Peer ratings of depression,anxiety, and aggression in inpatient and elementary school children: Rating biases and influence of rater's self-reported depression,anxiety, and aggression

Using parallel self-, peer, and teacher rating scales, several rating biases in children's peer ratings of depression, anxiety, and aggression were examined. Participants were 66 inpatient and 133 elementary school children (N = 199, 109 boys, 90 girls; 61% white, 39% black) aged 8 to 12, and their teachers. Results showed significant halo bias in both the children's peer ratings and the teachers' ratings. Children's self-reports on each of the three traits were significantly related to their peer ratings of the same trait, while adjusting for socioeconomic status and the peers' teachers' ratings of the same trait. Children who rated themselves as high on each trait rated their peers significantly higher on the same trait than children who rated themselves as medium or low; and for depression and anxiety, those who rated themselves as medium rated their peers significantly higher on those traits than those who rated themselves as low. For both depression and aggression, children's self-reports on the trait were significantly related to their peer ratings of the same trait, but not significantly related to their peer ratings of different traits. Disagreements between children's and teachers' ratings of the peers on all three traits were significantly related to child self-reports on each trait, indicating a possible distortion in children's peer ratings due to self-report. The implications of the results for both peer and others' assessments are discussed, and further investigation of rating biases in other informants' assessments is encouraged.These data were collected as part of the author's doctoral dissertation submitted to Memphis State University. Appreciation is expressed to Stacey Donegan for assistance with the literature review for an earlier version of this paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, New Orleans, March 1993.     

Scale Imposition as Quantitative Alchemy: Studies on the Transitivity of Neuroticism Ratings

It is common practice in psychology to devise “measurement” procedures by imposing rating scales (e.g., Likert items) onto phenomena and treating the values they produce as quantities. The validity of these procedures goes untested. Validity checks are instead performed on sets of these measurement procedures (i.e., multi-item scales). We present results from three studies suggesting that people cannot be assumed to preserve transitivity when comparing themselves and others on NEO Neuroticism-domain trait items. As transitivity is one of the fundamental axioms of quantitative measurement, these studies challenge the validity of Neuroticism scales at the level of individual scale items.     

EFFECTS OF TRAINING AND RATING SCALES ON RATING ERRORS

Ninety business students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions where they used behavioral observation scales (BOS), behavioral expectation scales (BES), or trait scales in observing people on videotape. Half the individuals received four hours of training to minimize rating errors. Rating errors were reduced significantly regardless of the rating scale that was used. However, behavioral criteria were more resistant to rating errors than trait scales. There was no significant difference between BOS and BES on this dimension. With regard to practicality, BOS were evaluated as significantly better than BES and trait scales. BES and trait scales did not differ significantly on this measure.     

Self-esteem, attitude similarity, and attraction

Subjects evaluated three stimulus persons on several rating scales who were either 10%, 50%, or 90% similar to themselves in attitudes Subjects were divided into low, moderate, and high self-esteem groups on the basis of an earlier Q sort The results showed a strong positive relation between perceived similarity and positive attribution for each of the dependent variables, including liking, sophisticated, intelligent, sincere, happy, and a social distance scale A negative relation was obtained for two undesirable traits, arrogant and cynical Self-esteem interacted with similarity on several of the measures The difference between self-esteem groups was largely restricted to highly dissimilar stimulus persons Moderate esteem subjects were more favorable toward dissimilar persons than either of the other two groups, and the high and low groups tended to resemble each other more than either group resembled the moderate esteem group These results were discussed in terms of the relation between self-esteem and adjustment, and in terms of McGuire's (1968) theory that predicts a nonmonotonic relation between self-esteem and attitudes.     

