Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Improving Service Quality Through Self-Monitoring, John Patrick Mcdonough Iii

Dissertations

A multiple-baseline across-restaurants design was used to assess the effectiveness of a quality guarantee (performance checklist) on the quality of food served at two carryout pizza restaurants in a Midwestern city of approximately 100,000 people. The research consisted of having the quality of food monitored by research assistants who served as mystery shoppers trained in the quality standards of the restaurants. Quality was monitored during baseline, when normal operating procedures were in effect at the restaurant, and during intervention, when employees who delivered food to customers were required to sign a quality guarantee. In one intervention phase, employees checked off …

The Effect Of Associative Distance On The Formation Of Transitive Relations, Robert G. Brown Jr.

Dissertations

Three children, aged eight to eleven years, were taught a series of conditional discriminations using two classes of 26 abstract visual stimuli. The conditional relations were ordered such that the correct comparison stimuli of one relation served as the sample stimuli for the next relation. This allowed for the formation of a series of derived relations (both transitive and equivalence) that differed in terms of the number of intervening nodes. At regular intervals, the subjects' performances on the different transitive relations were tested using unreinforced probe trials.

All three subjects made virtually no errors on transitive relations containing up to …

Perceived Parental Care And Protection As Correlates Of Chronic Pain In Adults, Daniel L. Walberer

Dissertations

This research was undertaken to explore the significance of care and protection as correlates related to the experience of chronic pain in adults. Chronic pain may affect as many as ten percent of the American population and cost up to a billion dollars a year in treatment costs. It was hypothesized that certain parenting styles are related to the experience of chronic pain in adults.

Thirty male and female patients referred to The Center for Health Psychology and Medicine in Kalamazoo, Michigan who were diagnosed as experiencing chronic pain by a referring physician participated in this study. Each participant underwent …

The Rhetoric Of Slobodan Milosevic And War On The Territory Of Yugoslavia, Agneza Bozic

Masters Theses

The hypothesis of this work is that the political rhetoric of the Serbian leader, Milosevic, was among the major factors contributing to the political and social changes in Serbia and Yugoslavia, which ultimately led to the war.

Three of Milosevic's speeches were studied in detail: the speeches of April 24, 1987, October 17, 1988, and November 19, 1988. The method of rhetorical analysis was adopted from Andrews (1990) because this method stresses the importance of context and effects of the speech. The theories of political language (Graber, 1981) and of political rhetoric (Bitzer, 1981) together with Johannesen's (1989) theory of …

The Effectiveness Of A Job Search Skills Training Program On The Job Readiness Of Undergraduate Malaysian Students Enrolled At Western Michigan University, Ibrahim Bin Hashim

Dissertations

The relevant body of research and literature applicable to this area emphasized the importance of job readiness among college students. Job seeking skills program can be rendered more effective and efficient by using a combination of several behavioral procedures.

The primary purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of a job search skills training program on the job readiness of the undergraduate sponsored Malaysian students enrolled at Western Michigan University. Specifically the problem centered on the ability of the treatment program to help Malaysian students to become clearer and to increase their understanding about the importance of self-awareness, …

Career Dynamics Of Counselor Trainee Stereotyping: Bias Toward Physical Ability, Social Class, Gender, And Race Of Clients, J. Stephen Neynaber

Dissertations

Three different attitude surveys, developed by the researcher, were administered to counselor trainees (N =200) at Western Michigan University: The Attitudes of Counselor Trainees (A.C.T.) Survey, Multicultural Beliefs Inhibiting Appropriate Support (M-B.I.A.S.) Survey, and Career Beliefs Inhibiting Appropriate Support (CB. LA.S.) Survey. A 24-item demographics questionnaire was administered to trainees (n =124) who completed the A.C.T. Survey. A six-items Likert scale produced significant effect (p < .05) on counselor trainees' ratings of clients' potential for career success: (1) Awareness of Personal Strengths and Weaknesses, (2) Goal Orientation, (3) Self-esteem, (4) Energy Level, (5) Participation in Extracurricular Activities, and (6) Level of Honesty.

