The enigma of social support and occupational stress: Source congruence and gender role effects.

Research on the potential ameliorating effects of social support on occupational stress produces weak, inconsistent, and even contradictory results. This study of 117 employees, mostly from a southern U.S. hospital supply company, examined potential moderators that were theorized might reduce the confusion: source congruence (congruence between sources of the stressor and of social support) and gender role. Congruence between the sources of stressors and of social support appeared to make little difference in determining the moderating or buffering effect of social support on the relationship between stressors and strain. Gender role, however, may moderate the relationship between social support and individual strains such that more feminine people react more strongly and positively to social support than more masculine people do. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of task persistence in young adolescence for successful educational and occupational attainment in middle adulthood.

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the importance of task persistence in young adolescence for successful educational and occupational attainment in middle adulthood. Data from age 13 (N = 1,092) and adult age (age 43 for women, N = 569 and age 47 for men, N = 393) were taken from the Swedish longitudinal research program entitled “Individual Development and Adaptation.” In line with previous research, task persistence was found to be related to changes in grades between age 13 and age 16, over and above other childhood factors. Task persistence at age 13 was also a significant predictor of both income and occupational level in middle adulthood for the men, controlling for a number of childhood factors (including intelligence), and even when educational attainment in adulthood was taken into account. Finally, task persistence was related to educational attainment in adulthood. The authors suggest that task persistence is a second fundamental factor besides general mental ability, influencing attainment within the area of working life and education. The influence of task persistence is discussed in form of personality–environment selection mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of organizational behavior in occupational health psychology: A view as we approach the millennium.

This special section of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology provides ample illustration of the increasingly important role of organizational behavior research on work-related issues of health and well-being. More specifically, the 9 articles contained in this special section highlight the varied application and potentially widespread benefit of considering the main effects of employee physical health and psychological well-being. The authors conclude with a discussion of how emerging research issues in occupational health psychology can be used to build a stronger science of organizational behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The multicultural perspective in therapy: A social constructionist approach.

Discusses the theoretical and clinical applications of the postmodern paradigm of social constructionism as a basis for counseling culturally different clients. Such applications avoid the trap of perpetuating the status-quo when working with minority and marginalized clientele. The main points of multiculturalism and social constructionism are summarized, and issues of mutual concern to both perspectives are examined. Applications to psychotherapy are explored, and the challenges of applying the social constructionist approach to culturally competent counseling are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adolescent life experiences as predictors of occupational attainment.

Adolescent life experiences, measured with Owens's Biographical Questionnaire (BQ), were used to predict occupational attainment 16 yrs to 21 yrs later in a sample of 1,523 college graduates. Study participants completed the BQ in either 1968 or 1970–1973 as college freshmen and subsequently reported their occupational status in 1989. Jobs were rationally clustered into 18 different categories. Separate gender analyses were conducted in which 13 BQ factors were used as predictors of occupational attainment. Effect sizes were substantially larger than those obtained in an earlier study by A. G. Neiner and W. A. Owens (see record 1985-16013-001). The usefulness of life experience data for understanding occupational choices as well as implications for college counseling are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Pre-School Activities Inventory: A standardized assessment of gender role in children.

The Pre-School Activities Inventory (PSAI) is a new psychometric scale for the assessment of gender role behavior in young children. Its design and test specification are reported, and the piloting and item analysis are described. Evidence of reliability is given, and several validation studies are reported, as are data on age standardization and norming. Some applications of the PSAI are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cognitive organization of social information: A converging-operations approach.

Investigated the assumption that social information is automatically organized on a person-by-person basis, that the information items about each person are cognitively grouped into one person-category that is separate from the other person-categories. Using a converging-operations approach, the notion that familiarity mediates this cognitive organization of person information was examined in 3 experiments with 96 undergraduates. Three distinct methodologies were used to study the relationship between familiarity and person organization: (a) a speeded-sorting task, (b) a recognition RT task, and (c) a free-recall task. Results indicate that this tendency to organize social information on a person-by-person basis was greater for familiar than for unfamiliar persons. Two of the tasks provided evidence that social information is not organized by person when the stimulus persons are completely unfamiliar. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes.

Social dominance orientation (SDO), one's degree of preference for inequality among social groups, is introduced. On the basis of social dominance theory, it is shown that (1) men are more social dominance-oriented than women, (2) high-SDO people seek hierarchy-enhancing professional roles and low-SDO people seek hierarchy-attenuating roles, (3) SDO was related to beliefs in a large number of social and political ideologies that support group-based hierarchy (e.g., meritocracy and racism) and to support for policies that have implications for intergroup relations (e.g., war, civil rights, and social programs), including new policies. SDO was distinguished from interpersonal dominance, conservatism, and authoritarianism. SDO was negatively correlated with empathy, tolerance, communality, and altruism. The ramifications of SDO in social context are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The gender gap in reporting household gun ownership

OBJECTIVES: This study examined errors in estimating household gun ownership that result from interviewing only 1 adult per household. METHODS: Data from 2 recent telephone surveys and a series of in-person surveys were used to compare reports of household gun ownership by husbands and wives. RESULTS: In the telephone surveys, the rate of household gun ownership reported by husbands exceeded wives' reports by an average of 12 percentage points; husbands' reports also implied 43.3 million more guns. The median "gender gap" in recent in-person surveys is 7 percentage points. CONCLUSIONS: Future research should focus on respondents' reports about personally owned guns.     

School desegregation: The social science role.

