Race, economic class, and perceived outcomes of work and unemployment.

Tested 2 hypotheses derived from locus-of-control and expectancy theory: (a) black and/or unemployed men will perceive weaker relationships between working and positive and negative outcomes than white and/or working class men, and (b) black and/or unemployed men will perceive stronger relationships connecting not working with the same set of outcomes. Instrumentality ratings were gathered from 200 black and white working-class and unemployed men as part of a larger interview. Significant multivariate race, economic class, and interaction effects occurred for both types of ratings, but the direction of effects was not as predicted. Black Ss saw stronger relationships between working and various outcomes than whites, and positive-compared to whites' negative-instrumentalities of unemployment. The economic-class main effects were opposite in direction for blacks and whites, and the largest differences occurred between the black and white working class. Results are discussed in terms of experiential differences and shifts in levels of adaptation. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race, economic class, and the intention to work: Some normative and attitudinal correlates.

Tested 4 hypotheses, derived from a combination of instrumentality-expectancy theory and the concept of a nonresponsive environment for the hard-core unemployed. Ss were 100 black and 100 white males 18-50 yrs old, with about half of each group from the working class and half from the hard-core unemployed. It was expected that (a) the hard core would perceive weaker normative pressures to seek work; (b) perceived normative pressure would have lower correlations with intentions to seek work in the hard-core samples than in the working-class samples; (c) the attitude toward each of 5 specific job-seeking behaviors would independently predict intended frequency of performance of each behavior; and (d) an instrumentality approach would predict intended frequency of each behavior less well in the black and hard-core samples than in the white and working-class groups. Results partially support Hypotheses 1 and 2; partially reverse Hypothesis 3; and do not support Hypothesis 4. Data are interpreted as supporting the concept of white working-class alienation. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 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)     

Wives' employment hours and spousal participation in family work.

This longitudinal investigation of spousal division of labor examined whether wives' and husbands' proportional and absolute levels of child care and household chores would be related to wives' paid work hours. Participants were wives and husbands from 104 Canadian dual-earner families who completed questionnaires in February 1988, August 1988, and February 1989. Within-time results show that wives' longer employment hours were linked to their lower proportional share of child care and lower absolute levels of household chores and to husbands' higher proportional share of child care. There was some evidence that increases over time in wives' employment hours were related to increases in husbands' participation in child care and household chores. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race, IQ, and the middle class.

Studied whether socioeconomic status indicators sufficiently represent those aspects of the home environment relevant to IQ. Intellectual home environment ratings of the families of 50 Black and 50 White middle-class 9th-grade girls were compared to the girls' Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Test scores, Metropolitan Achievement Test scores, and GPAs. Despite similar standings on Warner's Index of Status Characteristics, there was a difference in the intellectual home environments of Blacks and Whites. There was also a relationship between the intellectual home environment and the S's IQ. Furthermore, the family's environment predicted academic achievement as well as did IQ. To determine the relationship of the environment to intellectual performance, researchers must measure the underlying process variables known to be related to IQ. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race, class, and the attributional process.

Two experiments examined the process and content of attributional thinking in Black and White children who differed in socioeconomic status (SES). In Exp I, 171 7th graders subdivided into middle-SES Black, middle-SES White, low-SES Black, and low-SES White groups imagined that they succeeded or failed at an examination, with the cause of the outcome specified. Their perceptions of the dimensional properties of causes (locus, stability, and controllability), expectancy for success, teacher evaluation, and affective reactions were reported. Similar judgments were made in Exp II, with 148 of the Ss from Exp I, in response to actual rather than hypothetical success and failure, and Ss' causal attributions for their performance were reported. Analyses revealed that Blacks did not display a less adaptive attributional pattern than did Whites following actual performance, and no differences existed in Ss' understanding of the meaning (dimensional placement) of causes. A linkage between the locus of causes and affect also was documented in all race?×?SES groups. In contrast, race and class differences occurred in Ss' perceptions of predicted stability–expectancy and controllability–evaluation causal linkages. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race of employment interviewer and reasons given by black job seekers for leaving their jobs.