RAINFOREST EMPIRICISM AND QUASI'-RATIONALITY: TWO APPROACHES TO OBJECTIVE BIODATA

Two approaches to objective biodata, designed to achieve the interpretability and stability of rational approaches, yet minimize socially desirable responding, were explored. The first was a quasi-rational attempt to derive biodata analogs to an existing temperament measure, and then use them as rational scales. The second was a theory-based variant of criterion-referenced keying, termed rainforest empiricism. Both were utilized with two consecutive classes of U.S. Military Academy cadets ( n = 2,565) to predict leadership performance over four rating periods. The biodata analogs to the temperament measure added incremental validity over the Academy's current admissions package and had significantly smaller correlations with a social desirability scale than their equivalent temperament scales. Scales developed with the rainforest approach had higher incremental validities and lower social desirability. Both methods demonstrated satisfactory stability upon cross-validation, and provided complementary interpretability. Advantages to each approach, and the implications for their use, are discussed.     

Trait Attributions About College Students With a Physical Disability: Circumplex Analyses and Methodological Issues1

Trait attributions concerning able-bodied college students and those with a physical disability were investigated in two studies. In Study 1, 194 able-bodied students completed extensive adjective checklists in one of four experimental conditions: stimulus person physically disabled (wheelchair user) male, disabled female, able-bodied male, or able-bodied female college student. To avoid self-presentation biases, subjects completed checklists not in terms of their own views but in terms of commonly held stereotypes. Results showed that not only were fewer socially desirable and more undesirable traits attributed to students with a disability than to able-bodied students, but when tested for “sameness” vs. “oppositeness” using two circumplex models, traits attributed to students who have a disability were clearly the “opposite” of those attributed to able-bodied students. In Study 2, 115 students completed a trait checklist based on the findings of Study 1 with reference to one of the four stimulus persons. Although subjects reported their own views, the results were consistent with those of Study 1. It was also found that stereotyping in the socially desirable direction was related to stereotyping in the undesirable direction; both were related to lack of ease with students with a disability. Common stereotypes of wheelchair user students are listed and the implications of the findings for the design of programs to reduce prejudice and integrate students with a disability into academic life are discussed.     

The gulf war: Distressful reactions to scud missiles attacks

This study investigated the relationships among coping strategies, trait anxiety and distressful reactions (State anxiety and fears and symptoms) of Israeli civilians under missile attack during the 1991 Gulf war. During the war sixty-six subjects (46 females and 20 males) completed a questionnaire that measured their distressful reactions and included fears in various situations (e.g., during the night, in the sealed room) and various symptoms (e.g., sleep disturbances, sensitivity to noise). In addition each subject completed the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS, Endler & Parker, 1990a), a multidimensional self-report measure of coping which measures three major coping strategies: task-oriented, emotion-oriented and avoidance-oriented. Subjects also completed the State and Trait anxiety scales of the Endler Multidimensional Anxiety Scales (EMAS, Endler, Edwards, & Vitelli, 1991). The state anxiety scales measure two components of the individual's state anxiety, cognitive worry and autonomic emotional reactions. The trait anxiety scales measure the individual's predisposition to experience anxiety in four different situations: social evaluation, physical danger, ambiguous situations and daily routines. The results showed that individuals who used emotion-oriented coping more frequently, experienced more state anxiety and symptoms and fears, (i.e., experienced greater distress) during the war. Task-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping were not related to the distressful reactions. It was further found that subjects high on physical danger trait anxiety and social evaluation trait anxiety experienced greater fears and more symptoms (i.e., experienced greater distress) during the war. Persons high on social evaluation trait anxiety also experienced great cognitive-worry state anxiety. The results are discussed within the framework of the multidimensional model of stress, anxiety and coping (Endler, 1988; Endler & Parker, 1990a, 1990b) and the special characteristics of the Gulf war situation.     

Agentic and communal bias in socially desirable responding

This research was designed to investigate Paulhus' communion management (CM) and self‐deceptive enhancement (SDE), socially desirable responding (SDR) scales as measures of general SDR, communal bias and agentic bias. The CM and SDE scales, as well as the Schwartz values survey (SVS), were administered to four samples drawn from different cultures and subcultures (N = 900). Participants completed the questionnaires in ‘honest’ and ‘fake good’ conditions. Although conceptions of which values were desirable varied strongly between samples and instructional sets, the CM scale was consistently related to general SDR and to communal bias. In contrast, the SDE scale was only related to general SDR. Contrary to expectations, neither scale could identify participants who ‘faked good’ under normal instructions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Desirability and the Interpretation of Uncertainty Terms in Self‐Report Questions

