Pro-criminal attitudes,intervention, and recidivism

We review the recent research literature on pro-criminal attitudes (PCAs) as a causal factor of recidivism with a focus on studies on the effectiveness of offender treatment programs targeting PCAs to prevent recidivism. The main conclusions that can be derived from the literature are: (1) the evidence supports the hypothesis that PCAs are related to reoffending; (2) most investigated offender treatment programs tend to reduce PCAs, although the general lack of adequate control group designs does not rule out alternative explanations for this reduction; and (3) there is no conclusive empirical evidence that intervention programs designed to reduce PCAs are effective in reducing recidivism. Empirical research in this area lacks the theoretical and methodological rigor to test causal models of the influence of treatment on reducing PCAs, and effects of PCAs on recidivism. Limitations of the empirical evidence are related to inadequate research designs and/or suboptimal data analysis strategies. Recommendations concerning optimized research designs and data analysis strategies that are likely to provide more conclusive evidence on the relation of PCAs, PCA treatment, and recidivism are given.     

Collectivism and coping: Current theories,evidence, and measurements of collective coping

A burgeoning body of cultural coping research has begun to identify the prevalence and the functional importance of collective coping behaviors among culturally diverse populations in North America and internationally. These emerging findings are highly significant as they evidence culture's impacts on the stress‐coping process via collectivistic values and orientation. They provide a critical counterpoint to the prevailing Western, individualistic stress and coping paradigm. However, current research and understanding about collective coping appear to be piecemeal and not well integrated. To address this issue, this review attempts to comprehensively survey, summarize, and evaluate existing research related to collective coping and its implications for coping research with culturally diverse populations from multiple domains. Specifically, this paper reviews relevant research and knowledge on collective coping in terms of: (a) operational definitions; (b) theories; (c) empirical evidence based on studies of specific cultural groups and broad cultural values/dimensions; (d) measurements; and (e) implications for future cultural coping research. Overall, collective coping behaviors are conceived as a product of the communal/relational norms and values of a cultural group across studies. They also encompass a wide array of stress responses ranging from value‐driven to interpersonally based to culturally conditioned emotional/cognitive to religion‐ and spirituality‐grounded coping strategies. In addition, this review highlights: (a) the relevance and the potential of cultural coping theories to guide future collective coping research; (b) growing evidence for the prominence of collective coping behaviors particularly among Asian nationals, Asian Americans/Canadians and African Americans/Canadians; (c) preference for collective coping behaviors as a function of collectivism and interdependent cultural value and orientation; and (d) six cultural coping scales. This study brings to light the present theoretical and methodological contributions as well as limitations of this body of literature and the implications it holds for future coping research.     

Psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic science, and psychoanalytic research--1986

The present standing of psychoanalysis as a science and the vitality of psychoanalytic research effort are reviewed. The two are interdependent, since the possibilities for empirical research rest on the necessary assumption that psychoanalysis is indeed enough a science to be susceptible to knowledge advance by the (research) methods of science. Concerning our status as a science, I review attacks on our scientific credentials (both from within our ranks and without) by the logical positivists, by the hermeneuticists (a rubric comprising a variety of hermeneutic, phenomenological, exclusively subjectivistic, and/or linguistically based conceptualizations of our field), and the most recent by the philosopher of science, Adolf Grünbaum. I try to demonstrate what I feel to be the failure of each of these assaults, and why I feel there is no reason to see psychoanalysis as anything other than a scientific psychology and, therefore, in theory amenable to empirical research approaches. I then review the history and the current status of these systematic research efforts in psychoanalysis, and the reasons why these have been far less in scope and in accomplishment than has been possible or than has been needed. Here I have focused especially on research involving technique and our theory of change and cure--i.e., research on the analytic process; on what changes take place (outcome) and how those changes come about or are brought about (process).     

