Toward a taxonomy of situations.

Theoretically, prediction of performance could be improved by considering interactions of personal and situational variables. Work in this area is handicapped by lack of a satisfactory classification of situations comparable to existing classifications in areas of individual differences. A distinction is made between taxonomies of attributes and taxonomies of individuals. Factor analysis has been widely used in developing taxonomies of attributes. Methods used in developing taxonomies of individuals include taking all combinations of attributes, inverse factor analysis, and cluster analysis. It is suggested that a taxonomy of situations based on elicited behavior would be particularly useful in studying Person * Situation interactions. This method uses factoring methods to group situations on the basis of their tendency to elicit similar behaviors. Examples of application of this method are presented. (34 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Logistic Likelihood Analysis of Mediation Outcomes

Dispute persists in all building and construction projects. Alternative dispute resolution methods are now commonly used as a means to resolve construction disputes. Mediation, interalia, is the popular choice in Hong Kong due to its cost-saving, flexible, speedy, confidential, and voluntary attributes. In mediation, tactics used by a mediator is central in driving desired outcomes. This paper reports a study that employs logistic regression (LR) to predict mediation outcomes respective to the tactics used. To achieve this, three main stages of work are involved. First, taxonomies of mediator tactics and mediation outcomes were developed. With these, the second stage included the development of logistic regression models each with a mediation outcome taxonomy as dependent variables and the taxonomies of tactics as independent variables. In the third stage of the study, the LR models were validated using an independent set of testing data. The LR models suggested that “win-win settlement,” “progress,” “improvement,” and “time advantage” are responsive to mediator tactics of “ice-breaking,” “trust building,” “encourage for self-improve,” and “process control,” respectively. In addition, it is observed that these relationships are positively correlated.     

Folk psychology of mental activities.

A central aspect of people's beliefs about the mind is that mental activities—for example, thinking, reasoning, and problem solving—are interrelated, with some activities being kinds or parts of others. In common-sense psychology, reasoning is a kind of thinking and reasoning is part of problem solving. People's conceptions of these mental kinds and parts can furnish clues to the ordinary meaning of these terms and to the differences between folk and scientific psychology. In this article, we use a new technique for deriving partial orders to analyze subjects' decisions about whether one mental activity is a kind or part of another. The resulting taxonomies and partonomies differ from those of common object categories in exhibiting a converse relation in this domain: One mental activity is a part of another if the second is a kind of the first. The derived taxonomies and partonomies also allow us to predict results from further experiments that examine subjects' memory for these activities, their ratings of the activities' importance, and their judgments about whether there could be "possible minds" that possess some of the activities but not others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Structure of Child and Adolescent Psychopathology: Generating New Hypotheses.

To begin to resolve conflicts among current competing taxonomies of child and adolescent psychopathology, the authors developed an interview covering the symptoms of anxiety, depression, inattention, and disruptive behavior used in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994), the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10; World Health Organization, 1992), and several implicit taxonomies. This interview will be used in the future to compare the internal and external validity of alternative taxonomies. To provide an informative framework for future hypothesis-testing studies, the authors used principal factor analysis to induce new testable hypotheses regarding the structure of this item pool in a representative sample of 1,358 children and adolescents ranging in age from 4 to 17 years. The resulting hypotheses differed from the DSM-IV, particularly in suggesting that some anxiety symptoms are part of the same syndrome as depression, whereas separation anxiety, fears, and compulsions constitute a separate anxiety dimension. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Agreeableness and activeness as components of conflict behaviors.

Handling social conflict is usually described in terms of 2 dimensions that either cause the behavior (concern for one's own and others' goals) or that result from it (integration and distribution). In contrast, agreeableness and activeness are common factors of modes and taxonomies of conflict behavior that do not confound independent and dependent variables. This article specifies the extent to which avoiding, accommodating, compromising, problem solving, indirect fighting, and 2 forms of direct fighting—issue fighting and outcome fighting—each positively or negatively relate to agreeableness and activeness. Systematic observations of videotaped simulations by 82 male police sergeants handling a standardized conflict with either a subordinate or a superior supported and refined this metataxonomy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A conceptual model of the effects of health care organizations on the quality of medical care

There has been a great deal of interest in recent years in developing measures of health care quality that can be used to characterize and study the effects of health plans. However, because of the recent emergence of diverse types of health care organizations, it is often difficult to know which parts of a plan should be combined for analysis purposes. Also, simple taxonomies of health maintenance organizations (eg, staff, independent practice associations, group, and network) no longer adequately describe the diverse types of organizations that have become common. In this article we describe these trends, explain why older taxonomies of health care plans are not adequate, and present a new framework for characterizing and studying the effects of diverse types of plans.     

