Janice Dowd Scheuneman (1940-2006).

Presents an obituary for Janice Dowd Scheuneman, a distinguished measurement specialist, who died of ovarian cancer on July 10, 2006. Dr. Scheuneman was influential in the development, statistical analysis, and validation of many well-known assessment devices from the preschool level through the graduate level. She will be remembered for her contribution of the eponymous Scheuneman's chi-square to the field as well as for her graciousness and generosity in mentoring many in the field of measurement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Academic freedom, "political correctness", and ethics.

Because it is believed to be necessary for an unfettered pursuit of knowledge, academic freedom is a treasured, almost sacred, tenet and expectation in post-secondary education institutions in North America. With this freedom, however, come a number of responsibilities. In addition to these responsibilities psychologists have an obligation to conduct their academic affairs within ethical boundaries. Underlying most ethical constructs is the principle of avoiding harm to others. Unfortunately, "Political Correctness" has become a pejorative label—even when used to describe acts of courtesy, respect, fairness, openness, sensitivity to diversity, and responsibility for the consequences of one's behaviour. These characteristics represent ethical values that should promote, rather than stifle, open inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge without resulting in an erosion of standards of excellence in favour of special interest groups. It is argued that academic freedom carries ethical responsibilities compatible with the pursuit of knowledge, that the ethical pursuit of knowledge involves integrity in relationships as well as responsibility to society, and that academics are not harmed by what some label "politically correct" behaviour. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reducing stigmatizing attitudes held by future health professionals: The person is the message.

This study represents a continuation of our efforts to identify a cost-effective, doable, practical intervention that, when added to the curriculum of future health professionals, results in the reduction of stigmatizing attitudes toward people living with mental illness. The authors reasoned that a personal presentation from a recovering person would, unlike previous educational efforts described, encompass the elements of personal relevance and inspiration and thus be effective. Measures of stigma, as well as of courtesy stigma, were used. The results support the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

More about "Doctors".

One may well add to the excellent letter of Sidney J. Fields in the last issue a few further considerations, in large part anthropological, that help to provide perspective. As a glance at the encyclopedic Oxford Dictionary will show, the title doctor historically originated in medieval Europe with the theologian--the doctor of divinity. The doctor of philosophy is, of course, an offshoot of the same stalk and in the days of medieval learning, before the heyday of modern science, even the doctor of medicine was expected to write a learned thesis. In some European universities this practice still prevails. The generic doctor is, after all, the man of learning who teaches (doceo in Latin is teach), and not only are there many kinds of professional doctors, but there are many varieties of scientific ones--in physiology, chemistry, linguistics, psychology, etc. Goethe's Dr. Faust preferred to be known not as a doctor of theology but as a doctor of medicine. Is it generally known that in England the surgeon (F.R.C.S.) is regularly called Mister? The general practitioner ordinarily does not have an MD degree and is addressed as Doctor by courtesy only. Not to be overlooked is the studied manner in which the American academic "Doctor," reacting perhaps against the Central European proliferation of titles (Herr Prof. Dr. Jones), modestly calls himself "Mister." To the argument that in case of emergency the wrong "Doctor" might be enlisted for help--to his embarrassment, let alone that of the victim--there is the obvious answer that in these days of widespread first aid training, the advisable appeal is not just for a physician but for anyone versed in appropriate measures. If all professional groups would agree to do without the title Doctor and, like the citizens of the French Revolution, be satisfied with the simple Mister, all would be well; or, if it is too late--or too early--for this recommendation, the alternative is to allow the title to anyone with the appropriate academic degree. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Questionnares: Use or Abuse?

The author opines that if the percentage of return on mail questionnaire studies using psychologists as subjects is declining, he should not be surprised. He states that although his position is not unique, he receives perhaps 10 requests per year. Out of wishes to advance science and help colleagues he usually complies with such requests for information, but finds that it has been rare, in his experience, to receive an acknowledgment for my efforts, and rarer still, to receive any feedback or report of findings of a study. He feels that such a practice on the part of researchers shows a decided lack of professional courtesy and will perhaps ultimately lead to scientific inquiries being ignored or dealt with perfunctorily and dismissed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Good soldiers and good actors: Prosocial and impression management motives as interactive predictors of affiliative citizenship behaviors.