Eye movements and attention in reading,scene perception,and visual search

Eye movements are now widely used to investigate cognitive processes during reading, scene perception, and visual search. In this article, research on the following topics is reviewed with respect to reading: (a) the perceptual span (or span of effective vision), (b) preview benefit, (c) eye movement control, and (d) models of eye movements. Related issues with respect to eye movements during scene perception and visual search are also reviewed. It is argued that research on eye movements during reading has been somewhat advanced over research on eye movements in scene perception and visual search and that some of the paradigms developed to study reading should be more widely adopted in the study of scene perception and visual search. Research dealing with “real-world” tasks and research utilizing the visual-world paradigm are also briefly discussed.     

Rewards and Creativity: Past,Present, and Future

Research on the effects of rewards on creativity has resulted in hundreds of empirical studies and several reviews of the reward–creativity relationship (RCR). Most reviews are retrospective in nature. They have quantitatively summarised and integrated previous research findings, but have largely overlooked the need for a theoretical framework to guide future research. The current systematic review of this literature intends to bridge this gap, based on the findings of 329 papers and book chapters. Our review summarises the theoretical developments in reward–creativity (RC) research, and classifies the literature in three distinct phases, i.e. the emergence of the cognitive perspective; behavioural rebuttal, and convergence. The paper identifies three important gaps in the existing RC literature: (1) the moderating effects of individual, group, organisational, and national‐level factors; (2) the mediating role of cognitive and affective states; and (3) the lack of consideration of creativity as a multidimensional construct. Based on these gaps, the paper presents a four‐factor framework to guide future RC research. It identifies potential moderators and mediators of the RCR, and draws attention to creativity as a multidimensional construct.     

English,Engineering, and Creativity

An analysis of creativity in English and Engineering Departments in the University, which suggests that the quest for academic respectability has forced the teacher of English in his research to pursue the goal of analysis, a goal which he in fact denies in his teaching. His teaching remains flexible in its attempts to elicit a creative response on the part of the student, while his research (if it is to be publishable) must adhere to a fairly rigid pattern of orthodoxy. The physicist is often driven in his teaching (simply by the demands of the very bulk of physical knowledge) to emphasise the analytical, the instrument-nature of knowledge, while in his research he remains—or tries to remain—essentially creative, far less rigid than in his teaching. The engineer, who has only recently learned to lionise the analytical and essentially rigid aspects of his work (he has only recently, after all, become a member of the University), is perhaps in fact more creative both in his teaching and his research than either of the others, though there is an increasing pressure in the University to make him conform to standards of “respectability”.     

The what,how, and why of moralization: A review of current definitions,methods, and evidence in moralization research

Moralization has major social and political implications. Although there is a depth of research on the nature and implications of moral attitudes and moral convictions, there has been less of a focus on the psychological processes by which actions, attitudes, or entities become moralized, or move from lesser to greater moral significance, and the research that does exist is highly fragmented. In the present paper, we provide a two‐factor structure for understanding the current state of research on moralization, categorizing extant moralization research by (1) whether it examines judgments of actions, attitudes, or entities and (2) whether it captures moral recognition (the shift from neutral to moral), or moral amplification. Using this framework, we then consider the various routes through which moralization may occur, discuss emerging research on the influence that social norms can have on this process, and address future areas of research. Overall, we hope to provide some initial steps toward developing a more integrated framework for understanding moralization.     

Self-Efficacy in Service-Learning Community Action Research: Theory, Research, and Practice

The purpose of this article is threefold: In the first section, an overview of research and theory on the self-efficacy construct is provided, and the central role of self-efficacy in service-learning community action research is demonstrated. The second section reviews over 10 years of research validating the Community Service Self-Efficacy Scale (CSSES), which measures the individual’s confidence in his or her own ability to make clinically (meaningfully) significant contributions to the community through service. Within the context of this review, recent (previously unpublished) validation research is also reviewed. Alternate versions of the CSSES, each of which was developed for a specific purpose, are presented. The third section provides recommendations for further research focused on (a) validating the CSSES and (b) examining self-efficacy as an outcome, moderator, and mediating variable in service-learning community action research.     

