Color as an independent variable in perceptual research.

A summary of the literature in which color or its characteristics (hue, luminance, saturation) have been treated as an independent variable with dependent variables of apparent distance, apparent size, apparent weight, apparent temperature, and visual acuity. Luminance appears to be the major cue to apparent size, distance, or weight. Hue is the more important cue to apparent temperature. A chromatic figure seen against an achromatic background procedures best acuity. Implications of this literature are discussed. (69 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical standards of psychologists.

A preamble precedes a set of 19 specific principles titled as follows: Responsibility, Competence, Moral and Legal Standards, Misrepresentation, Public Statements, Confidentiality, Client Welfare, Client Relationship, Impersonal Services, Announcement of Services; Interprofessional Relations, Remuneration, Test Security, Test Interpretation, Test Publication, Research Precautions, Publication Credit, Responsibility Toward Organization, Promotional Activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical standards of psychologists.

A revised ethical code consisting of a preamble and 18 principles approved by the American Psychological Association to be in effect for a 3-year trial period is presented. The principles are titled: 1. General, 2. Competence, 3. Moral and Legal Standards, 4. Misrepresentation, 5. Public Statements, 6. Confidentiality, 7. Client Welfare, 8. Client Relationship, 9. Impersonal Services, 10. Advertising, 11. Interprofessional Relationship, 12. Remuneration, 13. Test Security, 14. Test Interpretation, 15. Test Publication, 16. Harmful Aftereffects, 17. Publication Credit, and 18. Organizational Material. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical standards of psychologists.

Outlines 19 principles of ethics for psychologists. Focus is on responsibility; competence; moral and legal standards; misrepresentation; public statements; confidentiality; client welfare and relationship; services; interprofessional relations; remuneration; test security, interpretation, and publication; research precautions; publication credit; responsibility toward organization; and promotional activities. (0 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical standards and divided loyalties.

A final questionnaire of 22 incidents was constructed. "Each incident was so designed as to present a conflict between the best interests of the client and society, with the psychologist having made a decision in each whether to reveal to a third party any part or all of the information revealed to him by his client." Responses were in terms of 4-point client-society loyalty scale. 73.6% usable returns (of 501 questionnaires to Associates and Fellows in Divisions 12, 14, and 17) were analyzed. Applied psychologists "differ in their divided loyalty percepts according to certain reference group memberships… . While there were individuals at the extremes of both tails of the distribution, some indicating retention, some release of information, the bulk of psychologists adopted some compromise position… . There should not be any dichotomous viewing of divided loyalty situations as right or wrong, nor even judgments on a continuum of rightness or wrongness." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical ideology and judgments of social psychological research: Multidimensional analysis.

24 undergraduates completed the 1st author's ethics position questionnaire and then compared the ethical similarity of 15 experiments through a series of 105 paired comparisons. Through multidimensional scaling, 3 factors—potential harm to experiment participants, use of manipulative illegitimate procedures, and the ratio between benefits and risks—were identified as the key characteristics associated with moral judgments of social psychological studies. Ss who endorsed different ethical ideologies, however, differed in their emphasis of these factors. "Situationists" emphasized risks relative to benefits and the potential harm to experiment participants. "Absolutists" based their judgments on costs created for participants and the riskiness of the procedures. Judgments by "subjectivists" were associated with the harmfulness, legitimacy, and invasiveness of the procedures. "Exceptionists" emphasized the consequentiality of the research, as well as scientific legitimacy, magnitude of costs, and deception. Findings are in general consistent with a taxonomy of ethical ideologies based on individual differences in relativism and idealism and have implications for current debates concerning the ethics of social psychological research. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical problems of psychological jargon.

An overuse of psychological jargon is potentially harmful in 4 ways; it can (a) distort truth and understanding, (b) provide a means for avoiding responsibility, (c) foster the development of an elitist class, and (d) lead to the denigration of psychology as a profession. Examples of jargon are given that are redundant, obscure, or distortive or that permit a semblence of conversation to occur with no real exchange of information. It is suggested that psychologists (a) use the clearest language available, (b) be aware of others' use of jargon, and (c) help clients to communicate better by pointing out jargon and helping them select words that express what they really feel. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical and professional considerations in psychological assessment.

Explored professional activities and ethical practices of psychologists who administer psychodiagnostic assessment and testing devices. A return rate of 72% on a survey of 100 members of the Society for Personality Assessment indicated considerable interest in the subject matter. A majority of the Ss' ethical practices were apparently in keeping with established ethical principles; however, a diversity of professional styles was evident. Most Ss gave feedback to the clients, with a large percentage willing to give feedback on projective as well as objective tests. Although most Ss kept old cases safely under lock, few appeared to have followed American Psychological Association guidelines to detach names from raw data on obsolete materials. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ageism in psychological research.