Compared the job-leaving reasons given by 40 black job seekers to black and white female employment interviewers at a state employment service. Black interviewers elicited more reasons that involved a rejection of the job by the worker or a rejection of the worker by the employer than did white interviewers. Because job-leaving reasons are often viewed by state employment service interviewers as part of a job seeker's credentials, it is possible that interviewer decisions are influenced by this racial artifact of the interviewing situation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intelligence, Race, and Genetics.

In this article, the authors argue that the overwhelming portion of the literature on intelligence, race, and genetics is based on folk taxonomies rather than scientific analysis. They suggest that because theorists of intelligence disagree as to what it is, any consideration of its relationships to other constructs must be tentative at best. They further argue that race is a social construction with no scientific definition. Thus, studies of the relationship between race and other constructs may serve social ends but cannot serve scientific ends. No gene has yet been conclusively linked to intelligence, so attempts to provide a compelling genetic link of race to intelligence are not feasible at this time. The authors also show that heritability, a behaviorgenetic concept, is inadequate in regard to providing such a link. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

College student employment and drinking: A daily study of work stressors, alcohol expectancies, and alcohol consumption.

We examined the within-person relationships between daily work stressors and alcohol consumption over 14 consecutive days in a sample of 106 employed college students. Using a tension reduction theoretical framework, we predicted that exposure to work stressors would increase alcohol consumption by employed college students, particularly for men and those with stronger daily expectancies about the tension reducing properties of alcohol. After controlling for day of the week, we found that hours worked were positively related to number of drinks consumed. Workload was unrelated to alcohol consumption, and work-school conflict was negatively related to consumption, particularly when students expressed strong beliefs in the tension reducing properties of alcohol. There was no evidence that the effects of work stressors were moderated by sex. The results illustrate that employment during the academic year plays a significant role in college student drinking and suggest that the employment context may be an appropriate intervention site to address the problem of student drinking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intelligence, training, and employment.

Validity coefficients of cognitive ability tests for predicting job performance are impressive. Nevertheless, a need exists to supplement cognitive ability tests with additional predictors to maximize validity and utility and to minimize adverse impact, even for tests that are unbiased according to psychometric criteria. An agenda for research and practice is presented that includes building on the existing validity of cognitive ability tests for job selection by expanding both the set of constructs used to predict job performance and the set of performance criteria used to quantify job performance. Even greater benefits are likely to be associated with advances in knowledge about effective training. Such advances will require substantial investment in well-designed, large-scale studies and facile adaptation of lessons from other domains, such as cognitive psychology, to the organizational-training context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparative study of the work satisfaction of females with full-time employment and full-time housekeeping.

Evidence from 2 recent national opinion surveys casts doubt on the hypothesis that sex role socialization results in lower reported work satisfaction among females who have full-time jobs compared to those who keep house full time. The only instance where the hypothesis appears to have applicability arises out of the reaction of female workers to low-salaried jobs which do not provide or contribute to a family income perceived as equal to or above that of the average American family. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

以生为本勇于创新做好大学毕业生就业工作

一、近几年就业工作的回顾 近年来,我校把做好毕业生就业工作当做提高学校声誉、促进教育教学和发展的大事来抓,在主动适应毕业生就业制度改革新形势的同时,进一步解放思想,更新观念,结合学校特点,积极探索新形势下毕业生就业工作的新思路,形成了自己的工作特色,有力地促进了毕业生就业率的稳步提高.     

Peer evaluation in self-managing work groups.

A series of 3 experiments with business students examined how a rater's relative performance affects peer ratings. In Study 1, with 36 groups consisting of 178 Ss, outstanding contributors were the most discriminating evaluators. In Study 2, with 39 groups consisting of 186 Ss, individuals rated their own performance as well as that of their peers. Once again, outstanding contributors were the most discriminating evaluators, and self-evaluations were higher than the respective ratings received from peers. In Study 3, with 12 groups consisting of 61 Ss, below-average and average contributors may have discounted their individual performance outcomes by making allowances for external factors that affected their contributions. Together, these studies indicate that self–other comparisons in a work group influence peer-performance evaluations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality measurement, faking, and employment selection.

