成就动机和性别对风险倾向的预测作用

研究通过对等同绝对值(CE)的比较将冒险倾向转换为可以量化比较的变量,旨在探讨成就动机和性别在经济获益和损失的各种概率情景下对冒险倾向的预测作用。结果发现,高低成就动机组并没有表现出冒险倾向的显著差异。进一步的相关分析发现,成就动机中的回避失败维度与获益情景下的冒险倾向相关显著,而追求成功维度与各个情景下的相关都不显著。以回避失败维度聚类得到的高低回避失败组,体现出来的冒险倾向趋势显示高回避失败组的被试在获益低概率、获益中等概率、获益高概率、损失低概率、损失中等概率和损失高概率6种情景下都更加回避冒险,而且两组等同绝对值中位数的差异在获益中等概率和获益高概率两种情况下达到显著。另外,冒险倾向的性别差异只在损失中等概率和损失高概率两种情景中达到显著,这两种情况下都是女性更冒险,这与传统的女性更保守的刻板印象不同。     

Identifying Cheating on Unproctored Internet Tests: The Z‐test and the likelihood ratio test

Unproctored Internet testing (UIT) is becoming more popular in employment settings due to its cost effectiveness and efficiency. However, one of the major concerns with UIT is the possibility of cheating behaviors: a more capable conspirator can sit beside the real applicant and answer test items, or the applicant may use unauthorized materials. The present study examined the effectiveness of using a proctored verification test following the UIT to identify cheating in UIT, where 2 test statistics, a Z‐test and a likelihood ratio (LR) test, compare the consistency of test performance across the testing conditions. A simulation study was conducted to test the effectiveness of the two test statistics for a computerized adaptive test format. Results indicate that both test statistics have high power to detect dishonest job applicants at low Type I error rates. Compared with the LR test, the Z‐test was more efficient and effective and is therefore recommended for practical applications. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Training for Dangerous Task Performance: The Effects of Expectations and Feedback1

The training of individuals to perform dangerous tasks confronts theorists and practitioners with a critical issue: To what extent should individuals be exposed during training to stressors that characterize the conditions under which the task will eventually be performed? The present study evaluated two variables that might help resolve this dilemma. The first, a personality variable, consists of a person's generalized expectation that he or she will not be physically hurt while exposed to danger. The other, which is more sitution-specific, consists of the feeling of success or failure that the trainee experiences at the conclusion of training under physically dangerous conditions. The quality of soldiers' performance and the intensity of experienced stress were tested in a combat simulation. Individuals who tend to assign a low probability to their being physically injured in dangerous situations were found to benefit more from dangerous than from non-dangerous training. The opposite was found for individuals who assign a high probability to their being injured in dangerous situations. Moreover, exposure to serious physical threats during training yielded better training results than training that did not involve such threats only when the subjects concluded their training with a feeling of success. The subjective feelings of success or failure had no effect, however, under training conditions that did not expose trainees to danger. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Magnitude and Extent of Cheating and Response Distortion Effects on Unproctored Internet‐Based Tests of Cognitive Ability and Personality

The use of unproctored internet‐based testing (UIT) for employee selection is quite widespread. Although this mode of testing has advantages over onsite testing, researchers and practitioners continue to be concerned about potential malfeasance (e.g., cheating and response distortion) under high‐stakes conditions. Therefore, the primary objective of the present study was to investigate the magnitude and extent of high‐ and low‐stakes retest effects on the scores of a UIT speeded cognitive ability test and two UIT personality measures. These data permitted inferences about the magnitude and extent of malfeasant responding. The study objectives were accomplished by implementing two within‐subjects design studies ( Study 1 N=296; Study 2 N=318) in which test takers first completed the tests as job applicants (high‐stakes) or incumbents (low‐stakes) then as research participants (low‐stakes). For the speeded cognitive ability measure, the pattern of test score differences was more consonant with a psychometric practice effect than a malfeasance explanation. This result is likely due to the speeded nature of the test. And for the UIT personality measures, the pattern of higher high‐stakes scores compared with lower low‐stakes scores is similar to those reported for proctored tests in the extant literature. Thus, our results indicate that the use of a UIT administration does not uniquely threaten personality measures in terms of elevated scores under high‐stakes testing that are higher than those observed for proctored tests in the extant literature.     

