A cautionary note.

Cautions psychologists to reexamine the desirability of exporting to other cultures the motivational traits that may be responsible for the environmental threats facing technologically advanced nations. Socially concerned scientists have an ethical responsibility to examine the consequences of applying their knowledge before pursuing the means of implementation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note.

In response to B. Gillen's (see record 1974-11898-001) readability and human interest scores of textbooks, R. A. Youth comments that Gillen overlooked the fact that at least 6 of the evaluated books have come out in revised editions, which may be more readable and human-interest oriented than the original editions. The author suggests a comparison of Flesch ratings of original vs revised editions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rapid smoking: A cautionary note.

Although rapid smoking has proved to be a successful treatment strategy for smokers, its hazard potential has been recently debated. In the present study, 6 Ss (mean age 30.8 yrs) were monitored throughout 8 standard sessions of rapid smoking. Heart rate, blood pressure, and carboxyhemoglobin increases were generally higher than those reported in the few extant physiological studies of rapid smoking, and EKG abnormalities occurred in several Ss during rapid smoking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Mini-Mult: A cautionary note.

Included the Mini-Mult in a broad questionnaire used to gather data on level of functioning in 5 areas (social, economic, mental, physical, and ability to perform the activities of daily living) from 997 noninstitutionalized 65-93 yr olds. Results indicate that, although the Mini-Mult has validity and the rate of responding to it is good, there are significant sex and race-related differences in answering, and scale scores tend to be somewhat unstable and unduly elevated. It is recommended that, as an instrument in surveys of the community-based elderly, the Mini-Mult must be treated with caution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comment on the use of moderator variables.

Discusses the implications of the moderator variables for measurement theory and for personnel selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alternative measures of expressed emotion: A methodological and cautionary note.

Undergraduate raters listened to Camberwell Family Interviews that had been conducted with the spouses of depressed patients and then rated each relative with a rating-scale assessment of expressed emotion (EE). Students' ratings of relatives' criticism, hostility, emotional overinvolvement, and warmth were significantly correlated with trained raters' EE assessments obtained in the conventional manner. Despite this correspondence, further analyses revealed that undergraduates' assessments of relatives did not predict 9-mo relapse rates in patients. These results highlight the importance of establishing both the concurrent and predictive validity of any alternative measure of EE. They also emphasize the dangers of assuming that significant correlates of EE are necessarily significant predictors of relapse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unrealistic optimism about future life events: A cautionary note.

A robust finding in social psychology is that people judge negative events as less likely to happen to themselves than to the average person, a behavior interpreted as showing that people are “unrealistically optimistic” in their judgments of risk concerning future life events. However, we demonstrate how unbiased responses can result in data patterns commonly interpreted as indicative of optimism for purely statistical reasons. Specifically, we show how extant data from unrealistic optimism studies investigating people's comparative risk judgments are plagued by the statistical consequences of sampling constraints and the response scales used, in combination with the comparative rarity of truly negative events. We conclude that the presence of such statistical artifacts raises questions over the very existence of an optimistic bias about risk and implies that to the extent that such a bias exists, we know considerably less about its magnitude, mechanisms, and moderators than previously assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note on modeling growth trends in longitudinal data.

Random coefficient and latent growth curve modeling are currently the dominant approaches to the analysis of longitudinal data in psychology. The application of these models to longitudinal data assumes that the data-generating mechanism behind the psychological process under investigation contains only a deterministic trend. However, if a process, at least partially, contains a stochastic trend, then random coefficient regression results are likely to be spurious. This problem is demonstrated via a data example, previous research on simple regression models, and Monte Carlo simulations. A data analytic strategy is proposed to help researchers avoid making inaccurate inferences when observed trends may be due to stochastic processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using personality testing to reduce adverse impact: A cautionary note.

Adding a personality test to an ability test for employee selection has been suggested as a means of enhancing validity while reducing adverse impact of the selection system. Adverse impact was examined with different weightings of ability and personality testing at varying selection ratios using data from two large applicant samples. This demonstration indicated that the use of personality testing did not compensate for the adverse impact related to cognitive ability testing and that applicant pool characteristics and the nature of the personality measure may be important considerations. Overall, results suggest caution in presuming a reduction in adverse impact by the addition of personality measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The social influence model: A cautionary note on counseling psychology's warm embrace.

Paralleling counseling psychology's search for professional identity has been the emergence of a new theoretical framework known as the social influence model. The present author suggests that some of the enthusiasm for this model might be due to the "counselor as expert" factor that is contained in the model. Other professions have attended to this same factor, and it has caused them great difficulty in relationship to professional stature. Counseling psychology would fare better as a profession if it attended to some of the more robust aspects of this theory. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note on measurement error corrections in structural equation models.

