Relationship of personal agency, problem-solving appraisal, and traditionality of career choice to women's attitudes toward multiple role planning.

The relationship of personal agency, problem-solving appraisal, and traditionality of career choice to scores on the Attitudes Toward Multiple Role Planning (ATMRP) scales was examined in undergraduate and graduate women (N ?=?131) aspiring to both traditional and nontraditional occupations. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed personal agency was positively related to the ATMRP scales of Knowledge/Certainty and Commitment to Multiple Roles. Traditionality of career choice moderated the effect of personal agency on both Commitment to Multiple Roles and Independence. Problem-solving appraisal factors were also positively associated with Knowledge/Certainty. Both Approach-Avoidance Style and Problem-Solving Confidence predicted Commitment to Multiple Roles, whereas only Approach-Avoidance Style predicted Independence. Educational level was the only variable predicting the ATMRP scale of Involvement. Implications for research, theory, and counseling in multiple role planning are addressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beliefs in paranormal phenomena and locus of control: A field study.

Investigated beliefs in paranormal phenomena and their relationship to locus of control for 4 groups that varied in terms of their involvement with paranormal practices. 51 psychic readers, 81 undergraduates, and 205 adults interested in ESP completed a questionnaire designed to assess degree of involvement and beliefs in paranormal phenomena, locus of control, sociopolitical attitudes, and demographic characteristics. It was predicted and found that (a) paranormal beliefs increased as involvement increased; (b) internality increased as involvement increased; and (c) involvement and locus of control interacted so that with high and moderate involvement, paranormal beliefs were associated with an internal locus of control, whereas with low involvement, there was a slight tendency for paranormal beliefs to be related to an external locus of control. Analyses of the paranormal beliefs questionnaire and the relationship between paranormal beliefs and sociopolitical attitudes, demographics, and locus of control scores are reported. Reevaluation of previous studies of personality dimensions associated with esoteric belief systems that have relied solely on low-involvement (student) samples is suggested. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experiences of women in cardiothoracic surgery. A gender comparison

OBJECTIVE: To assess the career and practice experiences of cardiothoracic surgeons, with references to gender similarities and differences. DESIGN: Four-step mailed 115-question survey. SUBJECTS: All identified women, and a cohort of men, certified by the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Academic rank, career background, salary, perceptions and experiences of harassment or discrimination, and personal life characteristics. RESULTS: No differences were found in training backgrounds. More men (64%) than women (52%) were in university practices. Comparable proportions of men and women were assistant professors (27%), but more men (27%) than women (13.6%) were full professors. Fifty-eight percent of women and 21% of men reported salaries of less than $250000; 62% of men and 32% of women had incomes over $350000. Career satisfaction was comparable between genders; however, women perceived the promotion process as unfair and unrelated to academic rank. Both genders encouraged men toward a surgical career; men were less likely than women to encourage women to pursue a surgical career (P < .01). Women, much more than men, believed that discrimination hindered their career development (P < .001). Characteristics of personal life were also considerably different between the genders. CONCLUSION: Although practice and training parameters for male and female cardiothoracic surgeons are comparable, work experiences, personal life, and career rewards such as salary and promotion, and perception of discrimination are different.     

Job expectations and valences of job rewards for culturally disadvantaged and advantaged clerical employees.

Compared the job expectancies of 76 culturally advantaged and 74 disadvantaged female civil service clerical workers concerning whether effective job performance would lead to certain job rewards and the relative importance or valences of these rewards to the 2 groups. The disadvantaged group saw for themselves, as opposed to the advantaged group, less likelihood that effectiveness in their jobs would lead to advancement or to the use of one's own judgment. The disadvantaged group also indicated that a high salary was more important to them than to the advantaged group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

African-American adolescents' knowledge, health-related attitudes, sexual behavior, and contraceptive decisions: Implications for the prevention of adolescent HIV infection.

