Comment on a Monte Carlo investigation of scaling as an alternative to regression

In a recent study, Emery found that MONANOVA is “superior” to regression as a method of approximating data, whether the measurement scale of the criterion variable is interval or ordinal. However, there are three major reasons for these results. With comparison methods that are fairer to both analytical procedures, the performances of regression and of MONANOVA were found to be close even when the measurement scale of the criterion variable is ordinal.     

lay psychology books as an aid to counseling

Counseling literature is replete with research articles and position papers that attempt to draw sharp dichotomies between various counseling theories and techniques. Yet counseling strategies employed by practitioners have, by necessity, often been the result of subjective observation and intuition. In this article the author discusses a “common sense” technique—the use of lay psychology books—and proposes guidelines for use of the procedure as a viable counseling strategy.     

Mathematical surrealism as an alternative to easy-road fictionalism

Philosophical Studies - Easy-road mathematical fictionalists grant for the sake of argument that quantification over mathematical entities is indispensable to some of our best scientific theories...     

Common morality as an alternative to principlism.

Unlike the principles of Kant, Mill, and Rawls, those of principlism are not action guides that stem from an underlying, integrated moral theory. Hence problems arise in reconciling the principles with each other and, indeed, in interpreting them as action guides at all, since they have no content in and of themselves. Another approach to "theory and method in bioethics" is presented as an alternative to principlism, though actually the "alternative" predates principlism by about 10 years. The alternative's account of morality stays close to ordinary, common morality with its rules and ideals, which in turn are grounded in aspects of human nature. As such, morality must be understood to be a rational, impartial, and public system that is incumbent on everyone. Morality is a unified and integrated system. The moral rules and ideals are also "culture-" and "profession-sensitive" in that they are interpreted more specifically within these various contexts.     

Role-playing as an experimental strategy in social psychology

It is argued that the efficacy of role playing as an experimental strategy should be assessed in terms of its ability to resolve the problems of experimentation in social psychology. Via an epistemological and methodological analysis of the laboratory experiment in social psychology, it is argued that ‘active-experimental’ role playing constitutes a promising experimental strategy, because it can potentially overcome the fundamental experimental problem that arise in virtue of the relational nature of social psychological phenomena. It is stressed that in the end the question of the efficacy of role playing as an experimental strategy is an empirical one, but also that most empirical evaluations are inadequate for two reasons. Most of the role playing groups lack realism and involvement, and the congruence of results in role playing studies of deception experiments (whose validity is questionable) is uncritically taken as both the standard and the criterion for the efficacy of role playing. Both role playing and deception techniques should be assessed in terms of their capacity to achieve experimental realism.     

Exploring two approaches to an existential function of religiosity in mental health

Recent research demonstrates beneficial associations between religiosity and measures of mental health. In this study, we examined whether religiosity benefits mental health (a) by limiting the negative impact of existential concerns, and (b) by enhancing purpose in life. Three hundred fifty-three undergraduates completed the following measures: Scale for Existential Thinking, Purpose in Life Test, Religiousness Measure, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale – Revised, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, and the Drug, Alcohol, and Nicotine Scale. We hypothesised that religiosity scores moderate the relationship between existential thinking and mental health, and purpose in life scores mediate the relationship between religiosity and mental health. Religiosity did not moderate the relationships between existential thinking and these outcomes, however, purpose in life scores mediated the relationships of religiosity with depression and anxiety, but not with substance use. Our findings confirm the significance of existential concerns and purpose in life in the religiosity-mental health connection.     

Exploring an alternative in-car music background designed for driver safety

Young drivers listen to highly energetic aggressive music of a fast-tempo and accentuated beat at elevated volumes. They are not aware of the effects that music may have on perception, performance, and control of the vehicle. The crux of the matter is not the use of music per se, but rather the abuse of music that is hazardous. The current study developed a viable alternative music background for in-car listening towards improved driver safety. After a group of everyday listeners confirmed the experimental music as suitable for in-car music listening, 22 drivers each drove four trips while listening to either preferred music CDs or the experimental background, then 31 drivers each drove ten trips while listening to the alternative background. Study A demonstrated criterion related validity, although the experimental background preoccupied less attention. While Study B indicated habituation effects, drivers reported ever increasing levels of positive mood states throughout.     

Adlerian psychology as an intuitive operant system

Traditional accounts of the Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler tend to sentimentalize his system and obscure its functional flavor. Six basic Adlerian positions on human behavior, including Rudolf Dreikurs' "four goals of misbehavior," are interpreted as a primitive statement of operant principles. Applied techniques long used by Individual Psychology practitioners strongly resemble interventions that applied behavior analysts have developed by more systematic means.     

