Role of "meaningfulness" versus meaning dimensions in guessing the meanings of foreign words.

Ss guess the meanings of foreign words best when asked to match members of English and foreign antonym pairs. The present study tests the necessity for the word pairs to be antonyms. 394 Ss, comprising 4 groups, guessed the meanings of Chinese and Hindi words under 2 conditions. 2 groups received Chinese or Hindi antonym pairs along with English counterparts. The other groups received the same words but in nonantonym pairs. Results indicate significant departure from chance for all groups but no differences between groups. The interpretation is that a meaningful stimulus rather than a meaning dimension is of importance in a clear demonstration of the phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

意义性笔手势的分类及其实验评估

通过文献调研和用户问卷调查,探查现存的笔手势的特征和分类,分析探讨良好、易学的笔手势的应当具备的特征;然后,从命令与笔手势联结是否紧密的角度提出意义性笔手势的概念,并将意义性笔手势分为3类:指示性笔手势、实物隐喻笔手势和文化约定笔手势;最后,通过相应的学习实验来验证根据本研究的分类所设计的意义性笔手势在易学性方面的优势.结果表明,意义性笔手势比其他非意义性笔手势更易学、易用.此结果可以用心理学中双重编码理论进行解释,同时可以作为设计笔手势的基本指导原则之一.     

Erratum of When Wait Lists Are not Feasible, Nothing Is a Thing That Does not Need to Be Done.

Reports an error in When wait lists are not feasible, nothing is a thing that does not need to be done by Grant J. Devilly and Alexander C. McFarlane (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 2009[Dec], Vol 77[6], 1159-1168). There is an error in the computation of Equation 4 (p. 1165): z does not equal -2.44 as reported but, instead, equals 1.73. We had not divided by the denominator (√2). This makes p(one-tailed)= .042, not .007 as reported. The interpretation of this computation does not change, although the level of probability does. Rather than being confident that the two studies are from different populations with a p level of .007, we are still likely to see these studies as having obtained significantly different results but at the probability level of p .05. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2009-22711-014) Clinical psychology practices initially grew through the use of case studies, uncontrolled trials, and eventually through randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The use of a wait-list control group is standard practice in such trials of treatment regimens for psychopathological conditions. However, as knowledge advances regarding the successful treatment of such conditions, best practice guidelines are being developed. These guidelines have predominantly been based on the results of RCTs and use aggregating mechanisms, such as meta-analysis, to derive their conclusions. The authors argue here for statistical methods that allow for comparisons to existing data from wait-list controls for which the continued use of wait-list conditions has become problematic. Using posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as an example, this article proposes various methods for obviating the need for a wait-list control under such circumstances. After conducting separate meta-analyses for both treatment and control conditions, the authors found that wait-list conditions do provide some benefit to participants with PTSD, but current best practice treatment conditions elicit far superior effect sizes. The various methods for evaluating a study without a wait-list control are proposed and demonstrated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the costs and benefits of faces and words: Process characteristics of feature search in highly meaningful stimuli.

The authors present a comprehensive consideration of the process characteristics of visual search in contexts that vary in their meaningfulness. The authors frame hypotheses regarding process architecture, stopping rule, capacity, and channel independence, using analytic results and a rigorously specified dynamic system to characterize a set of alternative hypotheses that vary along all of these dimensions. Results of the tests of these hypotheses suggest that process architecture and the stopping rule do not distinguish the processing of meaningful and meaningless forms. The major distinction between configural and nonconfigural processing was with regard to processing capacity, potentially implicating channel interdependencies. All of these conclusions hold for both faces and words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal constructs and the semantic differential.

"In accord with Kelly's (1955) emphasis on the importance of personal meaningfulness to the subject in psychological measurement, the possibility of employing personal constructs within the semantic differential technique was investigated. A direct relationship was predicted between the personal meaningfulness of scales and the degree to which the concepts rated by the scales are saturated with meaning. The prediction was supported. Furthermore, increased saturation does not appear to occur at the expense of 'distortion' in the semantic field." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HE33M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spiritual beliefs, world assumptions, and HIV risk behavior among heroin and cocaine users.