Researchers have discovered inconsistent relationships between prosocial motives and citizenship behaviors. We draw on impression management theory to propose that impression management motives strengthen the association between prosocial motives and affiliative citizenship by encouraging employees to express citizenship in ways that both “do good” and “look good.” We report 2 studies that examine the interactions of prosocial and impression management motives as predictors of affiliative citizenship using multisource data from 2 different field samples. Across the 2 studies, we find positive interactions between prosocial and impression management motives as predictors of affiliative citizenship behaviors directed toward other people (helping and courtesy) and the organization (initiative). Study 2 also shows that only prosocial motives predict voice—a challenging citizenship behavior. Our results suggest that employees who are both good soldiers and good actors are most likely to emerge as good citizens in promoting the status quo. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The idea of an interdisciplinary social psychology: An historical and rhetorical analysis.

Discusses the notion of interdisciplinarity in the history of social psychology. Disciplinary historians generally have some axe to grind, some reasons for telling their tale as they do. But interdisciplinarity also has a rhetoric, one of "sharing" and "bridge-building," "integration" and "synthesis." Some of the functions of these rhetorics are identified. The paper ends with a rejection of the notion of an interdisciplinary social psychology as a solution to social psychology's problems and endorses the call for a "flexible union" of the human sciences. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some effects of prolonged experience in communication nets.

Comcon (all can communicate to each), star (all communicate to one) and slash (each can communicate to several, but not to all) communication nets were studied with respect to their effects on group behavior when groups were required to operate in the same net over a period of several days. While the comcon groups developed predominantly an "each-to-all" organization, and the star a "central" organization, the slash appeared to be completely disorganized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Where is the fault in fault trees?

When branches of a fault tree are pruned, their probabilities are not fully transferred to the "all other" branch. Three explanations for this underestimation of the "all other" probability were tested: availability, ambiguity, and credibility. In an experiment, the authors varied the credibility of a cover story and separately observed the generation of a fault's causes to isolate availability, and the categorization of causes to assess ambiguity. The results identify biased availability as a broad threat to the validity of likelihood estimates. Ambiguity adds to the problem whenever tree designers are unable to eliminate it from causes or categories. Finally, though Ss had clear expectations for what constitutes a credible fault tree, none of the "all other" underestimation could be traced to credibility factors. The discussion covers both underlying mechanisms and corrective techniques. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Research paradigms and expected utility models for the provision of step-level public goods.

Examined 3 research paradigms for studying the provision of step-level public goods. In the "fear plus greed" paradigm, each of the players receives a monetary endowment and then may choose independently and anonymously whether to contribute it to a monetary public good. In the "no fear" paradigm, the opportunity to free ride is maintained, but a protection from having one's contribution wasted is provided; in the "no greed" paradigm it is possible to waste one's contribution, but not to free ride. Decision policies maximizing expected utility are derived for all 3 paradigms under homogeneity and heterogeneity assumptions. Testable predictions relating "fear," "greed," and expectations about the decisions of others are derived and discussed. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Four types of premarital couples: An empirical typology based on PREPARE.

Identified 4 types of engaged couples from a sample of 5,030 couples, using the premarital inventory PREPARE. Profiles were derived using a 3-stage cluster-analytic procedure, including an exploratory cluster analysis, a replication of the exploratory results, and a cross-validation analysis, all of which indicated that the 4-cluster solution was robust. "Vitalized" couples (28%) reported high scores on all dimensions. "Present-oriented" couples (27%) had moderately positive relationship quality. "Future-oriented" couples (23%) had moderately low intrarelationship scores but scored higher on scales assessing planning for marriage. "Conflicted" couples (22%) were characterized by pervasively low scores. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Removing halo from job evaluation factor structure.

