The Manifest Association Structure of the Single-Factor Model: Insights from Partial Correlations

The association structure between manifest variables arising from the single-factor model is investigated using partial correlations. The additional insights to the practitioner provided by partial correlations for detecting a single-factor model are discussed. The parameter space for the partial correlations is presented, as are the patterns of signs in a matrix containing the partial correlations that are not compatible with a single-factor model.     

Correlation coefficients for more than one scale type: An alternative to the Janson and Vegelius approach

Janson and Vegelius have recently suggested a family of correlations for variables of mixed scale types, including nominal scales. The resulting correlations areE-coefficients, which means that they are unity if the variables involved are identical up to permissible transformations, and that they can be considered as inner products in a Euclidian space. Some of the coefficients of the correlation family suggested by Janson and Vegelius are generalized squared product-moment correlations and some are not. In the present paper, a family of correlations for variables of mixed scale types is advocated all members of which are generalized squared product-moment correlations. Some practical advantages of the latter family are explained. The authors are obliged to Klaas Nevels and Henk Kiers for helpful comments.     

Further examination of the reliability of the Modified Rathus Assertiveness Schedule

The reliability of the 30-item Modified Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (MRAS) was examined using the test-retest method over a three-week period. The MRAS, which was administered to 103 white middle-class seventh graders, yielded correlations of .74 using the Pearson product and Spearman Brown correlation coefficient. The correlations for males yielded .77 and .72 using the Pearson Product and Spearman Brown techniques, respectively. For females the correlations for both tests were .72. Paired t tests by sex indicated no significant change in MRAS scores between test administrations. These findings add to the existing information on the reliability of the MRAS.     

Seven (indeed, plus or minus two) and the detection of correlations

Capacity limitations of working memory force people to rely on samples consisting of 7 +/- 2 items. The implications of these limitations for the early detection of correlations between binary variables were explored in a theoretical analysis of the sampling distribution of phi, the contingency coefficient. The analysis indicated that, for strong correlations (phi > .50), sample sizes of 7 +/- 2 are most likely to produce a sample correlation that is more extreme than that of the population. Another analysis then revealed that there is a similar cutoff point at which useful correlations (i.e., for which each variable is a valid predictor of the other) first outnumber correlations for which this is not the case. Capacity limitations are thus shown to maximize the chances for the early detection of strong and useful relations.     

Achievement and adjustment correlates of the matching familiar figures test

To help clarify the relationship between the Matching Familiar Figures (MFF) Test and measures of school achievement and adjustment, 450 children from kindergarten, second, and fifth grades were tested and achievement scores and teacher's ratings of classroom and personal adjustment were obtained. Regardless of grades, MFF latency in most instances did not predict achievement or adjustment. At the kindergarten level the correlations between MFF errors and both achievement and adjustment were significant for most subscales but at second grade correlations were lower and generally nonsignificant except for a few adjustment items. At the fifth grade level the correlations were moderately high but when IQ was partialled out the correlations with achievement and school adjustment dropped to near zero; however, partialling out IQ did not affect the moderate correlations between errors and personal adjustment. The errors score evidencedmore important relationships than the latency scores. The relationship between the MFF and ratings of social and emotional adjustment was consistently higher than the correlations between the MFF and achievement. These results suggest that MFF errors are personalogically relevant and that MFF performance is generally more related to adjustment than achievement.     

A reexamination of the validity of the Children's Personality Questionnaire

Scores on the Children's Personality Questionnaire (CPQ) were correlated with ratings on the Devereux Elementary School Behavior Rating Scale (DESB). Three judges matched scales from the two instruments that appeared to measure the same behavior. For about one-third of these matches, significant correlations in the predicted direction were found. Of the 154 possible correlations between CPQ factors and DESB scales, 50 reached significance. The results contradict those of a similar investigation (Willis & Seymour, 1978), whose methodology is questioned. The correlations found in the present study provide limited support for the validity of CPQ factors.     

Two Studies Examining the Error Theory Underlying the Measurement Model of the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale

Meta‐analysis indicates moderate correlations between the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale (VAS) and other self‐report measures but near‐zero correlations with behavioral measures. Accurately interpreting correlations between the VAS and other variables, however, requires an examination of the untested error theory underlying the measurement model for the VAS. In two separate studies, the results of single‐factor correlated uniqueness confirmatory factor analytic models revealed a pattern of significant error covariances indicating that VAS item scores are confounded by systematic error attributable to multiple unspecified latent effects. After pruning the item sets, we identified 4 items that were free of latent variable influences other than trait verbal aggressiveness. Implications for interpreting the verbal aggressiveness literature are discussed along with recommendations for revising the VAS.     