Objects, parts, and categories.

Conducted 4 studies to show that the basic level differs qualitatively from other levels in taxonomies of objects and of living things. The 4 studies show that (1) parts prevail at the basic level, (2) basic level categories differ by parts, (3) subordinate level categories share parts, and (4) parts vary in perceived goodness. It was found that part terms proliferated in Ss' listings of attributes characterizing category members at the basic level, but were rarely listed at a general level. At a more specific level, fewer parts were listed, although more were judged to be true. Perceptual salience and functional significance both contributed to perceived part goodness. It is proposed that part configuration underlies the various empirical operations of perception, behavior, and communication that converge at the basic level. Part configuration underlies the perceptual measures because it determines the shapes of objects to a large degree. Parts underlie the behavioral tasks because most behavior is directed toward parts of objects. Labeling appears to follow the natural breaks of perception and behavior; consequently, part configuration also underlies communication measures. Because elements of more abstract taxonomies, such as scenes and events, can also be decomposed into parts, this analysis provides a bridge to organization in other domains of knowledge. (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of under- and overextraction on principal axis factor analysis with varimax rotation.

The effects of under- and overextraction on principal axis factor analysis with varimax rotation were examined in 2 Monte Carlo studies involving 6,420 factor analyses. It was found that (a) when underextraction occurs, the estimated factors are likely to contain considerable error; (b) when overextraction occurs, the estimated loadings for true factors usually contain substantially less error than in the case of underextraction; and (c) overextraction can result in factor splitting when a general factor is present and there are no unique variables in the data set. The authors recommend that factor analysts (a) use effective methods to estimate the number of factors; (b) avoid underextraction, even at the risk of overextraction; and (c) include randomly generated unique variables as "insurance" against factor splitting when a general factor mat be present. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parts, partonomies, and taxonomies.

Partonomies, such as body parts, like taxonomies, such as the animal kingdom, are hierarchical organizations of knowledge based on an asymmetric, transitive relation, part of or kind of. This article reports exploratory work on children's partonomic knowledge, and the relation between partonomic knowledge and use of taxonomic organization. Because parts are elements of both appearance and function, shared parts may facilitate the transition from classification based on perception to classification based on function. Children were more likely to group taxonomically when instances shared parts than when instances did not share parts. For adults, parts rated "good" are functionally significant as well as perceptually salient, for example, the seat of a chair. Perceptually salient parts—those affecting shape or large ones—were detected faster by younger children than were less salient parts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality predictors of artistic preferences as a function of the emotional valence and perceived complexity of paintings.

This study explored associations among the Big Five personality factors, unconventionality, selected demographics, and preference for 4 distinct visual art genres (portraiture, abstract art, geometric art, and impressionism). In total, 3,254 participants completed an online survey assessing individual difference and preference ratings for different paintings. Participants were also asked to rate each observed painting for emotional liking and perceived complexity, which enabled examination of whether personality could predict artistic preferences when the latter was classified on the basis of consensual, rather than researcher-led or art historical, taxonomies. Correlations and structural equation models showed that the correlates and predictors of artistic preferences were stronger when art was classified using consensual ratings (particularly in the case of complex art) than according to researcher-led or art historical taxonomies. Although these findings are somewhat exploratory and more comprehensive measures of individual differences and art preferences could be employed, they suggest that trait-congruent classifications of aesthetic stimuli may improve prediction and understanding of individual differences in artistic preferences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The needless assumption of normality in Pearson's r.

With regard to proper application of the Pearson technique, statistical textbook authors fall into 2 groups: those who indicate that it is necessary for each of the variables to be normally distributed, and those who point out that normality of distribution is required in neither of the correlated variables. Perhaps the erroneous assumption of normally distributed variables stems "from Pearson's first presentation of the method and has been perpetuated through 11 Editions of Fisher's classic text. An objection to Pearson's choice of a poor example and his failure to generalize beyond the restrictive limits of normal data were pointed out at the time by Yule." Psychologists and statisticians "are still harassed in many quarters by the needless assumption of normality for the proper computation of Pearson's r." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does a long-term relationship kill romantic love?