Five client demographic oppression variables, which the review of literature documented to evince negative bias from counselors, were included in 16 hypothetical client scenarios: physical handicaps (viz., hearing impairment and paraplegia), female sex, African-Americans, low …

Motivational Effects On A Psychometric Measure Of Prefrontal Brain Functioning In Patients With Chronic Schizophrenia And Related Disorders, Paul C. Smith

Dissertations

This study compared multiple sequential performances on a computerized version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Grant & Berg, 1948; Harris, 1986) by adult men receiving institutional inpatient treatment for chronic schizophrenia and related disorders. Participants were exposed to differential test conditions of minimal post-session non-contingent token reinforcement (baseline phases) and enhanced intra-session performance-contingent token reinforcement (experimental phase). Each major participant resided at the same continuing treatment unit at Kalamazoo Regional Psychiatric Hospital receiving similar social therapies but idiosyncratic psychotropic medication regimens, changes in which were tracked in relation to test performances. A simple single-subject reversal design was employed with …

Organic Communities, Atomistic Societies, And Loneliness, Ben Mijuskovic

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The article distinguishes two models of human organization, the organic community and the atomistic society. It maintains that the organic paradigm stresses (a) the ideal unity of the whole; (b) organic or intrinsic relations; (c) living or dialectical processes; (d) the image of "members"; (e) the mutual interdependence of the members; (f) a role perspective; and (g) dynamic or natural functions. By contrast, the atomistic construction emphasizes (a) the value of individual freedom; (b) external connections; (c) mechanical or causal explanations; (d) the metaphor of "parts"; (e) the independence of the parts; (f) a rule orientation; and (g) a formalistic, …

Journal Of Sociology & Social Welfare Vol. 19, No. 2 (June 1992)

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGIES IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT - Thomas Packard
• ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: TRUE SOULMATES OR UNEASY BEDFELLOWS? - Darlyne Bailey & Pranab Chatterjee
• A RESPONSE TO THE REJOINDER - Thomas Packard
• THE SEALED ADOPTION RECORDS CONTROVERSY IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE - E. Wayne Carp
• THE BATTLE FOR BENEVOLENCE - Karen Tice
• PROFESSIONAL ROLE ORIENTATION AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM - Linda Cherrey Reeser
• HELEN HALL (1892-1982): A SECOND GENERATION SETTLEMENT LEADER - Janice Andrews
• DAILY LIFE OF THE OLDEST OLD - Margareta Carlsson-Agren, Stig Berg
• and Claes-Goran Wenestam
• THE WITHERING OF COMMUNITY LIFE AND THE GROWTH OF EMOTIONAL …

Daily Life Of The Oldest Old, Margareta Carlsson-Agren, Stig Berg, Claes-Goran Wenestam

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The purpose of this study was to investigate how very old persons-a representative sample of 129 noninstitutionalized 85-year-old Swedish persons with different patterns of adjustment-may live and experience daily life. The analysis of in-depth interviews showed that better adjusted participants enjoyed their freedom as retirees to form daily life at their own choosing. Within patterns of poorer adjustment, daily life was more influenced by other conditions than by the individual's preferences. It was common to construct personal time-tables for keeping up self-control and regardless of the level of activity, most participants thought that time passed quickly. It is argued that …

The Withering Of Community Life And The Growth Of Emotional Disorders, Thomas F. Maher

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The architecture of this essay is as follows: I begin by assaying the communitarian crisis of the modern western world. Second, I offer a brief narrative of the social and cultural variables that foster rootlessness and social disintegration in much of urban industrial life. Third, I state a strong case for how this same process may be systematically undermining the nuclear family as a life-long community, threatening the dependence of children on care-giving adults, and, thereafter, the psychological development of children.