Real job applicants completed a 5-factor model personality measure as part of the job application process. They were rejected; 6 months later they (n = 5,266) reapplied for the same job and completed the same personality measure. Results indicated that 5.2% or fewer improved their scores on any scale on the 2nd occasion; moreover, scale scores were as likely to change in the negative direction as the positive. Only 3 applicants changed scores on all 5 scales beyond a 95% confidence threshold. Construct validity of the personality scales remained intact across the 2 administrations, and the same structural model provided an acceptable fit to the scale score matrix on both occasions. For the small number of applicants whose scores changed beyond the standard error of measurement, the authors found the changes were systematic and predictable using measures of social skill, social desirability, and integrity. Results suggest that faking on personality measures is not a significant problem in real-world selection settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race differences, strategy training, and improper inference.

Criticizes B. Bridgeman and J. Buttram's (see record 1975-30982-001) article on the facilitative effects of verbal strategy training or race differences in nonverbal reasoning. It is argued that an experiment involving a Group * Training or No-training design does not logically permit conclusions concerning the genetic or nongenetic causes of the main effect of the group differences or their interaction with treatments; nor can such a design reflect on the culture-fairness of the measuring instrument. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race and gender comparisons: II. Predictions of work blood pressure from laboratory baseline and cardiovascular reactivity measures.

In 148 Black and White men and women, laboratory measures of blood pressure (BP), heart rate, stroke volume (SV), cardiac output (CO), and total peripheral resistance (TPR) during baseline and 5 stressors were examined in relationship to ambulatory systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressures at work. Baseline BP strongly predicted mean work levels in all groups. For White men and Black women, higher SV and CO responses to the active speech, and averaged across all tasks, predicted higher work SBP individually and also when added to a model based on baseline SBP, age, and diary information. For White women, higher SBP increases to the passive speech similarly predicted mean work SBP. For Black men, higher TPR response to the cold pressor test correlated with higher work SBP but did not improve a predictor model involving baseline SBP and age. Reactivity measures did not consistently contribute to prediction of work DBP. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Turnover, biographical data, and fair employment practice.

Used biographical data to predict the tenure of 160 randomly chosen minority and nonminority female clerical personnel in a medium-sized insurance company. A weighted combination of 10 application blank items yielded cross-validated rs of .58 (minorities) and .56 (nonminorities) on a holdout sample of 100 randomly chosen female clerical personnel hired during the same period. Although personal history items have frequently been used to forecast turnover, recent evidence together with civil rights requirements have questioned the validity and fairness of the method. Results of the present study indicate that even after satisfying the legal requirements for using such information, turnover can still be predicted quite accurately with custom-tailored, cross-validated scoring keys. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology's manpower: Characteristics, employment, and earnings.

Of 17,601 respondents to the Psychology Section of the 1964 National Register of Scientific and Technical Personnel, 95% indicated their field of greatest specialization and competence as psychology; 90% indicated psychology as the major subject of their highest academic degree; 89% regarded themselves professionally as psychologists; and 88% were employed as psychologists at the time of the survey. The Register data described in this summary are based upon those 16,804 respondents who indicated a specialty within the field of psychology as that of their greatest competence. A look at the data pertaining to the characteristics of the respondents shows that 65% of them held a doctorate, 33% an MA or MS, and 2% a BA or BS. Fewer than 1% held less than a bachelor's degree or did not give degree information. Data on employment status indicated that 88% of the respondents in 1964 were employed full time as psychologists (the same percentage found in 1962), about 4% were employed part time, and approximately 3% were studying for advanced degrees (most of these being persons who had obtained a master's and were working on a PhD at the time of the survey). Two percent were not employed, and approximately 3% either did not report their employment status or indicated that although employed they were not working professionally as psychologists. The median salary for psychologists based upon 1964 Register data was $10,300. For those having a doctorate, the median was $11,000; for those with a master's, $8,900. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternity leave, women's employment, and marital incompatibility.

This research investigated the relationship between the length of women's maternity leave and marital incompatibility, in the context of other variables including the woman's employment, her dissatisfaction with the division of household labor, and her sense of role overload. Length of leave, work hours, and family salience were associated with several forms of dissatisfaction, which in turn predicted role overload. Role overload predicted increased marital incompatibility for experienced mothers but did not for first-time mothers, for whom discrepancies between preferred and actual child care were more important. Length of maternity leave showed significant interactions with other variables, supporting the hypothesis that a short leave is a risk factor that, when combined with another risk factor, contributes to personal and marital distress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)