An empirical investigation of Shneidman's formulations regarding suicide: age and sex

This study of suicide notes, concerning the demographic variables of age and sex, involved the deduction of 50 classifications (protocol sentences) that reflected important aspects of Shneidman's formulations with regard to suicide. Independent judges noted the incidence of contents corresponding to the protocol sentences in the notes left by 60 suicides-20 notes written by individuals (females and males) in each of the three categories of Young, Middle, and Late Adulthood. Age (notably in regard to Young Adults), but not sex, was found to be a critical discriminating variable on a number of specific classifications and clusters of these classifications (Perturbation, Relations, Cognitions Regarding Self, and Long-Term Instability), although considerable similarities were also noted across the adult life span. Implications of the results are discussed.     

A predictive approach to Freud's formulations regarding suicide

This study of suicide notes involved the deduction of 25 protocol sentences that reflected important specific aspects of Freud's formulations regarding suicide. Independent judges noted the incidence of contents corresponding to the protocol sentences in 33 genuine and 33 simulated notes. Comparisons between genuine and simulated notes revealed that the protocol sentences discriminated significantly as a set in favor of the genuine notes. Individual statements found significantly more frequently in genuine notes indicated loss and/or rejection, preoccupation with a lost person, ambivalence toward a lost person, identification with a lost person, communicating feelings of anger toward oneself but appearing to be angry toward someone else, turning back upon oneself murderous wishes or impulses, and seeing the act as a fulfillment of self-punishment. A frequency count of the sentences in the notes indicated that these statements occurred quite frequently (i.e., at least one-third of the time) in the genuine notes. Implications of the results are discussed.     

Psychache and suicide ideation among men who are homeless: a test of Shneidman's model

Suicide ideation among the homeless is 10 times more common than in the general population. Cognitive theories of depression and hopelessness propose to explain suicidality; however, as yet, none of these fully account for the phenomenon. Shneidman has suggested a theory of psychache or unbearable psychological pain to explain suicidality. This theory has found support among low-risk populations but has not been extensively tested within a high-risk population. The current research assessed the utility of psychache among men who are homeless (N = 97). In support of Shneidman's theory, analyses revealed that psychache was a stronger predictor of suicide ideation than was depression, hopelessness, or life meaning.     

Subjective phrase structure: An empirical investigation

The present study represents an attempt to investigate the basis of subjective groupings of words in sentences, employing Edwin Martin's subjective phrase structure technique. Results indicate that subjects base their judgments not only on grammatical structure but also on constituent length and on stress and intonation patterns.A shorter version of this paper was presented to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association at McGill University, Montreal, May 1972.     

An empirical investigation of adolescent suicidal ideation.

Four hundred nine high school students were surveyed to determine the percentage who had experienced suicidal ideation. The sample was then divided into high- and low-suicidal-risk groups. High-risk subjects were found to have significantly poorer quality friendships, lower self-esteem, and had experienced more life stress in the previous year.     

Mother-blaming in family therapy: An empirical investigation

Abstract

This study tested two hypotheses derived from the feminist critique of family therapy in a sample of AAMFT members. The stimulus was a brief vignette of an initial therapy session with a family presenting a teen-aged child as the identified patient. It was hypothesized that family therapists would rate the mothers in the vignette as more dysfunctional than fathers. It was also hypothesized that mothers would be asked to bear more of the burden of change in treatment plans written by subjects. Neither hypothesis was supported. However, respondents did rate the concerned parent, regardless of sex, as more dysfunctional. Since this is a role often occupied by women, this finding may indicate some gender bias.     

An empirical investigation of self-esteem as a composite construct

Three measures of chronic self-esteem, plus four measures developed to assess situational components of self-esteem (task-specific self-esteem and social self-esteem), were administered to 238 undergraduates at a large, urban university and a community college in the southeastern United States. Evidence for a composite construct of self-esteem was found. Results also indicate task-specific self-esteem correlates as high as .42 (p < .01) with chronic self-esteem and as high as .76 (p < .01) with social self-esteem. Task-specific self-esteem was found to be a better predictor of grade point average than chronic or social self-esteem. Suggestions are made for further research on the situational components of self-esteem to extend current findings.     

The problem of empirical redundancy of constructs in organizational research: An empirical investigation

Construct empirical redundancy may be a major problem in organizational research today. In this paper, we explain and empirically illustrate a method for investigating this potential problem. We applied the method to examine the empirical redundancy of job satisfaction (JS) and organizational commitment (OC), two well-established organizational constructs. Analysis based on responses from a sample of 292 employees collected at two occasions showed that: (a) the construct-level correlation between JS and OC was very high (.91) and (b) both JS and OC are similarly related to positive affectivity and negative affectivity. These results suggest that the constructs may be empirically indistinguishable, despite their well-established conceptual distinction. These findings illustrate the problem of empirical redundancy of organizational constructs and provide a basis for a possible movement towards parsimony in the realm of constructs that could open the way to more rapid advances in knowledge in organizational research.     

