Word frequency and the measurement of value areas.

"Six forms of a value-area test were constructed after the general pattern of the Allport-Vernon to test the Solomon-Howes hypothesis that Allport-Vernon scores could be explained as a function of the log frequency of the answer choices. Each form favored frequency-wise one of the six Spranger value areas. One hundred twentyone women… were tested in six groups; each group received one form of our test and the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey test… . The test of the Solomon-Howes frequency hypothesis failed to show consistent changes in scores on the given value area favored for each group… ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality dynamics and accident proneness in an industrial setting.

"Two groups of Ss… [17 men with a total of 47 accidents over 2 years, and 17 accident-free men] were [compared] by means of a sentence completion test… . the high accident Ss, in comparison with the non-accident Ss, were significantly lower on the socially desirable personality dispositions of optimism, trust, and sociocentricity. In general, there were no statistically significant differences… on several negative personality dispositions, but there was a slight indication of positive association between high accident proneness and high scores on a cluster composed of the socially undesirable personality dispositions of egocentricity, anxiety, and resentment. There was highly significant association between high accident proneness and projective responses indicative of a negative attitude toward employment." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dogmatism and anxiety in relation to problem solving: An extension of Rokeach's results.

"This study involved a replication and extension of some of Rokeach's work on the relation of Dogmatism (D) and Anxiety (A) to performance in a problem solving task… . Consistent with previous results, Ss with very high D scores performed more poorly on the… problem… and a significant positive relation… was found between D scores and A scores… . A scores were unrelated to performance on [this]… task." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HK12F. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pair-comparisons consistency and grades in law school.

Can the predictability of academic grades be improved through the use of a test construction technique known as "measures of consistency in making pair comparison judgments"? "… consistency scores from the Legal Traits Test were correlated with grades at eight schools of law." The results were negative. "… these consistency scores are not promising as predictors of law school grades." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarianism and leadership choice in a military setting.

"A study was undertaken to determine the relationship between F-scale scores and leadership status among officer indoctrinees. The major hypothesis was that there would be a significant positive relationship between scores on a measure of authoritarianism and leadership acceptance by peers in a military setting… . Correlational and chi-square analysis tested the hypothesis and indicated a significant negative relationship between authoritarianism and leadership." 22 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of hypnotically induced anxiety on the Manifest Anxiety Scale and the Barron Ego-Strength Scale.

A measure of hypnotically-induced anxiety was correlated with scores on Taylor's Manifest Anxiety Scale and Barron's Ego-Strength Scale. A positive relationship was elicited between degree of experienced anxiety and the Taylor scale; a negative relationship between anxiety and Barron's scale. "These results suggest that the MAS is a valid indicator of clinical anxiety… [and] that the… [Barron scale] is genuinely measuring ego-strength or some similar trait associated with psychopathological conditions." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The attribution of similarity: The influence of success and failure.

"One subject in… [a] pair was informed that he had earned high percentile scores on… [tasks], while the other subject was told he had earned low scores. Each subject then received a partially completed Allport-Vernon-Lindzey test booklet designed either to be identical with or systematically dissimilar to the one completed by the subject 6 or more weeks earlier… . he was to complete the booklet as he believed his colleague had. Degree of similarity attributed was defined as the absolute difference between own and attributed score on a… scale… . The results revealed that failure subjects attributed greater similarity to their colleagues than did successful subjects, particularly with respect to presumably dissimilar colleagues." From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2GE19S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ego disjunction and psychopathology.

"This study was designed to test the hypothesis that degree of ego disjunction is positively related to degree of psychopathology. A scale based upon the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule was devised to measure ego disjunction. College Students, Adolescents, Neurotics, Character Disorders, and Schizophrenics were tested and the following results were found… . a positive relationship between degree of ego disjunction and degree of psychopathology was demonstrated… . scores yielded three significantly different subgroups… . Schizophrenics alone;… Character Disorders, Neurotics and Adolescents;… [and] College Students alone." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reactions to unfavorable personal evaluations as a function of the evaluator's perceived adjustment.

"Pairs of Ss listened to two… persons… evaluate the personality of one member of the pair. One of the stimulus persons made derogatory remarks about the 'involved' member, the other was… noncommittal… . In one experimental condition the derogator was pre-identified as… maladjusted, the nonderogator as well-adjusted. In another condition the identifications were reversed." The hypothesis was supported that the combined information, maladjustment and derogation, summate for the bystander to produce a negative impression, but that for the involved S there is a tendency to cancel out hostility that would be arounsed by the derogation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antisemitism and the expression of fantasy aggression.

"In order to test a hypothesis derived from the scapegoat theory of prejudice [Dollard, et al, 1939], two groups… chosen on the basis of… high and… low scores on the Levinson Anti-Semitism Scale, [A-S] were subjected to an aggression arousing situation. Following aggression arousal a specially designed fantasy test was administered, which yielded measures of aggression expressed toward fantasy characters with Jewish or non-Jewish names. Control subjects, matched with Arousal group subjects on… A-S scores, took the fantasy test without prior aggression arousal. Aggression arousal produced significant differences in the fantasy aggression of High and Low A-S subjects… . [supporting] the hypothesis that persons high in anti-Semitism have a greater… tendency… to displace aggression selectively onto Jews." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GD54W. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of personal liking, perceived ability, and value of prize on choice of partners for a competition.