195 African-American adolescents completed measures of knowledge related to AIDS, attitudes toward condoms, health locus of control, vulnerability to HIV infection, peer sexual norms, personal sexual behavior for the past 6 mo, and contraceptive preferences. Hotelling's T–2 tests revealed that girls were more knowledgeable about AIDS, reported fewer sexual partners, held more positive attitudes toward precautionary sexual behavior, and perceived themselves to have greater control than boys. Five variables accounted for 44% of the variance in condom use: condom use from the 1st intercourse occasion, earlier grade in school, lower belief in an external locus of control, and higher scores on the Effect on Sexual Experience and Self-Control subscales of the Condom Attitude Scale. Implications for the content, format, and timing of HIV prevention with African-American adolescents are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An existential function of enemyship: Evidence that people attribute influence to personal and political enemies to compensate for threats to control.

Perceiving oneself as having powerful enemies, although superficially disagreeable, may serve an important psychological function. On the basis of E. Becker’s (1969) existential theorizing, the authors argue that people attribute exaggerated influence to enemies as a means of compensating for perceptions of reduced control over their environment. In Study 1, individuals dispositionally low in perceived control responded to a reminder of external hazards by attributing more influence to a personal enemy. In Study 2, a situational threat to control over external hazard strengthened participants’ belief in the conspiratorial power of a political enemy. Examining moderators and outcomes of this process, Study 3 showed that participants were especially likely to attribute influence over life events to an enemy when the broader social system appeared disordered, and Study 4 showed that perceiving an ambiguously powerful enemy under conditions of control threat decreased perceptions of external risk and bolstered feelings of personal control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

For God (or) country: The hydraulic relation between government instability and belief in religious sources of control.

It has been recently proposed that people can flexibly rely on sources of control that are both internal and external to the self to satisfy the need to believe that their world is under control (i.e., that events do not unfold randomly or haphazardly). Consistent with this, past research demonstrates that, when personal control is threatened, people defend external systems of control, such as God and government. This theoretical perspective also suggests that belief in God and support for governmental systems, although seemingly disparate, will exhibit a hydraulic relationship with one another. Using both experimental and longitudinal designs in Eastern and Western cultures, the authors demonstrate that experimental manipulations or naturally occurring events (e.g., electoral instability) that lower faith in one of these external systems (e.g., the government) lead to subsequent increases in faith in the other (e.g., God). In addition, mediation and moderation analyses suggest that specific concerns with order and structure underlie these hydraulic effects. Implications for the psychological, sociocultural, and sociopolitical underpinnings of religious faith, as well as system justification theory, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correlates of university faculty interest in unionization: A replication and extension.

In an extension of the work of W. J. Bigoness (see record 1979-09336-001) and others, this study examined the relationship between the perceived need for a union and the following factors: age, salary level, perceived relationship between future performance and future salary adjustments, and perceived raise equity. Additionally, the relative importance of satisfaction with economic factors and intrinsic job attributes in accounting for the perceived need for a union was investigated using 220 university faculty members. As reported in other studies, the data revealed that age was inversely related to union attitudes. This relationship, however, was not significant when the effect of salary was controlled. Also, satisfaction with economic factors and the administration of extrinsic rewards accounted for more variance in the perceived need for a union than did overall job satisfaction and intrinsic job satisfaction. Instrumentality of job performance in determining future pay raises appeared more important than salary or raise equity in explaining union attitudes among Ss. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-regulation and school performance: is there optimal level of action-control?

Research on the self-regulatory implications of psychological control suggests that overestimations of one's capabilities may be associated with enhanced performance. We examined this hypothesis in a two-year (three-occasion) longitudinal study of 381 German school children (8-11 years of age). Controlling for gender, grade in school, prior academic achievement, and level of intelligence, we used path analysis to examine the longitudinal relations between overestimations of one's personal agency and subsequent school performance. We expected overestimations of one's agency to facilitate subsequent school performance. Furthermore, we expected that this relationship would be strongest for those with moderate overestimations of their agency. Supporting our first hypothesis, overestimations of one's capabilities were consistently associated with improvements in subsequent school performance. However, our second hypothesis was not supported. The results suggest that overestimating personal agency is one possible mechanism through which one maintains and improves performance.     