Objective self-awareness,standards of evaluation,and moral behavior

In a performance setting, subjects were given an opportunity to cheat without fear of detection on puzzle problems. Subjects were led to believe that successful performance was due to ability in some conditions, but to luck in other conditions. In fact, most of the problems were insolvable, so that success was impossible without cheating. Self-awareness was induced in half the subjects by having them sit in front of a mirror and listen to a tape recording of their own voice as they worked on the puzzle problems; the remaining subjects were not exposed to a mirror and listened to a tape of someone else's voice as they worked on the problems. It was predicted that cheating frequency would be higher under ability attribution conditions than under luck attribution conditions, and that this effect of performance attribution would be greater among self-aware subjects than among non-self-aware subjects. Results confirmed these hypotheses. Discussion centered on the differential use of morality and competence standards for behavior when in a state of self-awareness.     

How Secure are Unproctored Pre-Employment Tests? Analysis of Inconsistent Test Scores

Employment tests have long been scrutinized for psychometric considerations such as validity and reliability, but the extent to which cheating may occur on pre-employment tests has generally been overlooked. With the rise of unproctored, on-demand, online testing, the need has never been greater to focus on design and process considerations that can help mitigate the potential for cheating on employment tests. This paper builds on the limited existing research on the detection of inconsistent test scores on unproctored Internet testing. Job candidates (n = 4,026) completed a computer adaptive cognitive ability test under two conditions: an unproctored screening test followed by a proctored confirmation test. Analyses focused on detecting instances of inconsistent test scores based on comparison of standard errors of measure for the unproctored and proctored test scores (Guo and Drasgow, Int J Sel Assess 18:351–364, 2010). Results revealed a relatively low number of inconsistent scores and are discussed in the context of future research, application, and theory building on the nature of cheating on pre-employment tests.     

Determinants of reduction in intended effort as a strategy for coping with anticipated failure

The present study investigated the use of reduction in intended effort as a strategy for protecting self-esteem from the threat of anticipated failure. It was hypothesized that people reduce the amount of effort they intend to exert when they expect a low probability of success on a highly ego-relevant task. Female subjects anticipated taking an easy (high probability of success) or difficult (low probability of success) test that was either high or low in ego relevance. Subjects' levels of intended effort and other task-relevant cognitions were assessed. It was found that subjects in the low-probability condition intended to exert less effort on the highly ego-relevant test than did subjects in the high-probability condition; probability of success had no effect on intended effort level on the low ego-relevance test. Subjects also reported that it was a worse day for a test in the low-probability condition than in the high-probability condition. The relevance of these findings to the egotism explanation of learned helplessness effects and general theories of motivation was discussed.     

Test anxiety and visual vigilance

Twenty male and 20 female subjects, previously classified as high or low in test anxiety, participated in an experiment on visual vigilance under conditions designed either to enhance or minimize feelings of being tested. Detection rate declined across the 36 min of the task among subjects high in test anxiety who believed that they were being tested and in subjects low in test anxiety who did not. False detection rates revealed no significant differences among conditions. Analysis of sensitivity to signals according to statistical decision theory revealed low sensitivity in both the high-anxiety test and low-anxiety/no-test conditions than in the other two. Analysis of decisional criteria showed that subjects in the high-anxiety test condition were more conservative in setting a criterion than subjects in the other three conditions. No sex differences were found. The results are discussed in terms of an elaboration of Sarason's (1978) model of test anxiety.     

结合选择题与主观题信息的两阶段作弊甄别方法

为提高对高分作弊者和低抄袭比例作弊者的检验力,模拟600名考生的作答,设置3种抄袭比例（60%,80%和100%）和3种抄袭源能力（能力百分等级为60%,80%和100%）,设计两阶段作弊甄别法,第一阶段使用lz指数筛选个人拟合差的异常考生,第二阶段针对这些异常考生使用ω指数进行精确甄别。结果表明该法对高分作弊者和低抄袭比例作弊者的检验力优于仅使用答案抄袭检测法。     

The Theory of Planned Behavior as a Model of Academic Dishonesty in Engineering and Humanities Undergraduates

This study examines the use of a modified form of the theory of planned behavior in understanding the decisions of undergraduate students in engineering and humanities to engage in cheating. We surveyed 527 randomly selected students from three academic institutions. Results supported the use of the model in predicting ethical decision-making regarding cheating. In particular, the model demonstrated how certain variables (gender, discipline, high school cheating, education level, international student status, participation in Greek organizations or other clubs) and moral constructs related to intention to cheat, attitudes toward cheating, perceptions of norms with respect to cheating, and ultimately cheating behaviors. Further the relative importance of the theory of planned behavior constructs was consistent regardless of context, whereas the contributions of variables included in the study that were outside the theory varied by context. Of particular note were findings suggesting that the extent of cheating in high school was a strong predictor of cheating in college and that engineering students reported cheating more frequently than students in the humanities, even when controlling for the number of opportunities to do so.     