Of Whistleblowers,Investigators, and Judges

Needleman's (1993) reply to our article in this journal (Emhart, Scarr, & Geneson, 1993) is a good example of the tactics he uses to deflect attention from questions of his scientific misconduct. Rather than address the many doubts about his scientific conduct, he attempted to focus readers' attention on (a) the motives and character of colleagues who question his research, (b) legitimate debates in the research literature on low-level lead effects on children, and (c) testimonials by colleagues who cannot know about misconduct in his research. He did not address our major thesis-that procedures by which investigations of scientific misconduct are carried out require revision. Our experiences as whistleblowers were used to illustrate the need for change. Needleman's reply illustrates how he has dealt with the series of investigations of his scientific misconduct-with sarcasm and innuendoes about the honesty and character of investigators, portrayed as conspirators with the lead industry (and newspaper columnists?) to bring him down. For more details of his obfuscation, see Scarr (1993), Emhart (1993), and Ernhart and Scarr (in press).     

行政职业能力倾向测验:历史、现状与未来研究

经过二十多年的发展,行政职业能力倾向测验已经成为公务员考试中不可缺少的测评工具之一。在实践发展中,行测内外部的变化引发了许多研究问题。然而,现有研究的广度和深度都较为有限。为了提高行测的科学化水平,该文指出未来亟需从以下方面开展研究:(1)借鉴认知诊断理论对各个题型进行研究;(2)测量结构的确立;(3)分级分类考试的架构设计;(4)新题型开发;(5)分数合成;(6)试题公平性等。     

Race, Culture, and Ethnicity: Implications for a Community Intervention

We present an overview of research on African American families and emphasize in this discussion limitations of approaches used in the past to study African American families. We also discuss and identify challenges for designing and implementing community, family-based programs targeting competence-promoting behaviors in African American families. In addition, we attempt to accomplish the following objectives: (1) identify themes in studies of African American families, including bias in prior research; (2) discuss ways in which prior approaches and conceptual models guiding studies of African Americans have created challenges for the development and implementation of community-based intervention and research programs; and (3) present the Parents Matter! Program as an example of a community-based prevention effort that attempted to overcome many of the challenges created by prior research efforts.     

Intervention research: Integrating practice guidelines with dissemination strategies-A rejoinder to Paul, Stuve, and Cross

Paul, Stuve, and Cross (this issue) misunderstood the importance of the token economy described by Morisse et al. (1996) because they evaluated it solely from a clinical research perspective. Intervention research is a broader paradigm that describes the development of effective interventions via a series of research activities including basic psychological research, clinical research, and dissemination research. Given the wisdom of intervention research, we address three points made by our colleagues: (a) mental health staff should not adapt empirically validated practice guidelines to meet the needs of their program; (b) total-quality-management strategies like Interactive Staff Training should not drive dissemination efforts because they have little empirical support; and (c) user-friendly programs are inappropriate and unethical because they ignore consumer interests.     

Intelligence: genetics, genes, and genomics

More is known about the genetics of intelligence than about any other trait, behavioral or biological, which is selectively reviewed in this article. Two of the most interesting genetic findings are that heritability of intelligence increases throughout the life span and that the same genes affect diverse cognitive abilities. The most exciting direction for genetic research on intelligence is to harness the power of the Human Genome Project to identify some of the specific genes responsible for the heritability of intelligence. The next research direction will be functional genomics--for example, understanding the brain pathways between genes and intelligence. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) will integrate life sciences research on intelligence; bottom-up molecular biological research will meet top-down psychological research in the brain.     

Practical recommendations for considering culture,race, and ethnicity in personality psychology

Personality science is the study of the individual. It aims to understand what makes people similar to others, different from some, and unique to themselves. However, there is room for research in personality to more thoughtfully consider culture, race, and ethnicity in order to better understand individual differences in people’s patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. High impact personality journals rarely include such factors into the interpretation of results, and cross-cultural and ethnic minority publications are limited within the discipline. This article offers a brief, non-exhaustive overview of how culture, race, and ethnicity are examined in relation to personality, showing that: (1) social structures continue to be neglected in the research, (2) we can learn from research being conducted in neighboring areas, and (3) valuable work is already being done within personality psychology. We offer recommendations that emphasize community based participatory research methods, combined etic-emic approaches, and contextualizing research findings to improve the consideration of culture, race, and ethnicity in personality research.     