Comparisons of the Psychometric characteristics of the adaptive behavior inventory for children for different subgroups of children

Psychometric characteristics of the Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children (ABIC) are analyzed through five statistical procedures (internal consistency, item difficulty, correlations of item-total correlations, concurrent validity, and construct validity) using data on 436 elementary age children from three racial-ethnic and two social class groups. Data from these five statistical procedures are reported for nine demographic characteristics: children's race, social class, sex, age, birth order, health, family size, family structure, and urban acculturation. Few systematic differences are apparent on internal consistency, correlation of item-total correlations, and construct validity. Some differences are apparent on item difficulty and concurrent validity. On item difficulty the ABIC scores are higher for middle-SES, older, first- or second-born children, and from families whose structures are more typical. Regarding concurrent validity, lower correlations are noted for Mexican American and Black, for more healthy, and for less acculturated children. ABIC-achievement correlations generally are too low to be of practical value. The results are interpreted in terms of possible test bias on the ABIC.     

A note on the stability of team performance.

Yearly winning percentages of 23 professional basketball teams over a 10-year period were used to evaluate the stability of team performance. The intercorrelation matrix produced by these data is characterized by strong, positive correlations in adjacent time periods. As the number of intervening time periods increased, however, the observed correlations systematically decreased and ultimately became negative. Significant negative correlations of earlier performance with later performance are almost never observed with typical time-related performance data. Possible explanations and boundary conditions for these atypical results are discussed.     

On the estimation of polychoric correlations and their asymptotic covariance matrix

A general theory for parametric inference in contingency tables is outlined. Estimation of polychoric correlations is seen as a special case of this theory. The asymptotic covariance matrix of the estimated polychoric correlations is derived for the case when the thresholds are estimated from the univariate marginals and the polychoric correlations are estimated from the bivariate marginals for given thresholds. Computational aspects are also discussed.The research was supported by the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSFR) under the programMultivariate Statistical Analysis. The author thanks a reviewer for pointing out an error in the original version of the paper.     

Using sound to solve syntactic problems: the role of phonology in grammatical category assignments.

One ubiquitous problem in language processing involves the assignment of words to the correct grammatical category, such as noun or verb. In general, semantic and syntactic cues have been cited as the principal information for grammatical category assignment, to the neglect of possible phonological cues. This neglect is unwarranted, and the following claims are made: (a) Numerous correlations between phonology and grammatical class exist, (b) some of these correlations are large and can pervade the entire lexicon of a language and hence can involve thousands of words, (c) experiments have repeatedly found that adults and children have learned these correlations, and (d) explanations for how these correlations arose can be proposed and evaluated. Implications of these phenomena for language representation and processing are discussed.     

Nonproportional sampling and the amplification of correlations

A theoretical analysis shows that sample correlations between two binary variables will be inflated when the frequency distributions of the two variables are flatter (i.e., closer to equal frequencies for the two values) in the sample than in the population. A correlation-assessment study in which participants were free to choose their own sample revealed an overwhelming preference for samples that included roughly the same number of observations for the two values of dichotomous variables, irrespective of their actual distribution in the population. Subjective estimates of observed correlations followed the sample correlations--which were inflated, as predicted--more closely than the true correlations. People's sampling behavior thus resembles that of a research designer who maximizes the chance of detecting a relationship, at the cost of diminished accuracy in estimating its strength.     

Estimating the Expected Replicability of a Pattern of Correlations and Other Measures of Association

Replication is at the heart of all empirical sciences. However, there are no standard procedures for establishing the replicability of a pattern of correlations found linking a particular variable to an inventory or battery of other measures. This article introduces 2 statistics for quantifying the expected replicability of a pattern of associations (i.e., correlations, slope coefficients) between a variable of interest and a SET of other variables, items, measures, and so on. Using simulations and real data, we illustrate that these statistics are highly accurate estimates of the expected replicability of an observed pattern of correlations. These statistics can readily be used to indicate the replicability of patterns of association indexed by other statistics (e.g., regression slopes or covariances) and can be applied to other contexts, such as estimating the reliability of profile correlations. It is recommended that these statistics are regularly reported in such studies.     