A test of optimal theory on young adolescents' standing long jump performance and motivation

The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning contends that an external focus of attention (EF), enhanced expectancies (EE), and autonomy support (AS) are key attentional and motivational variables that optimise motor performance. We examined how integrating an EF into EE and AS interventions would impact young adolescents' standing long jump performance and self-efficacy, perceived competence, task effort, task importance and positive affect. Forty-eight participants completed 3 jumps in a baseline, EF (focus on jumping towards the cone), EE-EF (positive social-comparative feedback/high success probability) and AS-EF (self-definition of success) conditions. Both the EF and AS-EF conditions (but not the EE-EF condition) improved jump performance from baseline. The EF, EE-EF and AS-EF conditions improved young adolescents' self-efficacy, perceived competence, task effort and positive affect in comparison to baseline and were predictors of jump performance (as was task importance). However, in the EE-EF condition motivational states improved (from baseline) but this did not translate into performance improvements. The findings show that directing attention to visual external cues both independently and when framed within AS conditions enhanced young adolescents' jump performance and motivation through efficient goal-action coupling. In practice, PE teachers and sports coaches working with young adolescents can support autonomy by allowing self-definition of success using an external cue to enhance effective goal-action coupling, motor performance and motivation.     

Difficulty and instrumentality of imminent behavior as determinants of goal attractiveness

Subjects were presented with an easy or moderately difficult memorization task and told they could earn either a very low or very high chance of obtaining a modest prize if they did well. A measure of goal attractiveness was taken during an interval immediately preceding the task performance period. As expected, anticipatory goal attractiveness ratings were higher in the moderately difficult condition than in the easy condition when the probability of goal attainment (given success) was high, but were low in both task conditions when the probability of goal attainment (given success) was low. Results are discussed in terms of Brehm's recent theory of motivation.     

Teachers' task demands,students' test expectations,and actual test content

Background: Previous studies on instructional importance show that individual students and their teachers differ in the topics that they consider important in the context of an upcoming teacher‐made test. Aims: This study aimed to examine whether such differences between students' test expectations and teachers' intended task demands can be explained by the actual test content. Samples: Participants were history teachers (N=19) and their 11th‐grade students (N=388). Method: Teachers and students rated the importance of text sections that would be tested in the near future. By means of multilevel analysis, ratings were compared with the occurrence of sections in the tests. Results: Although teachers considered a majority of sections as important and tested only a minority of the sections, their tests still included sections rated as unimportant. The number of such discrepancies, however, was relatively small. Sections the teachers rated important had a much higher probability of being included in the test than sections rated unimportant. For students, a similar but lower degree of correspondence between ratings and test content was found. Interestingly, for sections that teachers considered important, students more often gave a higher rating when these sections appeared in the test than when they did not. The same holds for sections that teachers considered unimportant. Conclusions: For both teachers and students there is a limited correspondence between perceived task demands and test content. Furthermore, students' perceptions of task demands show a compensation for some of the differences between their teachers' intended task demands and the test demands.     

A test of Weiner's attribution theory inertial motivation hypothesis1

This study (N= 160 males) examined the cognitive and inertial motivation effects of overt success feedback on subjects high and low in resultant achievement motivation. The cognitive effects of overt success feedback were investigated by requesting attributions to effort, ability, luck, and task difficulty concerning performance on a digit symbol substitution task. The inertial motivation effects of overt success feedback were investigated through a transfer design. Results indicated overt success feedback to have an inertial motivation effect on performance efficiency at a subsequent verbal learning task. The results provided evidence against Weiner's (1972) attribution theory version of the inertial motivation hypothesis, and were interpreted within the general learning theory framework combined with the achievement and test anxiety models of Atkinson and Sarason. The interpretation offered considers the various experimental conditions as sources of motivation.     