The Battle For Benevolence: Scientific Disciplinary Control Vs. "Indiscriminate Relief": Lexington Associated Charities And The Salvation Army, 1900 - 1918, Karen Tice

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This historical case study explores the conflicts that emerged between the Scientific Charity Organization movement and the evangelical Salvation Army. At issue were two sets of reform styles, each legitimated by distinct sources of authority. The Salvation Army's practice was anchored in a religious understanding. Scientific Charity, battling for hegemonic control, espoused a rising positivistic worldview and championed disciplinary techniques for sorting the poor into binary categories of worthy and unworthy. This study illuminates the changing nature of social relations between charity workers and recipients and the construction of professional welfare methods.

The Sealed Adoption Records Controversy In Historical Perspective: The Case Of The Children's Home Society Of Washington, 1895-1988, E. Wayne Carp

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

I would like to thank Charlie Langdon and D. Sharon Osborne, past and present Executive Directors of the Children's Home Society of Washington (CHSW), for permission to use the CHSW's case records, and Randy Perin, Supervisor of the CHSW's Adoption Resource Center, whose enthusiasm for this project has been inspirational. I am also grateful to Roger W. Toogood, Executive Director of the Children's Home Society of Minnesota (CHSM), and Marietta E. Spencer, Program Director, Post-Legal Adoption Services, CHSM, for permitting me access to the Society's case records. I would also like to thank Paula Shields, George Behlmer, Ruth Bloch, Clarke …

Helen Hall (1892-1982): A Second Generation Settlement Leader, Janice Andrews

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Helen Hall, settlement leader and second generation social worker, was a prominent social reformer for over fifty years. Her professional life spanned a period of early social work where her activities occurred along side those of first generation social workers, and continued through the depression, the war years, into the 1950s and the settlement movement's increasing attention to juvenile delinquency, and finally into the turbulent 1960s when her activities overlapped the modern generation of social workers. Despite her widespread work in national affairs and neighborhood concerns, her leadership in the National Federation of Settlement, her extensive writings and studies, Hall …

Organization Development Technologies In Community Development: A Case Study, Thomas Packard

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Organization development (OD) consultation technologies have been increasingly used by social workers in a variety of practice settings. Organization development is typically used in formal organizations, and there have been few reported applications in community development. This paper discusses the value of such applications and describes examples in a case study. Similarities between community development and organization development are presented. Technologies used are reviewed, followed by cautions and recommendations for further research

Organization Development And Community Development: True Soulmates Or Uneasy Bedfellows?, Darlyne Bailey, Pranab Chatterjee

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Our paper is written to express both strong dissent from and partial support of Dr. Packard's article "Organization Development Technologies in Community Development: A Case Study." Beginning with a summation of the article, this paper introduces the main area of contention, provides a vignette to illustrate key points and concludes with affirmation of the need for reconciling the differences between organizational development (OD) and community development (CD) as two systems of planned change.

Professional Role Orientation And Social Activism, Linda Cherrey Reeser

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article examines the effects on social action of the client, bureaucratic, and professional role orientations of social workers. A national survey was conducted of 682 social workers who were members of the National Association of Social Workers. Systematic sampling was used and the questionnaire was self-administered. A bureaucratic orientation is not supportive of activism; a client orientation encourages activism; and a professional orientation-taken alone-is neither conservatizing nor reinforcing of activism. However, an orientation to the profession when coupled with a client orientation intensifies the activist effects of a client orientation for practice groups within social work. Possible explanations for …

A Response To The Rejoinder By Darlyne Bailey & Pranab Chatterjee, Thomas Packard

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

I appreciate the thoughtful and important comments made by Darlyne Bailey & Pranab Chatterjee regarding my article on organization development and community development. I find myself agreeing with them almost totally, and will briefly comment on some of their points to help clarify where we are and may not be in agreement.