The relationship between spirituality and HIV risk behavior in a sample of 34 inner-city cocaine-using methadone-maintained patients was examined. Spirituality was operationally defined in terms of "life meaningfulness" and included the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith (T. G. Plante & M. T. Boccaccini, 1997b) and the World Assumptions Scale (R. Janoff-Bulman. 1989; assessing benevolence, meaningfulness, and worthiness of the self). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses of self-reported drug- and sex-related risk behavior were conducted with sex and race entered as control variables. The full models accounted for 23% and 42% of the variance in drug- and sex-related risk behavior, respectively. Strength of spiritual/religious faith (β=.37) and belief in a benevolent (β=.50) and meaningful (β=.46) world were independent predictors of sex-related, but not drug-related, HIV preventive behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When wait lists are not feasible, nothing is a thing that does not need to be done.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 78(3) of Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (see record 2010-10440-011). There is an error in the computation of Equation 4 (p. 1165): z does not equal 2.44 as reported but, instead, equals 1.73. We had not divided by the denominator ( 2). This makes p(one-tailed) .042, not .007 as reported. The interpretation of this computation does not change, although the level of probability does. Rather than being confident that the two studies are from different populations with a p level of .007, we are still likely to see these studies as having obtained significantly different results but at the probability level of p .05.] Clinical psychology practices initially grew through the use of case studies, uncontrolled trials, and eventually through randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The use of a wait-list control group is standard practice in such trials of treatment regimens for psychopathological conditions. However, as knowledge advances regarding the successful treatment of such conditions, best practice guidelines are being developed. These guidelines have predominantly been based on the results of RCTs and use aggregating mechanisms, such as meta-analysis, to derive their conclusions. The authors argue here for statistical methods that allow for comparisons to existing data from wait-list controls for which the continued use of wait-list conditions has become problematic. Using posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as an example, this article proposes various methods for obviating the need for a wait-list control under such circumstances. After conducting separate meta-analyses for both treatment and control conditions, the authors found that wait-list conditions do provide some benefit to participants with PTSD, but current best practice treatment conditions elicit far superior effect sizes. The various methods for evaluating a study without a wait-list control are proposed and demonstrated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Static structuralism.

R. L. Ebel (see record 1962-05654-001) examines present concepts regarding test validity and comes to the conclusion that psychologists concerned with this problem are asking essentially unanswerable questions. This startling point of view is bolstered by evidence that many useful tests do not have adequate validity data published in their support and that reviewers of tests seem unconcerned by the lack of such data. Ebel then courageously calls into question the accepted "face validity" of the concept of validity and suggests that the meaningfulness of a test be substituted as a criterion. In a later issue of this journal, Jordan (see record 2005-11890-001) and Skager (see record 2005-11890-002), react. Skager is conservative and implies that the problem is a technical one. For him, the correct questions to be asked are known. Problems occur because we fail to ask the obvious and familiar question regarding validity or because technique is insufficiently developed to generate measures with adequate validity but then we know our limitations. Jordan points out that Ebel's suggestion of substituting meaningfulness for validity begs the question. He argues that meaningfulness rests on an appropriate theoretical analysis of the problem which must precede measurement operations and that, if the theoretical analysis is meaningful and valid, the measurement operations will follow of their own accord. The merit of Ebel's paper is that he calls into question glib pronunciamentos that have characterized the theory of test construction. He is aware that something is amiss and implicates the validity issue. Skager clings to the traditional approach and, in effect, denies the problem. Jordan agrees that the problem exists and pinpoints the area of difficulty but neither he nor the other writers suggest the explicit theoretical contents that may give rise to the whole problem in the first place. I would like to suggest that the real culprit is that dominant theoretical bias, more or less explicit in most test construction, which I will term "static structuralism." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enterprise social media and cyber-slacking: A Kahn’s model perspective

This study investigates the associations between enterprise social media (ESM) use, psychological conditions, and cyber-slacking in the workplace and examines the mediating role of psychological conditions between ESM use and cyber-slacking. The study utilizes Kahn’s framework to develop a research model and investigate various associations, and it employs a cross-sectional design, testing the developed research model with 277 ESM users from Chinese enterprises. The study results suggest that ESM use stimulates various psychological conditions that discourage cyber-slacking behaviors and significantly mediate the associations between ESM use and cyber-slacking.