Prediction and classification in nonlinear data analysis: Something old,something new,something borrowed,something blue

Prediction and classification are two very active areas in modern data analysis. In this paper, prediction with nonlinear optimal scaling transformations of the variables is reviewed, and extended to the use of multiple additive components, much in the spirit of statistical learning techniques that are currently popular, among other areas, in data mining. Also, a classification/clustering method is described that is particularly suitable for analyzing attribute-value data from systems biology (genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics), and which is able to detect groups of objects that have similar values on small subsets of the attributes.This article is based on the Presidential Address Jacqueline Meulman gave on July 9, 2003 at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society held near Cagliari, Italy on the island of Sardinia.—Editor     

On the Assessment of Situational Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: The Situational Motivation Scale (SIMS)

The purpose of the present research was to develop and validate a situational (or state) measure of motivation, the Situational Motivation Scale (SIMS). The SIMS is designed to assess the constructs of intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, external regulation, and amotivation (E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan, 1985, 1991) in field and laboratory settings. Five studies were conducted to develop and validate the SIMS. Overall, results show that the SIMS is composed of 4 internally consistent factors. The construct validity of the scale is also supported by correlations with other constructs as postulated by current theories. Moreover, the SIMS is responsive to experimental induction as evidenced by data gathered through a laboratory study. In sum, the SIMS represents a brief and versatile self-report measure of situational intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, external regulation, and amotivation.     

Resilience and Enhancement in Sport,Exercise, & Training (RESET): A brief self-compassion intervention with NCAA student-athletes

Athletes often believe that self-criticism is necessary to avoid complacency, but this attitude can lead to anxiety and stress. Research shows that self-compassion is an adaptive way to relate to mistakes and challenges. Although there are many benefits of self-compassion, fear that self-compassion harms performance may discourage athletes from adopting this approach. This study developed and tested an online self-compassion intervention for athletes called RESET (Resilience and Enhancement in Sport, Exercise, & Training), adapted from the Mindful Self-Compassion program. Between-group analyses (multilevel modeling; MLM) and within-group analyses (paired t-tests) were used to assess the effectiveness of the intervention on athletes’ ability to respond compassionately to failure, improve well-being, and increase perceived sport performance. Compared to the waitlist control (n = 102, 71% women), the intervention group (n = 148, 90% women) experienced greater increases in self-compassion, decreases in self-criticism and fear of self-compassion, and greater improvements in perceived performance. In general, the intervention was more effective for those who had the most room for growth. Within-group analyses supported the MLM findings while also showing that athletes who participated in the RESET program experienced reduced levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. Program evaluation measures, including participant testimonials, extend the quantitative findings and demonstrate that RESET was engaging, well-liked, and effective.     

Validation of a German version of the Sport Motivation Scale (SMS28) and motivation analysis in competitive mountain runners

This study validated a German version of the Sport Motivation Scale (SMS28) and investigated the sex-specific and age-related differences in motivation of competitive mountain runners. Translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the SMS28 was based on translation and back-translation methodology. Acceptable validity of the German version of the SMS28 was indicated by the high correlations (.81 to .98) of scores on the seven subscales for the English and German versions completed by 15 subjects. Motivation analysis was performed with 127 competitive male and female mountain runners. The seven subscales of the German version showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's coefficient alphas .70 to .85). Findings on motivation of competitive mountain runners were a decline across age groups of Intrinsic motivation toward accomplishment for both sexes and an age-related decline of External regulation only for females. These motivational changes might well be associated with the observed diminishing numbers of older participants in mountain running competitions.     

The Motivational Atmosphere in Youth Sport: Coach,Parent, and Peer Influences on Motivation in Specializing Sport Participants

This study qualitatively examined the motivationally relevant behaviors of key social agents in specializing sport participants. Seventy-nine participants (9–18 years old) from 26 sports participated in semi-structured focus groups investigating how coaches, parents, and peers may influence motivation. Using a critical-realist perspective, an inductive content analysis indicated that specializing athletes perceived a multitude of motivationally relevant social cues. Coaches’ and parents’ influences were related to their specific roles: instruction/assessment for coaches, support-and-facilitation for parents. Peers influenced motivation through competitive behaviors, collaborative behaviors, evaluative communications, and through their social relationships. The results help to delineate different roles for social agents in influencing athletes’ motivation.     

