What is the role of two-wave designs in clinical research? Comment on Hageman and Arrindell

Traditional beliefs about regression to the mean, difference scores (d-scores) and corrections for regression in determining the significance of individual person change have been challenged by proponents of growth curve modeling for the study of change. These challenges have generally not been adequately addressed by those proposing modifications to Jacobson's Reliable Change Index (RC). It is proposed that (1) two-wave designs and RC or variations of it are not very good methods for the scientific study of change, (2) multi-wave designs are better, (3) d-scores are unbiased data for analyzing two-wave studies, (4) RC is relatively more justifiable than most corrected or adjusted forms of RC, (5) the more appropriate place for two-wave designs and RC are in program or outcome evaluation and (6) the most appropriate function for RC is to facilitate communication among evaluators, public decision makers, providers and the public. In the absence of a 'gold standard' or consensus, it is recommended the only RC be used in outcome evaluation, in the near future, in order to enhance comparability of change rate data among different studies.     

Measuring aggressiveness and anger,but not aggression? A response to the CAAS critique

ObjectivesThe Competitive Aggressiveness and Anger Scale (CAAS) was developed to measure antecedents of aggression in sport. The critique attacks the CAAS on three points: (1) the definition of aggression in sport adopted, (2) the “one size fits all” element in the thinking behind the scale's development, (3) the nature of the CAAS Anger and Aggressiveness items. The objectives of this response is to address misunderstandings in the critique.MethodsWe identified a number of false assumptions that undermine the validity of the critique and attempt to clarify our position with respect to the criticisms made.Results(1) The CAAS is being criticised for a definition that it did not use. (2) We accepted that the CAAS may not be suitable for everyone in our limitations section and fully accept the limitations of any scale. We have since undertaken a large research project to establish whether the scale is valid across and within specific sports. (3) The fundamental misunderstanding inherent throughout the critique is that the CAAS was designed as a measure of aggression, rather than anger and aggressiveness, rendering the critique of its items redundant.ConclusionsThe critique misrepresents the authors of the CAAS and fails to present a coherent argument against its use. We hope to clarify our position here. The evidence to date suggests that the CAAS is a valid measure of anger and aggressiveness in many sports and that these concepts reliably differentiate players who admit unsanctioned aggression from those who do not.     

Cochlear implants and the claims of culture? A response to Lane and Grodin

Because I reject the notion that physical characteristics constitute cultural membership, I argue that, even if the claim were persuasive that deafness is a culture rather than a disability, there is no reason to fault hearing parents who choose cochlear implants for their deaf children.     

What,why, and whence logic? A response to the commentators

This article presents our response to the four commentators. Specifically, the article aims to further justify the method we employed to show the logical autonomy of the various thought domains described by our theory, to explain the role of logic in cognitive development and to elaborate on the factors affecting its development.     

Is agoraphobia harder to treat? A comparison of agoraphobics' and simple phobics' response to treatment

Agoraphobia is reputed to be more difficult to treat than simple phobia. In a test of this supposition, 38 agoraphobics and 19 simple phobics were each given 10 sessions of graduated in vivo exposure. They were assessed before and after therapy using a behavioral avoidance test, behavioral diaries, and self-report measures. Analysis of covariance revealed unequivocal posttest differences only on self-assessed disability level; agoraphobics had changed less in their report of global disability immediately following treatment but not at follow-up. Sixty-eight percent of the simple phobics showed clinically significant improvement on avoidance of the Main Phobia, compared with 34% of the agoraphobics. On three other outcome measures, including more precise behavioral measures of phobia, agoraphobics and simple phobics responded equivalently to treatment. Given clinicians' impression about the comparative difficulty in treating agoraphobic clients, fewer differences in treatment response were obtained than were expected. Several possible explanations for this discrepancy are discussed.     

What's the problem? A response to "secular humanism and scientific psychiatry"

Notwithstanding the interest and importance of Szasz's position, it neglects the phenomena, the real problems which take people to the clinic seeking treatment, and the conditionality of the notion of individual responsibility.     

How context-independent is the outgroup homogeneity effect? A response to Bartsch and Judd

Bartsch and Judd (1993) argue that outgroup homogeneity effects occur independently of any tendency for members of minority groups to see their ingroup as more homogeneous than the majority outgroup. This argument is based on evidence of an underlying outgroup homogeneity effect in a study which purports to unconfound the roles of judged group size and ingroup–outgroup judgement by presenting subjects first with a small or large ingroup (or outgroup) and then a small comparison outgroup (or ingroup). However, from the perspective of self-categorization theory (SCT), such a procedure actually introduces a confound as SCT predicts that when an ingroup is judged first it should be perceived as relatively heterogeneous due to the intragroup nature of this judgemental context. Close examination of Bartsch and Judd's data bears this point out: the tendency to see the ingroup as less homogeneous than the outgroup when the ingroup was judged first was extinguished when the ingroup was judged second even when the judged groups were of equal size. Consistent with SCT, this re-analysis suggests that manifestations of outgroup homogeneity are not independent of contextual factors which determine the relative appropriateness of category-based perception of ingroup and outgroup.     