Uncertainty terms (e.g., possible) are words that are not fixed and hence open to interpretation. This research examined the role of social desirability in how these words are interpreted in self‐report questions. Participants in Experiments 1 (N = 96; MTurk workers) and 2 (N = 96; college students) judged trait (N = 48) and behavior (N = 36) items endorsed by a hypothetical individual to be more likely if they were lower in social desirability. In Experiments 3 (N = 97) and 4 (N = 97) college student participants interpreted four different uncertainty terms (likely, possible, unlikely, and pretty sure) as indicating greater certainty when they referred to socially undesirable (relative to socially desirable) traits (N = 36) and behaviors (N = 24). These results suggest that participants may interpret self‐report items differently, depending on the social desirability of the content.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Situation Trait Relevance, Trait Expression, and Cross-Situational Consistency: Testing a Principle of Trait Activation

An interactionist principle of trait activation is proposed, emphasizing situation trait relevance (i.e., opportunity for trait expression) as a moderator of trait–behavior relations and cross-situational consistency (CSC). One hundred fifty-six students completed trait measures and expressed intentions in 10 scenarios targeted to each of five traits (e.g., risk taking). Trait–intention correlations within scenario sets were themselves correlated with mean situation trait relevance ratings provided by 26 proficient judges; CSCs in intentions (45 correlations per trait) were correlated with an index of shared trait relevance in situation pairs. In support of trait activation, (a) trait–intention relations for three traits were higher in more relevant situations (e.g., second-order r = .66 for risk taking) and (b) CSCs were higher in scenarios jointly high in targeted trait relevance (e.g., second-order r = .55 for risk taking). Discussion highlights applications of trait activation in diverse research domains.     

Asian American-white American differences in expressions of social anxiety: a replication and extension

This study examined whether Asian American-White American differences on a trait measure of social anxiety extend to nonverbal behavior and to reports of anxiety-related emotions during a 3-min social performance task. Forty Asian Americans and 40 White Americans completed a trait measure of social anxiety and rated their emotions before, and immediately after, a social performance task. Their videotaped behavior was coded using microlevel behavioral codes (e.g., gaze avoidance, fidgeting). Results indicated that Asian Americans reported more anxiety than White Americans on the trait measure and on the emotion rating scales but that they did not differ substantially on microlevel behavioral indexes of social anxiety. Implications of ethnic variations in the patterns of anxious responding are discussed.     

Social desirability of subtle and blatant prejudice scales

The present paper analyzes the relation between the measurement of subtle and blatant prejudice proposed by Pettigrew and Meertens in 1995 and the tendency to give socially desirable responses. It also tests whether items that measure subtle prejudice are judged as more socially desirable than those that measure blatant prejudice. Data were obtained from two groups, one of 497 Italian high school students and one of 77 university students. In the first case, the analysis concerns the relation between the prejudice scores and scores on a shortened form of Marlowe and Crowne's Social Desirability Scale. In the second case, we analyzed the social desirability judgments expressed on single items of the Petrigrew and Meertens scales. Analyses indicate that (1) neither Subtle nor Blatant Prejudice scores correlate with the tendency to give socially desirable responses and (2) when the items of the two prejudice scales are placed in order on the social desirability continuum, with very few exceptions the Blatant Prejudice items are situated at the not socially acceptable pole and Subtle Prejudice items at the socially acceptable pole.     

The Relationship between Two Measures of the Tendency to Give Socially Desirable Responses

Two measures of the tendency to endorse socially desirable (SD) responses were obtained for 137 Ss. The first was from Edwards' SD scale and the second from an experimental scale consisting of responses in the P-F Study for which ratings of SD were available. There was no significant correlation between these measures. A second group of 94 Ss then rated a sample of 10 items each from the 2 scales on six bipolar dimensions. It is concluded that there is agreement across Ss as to the connotations of a socially desirable response but that personality type statements differ from responses in social situations in respect to the measure each provides of a person's tendency to endorse SD responses.