Can Skeptics Earn Their Keep?

This paper investigates the prospects for skepticism once we distinguish between bare skeptical theses and arguments and mature philosophical theory. If all skeptics have to offer is bare theses and arguments, skepticism presents only a challenge of reflective equilibrium. But if skeptics can move toward developed theory, then skeptics have, as I will put it, earned their keep. Just as foundationalism should be taken seriously in part because theory development goes well beyond a mere regress argument for the view, just so skepticism needs theory development to be taken seriously as well. The problem is that it is not clear that theory development is possible for skeptics. Here I articulate this concern and give some grounds for thinking that it can be overcome.     

Can Nonverbal Cues be Used to Make Meaningful Personality Attributions in Employment Interviews?

Purpose  This study examines the role of personality attributions in understanding the relationships between nonverbal cues and interview performance ratings. Design/methodology/approach  A structured behavioral interview was developed for identifying management potential in a large, national company. Using a concurrent design to validate the interview, managers were interviewed and the interviews were videotaped (n = 110). These videotapes were used as stimuli for raters in this study. Findings  Results indicate that raters can make personality attributions using only one channel of information and these attributions partly explain the relationships between nonverbal cues and performance measures. Furthermore, conscientiousness attributions explain the relationship between visual cues and interview ratings, extraversion attributions mediate the relationship between vocal cues and interview ratings. Neuroticism attributions had a suppressing effect for both visual and vocal cues. Implications   No matter how much an interview is structured, nonverbal cues cause interviewers to make attributions about candidates. If we face this fact, rather than consider information from cues as bias that should be ignored, interviewers can do a better job of focusing on job-related behavior and information in the interview, while realizing that the cues are providing information that must be attended to. Originality/value  This study isolated the sources of information provided to raters to either the vocal or the visual channel to examine their impact individually. A Brunswik lens model shows the potential impact of personality attributions predicting both job and interview performance ratings when both channels of information are used.     

Do Better Trainees Make Worse Family Therapists? A Followup Study of Client Families

This study was designed to evaluate the effects of training on family therapy outcome and to validate measures of cognitive/perceptual and executive skills. Followup data on family satisfaction were obtained from 176 individuals (73 families) treated by 12 trainee family therapists in their first or second year of training. The prediction that clients' scores on a scale of family satisfaction with therapy (FSS) would increase with training was not confirmed. Instead, there was a tendency for FSS scores to decrease with training. However, trainees' ratings of outcome did increase significantly as training progressed. Cognitive/perceptual and executive skill measures were not validated by the FSS, but negative associations indicated a tendency for trainees with high course-skills to receive poor FSS scores. The results suggest that trainees became more confident as they acquired technical skills, but that they put aside their nonspecific therapist skills as training progressed, to the dissatisfaction of families.     

Jobs Commensurate With Their Skills? Selected Workers and Skilled Job Access in Québec

The ability of recent landed immigrants to find employment that is commensurate with their skills is a frequent subject of debate. This article analyses one dimension of this phenomenon: namely, how well does post-landing employment correlate to pre-landing levels of education as measured through the Québec selection grid. The analysis is done through a longitudinal retrospective survey of a probabilistic sample of principal applicants from the economic class admitted to Québec between January 1997 and June 2000. In order to better measure the condition of immigrants at their time of arrival, the results of the survey are analysed along with the administrative data taken from Québec’s selection grid and the confirmation of permanent residence. This article analyses the speed of the requalification that the members of the economic class undertake. This analysis attempts to answer two questions: Is the level attained by the cohort normal? At what speed do these immigrants attain these expected outcomes?     

Aptitude Tests: Can We Predict Their Future?

Garcia, J. The Logic and Limits of Mental Aptitude Testing. American Psychologist, 1981, 36, 1172–1180. Hargadon, F. Tests and College Admissions. American Psychologist, 1981, 36, 1112–1119.     

Is it Racist? Addressing Racial Microaggressions in Counselor Training

This article describes a series of activities for educating counselors regarding a form of racism dubbed racial microaggressions. Meaning and impact of microaggressions are examined. Activities for responding to microaggressions can be applied to clinical and school contexts, and are useful for educators in professional and university settings.     

Do People Know How Their Personality Has Changed? Correlates of Perceived and Actual Personality Change in Young Adulthood

Abstract How much do we think our personality changes over time? How well do our perceptions of change correspond with actual personality change? Two hundred and ninety students completed measures of the Big Five personality traits when they first entered college. Four years later, they completed the same measures and rated the degree to which they believed they had changed on each dimension. Participants tended to view themselves as having changed substantially, and perceptions of change showed some correspondence with actual personality change. Perceived and actual change showed theoretically meaningful correlations with a host of variables related to different aspects of college achievement and adjustment.     

Implicit Trait Policies in Multimedia Situational Judgment Tests for Leadership Skills: Can They Predict Leadership Behavior?

