peculiar feature of capitalism and its class relationships, pointing to the need for a broader understanding of poverty and of the political forces that need to be mobilized for its eradication.     

Work and personal life boundary management: Boundary strength, work/personal life balance, and the segmentation-integration continuum.

While researchers are increasingly interested in understanding the boundaries surrounding the work and personal life domains, few have tested the propositions set forth by theory. Boundary theory proposes that individuals manage the boundaries between work and personal life through processes of segmenting and/or integrating the domains. The authors investigated boundary management profiles of 332 workers in an investigation of the segmentation-integration continuum. Cluster analysis indicated consistent clusters of boundary management practices related to varying segmentation and integration of the work and personal life domains. But, the authors suggest that the segmentation-integration continuum may be more complicated. Results also indicated relationships between boundary management practices and work-personal life interference and work-personal life enhancement. Less flexible and more permeable boundaries were related to more interference, while more flexible and more permeable boundaries were related to more enhancement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)