Comments on Shweder's "Illusory correlation and the MMPI controversy."

R. A. Shweder's (see record 1978-20145-001) 1st principal-component factor loadings are substantially correlated with the proportion of items keyed for true and socially desirable responses in the MMPI scales that he investigated, and it is suggested that the judgments of similarity and dissimilarity that he obtained were based on social desirability considerations. It is also shown that although there is a preexisting conceptual scheme that is widely shared regarding what is desirable and undesirable in the way of personality characteristics, differences in the degree to which individuals agree with the cultural norms of social desirability have little relationship to individual differences in social desirability responding to MMPI items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response to "A note on the MMPI as a suicide predictor."

Replies to J. R. Clopton's (see record 1979-05119-001) comments on the present author's (1977) article on the MMPI as a suicide predictor. Clopton's viewpoint that patients who attempt suicide are probably all members of the same population regardless of the success of their attempts is discussed. His concern that future research should emphasize the development of useful MMPI indices of suicidal risk and should recognize the need to cross-validate these indices is endorsed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Clinical comparability of the standard MMPI and the MMPI-168": Correction to Hart, McNeill, Lutz, and Adkins.

Reports an error in "Clinical comparability of the standard MMPI and the MMPI-168" by Ronald R. Hart, John W. McNeill, David J. Lutz and Thomas G. Adkins (Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 1986[Jun], Vol 17[3], 269-272). In this article, the copyright information was incorrect. The corrected copyright information is included in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1986-26219-001.) Examined the clinical correspondence of the full-scale Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the MMPI-168 on a psychiatric screening sample of 210 men (mean age 43.27 yrs). The present results fail to replicate previous optimistic findings regarding the worth of the MMPI-168 and accent the need for caution in any further use of this abbreviated instrument. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age and MMPI performance.

Evaluated the effects of age on MMPI scale scores with intelligence controlled. Data included MMPIs and Wechslers from 420 white hospitalized psychiatric patients. No sex differences were found in relationships among age, intelligence, and MMPI scale scores. Major findings were that T-scores on Scales 4, 6, 8, and 9 are affected by age, scores on Scales L and F by intelligence, and scores on only Scale F by both variables. Although Scale 2 T scores were not affected by age, peak-analysis showed that older patients more often have Scale 2 peaks. This results from decreases in T scores on the other scales, rather than increases on Scale 2. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"She," "He," Coexistence, and Bastardy.

Before proposing a solution for the sex bias problems inherent in the generic use of the pronoun he, Spencer (see record 1990-58427-001) reviews some efforts to solve the problem. The attempted solutions are evaluated as "not an improvement ... awkward... jarring ... disturbing" (p. 782), In one case, Spencer notes that coauthors of a book "slip up" twice. To avoid the difficulties and the accompanying unpleasant experiences, Spencer suggests the use of co: "The form is derived from an old Indo-European common form for both male and female English pronouns" (p. 783). While arguing for the "goodness of fit" (p. 783) of co. Spencer acknowledges that "there is currently one exception in our language to this meaning of co-coed, in which the form has been bastardized and debased from its source" (p. 783). A clinical psychologist is assuredly not an expert in psycholinguistics, but one could reasonably argue the following: The concept of bastardy with all of its connotative meaning, including debased, derives from patriarchal, patrilineal, male primary societies and history. In short, it is a sexist concept. Ours is a difficult language to use and avoid the expression of bias. Perhaps we ought to be gentler with those who are trying. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluating response set styles on the MMPI with prisoners: Faking good adjustment and maladjustment.

Told 24 prison inmates (mean age = 23 yr) to fake good adjustment and maladjustment on the MMPI. Results were compared with Ss' normal or "honest" MMPI profiles. Ss were easily able to fake maladjustment and, contrary to theory, were also able to fake good adjustment. The adequacy of various indices of faking were compared and recommendations are made for the applied use of some of these indices for the detection of faked responses in correctional settings. Previous role-playing vs "real-life" studies are contrasted and the inmates' results are compared with previous findings. (French summary) (27 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reification, "faking," and the Big Five.