German lexical personality factors: relations with the HEXACO model

We correlated the scales of the HEXACO Personality Inventory (HEXACO‐PI) with adjective scale markers of factors previously obtained in indigenous lexical studies of personality structure in the German language. Self‐ratings obtained from a sample of 323 German participants showed a pattern of strong convergent and weak discriminant correlations, supporting the content‐based interpretation of the German lexical factors in terms of the HEXACO dimensions. Notably, convergent correlations were strong for both the broader and the narrower variants of the Honesty‐Humility factor as observed in German lexical studies. Also, convergent correlations for HEXACO Openness to Experience were, as expected, stronger for German adjectives describing a creative and intellectual orientation than for German adjectives describing intellectual ability. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Achievement age-death age correlations alone cannot provide unequivocal support for the precocity-longevity hypothesis

This study is a further exploration (see S. J. H. McCann, 2001) of the capacity of the selection bias and life expectancy artifacts to produce correlations between peak achievement ages and death ages that could be mistakenly construed as support for the precocity-longevity hypothesis that those who reach career pinnacles earlier tend to have shorter lives. For 1,672 governors, 10 fake achievement age variables and 10 fake death age variables were randomly generated. Fake achievement age variables were correlated with real death age; fake death age variables were correlated with real achievement age. However, the real age correlations were much larger than the fake age correlations, and when the 2 artifacts were controlled through a subsample strategy, only real age correlations were significant. Overall, the results support the precocity-longevity hypothesis.     

Testing the bipolarity of the Jungian functions

In this article, I offer an alternative explanation for recent studies that have questioned the assumed bipolarity of the Jungian functions measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) due to the failure to observe negative correlations between the hypothesized opposite functions when a Likert format is used in place of the MBTI's forced-choice format (Cowan, 1989; Girelli & Stake, 1993; Loomis & Singer, 1980). It was suggested that the acquiescence response set might be partially responsible. A new instrument was constructed using agree-disagree items. Negative correlations between the hypothesized opposite functions were not observed. To deal with the acquiescence response set, participants were ranked on the number of statements endorsed, and the scores for the middle third of participants were analyzed again For these participants, correlations of -.67 and -.69 between each pair of theoretically opposite functions were found. I conclude thai this largely refutes criticisms of the bipolarity assumption, but there is still reason to develop a measure not relying on the assumption.     

Testing the latent factor structure and construct validity of the Ten-Item Personality Inventory

Recent efforts have aimed to develop relatively short measures of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality, particularly for when time and/or space is limited. We evaluate the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), a non-proprietary FFM measure with two items per dimension. We use a latent variable methodology to examine the TIPI’s factor structure and convergent validity with the 50-item International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) FFM measure. We provide correlations between the scale scores and latent factors, and compare each measure’s pattern of correlations with measures of other individual difference constructs. Results were favorable in terms of the factor structure and convergent validity of the TIPI, particularly regarding the correlations between the respective latent factors of the TIPI and the IPIP–FFM measures.     

Meta-Analyzing the Relation between Grades and Salary

Academicians and business people have disagreed about whether grades predict occupational outcomes such as training success, job performance, and salary. Recent meta-analyses have suggested that grades are useful predictors of training success and job performance. Unfortunately, the results of meta-analyses examining the grades–salary relation were limited by methodological problems. These problems included confusing income and salary as the same dependent variable, not conducting moderator analyses, using unorthodox schemes of weighting correlations, and not correcting for research artifacts. The current meta-analysis focused only on studies that reported salary as the dependent variable and found uncorrected correlations of .13 for grades and starting salary, .18 for grades and current salary, and .05 for grades and salary growth. The correlations for grades and starting salary rose to approximately .20 when corrected for relevant artifacts and the corrected grades–current salary correlations rose to the mid- to high .20s. Moderator analyses are also reported.     

Correlations, deviations and expectations: the Extended Principle of the Common Cause

The Principle of the Common Cause is usually understood to provide causal explanations for probabilistic correlations obtaining between causally unrelated events. In this study, an extended interpretation of the principle is proposed, according to which common causes should be invoked to explain positive correlations whose values depart from the ones that one would expect to obtain in accordance to her probabilistic expectations. In addition, a probabilistic model for common causes is tailored which satisfies the generalized version of the principle, at the same time including the standard conjunctive-fork model as a special case.     

EPQ correlates of the delusions-symptoms-states inventory

Ninety-seven Day Hospital patients were asked to complete a set of questionnaires, including the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and the Delusions-Symptoms-States Inventory of Bedford and Foulds. This paper studies the resulting correlations between the variables measured by these two inventories. No correlations were found between the Extroversion-Introversion dimension and the DSSI categories, and likewise for the Lie Scale. However, Neuroticism showed significant correlations with dysthymic states, neurotic symptoms, and integrated delusions, whilst Psychoticism correlated significantly with the delusional components only. Although this finding could be used to support certain theories about the relationship between these variables, certain theoretical difficulties remain and, in the case of this data, certain artefactual elements may have been influential.