Showing papers in "American Psychologist in 1974"

The semantics of children's language.

Abstract: Interest in language, especially that of children, has become a central concern of contemporary psychology- This interest is somewhat surprising, because everyone recognizes the enormous complexity of language use and language development >in the child. . In spite of a widespread recognition that there is little hope of having a complete theory of these matters at any time in the near future, a general air of activity and in some cases of optimism prevails about the progress being made. For example, it is now possible to cite a fairly large number of references in the literature on almost any aspect of language development in the child, ranging from phonology to semantic comprehension, with probably the largest number of studies being on the syntactical or grammatical development of children’s language. It is surely in this area that the most progress has been made over the past decade or decade and a half.

Culture and achievement motivation.

Abstract: This symposium and the papers that compose it reflect the fact that the study of culture and achievement motivation has truly ‘‘come of age.’’ Gone are the days when a few hearty souls from Europe, Great Britain, the United States, and Australia, as well as a few others imbedded in the research traditions largely associated with ‘‘Western oriented centres of knowledge’’ stood as the primary source for prompting and guiding research on the nature and nurture of motivation. Equally, if not more, important is that studies of culture and motivation are increasingly conducted under the purview of a multicultural community of scholars. Certainly, this represents an exciting development, and the papers that compose this symposium are interesting as they provide fresh perspectives on motivation as it emerges in contexts and cultures not often portrayed in the motivation literature in the so-called ‘‘Western world.’’ While the scholars who have contributed to this symposium reflect an awareness of the research traditions of the past, they also exhibit special insights into the uniqueness of the varied cultures they have studied, the meanings of motivation that are associated with these cultures and the varied impact of these meanings on ways of acting and thinking. Certainly, this all speaks well for the level of scholarship evident in these papers. It also holds out the promise that the study of culture and motivation is neither dormant nor outmoded. Permit me, however, to raise an issue that I am regularly inclined to raise with the motivation research community in the United States. From the outset, the study of achievement motivation

Some perspectives for industrial psychology.

Abstract: We industrial psychologists are a curiously introspective lot about our professional selves. For some reason or another we are greatly concerned about what we are doing, how we are doing it, and what we ought to be doing. In the very early days of industrial psychology, our folk heroes, people such as Viteles, Link, Bingham, Paterson, and Burtt, all had their say about the role of industrial psychology and what it should be concerned with. Those of us who formed the next generation continued to insist on telling each other at great length who we are, what matters we ought to consider, and how we should do what we do; and the current generation has continued this custom of a periodic auditing of our field. T propose now to continue this custom, and I shall discuss a rather mixed bag of matters that I believe we as industrial psychologists ought to think about. I shall consider some notions about the nature of the variables we use, the study of organizations, the role and nature of theory, the impermanence of facts, and individual differences and individuality.