Continuity of Learning-Generalization: The Effect of Job on Men's Intellective Process in the United States and Poland

Abstract

Data from both the United States and Poland show that the effect of occupational self-direction on intellective process is similar for younger, middle-aged, and older workers. Multiple-regression analyses of cross-sectional data consistently indicate that the job conditions determinative of occupational self-direction, the substantive complexity of work in particular, have as great an effect on the ideational flexibility and authoritarian conservatism of older as on those of younger and middle-aged workers in both countries. Longitudinal analyses of U.S. data demonstrate that the reciprocal effects of the substantive complexity of work and intellective process are as great for older as for younger workers. All the evidence supports the conclusion that job conditions continue to affect, and be affected by, intellective process with undiminished force throughout adult life.