Note on "Adverse impact from a psychometric perspective."

G. H. Ironson et al (see record 1982-29410-001) recommended the use of test characteristic curves (TCCs) in the study of adverse-impact ratios in selection. They demonstrated that a linear transformation of the Rasch ability estimate could reduce the incidence of adverse impact from the level that would result from the use of raw scores. The present authors reanalyzed their data and concluded that both the raw score scale and the ability estimates yield similar adverse-impact results. However, the authors agree with the Ironson et al proposal that relative adverse-impact ratios from different tests should be defined with TCCs because level of adverse impact can be influenced by the shape of TCCs. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acculturation: A psychometric perspective.

A review of recent research indicates that the measurement of individual acculturation is not only a legitimate area of investigation but can also meet conventional criteria of reliability and validity. Furthermore, particularly within the framework of a full measurement model, psychometric methods have the potential to contribute to a better understanding of complex issues such as the identification and cross-cultural equivalence of the cultural variable as an antecedent of behavior. Recent developments in the quantification of acculturation along multiple dimensions suggest that this approach is more promising than arbitrary cultural group or generational typologies. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Complex posttraumatic stress disorder in women from a psychometric perspective

The Brief Symptom Inventory was administered to 228 women (M age: 37) consecutively admitted to specialized inpatient treatment for trauma-related disorders. Subsamples of patients were administered different posttraumatic stress disorder scales, the Impact of Events Scale-Revised, the Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale, and the PTSD scale of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III, as well as a measure of child abuse and neglect, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. In this severely traumatized group, every scale of the Brief Symptom Inventory was significantly more elevated than the inpatient female norms, with the five most highly elevated scales being Depression, Obsessive-Compulsive, Anxiety, Interpersonal Sensitivity, and Psychoticism. Different indicators of trauma (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, PTSD scales, and PTSD diagnosis) show different patterns of relationships with the individual scales of the Brief Symptom Inventory. There is no simple relationship between trauma and BSI symptoms, but clinicians should consider severe interpersonal trauma to be one pathway to pervasively elevated profiles of the Brief Symptom Inventory.     

A psychometric perspective on psychophysiological measures.

Psychophysiological measures are a useful complement to self-report or behavioral measures because they can assess fundamentally different processes or more sensitively assess the same processes as those targeted by other types of measures. To be maximally beneficial, psychophysiological measures must meet the psychometric criteria that are commonly applied to self-report or behavioral measures. Empirical findings to date indicate that the temporal stability of psychophysiological measures thought to assess individual differences is variable and that researchers should devote more attention to systematic assessment of reliability, stability, and generalizability. The most critical psychometric issue involves construct validity and the establishment of linkages between psychophysiological measures and specific psychological processes. Several methodological and conceptual reasons for the difficulties that researchers encounter in the attempt to establish such linkages are discussed. Methodological guidelines for maximizing the reliability, temporal stability, and psychological meaningfulness of psychophysiological measures are proposed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Demonstrating specific cognitive deficits: A psychometric perspective.

Cognitive deficits associated with psychopathology often do not occur in isolation. Consequently, identifying a specific deficit in a disorder requires comparing the magnitude of group differences on theoretically relevant measures with those on control tasks measuring other constructs. L. J. Chapman and J. P. Chapman (1973) noted that common forms of such Group?×?Task interactions are theoretically ambiguous unless performance measures have comparable discriminating power. The principles of psychometric matching for discriminating power developed in the Chapmans' research program are reviewed, and both criticisms and alternative psychometric approaches are evaluated. Psychometric matching can be mindful of threats to the construct validity of measures and frequently remains methodologically necessary. Otherwise, interactions involving measures that vary in sensitivity to individual differences may be misinterpreted as evidence for specific deficits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychosocial impact of illness from a developmental-systems perspective: New directions for health psychology.

Introduces the papers appearing in this special section of the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des Sciences du comportement (1993[July], Vol 25[3]). Theory, research, and practice in health psychology have established that a variety of psychosocial stressors and adaptive demands are imposed by physical illness. This literature has documented that quality of life and psychosocial well-being can be dramatically affected. However, much of this work has been founded upon a static perspective in which it is assumed that the impact of ill health is universal across conditions, constant over the course of illness, and independent of developmental changes throughout the lifespan. This "uniformity myth" is challenged, however, by recent findings that a variety of psychosocial stressors and adaptive demands impact affected individuals differentially across conditions and stages of illness. The papers that comprise this special section provide a stimulating challenge to the uniformity assumption from diverse perspectives. In so doing, they provide thought-provoking new findings relevant to our theoretical understanding of the psychosocial impact of illness and useful practical suggestions relevant to clinical management. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intervention from a systems-ecological perspective.