What's the problem? A response to "secular humanism and scientific psychiatry"

Natural philosophy once spanned the fields of philosophy, science, and medicine. Scientific disciplines and medical specialties have rapidly achieved independence, and the availability of the internet and open-access publishing promises a further expansion of knowledge. Nevertheless, a consideration of the grounding concepts and ethical principles that underlie health care remains paramount. It is timely, therefore, to contribute to the global conversation on health care with an open-access journal that focuses on addressing the conceptual basis of medicine and related disciplines, considering the ethical aspects of clinical practice, and exploring its intersection with the humanities (including history of medicine).     

Infant imitation and the self—A response to Welsh

Talia Welsh (2006 Welsh, T. 2006. Do neonates display innate self-awareness? Why neonatal imitation fails to provide sufficient grounds for innate self and other awareness. Philosophical Psychology, 19: 221–238. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) argues that Shaun Gallagher and Andrew Meltzoff's (1996) application of neonatal imitation research is insufficient grounds for their claim that neonates are born with a primitive body image and thus an innate self-awareness. Drawing upon an understanding of the self that is founded upon a “theory of mind,” Welsh challenges the notion that neonates have the capacity for self-awareness and charges the supposition with an essentialism which threatens to disrupt more social constructionist understandings of the self. In this paper, I initially defend Gallagher and Meltzoff's (1996) application of infant imitation to understandings of neonatal self-awareness by explaining how body image schemas can be understood as non-representational embodied cognitive phenomena that challenge “theory of mind” theory. I then further develop the claim that neonates are born self-aware with reference to my own work in fetal development. I conclude that Welsh's political concerns are unfounded by showing how the conclusion that a neonate is self-aware does not signal a return to an essentialist understanding of self-awareness, but rather introduces into philosophical and psychological discourse possible alternate understandings of an embodied sense of self that are embedded within intersubjective contexts.     

Rating of perceived effort but relative to what? A comparison between imposed and self-selected anchors

PurposeCollecting reliable and valid rating of perceived effort (RPE) data requires properly anchoring the scales’ upper limits (i.e., the meaning of 10 on a 0–10 scale). Yet, despite their importance, anchoring procedures remain understudied and theoretically underdeveloped. Here we propose a new task-based anchoring procedure that distinguishes between imposed and self-selected anchors. In the former, researchers impose on participants a specific task as the anchor; in the latter, participants choose the most effortful task experienced or imaginable as the anchor. We compared the impact of these conceptually different anchoring procedures on RPE.MethodsTwenty-five resistance-trained participants (13 females) attended a familiarization and two randomized experimental sessions. In both experimental sessions, participants performed non-fatiguing and fatiguing isometric maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) protocols with the squat followed by the gripper or vice versa. After each MVC, participants reported their RPE on a 0–10 scale relative to an imposed anchor of the performed task (e.g., gripper MVCs anchored to a gripper MVC) or to a self-selected anchor.ResultsIn the non-fatiguing condition, imposed anchors yielded greater RPEs than self-selected anchors for both the squat [on average, 9.4 vs. 5.5; Δ(CI_95%) = 3.9 (3.2, 4.5)] and gripper [9.4 vs. 3.9; Δ = 5.5 (4.7, 6.3)]. Similar results were observed in the fatiguing condition for both the squat [9.7 vs. 6.9; Δ = 2.8 (2.1, 3.5)] and gripper [9.7 vs. 4.5; Δ = 5.2 (4.3, 5.9)].ConclusionsWe found large differences in RPE between the two anchors, independent of exercises and fatigue state. These findings provide a basis for further development and refinement of anchoring procedures and highlight the importance of selecting, justifying, and consistently applying the chosen anchors.     

Are archetypes transmitted or emergent? A response to Christian Roesler

In this paper the author argues that Jung's concept of archetype should not be reduced to an univocal definition. Jung himself proposed many definitions of this concept, some of them being partially or totally contradictory to others. A univocal and logical way of thinking can lead us to refute and reject part of those definitions, but a complex way of thinking, as proposed by Edgar Morin or Roy Bhaskar for example, can allow us to consider that those apparent contradictions in Jung's definitions of archetype reflect the complexity of the psychic reality. The main argument of the author is that Jung was missing the epistemological concept of emergence (which appeared in science at the time of his death) and that he tried to express it with the epistemological concepts of his time.     

Gaze aversion: A response to cognitive or social difficulty?

When asked questions, adults and children often avert their gaze at certain points within the interaction, especially when questions are difficult (Doherty-Sneddon, Bruce, Bonner, Longbotham, & Doyle, 2002; Glenberg, Schroeder, & Robertson, 1998). Gaze aversion may be a way of managing the cognitive load associated with the processing of visual environmental information, or it may serve to alleviate a negative social-emotional experience, such as the self-consciousness associated with, for example, a fear of failure. In the present study, thirty-six 8-year-olds were questioned either face to face or across a live video link. Questions varied in type (arithmetic, verbal reasoning, and autobiographical and episodic memory) and in difficulty. Children averted their gaze more during face-to-face questioning than during video-mediated questioning; however, question difficulty had a very strong influence on aversion in both interview conditions. It is concluded that although social factors play a role in children's gaze aversion during pedagogical question-answer sequences, the primary function of averting gaze is to manage the cognitive load involved in the processing of environmental information.