Comments on L. R. Goldberg's (see record 1993-17546-001) account of the struggle to identify the structure of personality traits through factor analysis, and the problems of "faking" and reification associated with assessment of the Big Five traits. It is suggested that the Big Five proponents confront the problem of reification and take into account claims of the constructionist conception of personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In praise of value judgments in null hypothesis testing…and of "accepting" the null hypothesis.

Comments on the article by R. L. Hagen (see record 1997-02239-002) on null hypothesis testing. Hagen's article is constrained to the logic of deduction from an already formulated null hypothesis and the scientific conclusions that are validly drawn from one statistical decision or another. It is argued that subjective value judgment preceding the construction of the null hypothesis is an obscure precursor of the scientific logic of null hypothesis testing and that subsequent actions taken in professional practice as a result of failure to reject the null hypothesis constitutes its acceptance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Early reading-related skills and performance, reading self-concept, and the development of academic self-concept: A longitudinal study.

Relations between academic self-concept (ASC) and measures of reading-related performance and self-concept were examined in 60 beginning school children who, after 2 years of schooling, were assessed as having positive, negative, or typical ASCs. Data were collected soon after school entry, toward the end of Years 1 and 2, and during the middle of Year 3. Children with negative ASCs performed poorly on reading-related tasks and reported more negative reading self-concepts than did children with positive or typical ASCs. Reading was also highly predictive of negative and positive ASC group membership, but not of typical ASC group membership. Past studies of relations between ASC and achievement involving full-range samples of young children have underestimated the point in time when these factors become causally related to each other. The negative consequences of young children developing patterns of difficulty in learning to read are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The "I," the "we," and the "when": A meta-analysis of motivational primacy in self-definition.

What is the primary motivational basis of self-definition? The authors meta-analytically assessed 3 hypotheses: (a) The individual self is motivationally primary, (b) the collective self is motivationally primary, and (c) neither self is inherently primary; instead, motivational primacy depends on which self becomes accessible through contextual features. Results identified the individual self as the primary motivational basis of self definition. People react more strongly to threat and enhancement of the individual than the collective self. Additionally, people more readily deny threatening information and more readily accept enhancing information when it pertains to the individual rather than the collective self, regardless of contextual influences. The individual self is the psychological home base, a stable system that can react flexibly to contextual influences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Home environment, self-concept, and academic achievement: A causal modeling approach": Correction to Song and Hattie.

Reports an error in "Home environment, self-concept, and academic achievement: A causal modeling approach" by In-sub Song and John Hattie (Journal of Educational Psychology, 1984[Dec], Vol 76[6], 1269-1281). The caption to Figure 3 on page 1271 is incorrect. "SOSC = social self-concept" should read "NASC = nonacademic self-concept." In addition, on page 1274 in the Results section, the reference to McDonald & Leong (1974) should have been deleted. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1985-15818-001.) Investigated the relation between home environment, self-concept, and academic achievement in 2,297 14-15 yr old Koreans. Data on Ss was collected in 4 different samples to test 4 structural equation models. Group 1 consisted of 537 males, Group 2 consisted of 537 males, Group 3 consisted of 611 females, and Group 4 consisted of 612 females. Results show that over the 4 samples, self-concept was a mediating variable between home environment and academic achievement. Results did not support the commonly held view that home environment exerts direct effects on academic achievement. Social status indicators had indirect effects on self-concept via family psychological characteristics. Academic self-concept affected academic achievement more strongly than did presentation-of-self or social self-concept. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectancy theory prediction of the goal theory postulate, "The harder the goals, the higher the performance."

Goal theory postulates that harder goals lead to higher performance than do easier goals. The present study tested the prediction, based on expectancy valence theory, that this would be true only if the payoff for succeeding at the harder goal is sufficiently greater than the alternatives to compensate for its greater difficulty. 63 undergraduates were each given an easy and a hard task/goal, requiring the comparison of paired sets of 3-digit numbers. Expectancy theory measures for the 2 goals were obtained from Ss. Performance was higher for the hard goal than for the easy goal, supporting the goal theory postulate. Force was also higher for the hard goal than for the easy goal. In addition, force change across the 2 goals was associated with performance change, supporting the conclusion that expectancy valence theory can predict the goal theory postulate. The valence of goal attainment was higher for the hard goal than for the easy goal. Valence change across the 2 goals was associated with performance change to a greater degree than was expectancy change, suggesting that the attained performance difference can be attributed to the valence difference. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

DSM-III, "the medical model," and turf battles.