A Behavioral Overview Of Self-Control, Shannon Kay Swick

Masters Theses

The present paper is a review of behavioral self-control literature with self-control defined as the choice of a larger, more delayed reinforcer over a smaller, less delayed reinforcer. The paper includes a self-control experiment in which the subjects were adolescent males labelled Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The results show higher levels of self-control than those generally seen in similar subject populations. Self-control literature in behavioral psychology is examined and explanations for varying results are discussed.

Mtv Ideology: Rocking To A Different Beat?, Janelle L. Wilson

Masters Theses

This study analyzed 30 of the most popular rock music videos aired on Music Television Network in the summer of 1991. Using a qualitative content analysis, six prominent themes in these videos were identified: (1) eroticism, (2) female gender roles, (3) Americana, (4) violence, (5) religious symbols, and (6) clothing fetishism. From these themes, five values were discerned in the videos: (1) carpe diem, (2) individual freedom, (3) nihilistic religiosity, (4) nationalism, and (5) consumerism. It was found that these values constituted an ideology in music videos which in some ways reflects dominant American ideology. Their focus on appearance, their …

From Welfare To Liberation: A Socio-Historical Analysis Of The Animal Rights Movement, Linda J. Rynbrandt

Masters Theses

This thesis is a socio-historical analysis of the animal rights social movement in the United States of America at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries. The theoretical model is resource mobilization theory, especially McCarthy and Zald's (1973) entrepreneurial model. The method, which contrasts this social movement at two points in time, is informed by Skocpol's (1984) interpretative historical sociology. In particular, leadership, ideology, organizational structure, and strategy tactics in both eras are examined. Comparing the two manifestations of animal rights protest, the data show that: (a) Leadership and organizational structure, though similar in many respects, are more professionalized …

Perceived Importance Of Selected Nonverbal Cues In An Initial Encounter, Loretta L. Richter

Masters Theses

This study attempts to identify nonverbal cues which individuals are aware of using in an initial encounter and to identify the importance of those cues. It also a d dresses possible differences between men and women in nonverbal cue importance and possible differences based on the sex of the participant’s partner. Sixty-two male and female undergraduate students enrolled in communication courses interacted with a stranger and completed questionnaires which pertained to their partner's nonverbal behaviors. Results showed that the most important nonverbal cue for all participants was the amount of eye contact; the least important was body shape. Cues found …

A Survey Of Computer Use In Occupational Therapy Fieldwork Sites, Martha E. Parks

Masters Theses

Eighty-three Western Michigan University occupational therapy fieldwork sites were surveyed to determine: (a) extent of computer use, (b) diagnostic categories with which computers are used, (c) extent of computer knowledge of registered occupational therapists (OTRs), and (d) adequacy of computer knowledge of fieldwork students. Forty-seven (56.6%) of the 83 surveys were returned. OTRs at 36 (76.6%) of the 47 sites currently use computers. Word processing is the most common way in which these OTRs use computers. The most common clinical use of computers is perceptual/motor assessment and treatment, while the most common research use of computers is for report writing. …

Letter Recognition By Mentally Retarded Adults: Improving Performance Through Differential Outcomes, Paul R. Malanga

Masters Theses

Four mentally retarded adults were taught to recognize (i.e., discriminate) finger spelling letters when presented as members of unchanging pairs (e.g., A and E, G and H). Correct responses were followed by food or verbal praise. On average, terminal accuracy was significantly greater when a correct response to a given letter was consistently followed by a particular outcome (e.g., food followed correct responses to A and praise followed correct responses to E) than when nondifferential outcomes were arranged (e.g., food followed 50% of all correct responses and praise followed the remaining 50%, regardless of whether the responses were to A …

Cognitive Disability Theory As A Basis For Activity Analysis For Elderly Persons With Dementia, Deborah S. Kaeser