The new (old) age movement: Assessing a Vatican assessment

This article examines the recent Vatican document "Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the 'New Age' ". This official Catholic response to a diverse and polycentric religio-spiritual phenomenon reveals problematic conditions and core institutional concerns surrounding religion in the culture of postmodernity. These concerns--which are both cause and effect of the diffusion of Catholic identity--include pollution motifs, the impact of relativism, pluralism, privatized religiosity, and waning institutional control of religious symbols. Attention is also directed to the efficacy of doctrinal formulations as a boundary maintenance mechanism and to the way in which the Vatican response to the New Age movement exemplifies church/sect dynamics within contemporary Catholicism.     

The Tourette's Disorder Scale (TODS): development, reliability, and validity

To address the lack of a simple and standardized instrument to assess overall illness severity of Tourette's disorder (TD), the authors developed and tested a 15-item scale to measure a broad range of common symptoms including tics, inattention, hyperactivity, obsessions, compulsions, aggression, and emotional symptoms. Independent investigators used the 15-item Tourette's Disorder Scale (TODS) to assess 60 TD patients who were taking part in a double-blind placebo-controlled multicenter 8-week treatment study. Interrater reliability, internal consistency, convergent and discriminant validity, and sensitivity to change were examined. The TODS was associated with good interrater reliability, excellent internal consistency, and favorable levels of validity and sensitivity to change. Individual TODS items showed good convergent and discriminant validity against other measures. The TODS is a simple, efficient way for clinicians and parents to rate the severity of multiple symptoms commonly found in patients with Tourette's disorder.     

The old and thee, uh, new: disfluency and reference resolution

Most research on the rapid mental processes of on-line language processing has been limited to the study of idealized, fluent utterances. Yet speakers are often disfluent, for example, saying "thee, uh, candle" instead of "the candle." By monitoring listeners' eye movements to objects in a display, we demonstrated that the fluency of an article ("thee uh" vs. "the") affects how listeners interpret the following noun. With a fluent article, listeners were biased toward an object that had been mentioned previously, but with a disfluent article, they were biased toward an object that had not been mentioned. These biases were apparent as early as lexical information became available, showing that disfluency affects the basic processes of decoding linguistic input.     

Exploring the Clinical Implications of the International CS Reference Data for Children and Adolescents (Meyer,Erdberg, & Shaffer, 2007)

As part of an ongoing study on the prediction of suicide, a replication study was carried out on the Neuropsychiatric Hospital Suicide Potential Scale (NPHSPS), a recently constructed schedule for prediction of potentiality for committed suicide among hospitalized neuropsychiatric patients at the time of release from the hospital. The population consisted of 54 patients who had committed suicide and 50 patients who had not. Overall accuracy of the scale was 81.7 percent, with 95.2 percent accuracy for prediction of the high risk group and 80.0 percent accuracy for prediction of nonsuicidal controls. By computation of posterior probability, the scale is shown to increase accuracy of prediction more than five-fold over use of the base rate (or prior probability) alone, but it is also evident the level of prediction of suicide is still too minimal to permit individual clinical application.     

Filling-in models of completion: rejoinder to Kellman, Garrigan, Shipley, and Keane (2007) and Albert (2007)

There has been a growing interest in understanding the computations involved in the processes underlying visual segmentation and interpolation in conditions of occlusion. P. J. Kellman, P. Garrigan, T. F. Shipley, and B. P. Keane and M. K. Albert defended the view that identical contour interpolation mechanisms underlie modal and amodal completion. In the current rejoinder, the author provides further psychophysical evidence against this view and argues that no physiological data support the claim that modal and amodal contours are represented identically at any stage of processing. The author also shows that the illusory glass surfaces that Kellman et al. and Albert upheld as evidence against his arguments about luminance constraints in completion are explained by theoretical principles that he has previously articulated, and variants of these illusions receive no explanation within either of the models Kellman et al. and Albert propose. The author shows that the principles needed to explain these percepts embody fundamental asymmetries in the way that relative depth shapes segmentation and interpolation processes and that models of completion that lack these constraints--such as P. J. Kellman, P. Garrigan, and T. F. Shipley's and M. K. Albert's --cannot account for a host of documented completion phenomena.     

The Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS): construction,validity, and reliability

Psychometric properties of mathematics anxiety measures have not adequately been studied. Using a large sample size (N = 1,239), the authors developed an abbreviated math anxiety measure, examined its psychometric properties, and assessed the generalizability of the model across samples. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a nine-item measure and strong internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and good convergent/divergent validity was demonstrated with an independent sample. When administered to a replication sample, indexes suggested an excellent model fit. TheAbbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS) may represent a more parsimonious and valid approach to assess mathematics anxiety.     

The Environmental Reward Observation Scale (EROS): development, validity, and reliability

Researchers acknowledge a strong association between the frequency and duration of environmental reward and affective mood states, particularly in relation to the etiology, assessment, and treatment of depression. Given behavioral theories that outline environmental reward as a strong mediator of affect and the unavailability of an efficient, reliable, and valid self-report measure of environmental reward, we developed the Environmental Reward Observation Scale (EROS) and examined its psychometric properties. In Experiment 1, exploratory factor analysis supported a unidimensional 10-item measure with strong internal consistency and test-retest reliability. When administered to a replication sample, confirmatory factor analysis suggested an excellent fit to the 1-factor model and convergent/discriminant validity data supported the construct validity of the EROS. In Experiment 2, further support for the convergent validity of the EROS was obtained via moderate correlations with the Pleasant Events Schedule (PES; MacPhillamy & Lewinsohn, 1976). In Experiment 3, hierarchical regression supported the ecological validity of the EROS toward predicting daily diary reports of time spent in highly rewarding behaviors and activities. Above and beyond variance accounted for by depressive symptoms (BDI), the EROS was associated with significant incremental variance in accounting for time spent in both low and high reward behaviors. The EROS may represent a brief, reliable and valid measure of environmental reward that may improve the psychological assessment of negative mood states such as clinical depression.     

Development, Freedom, and Rising Happiness: A Global Perspective (1981–2007)

ABSTRACT— Until recently, it was widely held that happiness fluctuates around set points, so that neither individuals nor societies can lastingly increase their happiness. Even though recent research showed that some individuals move enduringly above or below their set points, this does not refute the idea that the happiness levels of entire societies remain fixed. Our article, however, challenges this idea: Data from representative national surveys carried out from 1981 to 2007 show that happiness rose in 45 of the 52 countries for which substantial time-series data were available. Regression analyses suggest that that the extent to which a society allows free choice has a major impact on happiness. Since 1981, economic development, democratization, and increasing social tolerance have increased the extent to which people perceive that they have free choice, which in turn has led to higher levels of happiness around the world, as the human development model suggests.     

The Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions Scale (REMS): construction, reliability, and validity

Racial microaggressions are subtle statements and behaviors that unconsciously communicate denigrating messages to people of color. In recent years, a theoretical taxonomy and subsequent qualitative studies have introduced the types of microaggressions that people of color experience. In the present study, college- and Internet-based samples of African Americans, Latina/os, Asian Americans, and multiracial participants (N = 661) were used to develop and validate the Racial and Ethnic Microaggression Scale (REMS). In Study 1, an exploratory principal-components analyses (n = 443) yielded a 6-factor model: (a) Assumptions of Inferiority, (b) Second-Class Citizen and Assumptions of Criminality, (c) Microinvalidations, (d) Exoticization/Assumptions of Similarity, (e) Environmental Microaggressions, and (f) Workplace and School Microaggressions, with a Cronbach's alpha of .912 for the overall model and subscales ranging from .783 to .873. In Study 2, a confirmatory factor analysis (n = 218) supported the 6-factor model with a Cronbach's alpha of .892. Further analyses indicate that the REMS is a valid measure of racial microaggressions, as evidenced by high correlations with existing measures of racism and participants' feedback. Future research directions and implications for practice are discussed.