career specialty preferences among psychology majors cognitive processing styles associated with scientist and practitioner interests精选.pdfVIP

Career Specialty Preferences Among Psychology Majors: Cognitive Processing Styles Associated With Scientist and Practitioner Interests Frederick T. L. Leong Peter Zachar Lisa Conant Dwight Tolliver The authors investigated cognitive processing styles associated with interests in scientist and practitioner activities among a sample of undergraduate psychology majors who planned to attend graduate school. Results indicated that interests in scientist activities were associated with a greater motivation to engage in effortful processing (i.e., need for cognition). Interests in practitioner activities were not correlated with need for cognition. Contrary to theoretical expectations, neither interests in scientist activities nor in practitioner activities were related to ambiguity intolerance (i.e., preference for clear-cut solutions to problems). This study attempted to gain better understanding of career specialty choice in psychology by examining the relationship between cognitive processing styles and career specialty preferences among undergraduate psychology majors. Gelso’s (1979) reflections on the scientist and practitioner traditions in psychology served as the theoretical context for the current study. In the tradition of Paul Meehl (1972), Gelso (1979) offered a series of influential reflections on scientist and practitioner interests in psychology. Influential psychologists met in Boulder, Colorado, in 1949, establishing a model of training devoted to training psychologists as scientists and practitio- ners. Their training recommendations are referred to as the Boulder model. The Boulder model’s goal has repeatedly been hindered by the perception among psychologists that there are groups of psychology students whose strong interests in empirical research are associated with a disdain for clinical practice and vice versa (Leong Zachar, 1991). The perception that the Boulder m