Suicide schemas in non-affective psychosis: An empirical investigation

Suicide is the leading cause of premature death among individuals experiencing psychosis. The risk of suicide is proposed to increase with a greater potential for activation of suicide related schemas. Empirical representations of suicide schemas were compared between individuals experiencing non-affective psychosis, with and without a history of suicidal behaviour. Employing a cross-sectional between-groups comparison design, 84 participants, previously diagnosed with a non-affective psychotic disorder, were recruited from community mental health services. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire and clinical measures of psychopathology. To assess participants’ suicide schemas, a series of direct and indirect cognitive tasks were designed and administered. Pathfinder analysis enabled the construction of empirically derived representations of the groups’ suicide schemas based on responses to the cognitive tasks. The suicide group achieved significantly greater scores on measures of anxiety, depression, hopelessness and suicidality than the non-suicide group, but not on measures indicative of the severity of psychosis. The suicide schema for the suicide group was more elaborate and extensive than for the non-suicide group, even when clinical measures were taken into account. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

An empirical investigation of the factor structure of the AUDIT

This study investigated the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test's (AUDIT) factor structure and psychometric properties. The factor structure was derived from a sample of 7,035 men and women primary care patients. A principal components analysis identified 2 factors in the AUDIT data and was supported in a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The 2 factors were Dependence/Consequences and Alcohol Consumption. The CFA also provided support for a 3-factor model whose factors (Alcohol Consumption, Alcohol Dependence, and Related Consequences) matched those proposed by the AUDIT's developers. Psychometric indexes were determined by use of the baseline and 12-month follow-up data of 301 men and women who entered a clinical trial. The results showed that the 2 factors had good reliability. Validity tests supported the interpretation of what the 2 factors measure, its implications for relationships to other variables, and the comparability of the 2- and 3-factor models.     

Negotiated belief structures and decision performance: An empirical investigation

When a group approaches a decision, each member may hold a schema for the information domain of the issue in question. A negotiated belief structure represents the politically enacted collection of schemata employed by the group in their deliberations. The aggregation of these schemata is marked by two structural properties—realized coverage and realized consensus. An examination of 713 product decisions made by 29 firms in a simulated business environment indicates that these structural properties are systematically related to product and firm performance.     

Out-of school youth in high-unemployment areas: An empirical investigation

A total of 551 interviews were conducted with 16-20 year olds living in high unemployment areas in Liverpool, London, Manchester and Wolverhampton. The diverse ways in which the young unemployed react to their predicaments are described, and explanations are offered for why black youth tend to be less acquiescent than whites. Overall, however, the analysis emphasises the ability of the young people at greatest risk of unemployment to devise their own coping strategies. Counsellors and other careers workers are advised to take these into account: otherwise their efforts are likely to be discounted by their clients.     

An empirical investigation of the visual rightness theory of picture perception

This research subjected the visual rightness theory of picture perception to experimental scrutiny. It investigated the ability of adults untrained in the visual arts to discriminate between reproductions of original abstract and representational paintings by renowned artists from two experimentally manipulated less well-organized versions of each art stimulus. Perturbed stimuli contained either minor or major disruptions in the originals' principal structural networks. It was found that participants were significantly more successful in discriminating between originals and their highly altered, but not slightly altered, perturbation than expected by chance. Accuracy of detection was found to be a function of style of painting and a viewer's way of thinking about a work as determined from their verbal reactions to it. Specifically, hit rates for originals were highest for abstract works when participants focused on their compositional style and form and highest for representational works when their content and realism were the focus of attention. Findings support the view that visually right (i.e., "good") compositions have efficient structural organizations that are visually salient to viewers who lack formal training in the visual arts.     

An empirical investigation of Garnets and Pleck's Sex Role Strain Analysis

This study is an empirical investigation of Garnets and Pleck's conceptual analysis — the Sex Role Strain Analysis — which sought to explain the contradictory findings in regard to the relationship between sex role identity and self-esteem. Garnets and Pleck (Sex Role Identity, Androgyny, and Sex Role Transcendence: A Sex Role Strain Analysis, Psychology of Women, 1979, 3(3), 270–283) argued that, while much of previous research assumed that sex role identity has a direct effect on self-esteem, the relationship between the two is actually moderated by the same-sex ideal and sex role salience. This paper adapted the model by considering the effect of sex role salience at the individual and at the cultural levels. More specifically, the revised model was tested within two societies (India and Australia) that differ markedly in the level of sex role salience at the cultural level. The results revealed that sex role salience at the cultural level is an important moderating variable. In the Indian sample, for example, the relationship between sex role ientity and self-esteem is moderated by individual's perception of the sam-sex ideal. In societies (e.g., Australia) that emphasize individuality, however, the relationship between sex role identity and self-esteem is probably moderated by other variables such as individuals' perception of the image that they desire for themselves. The implications of these findings for sex role identity research are discussed.     

Changes in subject performance during the semester: An empirical investigation

Two experiments were conducted to probe for performance differences between early-semester subjects and late-semester subjects in an introductory psychology subject pool. In Experiment 1A, hypotheses regarding changes in performance included differential effort, changes in subjects’ attention to the task, and changes in subjects’ sensitivity. A signal detection paradigm was used, and 278 subjects were sampled over the course of the semester. No evidence of changes in subject performance was found, in spite of sufficient power to detect relevant patterns of change. The results of a replication (N = 135) were consistent with those of Experiment 1A. Experiment 2 (N = 118) employed a text comprehension task to examine possible differences in subject performance with a more cognitive task. Again, there was no evidence to support the idea that late-semester subjects were performing differently from early-semester subjects.     

An empirical investigation of dispositional antecedents and performance-related outcomes of credit scores

Many organizations use credit scores as an employment screening tool, but little is known about the legitimacy of such practices. To address this important gap, the reported research conceptualized credit scores as a biographical measure of financial responsibility and investigated dispositional antecedents and performance-related outcomes. Using personality data collected from employees, objective credit scores obtained from the Fair Isaac Corporation, and performance data provided by supervisors, we found conscientiousness to be positively related and agreeableness to be negatively related to credit scores. Results also indicate significant relationships between credit scores and task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors. Credit scores did not, however, predict workplace deviance. Implications for organizations currently using or planning to use credit scores as part of the screening process are discussed.