Sexual abuse of children has profound negative effects on psychological development. This study examined the effects of sexual abuse on object relations functioning by using the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale (MAS, Urist, 1977) to score Rorschach protocols of 63 abused children and 60 non-abused clinical controls. The hypothesis that abused children would have less developed object relations than their non-abused counterparts was not supported. Neither was the hypothesis that children who experienced greater severity of sexual abuse would exhibit more malevolent object relations. The hypothesis that mean and modal MAS scores would be highly intercorrelated and interchangeable as research variables was supported. Comparisons of this sample to a normative sample are discussed.

This study provides information regarding the validity and reliability of the Wood Prospective Meory Test (WPMT), a newly developed test consisting of three main subscales intended to measure prospective memory. Subjects were 69 college students (50 female, 19 male, age range 18-24), who were administered several memory tasks including the WPMT.The results of this study suggest that the subscales of the WPMT do not have sufficient internal reliability (.50, .60, and .44), and therefore, would be unlikely to correlate highly with any other measures. The usefulness of the WPMT as a clinical instrument is discussed.

The incidence of both childhood sexual abuse and eating disorders is rising. A study of 422 undergraduate college females was undertaken using self report format to determine the incidence of childhood sexual abuse and eating disorders in a college population, and to determine the relationship between the two. In all, 57% of the women surveyed reported experiencing some form of sexual contact before the age of 14. Using the EDI-2 to assess risk of eating disorder development, 42% of these formerly abused women were found to be at risk for the development of an eating disorder. This was not found to be statistically different from the risk of eating disorder development experienced by the nonabused females in this population. However, there were differences found on the dimensions of Interpersonal Distrust, Interoceptive Awareness and Ineffectiveness, indicating that two of the major issues in eating disorder development for the abused women are trust both of themselves and of others, and self-esteem.

The correlation between employee theft and various employee attitudes is investigated with 489 subjects from a large discount store chain located in the southeastern United States. Subjects completed two tests: Personnel Decisions, Inc. 's Employment Inventory/Customer Service Inventory which measures employee reliability and orientation toward providing customer service; and the Organization Responsiveness Questionnaire which measures satisfaction and perceived store security. Individual scores on the tests were correlated with a performance rating form completed by the subject's supervisor. Scores were computed for each store and correlated with inventory shrinkage rates. Results revealed relatively weak correlations for some variables. The multiple regression analysis was unable to significantly predict any of the criterion variables.

The TAT stories of 38 sexually abused females between the ages of 5 and 18 years and a clinical group of 26 females with no recorded history of abuse were analyzed using the Object Relations and Social Cognitions TAT Scoring System (Westen et al., 1985). Subjects in the sexual abuse group showed significantly lower mean scores on a scale measuring affect-tone of relationship paradigms and on a scale measuring complexity of representations of people. In addition, pathological responses were given significantly more often by sexual abuse victims on the complexity of representations of people scale. Thus, sexually abused children showed more primitive and simple characterizations of people and more negative, punitive affect in their representations. Moreover, these results were independent of age, race, and intelligence. Group differences are discussed in terms of object relations development.

Derived from sociotechnical systems theory, autonomous or self-managed work groups are a form of work design in which employees are multi-skilled, take responsibility for the group's tasks, and have discretion over the decisions which impact group performance. Previously collected survey data from 602 employees of a southwestern manufacturing firm were examined via factor analyses and multivariate analysis of variance. Significant differences were found for self-managed work group members versus traditional job holders regarding enhanced organizational involvement and enhanced work responsibility. However, there was no evidence of an age effect nor interaction regarding age. This study provides evidence to other action researchers and organizational decision makers that an "older" work force should not be considered a barrier to implementing this type of work design

The present study empirically examined working behaviors of men and women within a self-managed working environment. Three models of women and work were studied. Results indicated women exhibited higher levels of job meaning and continuance commitment. The more self-managed production team exhibited higher levels of growth need strength, support from co-workers, continuance commitment, task significance and lower levels of role conflicts. Support teams exhibited higher levels of autonomy and satisfaction with pay. Path analysis, testing a model based on Astin's sociopsychological model indicated direct effects from expectancy to general satisfaction, from gender to expectancy, and task significance to gender. An alternative model showed direct effects between general satisfaction and expectancy, satisfaction with pay, task significance and expectancies, and between satisfaction with pay and teams.

One of the most perplexing problems in the psychology of aging is whether there are characteristic changes in aspects of personality over the life course. This study attempts to address issues relating to changes in the self-system believed to take place as individuals grow older. Of particular interest is what age differences exist in the four components of the objective self described by Atchley (1982): the ideal self, self-concept, self-esteem, and self-evaluation. In order to examine the differences in these components of the self between younger and older adults the following predictions are made: 1) the ideal self for older adults will be more highly interrelated to their present self-concept than will that of younger adults, 2) issues of self-esteem will be more salient in older versus younger adults, and 3) issues of self-evaluation will be more salient in older than in younger adults. A questionnaire developed by Dittmann-Kohli, (1990) containing 30 incomplete sentences asking for fears, desires, goals, time perspective, self-evaluation, and self-description was given to 110 individuals ranging in age from 17-43 and 89 persons ranging in age from 61-96. Results indicate only partial support for age changes in the self-system.

Empowerment, which has been described as both a means of effecting higher and more efficient quality work outputs and a means of facilitating greater freedom in the workplace combines elements of philosophy, psychology, and management theory. The perceptions of the present empowerment level of 3500 employees of a division of a major corporation were analyzed using data from an empowerment survey. The results were examined using correlational and factorial measures to test the structure of the survey. ANOVA and pair-wise comparisons were used to examine group differences on five subscales of the survey based on employee level in the organization. Significant differences were found in almost all categories. Rank order for the three levels differed from previous findings, perhaps due to empowerment thrusts.

The effect of aging on prospective memory was examined. Fifty older subjects and 69 college students were given measures of both retrospective memory and the Wood Prospective Memory Test. It was found that: 1) The reliability of the WPMT subscales was lower than that required for clinical applications; 2) The WPMT subscales correlated significantly with several measures of retrospective memory; 3) There was a tendency for the WPMT subscales to have low, positive but non-significant correlations with the remaining measures of retrospective memory; 4) A self-report questionnaire on prospective memory did not correlate significantly with measures of either prospective or retrospective memory; 5) The older subjects significantly outperformed the younger subjects on the WAISR Vocabulary subtest, but performed significantly more poorly on the WPMT subscales and almost all other measures.

This study identified and defined leader behaviors with two levels of leadership in a self-managed team organization. Job analysis methodology was used. A comparison of task importance values was made within groups and between hierarchical levels in the organization. Identified leader behaviors were compared with effective, traditional leader performance. Qualitative data collected throughout the investigation clarified an integrative model for effective organizations developed from the literature. The model included leader characteristics and team member behaviors when using self-managed teams.