Discusses the intent of a quote by the present author (1981) concerning the rhetorical use of the medical model. This quote, cited by D. Smith and W. A. Kraft (see record 1984-06861-001) in their discussion of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III), was taken out of context. While the medical model can be and is used to further sociopolitical and economic agendas, such a use is not useful, as its use in warfare between psychologists and psychiatrists discredits both professions and inhibits scientific discussion and research in areas of mutual concern. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond "competing," beyond "compatible." Commentary on J. Archer.

Comments on J. Archer's 1996 article in which he considers whether observed patterns of sex differences in human social behavior are best explained by social role theory or by the evolutionary principles of Darwinian theory. The author believes that Archer's conclusion that the 2 theories are actually compatible is important and is concerned that such a valuable conclusion may be lost to discussions over the rest of the article. The author argues several points made in the original article and then concludes that Darwinian and cultural perspectives on human sex differences are not opposing theories, nor are they merely compatible but instead are necessarily interdependent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Another response to "Homosexuality: The ethical challenge."

Discusses the ethical integrity of accepting a voluntary patient's wish to change his sexual orientation, emphasizing G. D. Davison's article (see PA, Vol: 56:Issue 6) which argues that homosexuality is not pathological state. The problem of how a therapist can discriminate between his/her own values and what is a set of symptoms elicited by environment (e.g., social pressures) is examined. Four tasks must be accomplished before a therapist can attempt a sexual orientation change in a homosexual--deciding how the patient's biological state, past learning, access to information, and the impact of the current environment affect him or her. A therapist, behavioral or otherwise, is obligated to engage in a dialogue involving a scrupulous, nonmystical, time-consuming information exchange with the patient, such interchange being directed toward the clarification in the patient's mind of whether in fact he or she really wants to change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A response to Richard Lettieri's "The ego revisited."

R. Lettieri (see record 2005-08806-004) maintained that a modern conflict theory needs a concept of an ego. This commentary is in response to that suggestion. Because the construct of the ego has been seriously criticized in the psychoanalytic literature, such a suggestion must first address the tenability of the criticisms before such a recommendation can be actualized. In this response to Lettieri's paper, I try to do just that. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comment on "Recall, retention, and Ritalin."

E. D. Rie and H. E. Rie (see record 1978-27952-001) concluded that Ritalin enhances story recall after a 2-hr retention interval but not after 2 days and that the lack of difference in later recall argues against a facilitation of scholastic achievement due to Ritalin. The present author argues that the former conclusion is questionable because of inappropriate statistical analyses and because of the effects of confoundings contained in the experimental design. The latter conclusion, it is stated, appears to arise from the misconception of equating achievement with long-term memory independently of amount learned. Achievement is a function of both learning and memory, and the distinction should be maintained in examining Ritalin's effects. (2 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Does motor programming necessitate response execution?": Correction.

Reports an error in the original article by A. Osman et al (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1990, Vol 16[1], 183–298). In Table 3 on page 192, 2 responses for high-complexity sequences should read "1 Ri?+?3 Li or 1 Li?+?3 Ri.' (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1990-13808-001.) The complexity of a movement is known to affect the time it takes to initiate the movement. This effect is thought to reflect changes in the duration of processes that operate on a motor program. This question addressed here is whether programming a movement compels the start of its overt execution. If it does, then the programming processes may be said to occur after the "point of no return.' We report results from an empirical procedure and a theoretical analysis designed to study processes before and after this point separately. According to our results, changes in the complexity of a movement affect only the prior set of processes. From this we argue that motor programming does not necessitate response execution and that the point of no return occurs very late in the information-processing system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Population and health psychology": A response.

Responds to a critique by D. C. O'Connell (see record 1987-21818-001) concerning the present author's (see record 1986-19757-001) article on population, development, and reproductive behavior. The author reiterates that individual, family, and community well-being, an improved quality of life, and freedom of choice in reproductive behavior are becoming areas of priority interest for health psychologists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)