Masters Theses

Allen's (1985) Cognitive Disability approach provides a guideline for modifying the cognitive demands of an activity to match the abilities of an individual. Thirty older adults with a mean age of 78.1 years and a diagnosis indicating an irreversible dementia were selected for the study. A counterbalanced design was used to compare the performance of 15 individuals with a Level Three cognitive ability and 15 individuals with a Level Four cognitive ability on two tiling craft activities: one with Level Three cognitive demands and one with Level Four cognitive demands. Analysis of variance indicated a significant interaction between cognitive level …

Interpersonal Issues Of Dependency In Adult Children From Dysfunctional Relationships, Dennis Michael Beaufait

Dissertations

This study was designed to examine issues of interpersonal behavior among adult children of alcoholics when compared to adult children of non-alcoholics by assessing the functioning level of family of origin relationships. Undergraduate students from a midwestern university were divided into four groups based on their scores on the Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST) by Jones (1981) and the Index of Family Relations (IFR) by Hudson (1982). The sample consisted of 302 subjects between the ages of 18 and 50 who volunteered to participate in a study which examined interpersonal behavior as measured by the Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (IDI). …

Appeal And Vulnerability Patterns In Girl Victims Of Incest, Ruth Mausert-Mooney

Dissertations

This study compared certain personal characteristics and behaviors of sexually abused girls with those of matched controls. Experimental subjects were 49 girls, aged 6 to 16 years, who had been sexually abused by an older male family member. Fifty girls who had not experienced sexual abuse served as the comparison group, matched on the basis of age, race and socioeconomic status.

Demographic and psychological measures were completed by each research participant and her mother. Videotapes were made of an initial session in which each child met an unknown male tester.

This study hypothesized and affirmed that sexually abused girls appeared …

Effects Of Feedback Type And Signal Probability On Quality Inspection Accuracy, Matthew A. Mason

Dissertations

A computer simulation was developed to examine the effects of feedback type (immediate, delayed, or none) and signal probability (p = 0.05 or 0.12) on the accuracy of identifying signals (missing components), inspection response rate, and response sensitivity (d'). Subjects were randomly assigned to one of six experimental groups: (1) immediate feedback with a signal probability of 0.05 (1/0.05), (2) delayed feedback with a signal probability of 0.05 (D/0.05), (3) no feedback with a signal probability of 0.05 (N/0.05), (4) immediate feedback with a signal probability of 0.12 (1/0.12), (5) delayed feedback with a signal probability of …

The Impact Of A Stress Management Training Program On Symptoms Of Fibromyalgia, Robert J. Sheppard

Dissertations

Fibromyalgia is a noninflammatory rheumatic disorder characterized by musculoskeletal pain, nonrestorative sleep, and mood disturbance. Emotional stress is frequently reported as a factor that exacerbates symptoms. This study was designed to assess the impact of stress management training on perceived stress and fibromyalgia symptoms. Four female subjects with fibromyalgia participated on an individual basis in a 10 week stress management training program, which was administered in the fixed sequence of training in self-monitoring, relaxation, cognitive behavioral skills, and assertion. The effects of the training on self-report measures of perceived stress, pain, functional disability, sleep disruption, daytime fatigue, and depression were …

Exploring The Self-In-Relation Theory: Women's Idealized Relationships-Of-Choice And Psychological Health, K. Heidi Fishman

Dissertations

The self-in-relation theory (e.g., Kaplan, 1984; Kaplan 6 Klein, 1985; Miller, 1984, 1986, 1988; Surrey, 1985, 198?) asserts that women's development is based on relationships. According to the Stone Center theorists (Kaplan, 1984; Miller, 1988; Stiver, 1986-1989, 1986- 1990; Surrey, 1984), psychopathology in women can stem out of non-growth-fostering relationships which leave women feeling a profound sense of disconnection and loss. Similarly, psychological health develops out of growth fostering relationships. This study investigates the connections between women's relational experiences, their idealized relationships-of-choice, the health of their families-of-origin, and current psychological health.

Thirty-eight women were interviewed and given psychological measurements in …