Contends that a systems-ecological perspective, which integrates concepts and techniques from family systems theory and ecological psychology, can be used to underscore the nature of the disruptive child's relationships within and across settings and enrich the selection of interventions. An overview of what the framework might mean in relation to school-based intervention stresses that it is a perspective rather than a procedure; family therapy may not be the treatment of choice; the child's behavior should be viewed contextually and in terms of interactions; the child exists in overlapping systems, and changes in one system can influence other systems; and a system seeking stability may resist change. The systems-ecological approach lends itself to a consultant model. The case study of a 15-yr-old male hospitalized and finally admitted to a group home in the community because of learning disability, mild mental retardation, and emotional disturbance illustrates the framework. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Termination from a psychoanalytic perspective.

The following principles of termination have been derived from the confluence of psychoanalytic and other perspectives: (a) The timing of the termination is determined by the patient; (b) the frequency of meetings should be reduced and a final appointment scheduled some time after the second-to-last meeting; (c) the patient's stressors, previous dominant ways, and new ways of responding should be reviewed; (d) what the patient believes was accomplished should be discussed, (e) the therapist should inquire what was helpful and hurtful; (j) the therapist should inquire, if appropriate, whether there is something negative about the therapy leading the patient to terminate; (g) the therapist should equalize the relationship; and (h) the patient should be invited to correspond in the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Leadership development from a complexity perspective.

To stimulate sustained leadership development, a holistic model is described that incorporates emotional and neuroendocrine aspects of learning, as well as behavioral change. Intentional change theory, developed over 20 years utilizing longitudinal studies of competency development and complexity theory, can expand our impact on leadership development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypothesis evaluation from a Bayesian perspective.

Explores the potential of Bayesian inference as a theoretical framework for describing how people evaluate hypotheses. First, a set of logically possible forms of non-Bayesian behavior is identified. Second, existing research is reviewed in a variety of areas to see whether these possibilities are ever realized. The analysis shows that in some situations several apparently distinct phenomena are usefully viewed as special cases of the same kind of behavior, whereas in other situations previous investigations have conferred a common label (e.g., confirmation bias) to several distinct phenomena. A number of attributions of judgmental bias are called into question, and it is suggested that in some cases the bias is different than what has previously been claimed, whereas in others there may be no bias at all. (89 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adverse impact and predictive efficiency of various predictor combinations.

The effects of number of predictors, predictor intercorrelations, validity, and level of subgroup difference on composite validity, adverse impact ratios, and mean subgroup difference associated with various predictor composites, including and excluding a "high impact" ability measure, were assessed. The size of subgroup differences is substantially smaller when low-impact predictors are combined with a high-impact predictor, but hiring ratios for majority and minority groups still indicate a prima facie case of discrimination, using the fourth-fifths rule for most predictor-criterion combinations. However, the validity of a composite of alternate predictors and cognitive ability may exceed the validity of cognitive ability alone and reduce the size of subgroup differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vocational rehabilitation from a behavioral economics perspective.

Behavioral economics represents a synthesis of basic principles of economics and behavioral psychology that has become a major perspective for understanding addictions and health service utilization. The present article discusses the basic assumptions and concepts of behavioral economics as they apply to vocational rehabilitation (VR) services. The concepts of value and unit price, demand, elasticity, substitutes and complements, and discounting are examined within the context of VR and common choices of VR participants. Common models of VR, such as supported employment and transitional employment, are discussed from a behavioral economics perspective. Implications for VR programs and staff are identified. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Revisiting community work from a psychodynamic perspective.

Are psychodynamic perspectives relevant in community intervention? Historically, community psychologists have influenced a shift away from traditional psychology's emphasis on the individual toward a more social justice and population-oriented paradigm. This shift away from the former emphasis on the individual has included a shying away from psychodynamic theories of individual psychological processes. In this article, we demonstrate the utility of psychodynamic perspectives in understanding the interpersonal dynamics inherent in community intervention. Specifically, we examine the roles of motivation, affect, transference, and countertransference in establishing working relationships between community collaborators and community members. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interactionism in personality from a historical perspective.