Discusses the social science statement supporting the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education US Supreme Court decision. It is contended that the statement was based on well-meaning rhetoric rather than solid research. All that the statement said, in effect, was that because the minority child was now in a classroom with Whites, he or she would no longer have the status of an outcast or a pariah. The "lateral transmission of values" hypothesis contained in a desegregation report by J. S. Coleman et al (1966) predicted that through classroom contact with their White peers, minority pupils would experience a personality change by absorbing the achievement-related values of the Whites. Social science thinking 10 yrs later, when desegregation began to be implemented, was more sophisticated but still unsupported by necessary research. It is concluded that no real evidence has been found for the lateral transmission hypotheses and that research and development as well as systems engineering in the social sciences are needed if some of the social problems in the US, including successful implementation of school desegregation, are to be eventually solved. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The statistical analysis of dyadic social behavior: A multivariate approach.

Extends the logic of the univariate model for studying dyadic social interaction and presents a multivariate model. The more general multivariate model is illustrated using hypothetical data and real data from a study by M. Jacklin et al (see record 1979-25785-001) on girl–girl, boy–boy, and girl–boy interactions among 45 preschoolers. The 8 variables used included passive behavior, frequency of aggression, and frequency of social withdrawal. Some advantages of this model include detection of Type I error rates and generality. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Going beyond social support: The role of social relationships in adaptation.

Discusses new directions for explicating relations among stress, support, and adaptational outcomes. Attention is drawn to the distinctiveness of marriage as a source of stress and support in adult life. In addition, the literature on marital and family therapy points to the potentially deleterious effects of overinvolvement in close relationships. It is suggested that if research and theory on social support are to become relevant to clinical intervention, the current emphasis on the benefits of perceived social support needs to be balanced by consideration of the costs constraints of participating in social relationships and by a concern for how such perceptions arise. (83 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dominance analysis approach for comparing predictors in multiple regression.

A general method is presented for comparing the relative importance of predictors in multiple regression. Dominance analysis (D. V. Budescu, 1993), a procedure that is based on an examination of the R2 values for all possible subset models, is refined and extended by introducing several quantitative measures of dominance that differ in the strictness of the dominance definition. These are shown to be intuitive, meaningful, and informative measures that can address a variety of research questions pertaining to predictor importance. The bootstrap is used to assess the stability of dominance results across repeated sampling, and it is shown that these methods provide the researcher with more insights into the pattern of importance in a set of predictors than were previously available. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rotator-cuff changes in asymptomatic adults. The effect of age, hand dominance and gender

We studied the integrity of the rotator cuff in both dominant and non-dominant shoulders of 90 asymptomatic adults between the ages of 30 and 99 years using ultrasound. The criteria for diagnosis had been validated on unembalmed cadaver specimens. We found no statistically significant difference in the incidence of impingement findings between dominant and non-dominant arms or between genders. The prevalence of partial- or full-thickness tears increased markedly after 50 years of age: these were present in over 50% of dominant shoulders in the seventh decade and in 80% of subjects over 80 years of age. Our results indicate that rotator-cuff lesions are a natural correlate of ageing, and are often present with no clinical symptoms. Treatment should be based on clinical findings and not on the results of imaging.     

Self-monitoring in children: A differential approach to social development.

A new measure, the Junior Self-Monitoring scale, was developed and related to individual differences in children's tendencies to engage in social comparison when making decisions. Snyder's work on self-monitoring in adults provided the theoretical framework for a developmental extension of this construct. As predicted, children scoring high in self-monitoring were more likely to attend to the decisions of other children, and to do so for a longer period of time, than were low self-monitoring children. The scale may be useful for exploring the origins and developmental processes leading to adult individual differences in self-monitoring. Results were discussed in terms of the need for research on the ontogeny of individual differences in patterns of social behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethnic relations in rental housing: A social psychological approach.

Conducted interviews with a random sample of 59 French Quebecer landlords within a section of Montreal to explore the social psychological bases for discrimination in rental housing. Evidence that Social Identity factors related to the overwhelming preference for in-group tenants was obtained. When landlords were asked to focus on 4 out-groups (Haitians, Italians, Asiatics, and English Quebecers), factors subsumed under Realistic Conflict theory also contributed strongly to the variation in willingness to rent to some out-groups as opposed to others. Overall, results suggest a dissociation model where Social Identity and Realistic Conflict factors operate independently and additively in relations with out-group tenants. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race, gender, and opportunity: A study of compensation attainment and the establishment of mentoring relationships.

In this article, hypotheses concerned with how race, gender, and mentoring experiences account for compensation outcomes among master of business administration (MBA) program graduates are considered. African-American and Hispanic MBAs were less likely than their White counterparts to establish mentoring relationships with White men. Women with MBAs were less likely than men with MBAs to form such relationships. Graduates who had been able to establish mentoring relationships with White men displayed an average annual compensation advantage of $16,840 over those with mentors displaying other demographic profiles. There were no compensation differences between those who had established mentoring relationships with women or minority men and those who had not established a mentoring relationship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consensus in work role requirements: The influence of discrete occupational context on role expectations.

Although role theory has long described how expectations shape role behavior, little empirical research has examined differences among work role requirements and how features of the discrete occupational context may influence the extent to which role expectations are shared among role holders. The authors examined consensus in work role requirements from a sample of over 20,000 incumbents across 98 occupations. They found that consensus systematically decreased as work role requirements ranged from molecular tasks to responsibilities to molar traits. In addition, they found that consensus in these work role requirements was significantly influenced by the amount of interdependence, autonomy, and routinization present in the surrounding task and social contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)