It is commonly thought that structural equation modeling corrects estimated relationships among latent variables for the biasing effects of measurement error. The purpose of this article is to review the manner in which structural equation models control for measurement error and to demonstrate the conditions in which structural equation models do and do not correct for unreliability. Generalizability theory is used to demonstrate that there are multiple sources of error in most measurement systems and that applications of structural equation modeling rarely account for more than a single source of error. As a result, the parameter estimates in a structural equation model may be severely biased by unassessed sources of measurement error. Recommendations for modeling multiple sources of error in structural equation models are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note on the effects of range restriction on predictor intercorrelations.

The purpose of this research report is to highlight a unique set of issues that arise when considering the effects of range restriction in the context of estimating predictor intercorrelations. Three approaches are used to illustrate the issue: simulation, a concrete applied example, and a reanalysis of a meta-analysis of ability-interview correlations. The general conclusion is that a predictor intercorrelation can differ dramatically from the population value when both predictors are used in a composite that is used operationally for selection. The compensatory nature of a composite means that low scorers on one predictor can only obtain high scores on the composite if they obtain very high scores on the other predictor; this phenomenon distorts the correlation between the predictors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note on the detection of method variance in multitrait-multimethod data.

Method variance in multitrait–multimethod (MTMM) data is often assessed by comparing the monomethod–heterotrait correlations to the heteromethod–heterotrait correlations in the MTMM matrix. Alternatively, method variance can be assessed within a confirmatory factor analysis of the MTMM data. It is shown that these two approaches are dissimilar theoretically and may give inconsistent assessments of method variance in practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing stress-buffering effects: a cautionary note

Research on the stress-buffering functions of social support is equivocal. The purpose of this study was to suggest that part of the reason for these contradictory findings may be due to the fact that researchers have misspecified the relationship between stress and support. Instead of always being an effective coping resource, this study tested the view that there are limits to the beneficial effects of assistance provided by others and that beyond a certain level support may actually exacerbate the noxious impact of stress. Data from a recent nationwide survey of older adults support this more complex perspective. More specifically, the data suggest that although emotional support initially reduces the effects of chronic financial strain on depressive symptoms, further increments in emotional assistance are associated with increased psychological distress.     

The application of Fourier deconvolution to reaction time data: A cautionary note.

The Fourier transform method in conjunction with frequency domain smoothing techniques has been suggested as a powerful tool for examining components in a serial, additive reaction time model (P. L. Smith; see record 1991-06460-001). Robustness and sensitivity to violations of the assumptions of serial model of this method are evaluated. When an incorrect distribution was used in recovering an unobserved component, results gave no information to show that an incorrect distribution was used, and the results were just as interpretable as those obtained using the correct distribution. These results demonstrate that the assumptions underlying the method cannot be assessed by the result of deconvolution, and the method cannot show that the purported component is actually from the serial combination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using WAIS—R short forms with clinical outpatients: A cautionary note.

To evaluate the validity of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) short forms with clinical outpatients, the test protocols of 90 people seen at a university-based psychology clinic were rescored for 1 selected-items and 10 selected-subtest combinations. Three criteria (high correlations, nonsignificant t tests, and limited percentage of classification changes), which have frequently been used in previous short-form studies, were used to evaluate the validity of the 11 WAIS-R short forms. None of the short forms was found satisfactorily to meet the three criteria. Cautions about using the evaluated short forms with clinical outpatients were provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aggregation, moderator variables, and the validity of personality tests: A peer-rating study.

A study with 85 college fraternity members investigated the effects of aggregation and moderator variables on the validity of personality tests. Aggregation over items and raters yielded an average self–peer correlation of .44 for ratings on 4 personality dimensions. The combination of social communication skill and self-knowledge produced significant moderating effects. Ss high on the Acting subscale and high on a composite of Private Self-Consciousness and Personal Identity scales had stronger agreement between self- and peer ratings than did those low on these measures. Results for 4 specific moderator variables (the importance, variability, and observability of each rating dimension) were in the predicted direction, although weaker than expected. It is concluded that aggregation and the use of moderator variables are both important techniques for obtaining convincing validity coefficients in personality research. (75 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prediction enhancement through the use of moderator variables.

In order to increase the ability of clinicians to predict the subsequent behavior of 76 inmates in a juvenile correctional institution, moderator variables, i.e., variables which were correlated with degree of predictability of inmates as measured by the relative magnitudes of the difference scores between predictor and criterion variables were developed. These moderator variables were then used to remove less predictable Ss from a cross-validation sample, resulting in a moderate increase in the correlation between predictor and criterion variables when 1/3 of the least predictable Ss were removed, and a more substantial increase when 1/2 of the least predictable Ss were similarly removed. The method showed considerable potential value as a means of facilitating more accurate classifications of inmates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)