Interdependence and the interpersonal sense of control: An analysis of family relationships.

Family members' beliefs about their ability to influence one another were investigated in 51 2-parent, 2-child families. Three reliable dimensions were identified: (a) effectance—a feeling of personal control in the relationship, (b) acquiescence—the belief that one is controlled by the partner, and (c) fate—the belief that relationship outcomes are due to fate, chance, or unknown factors. The existence of interdependence in these control dimensions was investigated using the Social Relations Model. The results demonstrate that the interpersonal sense of control is virtually never a function of the perceiver alone but depends also on characteristics of the partner and the relationship. The findings underscore the importance of basing theory on well-described data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characteristics of the rewarder and intrinsic motivation of the rewardee.

Considered the relationship between teacher characteristics and the intrinsic motivation and self-esteem of 889 children in Grades 4–6. The research evolved out of E. L. Deci's (1971, 1972, 1975) cognitive evaluation theory, which distinguishes between the controlling and informational aspects of rewards. It was hypothesized that Ss whose teachers were oriented toward controlling them would be less intrinsically motivated and have lower self-esteem than Ss whose teachers were oriented toward supporting autonomy. It was reasoned that control-oriented teachers would tend to use rewards controllingly, whereas autonomy-oriented teachers would tend to use rewards informationally. Data support the hypothesis and also indicate that Ss perceived autonomy-oriented teachers as facilitating personal responsibility and internal control more than control-oriented teachers. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Control-related beliefs and self-reported depressive symptoms in late childhood

Research thus far links depressive symptoms in children to one type of control-related belief: low levels of perceived personal competence. However, child research, unlike adult research, has not supported a linkage between depressive symptoms and another theoretically important control-related belief: perceived noncontingency of outcomes. Here we reexamined the issue, adjusting for limitations in previous methodology by using (a) psychometrically stronger measures of control beliefs, and (b) a general population sample rather than children being treated in mental health clinics. In contrast to previous results, we found that both perceived incompetence and perceived noncontingency were strongly related to children's depression, together accounting for 40% of the variance in Child Depression Inventory scores. We also found, as in previous research, that depressive symptoms were correlated with uncertainty as to the causes of outcomes, especially successes. The findings suggest that children may be susceptible to both "personal helplessness" and "universal helplessness" forms of depression.     

Impulsivity and rapid discounting of delayed hypothetical rewards in cocaine-dependent individuals.

In this study, crack/cocaine-dependent (CD) and non-drug-using matched control (MC) participants were presented with hypothetical immediate and delayed rewards, with 16 delay conditions ranging from 5 min to 25 years. All participants were presented with hypothetical monetary rewards; however, the CD group was also presented with hypothetical crack/ cocaine rewards. The objective value of the rewards ranged from $1 to $1,000. Hyperbolic discounting functions provided a good fit of the data. The CD group discounted monetary rewards at a higher rate than the MC group did, and the CD group discounted crack/cocaine rewards at a higher rate than it did monetary rewards. Moreover, scores on self-report measures indicated greater impulsivity in the CD group when compared with the MC group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characterological versus behavioral self-blame: Inquiries into depression and rape.

Distinguishes 2 types of self-blame—behavioral and characterological. Behavioral self-blame is control related, involves attributions to a modifiable source (one's behavior), and is associated with a belief in the future avoidance of a negative outcome. Characterological self-blame is esteem related, involves attributions to a relatively nonmodifiable source (one's character), and is associated with a belief in personal deservingness for past negative outcomes. Two studies are reported that bear on this self-blame distinction. In the 1st study, with 120 female college students, it was found that depressed Ss engaged in more characterological self-blame than nondepressed Ss, whereas behavioral self-blame did not differ between groups; depressed Ss were also characterized by greater attributions to chance and decreased beliefs in personal control. Characterological self-blame is proposed as a possible solution to the "paradox in depression." In a 2nd study, 38 rape crisis centers were surveyed. Behavioral self-blame, and not characterological self-blame, emerged as the most common response of rape victims to their victimization, suggesting the victim's desire to maintain a belief in control, particularly the belief in the future avoidability of rape. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adverse impact: Is it a viable concept?