"Ss who were told… that they had high ability at… [a] task were strongly inclined to choose partners who also had high skill, even though such choices meant abandoning their original personal preferences and working with their originally less preferred classmates." Monetary remuneration was seen to affect choice by these Ss. "Ss who were told they themselves had low skill scores continued to choose partners according to their original liking preferences, even though the monetary payoff increased." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GE98W. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Controlled association scores and engineering success.

"Six different scores from a controlled association test [were] studied, using a… sample of [687] experienced engineers… . The test asks Ss to write, in a limited time, as many synonyms as they can to eight common words. None of the six scores… appears to be related to job placement, but the five… based on the number of common responses given seem to be related to job success… most of the validity coefficients… are well below… 20… . Although not spectacularly high, such a… coefficient… is promising in comparison with over 50 other variables… studied in ETS research on engineering graduate placement tests." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the equivalence of clinical and statistical methods.

Based on material from a doctoral thesis, an attempt was made to resolve an inconsistency in Meehl's analysis of statistical vs. clinical methods of assessment (see 29: 3991). "Eight interviewers assessed from 14 to 50 Canadian Army applicants using information obtained from biographical and test data, and from interview conversation. Each applicant was described on a 120-item Q-sort check list. These data were quantified and combined into composite statistical scores (biographical and test data) and clinical scores (Q-sort data). The results indicated that: (a) clinical scores were associated more closely with decisions than were statistical scores; (b) statistical and clinical scores correlated at a low level; (c) the decisions of different interviewers were associated with the same Q-sort, biographical, and test data; and (d) statistical and clinical scores were comparable in reliability." "… this study… strengthens the status of the clinical assessment." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of father-absence on Norwegian boys and girls.

The effects of father-absence on boys and girls was investigated in Norwegian (sailor) families where the father was absent for 1 or 2 years and "compared with otherwise similar (Norwegian) families (of the same area) in which the father was present. The following hypotheses were made and generally supported by the findings:… father-absent boys… would show immaturity… . Being insecure in their identification with the father, father-absent boys would show stronger strivings toward father-identification… [and] compensatory masculinity… would demonstrate poorer peer/adjustment… [and] father-absent girls… would become more dependent on the mother than would father-present girls." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A measure of supervisory quality.

A 50-item Supervisor's Problems Test was developed and tested in 3 companies against superior ratings of "good" and "poor" supervisors. Scores were also correlated with scores on verbal intelligence tests and on the F scales. "1. The test differentiates significantly between supervisors high in understanding of how to effectively supervise and those low in this understanding. 2… . [it] has a low relationship with verbal intelligence. 3… . [it] is substantially related to the democratic-authoritarian dimension of personality as measured by the F Scale." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hostility in Rorschach content and overt aggressive behavior.

"The Rorschach was administered to 96 hospitalized psychotic veterans, 48 assaultive and 48 nonassaultive, under one of five conditions. Test records were scored for aggressive content… . It was predicted that there is a positive correlation between the behavioral and test measures of aggression, and that the test measure is influenced by the… power and status of the examiner. A significant positive correlation… was found." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The stability of the self-concept in adolescence.

"A study of the stability of the self-concept over two years in adolescence resulted in the following conclusions:… Relative stability… was demonstrated… between Q sorts… . Subjects whose self-concept was negative at the first setting were significantly less stable in self-concept than subjects whose self-concept was positive… . Subjects who persisted in a negative self-concept over the two year period gave evidence of significantly more maladjustment." 16 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An analysis of interperson correlations among thirty psychotics.

"A matrix of interperson correlations among 30 subjects based on above-median scores on 66 psychological test measures was factor analyzed by Thurstone's complete centroid method." It was concluded that "among chronic psychotics there exists a 'psychometric type' with a better-than-chance probability of recovery. This type is not distinguished by age, sex, or duration of illness… but… is characterized by generally poor performance on intellectual tasks, long reaction times, and poor time estimation." 15 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting academic achievement with the Differential Aptitude and the Primary Mental Ability Tests.

Asample of 139 girls and 128 boys (all 11th grade pupils) were given the DAT and the PMA (in a counterbalanced design to nullify practice effects). The test scores were correlated with course grades. It was concluded that "1. The corresponding subtests of the two batteries show moderate to substantial intercorrelations… 2. The tests do not generally predict best in the subject usually assumed to be measured by that test. All tests show their greatest effectiveness in the prediction of science, geometry, and algebra grades. 3. The DAT shows higher validities than the PMA… ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal adjustment and prediction of academic achievement.

The hypothesis tested was that "better" adjusted students would be more predictable than maladjusted students. Predictability was determined by correlation coefficients between aptitude test (CEEB-M and CEEB-V) scores and both 1st-quarter and 1st-yr grades. The sample consisted of 188 freshmen male business students who were classified into positive-, average-, and negative- adjustment groups on the basis of the means of the 10 Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey (GZTS) trait raw scores. Comparisons of the adjustment groups on correlations between the mathematics and verbal scores and grade averages indicated that the adjustment groups did not differ in terms of academic predictability. Analysis of differences between the groups on both high school achievement and college achievement revealed, however, that the positive-adjustment group earned significantly higher grades than the negative group. These results indicated that although the adjustment groups did not appear to be significantly different in terms of academic predictability, a definite relationship did exist between the groups on levels of achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)