Training Counselors to Use Computer‐Assisted Career Guidance Systems More Effectively: A Model Curriculum

A model graduate training curriculum that emphasizes the counselor's role in assisting clients in the effective use of computer‐assisted career guidance (CACG) systems is described. This 4‐module graduate training program emphasizes client readiness and exploration using CACG systems, skill building and simulation exercises, and service learning with career clients. The study is evaluated from the perspectives of counselor educators, counselor trainees, and career clients. Findings from 4 institutions support the efficacy of a model curriculum for graduate training and the beneficial outcomes of using CACG systems under appropriate conditions.     

Carers of People with Learning Disabilities, and their Experience of the 1995 Carers Act

Summary This paper seeks to highlight the impact of the Carers (Recognitionand Services) Act of 1995 on carers of people with learningdisabilities. It draws on research conducted in the south westbetween 1997 and 1999, which examined the views and experiencesof carers who had an assessment of their needs, together withthose of the person they care for and the professional conductingthe assessment. It concludes that the Carers Act is not widelyused, or understood, by this group of carers. Recommendationsfor improving practice include changes to the current terminology,new triggers for a carer's needs assessment, and a greater inputfrom other agencies, especially health services. Although thecurrent paper focuses on the views and experiences of carers,an exploration of the Carers Act, and its effect on potentialconflicts of interest with the person with learning disabilities,is available elsewhere (Williams and Robinson, 2001).     

Dispositional Affect and Job Outcomes

This longitudinal study examines the influence of dispositional affect,defined as self-rated cheerfulness at college entry, on three job outcomes – current income, job satisfaction, and unemployment history – assessedabout 19 years later. Analysis shows that individuals with a highercheerfulness rating at college entry have a higher current income and ahigher job satisfaction rating and are less likely ever to have beenunemployed than individuals with a lower cheerfulness rating. Althoughcheerfulness generally has a positive effect on current income, this effectis curvilinear, with current income increasing more rapidly at lower thanat higher cheerfulness ratings; the effect is also moderated by parentalincome, with the increase in current income between any two cheerfulnessratings becoming greater as the level of parental income increases. Theeffect of cheerfulness on current income is not moderated by sex; the effectof cheerfulness on job satisfaction and on unemployment history is notmoderated by either sex or parental income.     

Functional Families: Functional Teams

This article highlights the negative effects on professionals who regularly work with very abusive families and seeks to identify what protective factors in the work team and its management mitigate these effects. I compare the behavioural consequences of living in a dysfunctional family with the consequences of working in a dysfunctional team. My hope is to identify practical, realistic things that can be done, especially by team managers, to protect staff from the all too familiar emotional costs of such work.     

Sketching as Autoethnographic Practice

This article is an “autoethnographic sketch” that “draws out” substantive observations about the “sketchy” character of concepts such as identity, theory, self, and society. Using vignettes from my experiences as an art student, post‐structuralist theory, and symbolic interaction, I render a brief sketch of how autoethnography and other representations of self can be conveyed in a layered process. The materials in each vignette may not seem to be consistent with or related to the other layers, but as each layer is superimposed on the others, an image or impression emerges from the whole. By presenting these materials in this way, the format or metaphor of sketching offers autoethnographers the possibility of doing analysis and evocation, while leaving open other interpretive possibilities. Artificial closure is not imposed on the final product. I also briefly sketch how self and society exist sous rature and in différance to each other, thus making autoethnographic sketching a useful tool for symbolic interactionists and other observers of society.     

Relational Personality Theory and Holland's Typology Among Women: An Exploratory Investigation

Relational personality theorists propose that women have a tendency to view themselves in the context of relationships with others and to make decisions to optimize and maintain relationships. The current study explored whether relational identity may underlie women's career interests as measured by Holland's typology and examined possible implications of this relationship in career settings. Measures of women's connected self and the Social dimension of Holland's typology were found to be related but separate constructs. Participants with Social interests also indicated some variation in their interest in working in collaborative environments and/or in helping roles on the job.     

The Cognitive Basis of Future-oriented Prosocial Behavior

Two experiments examined the development of future-oriented prosocial behavior in relation to developing theory of mind and executive functioning. Children from 3;0 to 4;6 were given a series of trials in which they had to make a choice between immediate and delayed sticker rewards, where these rewards accrued either to self, to a play partner, or were shared. They also were presented with standard theory of mind tasks (in Experiment 1) assessing the understanding of belief and desire and an executive function task (in Experiment 2) in which the children had to inhibit pointing to a baited box in order to win the cookie within. Results showed that for 4-year-olds, the tendency to opt for delayed rewards in order to share with the partner was correlated with theory of mind. For younger 3-year-olds, the children's ability to inhibit pointing to the baited box was significantly correlated with the tendency to choose delayed over immediate sticker rewards. These results indicate that children's ability to show future-oriented prosocial or sharing behavior is linked developmentally both to the ability to imagine conflicting noncurrent mental states and the ability to inhibit responding to perceptually salient events.