It appears that those federal agencies responsible for enforcement persist in the belief that a given test score can mean one thing in one subgroup and something else in another and/or that inferences from a set of test scores can be valid for one subgroup but not for another. First surfacing in early agency regulations in connection with the now discontinued "differential validity" requirement, the belief still manifests itself in the concepts of "unfairness" and "adverse impact." Furthermore, the determination of the presence or absence of adverse impact on the basis of the impact ratio involves numerous statistical and measurement issues. Use of the impact ratio to establish the prosecutorial posture of an enforcement agency is clearly flawed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiple discrepancies and pay satisfaction.

In this study, a mail survey was used to measure pay satisfaction, current salary, 4 personal standards of comparison, and basic demographics for 169 mental health professionals. As predicted, pay satisfaction was determined by the simultaneous appraisal of current salary against several personal standards of comparison. Explained variance in pay satisfaction rose from 26.1% when only salary and demographics were used as predictors to 46.7% when discrepancy-related variables associated with 4 standards of comparison also were used. Furthermore, R–2 for the combined discrepancy-related variables associated with all 4 standards of comparison was significantly greater than R–2 for the discrepancy-related variables associated with any single standard. These discrepancy effects took both additive and nonadditive forms. Discrepancy effects were stronger when deserved salary or minimum salary was the standard of comparison than when other's salary or average salary was. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of personal-social variables to belief in paternalism in parent caregiving situations.

Paternalism in family caregiving may jeopardize the older persons' autonomy; it needs to be better understood. Study objectives were to determine the relationship of belief in paternalism to personal–social characteristics and to determine the relative importance of these variables as predictors of belief in paternalism. Forty-six pairs of daughters (age 49.7) and mothers (age 77.7) were measured on belief in paternalism, dogmatism, attitude toward elders, affective feelings toward the other, and background and caregiving variables. Among both mothers and daughters, dogmatism and attitude toward elders were related to belief in paternalism; daughters' affective feelings was also related. Caregiving variables were unrelated, and demographic background was important only for daughters. Attitude toward elders was the strongest predictor. Results were interpreted in terms of a traditional family ideology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identity for the NPMLE in censored data models

This study examined the relative impact of different self-reward strategies on maintenance of breast self-examination (BSE) practice among 1649 women trained to do BSE. Training groups were randomized into four conditions: (a) self-reward instructions and materials delivered at the end of the BSE training session; (b) self-reward suggestions delivered through the mail each month, contingent upon the BSE performance; (c) external monetary rewards and self-reward suggestions delivered through the mail each month on an intermittent schedule, contingent upon BSE practice; and (d) a no-reward control condition. Follow-up assessments 12 months following training revealed a pattern of evidence in support of the benefits of external monetary rewards and self-reward prompts on BSE frequency and quality; however, it is likely that the value of that condition lies in the external reward component.     

Sentencing goals, causal attributions, ideology, and personality.

Proposes a framework establishing resonances or coherent patterns among sentencing goals, causal attributions, ideology, and personality. Two studies are described, one with law and criminology students, the other with probation officers. Relations among the different types of variables reveal two resonances among both students and officers. One comprises various conservative and moralistic elements: a tough, punitive stance toward crime; belief in individual causality for crime; high scores on authoritarianism, dogmatism, and internal locus of control; lower moral stage; and political conservatism. The second comprises various liberal elements: rehabilitation, belief in economic and other external determinants of crime, higher moral stage, and belief in the powers and responsibilities of government to correct social problems. Implications are discussed for individual differences in sentencing, attribution theory, and attempts to reduce disparity. (59 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Internal versus external control and ethnic group membership: A cross-cultural comparison.

To investigate a relationship between internal vs. external control and ethnic group membership, 3 groups of high school Ss (Chinese, American-born Chinese, and Anglo-American) were compared in their responses to the Internal-External Control Scale. A hypothesis that a belief in internal vs. external control is significantly related to ethnic group membership was confirmed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)