Starting from a distinction between 3 different conceptions of human behavior (personologism, situationism, and interactionism) and between 2 different conceptions of the environment (physical vs psychological environment), the present article focuses on the interactionist position, which has been preferred in some recent conceptions of personality. By reviewing different classical theories of psychology, it is argued that the modern interactionist conceptualization is not new in personality psychology. It can be traced back to the works of J. R. Kantor and K. Lewin and is also advocated in many of the succeeding classical works. By reviewing the previous interactionists' conceptions of the environment, it is argued that their emphasis on the psychological environment in explaining person-situation interactions presents the same main thought as that found in the recent cognitively colored interactionism. By reviewing empirical strategies and results within the interactionist framework, it is argued that the inaptness of previous methods has impeded the development of interactionism and explains why it has not had an impact until now. (4 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Support for science from a foundation perspective.

Presents examples of the unique contributions of individuals at private foundations to the emergence and growth of scientific research on child and adolescent development. The knowledge, experience, beliefs, and visions of the people who manage foundations shape the organizations' grant making. The foundations try to be responsive to their environments, because local, national, and international events can influence the foundations' activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding procrastination from a self-regulated learning perspective.

Academic procrastination includes failing to perform an activity within the desired time frame or postponing until the last minute activities one ultimately intends to complete. As such, high levels of procrastination appear inconsistent with the behaviors typically attributed to self-regulated learners, However, research exploring the relation between these 2 constructs is lacking. Two studies (N = 168 and N = 152) examining procrastination and its relation to several key components of self-regulated learning using self-report surveys are reported here. Results indicate that procrastination was related to college students' self-efficacy and work-avoidant goal orientation and, to a lesser extent, their use of metacognitive strategies. Findings are discussed with regard to prior research on self-regulated learning and procrastination and to future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concept of emotion viewed from a prototype perspective.

Reports 7 studies that explored the possibility that the concept of emotion is better understood from a prototype perspective than from a classical one. Specifically it is argued that membership in the concept of emotion is a matter of degree rather than all-or-none (that the concept has an internal structure) and that no sharp boundary separates members from nonmembers (that the concept has fuzzy boundaries). Undergraduates served as Ss in all experiments. As hypothesized, the concept of emotion was found to have an internal structure: Happiness, love, anger, fear, awe, respect, envy, and other types of emotion could be reliably ordered from better to poorer examples of emotion. In turn, an emotion's goodness of example (prototypicality) ranking predicted how readily it comes to mind when one is asked to list emotions, how likely it is to be labeled as an emotion when one is asked what sort of thing it is, how readily it can be substituted for the word emotion in sentences without their sounding unnatural, and the degree to which it resembles other emotion categories in terms of shared features. (54 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral consultation from a request-centered relational communication perspective.

Used J. Folger and S. Puck's (1976 [unpublished paper]) relational communication coding system to examine relationship definition aspects of behavioral consultation. It was predicted that (1) consultees would be characterized as passive, accepting, and cooperative within the relationship and (2) consultants would be shown to control the relationship through their frequent initiation of requests. 10 doctoral-level psychology students served as consultants to 1 female consultee each across 3 interviews. 7,493 total messages were coded. Results support the 2 predictions and also reveal negative correlations between consultee initiation of requests during the initial interview and consultation outcome measures. Findings are discussed in relation to social exchange theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social and emotional development from a cultural perspective.

The study of social and emotional development is recognized for its complexity. To better understand developmental norms, and deviations thereof, researchers typically focus on individual (e.g., temperament), interactional (e.g., parenting behaviors), and relational (e.g., attachment, friendship) levels of analysis. Often forgotten, however, is the extent to which cultural beliefs and norms play a role in the interpretation of the acceptability of individual characteristics and the types and the ranges of interactions and relationships that are likely or permissible. This special issue comprises four sections in which culture is examined insofar as it relates to the aforementioned levels of social analysis: "Emotional Development," "Parenting and Parent–Child Relationships," "Social Cognition and Social Relationships," and "Social and Emotional Adjustment and Maladjustment." Each section is followed by a commentary. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptualizing the therapeutic alliance from a psychoanalytic perspective.

Defines the therapeutic alliance as the patient's active collaboration in the work of psychotherapy or psychoanalysis. The failure to differentiate alliance from transference has in part led to the skepticism regarding the concept of alliance. The patient's active use of the treatment process as a resource for self-understanding and constructive change constitutes his/her collaboration. The nature of collaboration varies with the type of treatment. The alliance depends significantly upon the patient's ability to maintain an observing ego; the activation of transferences significantly affects this process. The alliance is influenced by a core of object relations capacities that are essential to forming a trusting relationship. Defining alliance as patient collaboration makes a sharp distinction between technique and alliance. It is suggested that a scale devised to assess the degree of collaboration, based on this conceptualization, by the present 3rd author and colleagues (1983) provides an instrument for future research. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)