This article examines the possibility that romantic love (with intensity, engagement, and sexual interest) can exist in long-term relationships. A review of taxonomies, theory, and research suggests that romantic love, without the obsession component typical of early stage romantic love, can and does exist in long-term marriages, and is associated with marital satisfaction, well-being, and high self-esteem. Supporting the separate roles of romantic love and obsession in long-term relationships, an analysis of a moderately large data set of community couples identified independent latent factors for romantic love and obsession and a subsample of individuals reporting very high levels of romantic love (but not obsession) even after controlling for social desirability. Finally, a meta-analysis of 25 relevant studies found that in long- and short-term relationships, romantic love (without obsession) was strongly associated with relationship satisfaction; but obsession was negatively correlated with it in long-term and positively in short-term relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Louis Leon Thurstone, experimental and mathematical psychologist.

Discusses the life work and study of Thurstone who continually emphasized the importance both of "purifying the measures" and "isolating the variables." However, after this had been done, he noted that the relationships between the data could not be easily determined. The E could not hope to learn very much from an experiment involving only 2 or 3 variables. For the last 25 yr. of his study, Thurstone typically investigated 40-60 variables at a time in order to get good leverage on the interrelation among them. It may be said that this is the greatest legacy he has left: the emphasis on both accurate experimentation and accurate analyses in the multivariate situation that is essential to psychology. His greatest contribution may have been toward aiding in bringing together the 2 disciplines of scientific psychology. (3 p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding infidelity: Correlates in a national random sample.

Infidelity is a common phenomenon in marriages but is poorly understood. The current study examined variables related to extramarital sex using data from the 1991-1996 General Social Surveys. Predictor variables were entered into a logistic regression with presence of extramarital sex as the dependent variable. Results demonstrated that divorce, education, age when first married, and 2 "opportunity" variables--respondent's income and work status--significantly affected the likelihood of having engaged in infidelity. Also, there were 3 significant interactions related to infidelity: (a) between age and gender, (b) between marital satisfaction and religious behavior, and (c) between past divorce and educational level. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special section on the development of theoretically coherent alternatives to the DSM system.

This introduction outlines a series of articles in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology that represent a theoretically organized challenge to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM; e.g., 4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). A criticism of the DSM is offered on the basis that a taxonomy based on inadequately explicated theory has not been and cannot be a successful basis for a scientific research program. The special section offers examples of behaviorally based alternative ways of understanding behavior of clinical interest. Others are invited to develop taxonomies based on different theoretically coherent foundations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

High school yearbooks: A reply to Schwarz.

Examines the criticism of J. C. Schwarz (see record 1970-14955-001) of the study by C. N. Barthell and D. S. Holmes (see PA, Vol. 42:17448) on preschizophrenics using archival data. The traditional assumption that nuisance variables like social class should routinely be "controlled" by case-matching or statistical suppression is challenged. Whether and how much, shared variance should be removed in archival studies is shown to hinge upon a prior causal framework. It is argued that in most archival studies the assumption is highly problematic, and no safer than the substantive theory of interest itself. It is further argued that statistical control of nuisance variables is not "playing it safe," since under several plausible assumptions such control will generate misleading results (e.g., will pseudofalsify a good causal theory). (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Domains of learning: interdependent components of achievable learning outcomes

"Domains of learning" refers to the three separate, yet interdependent components of learning outcomes achievable by human learners. These domains--cognitive, affective, and psychomotor-represent various categories and levels of learning complexity and are commonly referred to as educational taxonomies. The cognitive domain refers to knowledge attainment and mental/intellectual processes. The affective domain characterizes the emotional arena reflected by learners' beliefs, values and interests. The psychomotor domain reflects learning behavior achieved through neuromuscular motor activities. Educators use the domains to assist in determination of learning objectives essential to planning, implementing and evaluating teaching-learning processes and outcomes of human learners across the life span. Actual instances of domain use from programs, interviews and the literature complement the theoretical notions presented in this article.