Results of a survey of employees at a Midwestern newspaper company indicate that job characteristics mediate the relationships between the organization's structural context and the attitudes and behavior of individual employees. (Author/RW)

Examines the history of the "Blavatsky" phase of the London Theosophical movement. Focuses on the disparity between the public rhetoric of the Theosophical Society's leadership and the deeper motivations which inspired many Londoners to join the movement. (JMF)

Describes group training model that differs from the traditional T-group model in structure, leadership, and assumptions about learning. The life-cycle model is based on situational leadership, differential structures based on group maturity, and integration of conceptual and experiential learning. (Author)

Describes a solution-focused debriefing group model for adult survivors of violence, which integrates Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) and solution-focused counseling techniques. Discusses how to debrief team members, group size, the seven stages of CISD, and solution-focused debriefing group techniques. (RJM)

Argues that processes of evaluating and assigning membership of categories within given collectives may be identified as operating across diverse social contexts. The maintenance of social identity boundaries is dependent on "knowing" the status of one's own category membership and accomplishing this membership through the interactional work of…

Compares decision processes of consensus and devil's advocacy within an additive task, a disjunctive task, and a conjunctive task structure. Finds that high-conflict decision processes such as devil's advocacy enhances decision making in disjunctive tasks, retards decision making in additive tasks, but has no effect on decision making in…

A study explored the perspectives of 12 parents of children with disabilities who attended inclusive play groups between 1987 and 1996. Factors that should be considered when planning and implementing inclusive play groups to help parents of children with disabilities feel more comfortable within the groups are discussed. (Author/CR)

This article discusses the use of teaching teams to encourage active learning in a business communication class. The author offers examples of short activities that can be used to help create an active learning environment. Some of these favorite activities include homework reviews, the value line, 3-2-1 processor, and muddiest point. In each of…

This study examines the organization and development of 5 domains of reasoning (categorical, quantitative, spatial, causal, and propositional) and the construct validity of a test designed to measure development from early adolescence to early adulthood. The theory underlying the test is first summarized and the conceptual design of the test is…

The present study focuses on the use of a cooperative methodology with university students during the last year of their degree programme. The task structure could be freely chosen, and there were no restraints on group decisions to deal with the classroom work. All the elements of cooperation were based on a reward structure. The results show…

A study was conducted to explore how second-grade children's memory for film characters' statements varies as a function of (1) group composition (the proportion of boys and girls in each film condition); (2) congruence level of film characters (incongruent and congruent sex-typed statements); and (3) subjects' own sex-role orientations…

For some time organizational theorists have been calling for increased attention to and appreciation of the role of specific contexts in organizational processes. One group of researchers has heeded this call by treating the organization as a cultural phenomenon. This approach has raised many questions, including (1) What is cultural in an…

The capability of 14 interpersonal dimensions to predict dyadic communication contexts was investigated in this study. Friend, acquaintance, co-worker, and family contexts were examined. The interpersonal valence construct, based on a coactive or mutual-causal paradigm, encompasses traditional source-valence components (credibility, power,…

The relative rigidity of instructional method, the intensity of supervision, and the size of instructional group are the three variables investigated in a study of students' feelings towards their preservice teaching experiences. Approximately 250 education students were queried regarding the kind and amount of supervision they were accorded…