Jon Lorence

Work Experience and Occupational Value Socialization: A Longitudinal Study.

This research examines the effects of work experience on occupational reward values, which are of central importance in occupational choice, career development, and subjective responses to work. Whereas it is often assumed that occupational values remain fixed throughout the work history, a confirmatory factor analysis of data obtained from male college graduates over a 10-year time span demostrates that work authonomy and income influence intrinsinc, people-oriented, and extrinsic values. Rewarding occupational experiences were found to reinforce the same values that constituted the basis of earlier work selection. The findings raise several issues for the study of social in equality.

Reliability and Validity of Adolescent Self-Reported Drug Use in a Family-Based Study: A Methodological Report

Given the sensitive topic of drug abuse and the private nature of the family, researchers must overcome a number of methodological obstacles when studying drug abuse and the family. The purpose of this study was to determine whether adolescents would provide honest and accurate answers to drug use questions in the context of their homes with their families participating in the same survey. Although there is no direct objective validation of the self-report measures used in this study, evidence from the analysis of the survey data suggests that adolescent self-reports are, in most cases, reliable and valid, and that the setting in which respondents complete questionnaires does not, in general, result in systematic reporting bias.

Psychology of work and unemployment

This book is directed at industrial psychologists, human resource managers, consultants and social scientists interested in the psychological effect of employment and unemployment on people. It is an integration of research and theories about this effect. As far as employment is concerned it emphasizes that a significant number of employees have jobs which do not fully use their skills or provide personal satisfaction, and that the long term effects of such jobs include deterioration of employees self image, personal control, intellectual functioning and social adjustment. The psychological effects are similar in kind to those experienced by people in unemployment - stress, helplessness, fatalism, and the implications for efficiency and motivation at work are serious. The book seeks to do more than give an account of factors affecting or affected by work behaviour - it considers the whole experience of employment, underemployment and unemployment and reviews the current state of our understanding of employment, leisure and retirement, as it relates to work attitudes, goals and performance. The book offers a critique of job design theories and guidance on improving work performance and job satisfaction.

Job Involvement Through the Life Course: A Panel Study of Three Age Groups

Utilizing panel data for three age groups from the 1972-73 and 1977 Quality of Employment Surveys, this study investigates the interrelations of work experiences and subjective job involvement in three age groups that are indicative of different career stages. Whereas job involvement is quite volatile in the initial stage of the work career, it becomes more stable, supporting the aging stability hypothesis, as workers grow older. Work experiences and rewards also change less as workers age, suggesting that the growing stability with age in job involvement occurs in the context of an increasingly stable work environment. Work autonomy exerts a significant influence on job involvement in all age groups. However, the fact that this intrinsic dimension of work has the strongest influence on involvement in the youngest cohort supports the contention that there is a highly formative stage in young adulthood, after which time the person becomes more resistant to environmental pressures to change. The findings also suggest that the effects ofjob involvement on occupational achievement may be specific to the middle stage of the career. The results of this study indicate the potential of applying a life-span developmental perspective to the study of the sources and consequences of job involvement.

Occupational Experience and the Self-Concept: A Longitudinal Study

This research examines the socializing effects of work experience on the competence dimension of the self-concept during the early work career. The panel consisted of 435 male 1966-67 college graduates who were studied during their undergraduate years andfollowed up, 10 years later, by a mail survey. Using the confirmatory factor analysis procedure, the findings demonstrated significant effects of work autonomy on the individuals sense of competence or personal efficacy. With work autonomy and other pertinent variables controlled, income, an indicator of extrinsic rewards and socioeconomic attainment, did not significantly enhance the self-concept over time. These findings support a generalization model of adult socialization, in which adaptations to occupational activities and demands are conceptualized as major sources of personal change. The results also showed that a sense of competence, prior to labor force entry, has significant implications for future income attainment and work autonomy.

Service Sector Growth and Metropolitan Occupational Sex Segregation

Analyses of the largest 130 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas in 1980 revealed little support for cultural or human capital explanations of occupational sex segregation. Gender differences in occupational distributions arose more from structural characteristics of urban labor markets than from the characteristics of individuals. Although a larger supply of men relative to women in the labor force increased occupational differences, greater employment in service industries had the most pronounced impact on gender occupational placement. The findings suggest that continued job growth in service industries will lead to greater occupational similarity between the sexes as declining employment opportunities in manufacturing compel more men to assume less gender-segregated positions in social and personal services industries. Linkages between industrial structure, occupations, and indices of dissimilarity were also examined.

Satisfaction and Involvement: Disentangling a Deceptively Simple Relationship

This paper explores the relationships of two psychological constructs that pertain to many domains of human activity: satisfaction and involvement. After reviewing the causal relationships between these constructs, we estimate a series of models of job satisfaction and job involvement using data from the 1973-1977 Quality of Employment Survey Panel

Work Experience and Work Involvement

This panel study examines the interrelations of work experience and psychological involvement in work among male college graduates over a 10-year period. The data analysis provides substantial support for the occupational socialization hypothesis—that work experience and, particularly, work autonomy, stimulate work involvement over time. There was also evidence for the occupational selection hypothesis— that high work involvement, prior to labor force entry, induces work values which promote stability m the early career and facilitates the attainment of income and work autonomy.

A test of nonrespondent bias in a family-based study: a research note.

The increasing use of family samples from normal populations (as opposed to clinical samples) in substance abuse research raises concern about the validity of responses from participating families. Nonparticipating families may have greater numbers of substance users who wish to conceal problems, when compared to families which cooperate with researchers. Unobtrusive analyses of institutional records of a health maintenance organization comparing families agreeing to participate in a substance use study (N = 508) with those families unwilling to participate (N = 538) reveal no significant differences in the use of chemical dependency services between the two groups. Surveys of the non-participating families indicate that the major reasons for noncooperation were the lack of time and inconvenience in getting family members together. These findings suggest the feasibility of sampling families from normal populations.

Income and Jobs: USA, Diagnosing the Reality.

Boom, bust, boom...? The rapidity of change in America from the exuberant 1960s to the stagflation of the 1970s to the recovery of 1983-84 has been so startling as to confuse the American investor, planner, marketer, developer--and plain citizen. Are the incomes of Americans declining? Is the middle class--and most importantly, the mass middle market-disappearing? Has the United States standard of living fallen behind other advanced industrial nations? Are we really becoming a nation of low-wage, fast-food attendants? Are Americas minorities falling off the income train? What price poverty? Assertion and counter-assertion, claim and counter-claim, arrive faster than understanding. Whether investor or spender, pro-Administration or anti-, a better grasp of the answers is required--Where is America going in the 1980s? In these heavily documented works, the authors present an enormously comprehensive, up-to-date gathering-in of the data. In clear, concise laymans language, they provide an essential foundation for decision makers regardless of their sympathies.