Insufficiently informed psychologists may draw erroneous or incomplete conclusions from their research findings that result in public representations that enhance adverse stereotypes held with respect to the elderly. Such inappropriate interpretations of age-related data may become accepted as the scientific basis for policy positions that lead to discrimination against and disadvantages for our older citizens. This article identifies major sources of ageist bias in psychological research that may inadvertently result in adverse consequences for the elderly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical considerations in pathology-intensifying research.

Suggests that L. H. Silverman's (see record 1977-05955-001) article on psychoanalytic theory fails to confront an important ethical issue raised by the research it reviews. It does not appear that the Ss' informed consent was acquired before participation in the research. A response from Silverman is also presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The population risk as an explanatory variable in research synthesis of clinical trials

The population risk, for example the control group mortality rate, is an aggregate measurement of many important attributes of a clinical trial, such as the general health of the patients treated and the experience of the staff performing the trial. Plotting measurements of the population risk against the treatment effect estimates for a group of clinical trials may reveal an apparent association, suggesting that differences in the population risk might explain heterogeneity in the results of clinical trials. In this paper we consider using estimates of population risk to explain treatment effect heterogeneity, and show that using these estimates as fixed covariates will result in bias. This bias depends on the treatment effect and population risk definitions chosen, and the magnitude of measurement errors. To account for the effect of measurement error, we represent clinical trials in a bivariate two-level hierarchical model, and show how to estimate the parameters of the model by both maximum likelihood and Bayes procedures. We use two examples to demonstrate the method.     

AIDS: Ethical implications for psychological intervention.

Examines the ethical issues facing psychologists working with people who are infected with AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) and individuals in high-risk groups. Duty to treat is examined with a consideration of homophobia and biases about intravenous drug users. Confidentiality is discussed in the context of record keeping, in cases of conflict with duty to warn, and in cases of suicide. Psychologists are urged to consider possible ethical dilemmas before they arise, to ensure that the best decisions are made. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical problems in social psychological experimentation in the laboratory.

Discusses ethical problems in the use of deception in laboratory social psychological experiments, and analyzes the 2 prevailing arguments used to justify such experiments (cost/benefit and the absolutist position). It is suggested that solutions to ethical problems lie in developing and perfecting new methodologies such as simulations, naturalistic observation, and unobtrusive measures. The fact that changing methods will change the nature of psychological inquiry is all the more reason for exploring new methods since dissatisfaction with traditional methodology, not ethical problems, has been the prime motive for movement in this direction. (French summary) (67 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward an integration of independent practice and clinical research.

For some time there has been tremendous debate about the viability of integrating clinical and scientific endeavors in the practice of clinical psychology. It is argued that clinically relevant research strategies are crucial to the process of treatment evaluation and therapist accountability and therefore are of great importance to clinicians. Furthermore, the clinical expertise of the independent practice sector is acknowledged as a valuable resource that will likely be more fully appreciated with greater practitioner involvement in various research-related activities. To this end, a number of ways in which independent practitioners may incorporate research activities in their clinical efforts are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maladaptive perfectionism as an intervening variable between psychological control and adolescent depressive symptoms: A three-wave longitudinal study.

Maladaptive perfectionism has been postulated as an intervening variable between psychologically controlling parenting and adolescent internalizing problems. Although this hypothesis has been confirmed in a number of cross-sectional studies, it has not yet been examined from a longitudinal perspective. Findings from this 3-wave longitudinal study show that parental psychological control (as indexed by parent and adolescent reports) at age 15 years predicted increased levels of maladaptive perfectionism 1 year later. Maladaptive perfectionism, in turn, predicted increased levels of adolescent depressive symptoms again 1 year later and acted as a significant intervening variable between parental psychological control at Time 1 and depressive symptoms at Time 3. Multigroup analyses show that the model tested was consistent across gender for paternal psychological control but not for maternal psychological control. Suggestions for future research are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Optimal design in psychological research.

Psychologists often do not consider the optimality of their research designs. However, increasing costs of using inefficient designs requires psychologists to adopt more efficient designs with many factor levels and equal allocations of observations are often inefficient for the specific questions most psychologists want to answer. Happenstance allocations determined by random sampling are usually even more inefficient and some common analysis strategies can exacerbate the inefficiency. By selecting treatment levels and allocating observations optimally, psychologists can greatly increase the efficiency and statistical power of their research designs. A few heuristic design principles can produce much more efficient designs than are often used. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical guideline evolution in psychological support to interrogation operations.

Significant controversy has surrounded the use of psychologists as consultants to military commanders in the interrogation of captive enemy combatants. The evolution of ethical guidelines has rapidly brought standardization and guidance for the growing numbers of psychologists participating in these operations. This article recounts the integration of professional psychological resources in selected military operational units. It also relates the evolution of such resources and the development of ethical guidelines for psychologists supporting interrogation. Finally, the article advocates for the continuing role of psychologists in the provision of consultation to help ensure safe, legal, ethical, and effective military interrogation operations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)