Process, Content, and Feminist Reflexivity: One Researcher's Exploration

This article explores the unraveling of the relationship between research methodology, process, and content as revealed through my own feminist research project. I examine the evolution of my research process with one participant from a larger study, as I sought to better understand a story she told about racism. First, I address the theoretical underpinnings of feminist reflexivity and research, which challenge traditional paradigms. Next, I present the participant's (a white family day care provider's) story about racism in her practice which was revealed during an interview process. Subsequently, I present a second dialogue around the story in which we (researcher and participant) later engaged. In the process, I analyze my struggles, as a researcher trained in positivist methods, to engage in reflexive research methods. Finally, I evaluate the gains made for me as a researcher in the process and content of research conducted with a feminist reflexive frame and suggest their utility in deconstructing White racism.     

Shared practices,understanding, language and joint attention

In responding to the commentaries from Hobson (2007) , Moore (2007) and Rakoczy (2007) , we first discuss the commonalities our approach has with other theories and then elaborate on the nature of shared practices and their relationship with language and understanding. We then address views of representation, arguing against an empiricist approach and for a constructivist, action‐based account of knowledge and development. Finally, we briefly discuss implications following from our approach regarding how existing research would be reinterpreted and directions for new research.     

Research on irrelevance,helplessness, and immunization against helplessness in Spain: Past,present, and future

The main contribution to helplessness research in Spain was on immunization against helplessness and how it was modulated by predictability in animals or attributions in humans. Recent research have focused on factors determining the perception of non-contingency during learned irrelevance and the illusion of control during an uncontrollable experience. Its subsequent effects on covariation learning and the detection of controllability showed the influence of prior beliefs and attentional factors on covariation learning and learned helplessness whose influence should be integrated into current new learning models. This research was supported by a Spanish DGICYT (Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica) grant (PB94-0801).     

The psychological unconscious. Found, lost, and regained.

In response to Greenwald's article on contemporary research on unconscious mental processes, the authors address three issues: (a) the independence of much recent research and theory from psychodynamic formulations; (b) the broad sweep of the psychological unconscious, including implicit perception, memory, thought, learning, and emotion; and (c) the possibility that the analytic power of unconscious processing may depend both on the manner in which mental contents are rendered unconscious and the manner in which they are to be processed.     

Salesperson Selection,Training, and Development: Trends,Implications, and Research Opportunities

Building on the forces of change in selling identified in the introductory paper of this Special Issue of JPSSM, we identify and explicate trends, managerial implications, and research opportunities in two important domains of the selling field: training and development (TD) and selection. Part One focuses on TD of salespeople, and argues why a fresh perspective on salesperson TD is essential. Then, taking a knowledge, skills, and ability (KSA) approach, a framework for future TD content is proposed around three levels of KSAs: task-related KSAs, growth-related KSAs, and meta-KSAs. Part Two, on selection, focuses on several important predictors of salesperson success: cognitive ability tests, personality inventories, and biodata. Then, assessment methods are reviewed. Finally, we summarize with a discussion of emerging trends and research opportunities. The focus of the discussion is on both enhancing salesperson performance and affording scholars new research opportunities.     

Further evaluation of prompt density,rate of reinforcement,and the persistence of manding

Previous research has evaluated the effects of prompt rates on the rate of communicative behavior. More recent research has suggested that dense prompting can result in communicative behavior that is more resistant to change. However, existing research has not considered the impact that higher response rates had on reinforcement rate, a variable known to impact response persistence. The current study systematically replicated previous research by evaluating communicative responding in contexts associated with dense- and lean-prompt schedules and extended existing research by (a) holding reinforcement rates similar across the two prompting schedules (lean and dense), and (b) evaluating the persistence of communicative responding in the contexts associated with each prompting schedule. The results for Experiment 1 clearly replicated and extended previous research. The results for Experiment 2 were equivocal and suggested that previous reinforcement history and response class size impacted outcomes.