Intercorrelations of job-evaluation ratings were factor analyzed under 2 conditions: (a) the original matrix, produced directly from raters' initial evaluations, and (b) a "reduced" matrix resulting from partialling out job level from all original intercorrelations in the hope of removing a general "halo" factor characteristically emerging from job-rating studies. Comparisons of factors from each matrix showed a definite reduction of halo in the "reduced" matrix, as well as more meaningful factor structures for most factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interest among gay/bisexual men in greater Boston in participating in clinical trials of preventive HIV vaccines

To estimate interest in HIV preventive vaccine trials, we administered questionnaires to two otherwise demographically similar cohorts of older (mean 40 years) and younger (mean 23 years) gay men in Boston. Questionnaire responses were linked to concurrent behavioral and demographic data. Univariate analyses, performed separately for older and younger cohorts, identified factors that distinguished participants who were "very interested" from those who were "not at all interested". Multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to adjust for confounding. Among all 630 participants, 215 (34%) were "not at all" interested in participating, 306 (49%) were "somewhat" interested, and 102 (16%) were "very" interested. Older men were significantly more likely than younger men to be "very" interested and less likely to be "not at all interested." Among both older and younger men, perceived peer willingness to enroll in vaccine trials predicted interest after adjusting for confounding. Among older men, optimism about success in vaccine development also predicted interest. In the younger cohort, men recruited in community settings (e.g., bars, nightclubs) were more interested in vaccine trial participation than were those recruited by outreach workers and word of mouth on college campuses. Vaccine-induced seroconversion evoked significant concern.     

Confidence–accuracy inversions in scene recognition: A remember–know analysis.

S. E. Clark (1997) offered a modified signal-detection explanation of the confidence–accuracy inversions observed in E. Tulving's (1981) experiments. In addition to replicating E. Tulving (1981), we had participants make "remember–familiar" judgments. Confidence and accuracy dissociated across subjective reports. Response confidence differed only for judgments based on familiarity, whereas accuracy differed only for "remember" responses. S. E. Clark's model does not predict this, nor can it mimic "remember" performance across all conditions. We propose that although "knowing" can be accommodated within an equal variance signal detection account, "remembering" is governed by contextual constraints that influence the distinctiveness of information upon which participants rely during reports. The current paradigm is a pictorial analogue to H. L. Roediger and K. B. McDermott's paradigm (1995) in that participants claim to explicitly remember thematically related items that were not actually seen during study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Randomization tests.

Reviews the book, Randomization Tests by Eugene S. Edgington (1980). Edgington begins his preface by suggesting that his book has two goals: "a practical guide for experimenters" and "a textbook for courses in applied statistics." As indicated above, the book is not the detailed and authoritative volume which experimenters need as a guide to randomization tests. However, Edgington's cogent criticisms of "the long-standing fiction of random sampling in experimental research" (p. iii) will lead experimenters to consider the merits of randomization tests. Similarly, the book is not thorough enough to be a successful textbook, but it should alert all teachers of statistics and experimental design to the importance of randomization and to the weakness of the random-sampling assumption in most statistical tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Convention publicity: should it grow?

"The question of what sort of public information program the APA should have generally starts a lively discussion." A principal obstacle "… that impedes the flow of a tremendous amount of psychology to the public… calls for the professional skills and intuitions of a public information specialist… ." The "… APA can get constructive publicity, in quantity, in all the mass media, not only at convention time, but throughout the year… " and the author believes "… that the APA should want it." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The process of mental health consultation: A systematic look within the context of community psychology.

The process of mental health consultation has been generally defined in terms of the techniques which the psychologist uses, "the how" of the consultant's role. The content, "the what" of this process is now being considered. The issues raised are partly based on the analysis of all consultation - contacts (N-56) collected during the first nine operational months of a project serving a sample population previously not reached by traditional clinical settings. Specifically this paper discusses the way in which a record-keeping method, devised specifically to account for "what" happens during a consultation, yields findings clarifying, complementing and at times diverging from what has been impressionistically reported to be content of the consultation process: a focus on psychopathology and intrapsychic conflicts of the consultee's charges. This pilot project in its attempt to systematically record all consultant's activities, has methodological implications for valid functional definitions of the mental health consultant within the context of community psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Readability of employee's letters in relation to occupational level.

The Reading Ease level (Flesch) and occupational level of the writer of 400 employee letters comprising a 10 percent sample of letters received in the General Motors "My Job Contest" were compared. "A hierarchy of mean RE scores was found to exist ranging from a mean of 54 (Fairly Difficult) for the "skilled" salary groups to a mean of 73 (Fairly Easy) for the "unskilled" hourly employees… . The results were interpreted as confirming previous readability studies of industrial communications and as providing a guide for the preparation of industrial communications." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)