Self-generated cognitive fluency as an alternative route to preference formation

People tend to prefer fluently processed over harder to process information. In this study we examine two issues concerning fluency and preference. First, previous research has pre-selected fluent and non-fluent materials. We did not take this approach yet show that the fluency of individuals’ idiosyncratic on-line interactions with a given stimulus can influence preference formation. Second, while processing fluency influences preference, the opposite also may be true: preferred stimuli could be processed more fluently than non-preferred. Participants performed a visual search task either before or after indicating their preferred images from an array of either paintings by Kandinsky or decorated coffee mugs. Preferred stimuli were associated with fluent processing, reflected in facilitated search times. Critically, this was only the case for participants who gave their preferences after completing the visual search task, not for those stating preferences prior to the visual search task. Our results suggest that the spontaneous and idiosyncratic experience of processing fluency plays a role in forming preference judgments and conversely that our first impressions of preference do not drive response fluency.     

Post-decision consolidation over time as a function of gain or loss of an alternative

Post-decision consolidation processes were studied in a two-stage lottery design. School children (1) rated the attractiveness of audiotape head sets, (2) decided for which of two head sets they would like to get a lottery ticket, (3) threw a dice to determine if they got a lottery ticket in the preferred lottery or not, and (4)drew a ticket in the final lottery. Before and after each of these stages ratings were obtained of the attractiveness of the alternatives on four attributes. The results were interpreted in terms of Differentiation and Consolidation Theory. Post-decision consolidation appeared immediately after the outcome of the dice throw. Subjects who won a lottery ticket consolidated their prior decision to a greater degree than those who lost. The effect was so strong for the former group that a pre-decision attractiveness disadvantage was restructured to a post-decision advantage. Folowing the decision, consolidation remained at approximately the level reached immediately after the dice throw for losers and winners, respectively, but with an increasing trend over time for winners. Even following a final loss of an audiotape headset the level of consolidation was maintained.     

中国神话中的具身心理学思想探索

西方“具身认知”心理学与赋存在中国文化里的以“天人合一”为核心的“体知”心理学思想息息相通, 而中国文化又有其独异于西方文化的“身体”智慧。文化的源头实为神话。追根溯源, 本文主要从具身认知的视阈中将中西方神话中“身体”的角色两相比照, 首先从本体论维度以现象学诠释的方法来描述神话的身体母体是如何生成的, 并以天地开辟神话、万物肇始神话和人类起源神话为例揭示中国“身体”的本体论特色—— 一元论; 其次再从空间维度以概念隐喻的理论来剖析神话的身体现象学场域是如何延展的, 并从物我同一角度、天人交感角度和人神相通角度来彰显中国“身体”的空间维度特色——气论; 最后再从时间维度以社会建构理论来解构神话的身体是如何在时间场域中流变的; 并从社会、文化和历史三个层面来表达中国“身体”的时间维度特色——易论。通过从中国神话故事中挖掘中国传统文化中独有的“具身智慧”, 以期为建立中国人自己的科学心理学起抛砖引玉之用。     

Historical relations of psychology as an object-science and a subject-science: toward psychology as a human science

Textbooks and other teaching of psychology's history oversimplify to the point of presenting it as the evolution of an exclusively object-science--despite general familiarity with integral extrascientistic practices and assumptions. Representative examples are presented, along with an overview of object-psychology's cultural/practical routes to dominance. The purpose of highlighting these facets of psychology's development is to call for psychology to take explicit account of humans' subjecthood as well as objectness, on the way rereading our history toward an integrated science.     

The prediction of intelligence in preschool children using alternative models to regression

Statistical prediction of an outcome variable using multiple independent variables is a common practice in the social and behavioral sciences. For example, neuropsychologists are sometimes called upon to provide predictions of preinjury cognitive functioning for individuals who have suffered a traumatic brain injury. Typically, these predictions are made using standard multiple linear regression models with several demographic variables (e.g., gender, ethnicity, education level) as predictors. Prior research has shown conflicting evidence regarding the ability of such models to provide accurate predictions of outcome variables such as full-scale intelligence (FSIQ) test scores. The present study had two goals: (1) to demonstrate the utility of a set of alternative prediction methods that have been applied extensively in the natural sciences and business but have not been frequently explored in the social sciences and (2) to develop models that can be used to predict premorbid cognitive functioning in preschool children. Predictions of Stanford–Binet 5 FSIQ scores for preschool-aged children is used to compare the performance of a multiple regression model with several of these alternative methods. Results demonstrate that classification and regression treesprovided more accurate predictions of FSIQ scores than does the more traditional regression approach. Implications of these results are discussed.     

A bayesian alternative to least squares and equal weighting coefficients in regression

This paper details a Bayesian alternative to the use of least squares and equal weighting coefficients in regression. An equal weight prior distribution for the linear regression parameters is described with regard to the conditional normal regression model, and resulting posterior distributions for these parameters are detailed. Some interesting connections between this Bayesian procedure and several other methods for estimating optimal weighting coefficients are discussed. In addition, results are presented of a Monte Carlo investigation which compared the effectiveness of the Bayesian procedure relative to least squares, equal weight, ridge, and Bayesian exchangeability estimations.