To explain why situational judgment tests are often correlated with personality measures, Motowidlo, Hooper, and Jackson (2006a Motowidlo, S. J., Hooper, A. C. and Jackson, H. L. 2006a. Implicit policies about relations between personality traits and behavioral effectiveness in situational judgment items. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91: 749–761. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2006b Motowidlo, S. J., Hooper, A. C. and Jackson, H. L. 2006b. “A theoretical basis for situational judgment tests”. In Situational judgment tests: Theory, measurement, and application, Edited by: Weekley, J. A. and Ployhart, R. E. 57–81. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.  [Google Scholar]) developed the implicit trait policy theory. Implicit trait policies are beliefs about causal relationships between personality traits and behavioral effectiveness. Among 180 employees, this field study examined whether a multimedia situational judgment test that was intended to assess leadership skills can capture individual differences in such policies. Furthermore, it was examined whether these implicit trait policies were able to predict leadership behavior. Results confirmed that the situational judgment test was able to capture individual differences in implicit trait policies for Extraversion and Conscientiousness. Furthermore, results showed that implicit trait policies for Extraversion can predict leadership behavior over and above leadership experience and the associated personality trait.     

How Accurate are Recruiters' First Impressions of Applicants in Employment Interviews?

The ability of recruiters and laypersons (students) to detect applicant personality traits and deception was studied. Participants viewed mock videotapes of target applicants answering interview questions. They subsequently judged the applicants' personality on the Big Five dimensions. Then, they viewed another videotape with other applicants presenting themselves either truthfully or not, and subsequently guessed which version was truthful. Personality judgments were compared with targets' self‐assessments and peer assessments to create an accuracy score. Both recruiters and students accurately detected applicants' global personality profile. Recruiters were better at this than students. However, students were better at judging the specific traits of openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, whereas recruiters only accurately detected openness. Recruiters detected lies above chance whereas students did not.     

Imaginary Companions in Childhood: What Can Prospective Longitudinal Research Tell Us About Their Fate by Adolescence?

Do adolescents remember imaginary companions (ICs) from early childhood? Researchers interviewed 46 adolescent participants in a prospective longitudinal study about their ICs from early childhood (age 5½). The existence of one or more ICs was documented in early childhood for 48% of children (G. Trionfi & E. Reese, 2009). At age 16, most adolescents had forgotten their early childhood ICs: Only 5 of the 23 participants who had early childhood ICs recalled those ICs later. Eight participants who had forgotten their early childhood ICs recalled a later IC, and four participants who did not have an IC at age 5 ½ reported one by age 16. Ten of the 23 participants who had early childhood ICs claimed never to have had an IC. Girls were more likely to recall their early childhood ICs. Retrospective reports of ICs in adolescence or later life may be unreliable for investigating differences between those with and without imaginary companions. Those with ICs may not be a homogenous group, with some creating ICs throughout childhood and some desisting from this behavior in early childhood. Findings indicate that both the remembering and forgetting of ICs has potential to illuminate cognitive and creative processes surrounding both memory and imagination.     

How Do Experienced Family Therapists View Their Practice? An Exploratory Assessment of Clinical Skills and Their Relation to Theories of Family Therapy

This study examines the fit between theory based therapeutic skills and the perceptions of experienced therapists about their own skills. Participants responded to a measure of family therapy skills. Of the generic skills, two factors were identified which cut across many areas of practice. For the theory specific skills, two factors were identified which cut across four theories of family therapy. One was consistent with an expert style of therapy and the other reflected a collaborative approach to practice. These findings suggest that clinical training in family therapy should develop ways to train clinicians to match their clinical practice with client needs over theory based models.     

Can Reliabilists Believe in Subjective Probability?

According to reliabilist conceptions of knowledge, knowledge implies reliable true belief. Since reliability is an irreducibly probabilistic notion, one's view of knowledge also depends on one's view of probability. If one believes that all probability is subjective probability, knowledge becomes a relativized concept: knowledge is relative to a given body of beliefs of a given person at a given time. Since such a relativized conception of knowledge is extremely implausible and since reliabilism seems to capture at least part of the truth, one should rather give up a purely subjective view of probability.     

How Do Therapists Understand Their Client’s Problem and Its Resolution: Objectification in Theories of Change

Images and metaphors help to structure the therapist’s belief system in two ways. First, images represent strategies used by therapists in order to simplify the most abstract theoretical concepts. Second, images provide a system according for organizing the information about a client and anticipate the patterns of client change. Within the theoretical frameworks of social representations and of goal directed action theory, the present study explores the metaphorical aspects linked with therapeutic knowledge. This study aims to reconstruct the social representations that therapists use to objectify their theoretical model. The present research relies on a qualitative methodology. The results show that therapists from different orientations rely on different metaphors although, in certain conditions, they tend to share a more general representational system. Implications for psychotherapy training and clinical practice are considered.     

How Do Creative Experts Practice New Skills? Exploratory Practice in Breakdancers

How do expert performers practice as they develop creatively? This study investigated the processes involved in the practice of new skills by expert breakdancers. A great deal of evidence supports the theory of “deliberate practice” (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch‐Römer, 1993, Psychological Review, 100, 363) in skill acquisition; however, expert creative performers may emphasize other forms of practice for skill development. Four case studies collected through fieldwork and laboratory observation were analyzed to evaluate expert dancers’ practice processes as they developed proficiency in new, specific skills. We focused on three aspects of learning: the degree of skill acquisition, the content of skills included in practice, and dancers’ stated purposes for practicing. The results showed that dancers’ practice improved skills (as suggested by deliberate practice) and engaged the exploration of new, original skills, along with coordinating skills within performance. In their practice, these dance experts went beyond deliberative practice to highly exploratory processes for skill development.