A Two-Stage Approach to Differentiating Normal and Aberrant Behavior in Computer Based Testing

Statistical methods for identifying aberrances on psychological and educational tests are pivotal to detect flaws in the design of a test or irregular behavior of test takers. Two approaches have been taken in the past to address the challenge of aberrant behavior detection, which are (1) modeling aberrant behavior via mixture modeling methods, and (2) flagging aberrant behavior via residual based outlier detection methods. In this paper, we propose a two-stage method that is conceived of as a combination of both approaches. In the first stage, a mixture hierarchical model is fitted to the response and response time data to distinguish normal and aberrant behaviors using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. In the second stage, a further distinction between rapid guessing and cheating behavior is made at a person level using a Bayesian residual index. Simulation results show that the two-stage method yields accurate item and person parameter estimates, as well as high true detection rate and low false detection rate, under different manipulated conditions mimicking NAEP parameters. A real data example is given in the end to illustrate the potential application of the proposed method.     

多级计分测验中基于残差统计量的被试拟合研究

本文提出一种多级计分项目下的个人拟合统计量R, 考察它在检测6种常见的异常作答模式(作弊、猜测、随机、粗心、创新作答、混合异常)下的表现, 并与标准化对数似然统计量l_zp进行比较。结果表明：(1) 在异常作答覆盖率较低并且异常作答类型为作弊和猜测时, R的检测率显著高于l_zp; (2) 随着测验长度和被试异常程度的增加, 两种统计量的检测率都会上升; (3) 在一些条件下, R与l_zp检测效果接近。实证数据分析进一步展示了R统计量的使用方法和过程, 结果也表明R统计量具有较好的应用前景。     

The Influence of Goal Orientation and Risk on Creativity

Employees' creative performance has been found to play a vital role in the continued existence and growth of organizations. Many individual differences (e.g., openness to experience) are significantly related to creative output, but the importance of individuals' goal orientation on creative performance under high or low risk situations has been overlooked. To address this gap in the literature, we studied the relationship between risk and creativity, and investigated whether an individual's goal orientation enhances (i.e., learning orientation) or diminishes (i.e., avoid or prove orientation) the relationship between risk and creative performance. The hypotheses were tested in a laboratory environment using undergraduate subjects. Results showed a positive relationship between risk and creativity. The findings also supported the idea that individuals low in avoid orientation cultivate more creative outputs under high rather than low risk conditions. Limitations, future research, and implications are addressed.     

Self-assessment,self-enhancement,and task preference

If task choice depends on a person's interest in the accurate assessment of his or her abilities, task attractiveness should be positively related to the diagnosticities of all performance outcomes with regard to one's ability level. In contrast, the view that people are primarily interested in maximizing pride or mininizing shame would predict that task attractiveness is positively related to the diagnosticity of success but negatively related to the diagnosticity of failure. To test these predictions, subjects were presented with tasks that varied orthogonally in the extent to which success was diagnostic of high ability level and the extent to which failure was diagnostic of low ability level. Consistent with the self-assessment view, task attractiveness increased both with the diagnosticity of success and with the diagnosticity of failure. Furthermore, both effects were more pronounced for high achievement motive subjects than for low achievement motive subjects. This result lends support to the self-assessment view, which assumes that high achievement motive subjects are more interested in attaining the ability-relevant information contained in any performance outcome.     

时间距离、封面故事和概率对框架效应的影响

研究一以时间距离和封面故事为变量考察对认知相关性的影响, 结果发现时间距离、封面故事及二者间的交互作用显著。坏封面故事中, 人们对1年后发生的事件要比1周、5年与50年后事件的认知相关程度都高, 即最重视; 好封面故事中, 4个时间距离间的认知相关程度差异不显著。研究二在1周、1年、5年和50年四个时间距离下, 探讨封面故事、框架和概率对风险偏好的影响, 结果表明：仅当时间距离为1周时, 不同概率在坏封面故事中风险倾向的差异显著。同时, 大概率下, 封面故事、封面故事与框架的交互作用对风险偏好的影响达到显著水平, 表现出在坏封面故事中, 与负面框架相比, 正面框架下风险回避的比例更高, 符合框架效应。结合研究一、二发现框架效应正发生在认知相关程度最低时。     

Sex Differences in Self-reported Infidelity and its Correlates

We examined sex differences in the prevalence, incidence, reasons for, and consequences of infidelity. Participants (Study 1, 543 undergraduates in the Northwestern US; Study 2, 313 undergraduates and 233 community members in the Mid-Atlantic US), reported on infidelity by questionnaire. Using a broad definition of cheating, women reported being as unfaithful or more unfaithful than men. Men were more suspicious about cheating and more likely to discover the cheating than women. Women were more likely to break up with their partners, to begin new relationships after cheating, and to report reasons for cheating that may indicate a desire to switch long-term mates, such as being unhappy in the current relationship. Results are discussed in the context of evolutionary theory.