Stereotype Threat and Employment Testing: A Commentary

This article comments on Sackett, Schmitt, Ellingson, and Kabin's (2001) suggestion that stereotype threat may not generalize to employment testing, and the 4 articles of this issue following from it. We argue that each experiment lacked the no-stereotype threat control group needed to experimentally test stereotype threat effects; that sizeable stereotype threat effects occurred nonetheless; and that research not reviewed by Sackett et al. suggests that stereotype threat may be the sole cause of important real-life test-score gaps. The 4 experiments, we suggest, reveal important mediators of stereotype threat effects; their test-specific and general form, and their generalizability to IQ testing. We offer a framework for assessing its generalizability to real-life employment tests.     

公共卫生领域非传统安全威胁及应对

医学公共卫生领域非传统安全威胁历来是而且当今仍然是威胁人类自身生存的重大社会安全问题.重大传染病的暴发、自杀、现代医学高科技等现象动辄呈现出全球化趋势,尤其是SARS的爆发,突出了公共卫生的重要性,给我国公共卫生的管理及政策制定提出了更高要求:应真正建立起以"预防为主"的公共卫生体系,加强中国与国际的安全合作,加强公民的医学和健康教育.这是由公共卫生本身的性质和时代的发展共同决定的.     

Psychological Testing and Reporting

An effort to shorten the time spent in psychological testing and reporting is represented by a four-page form which offers opportunity for systematic evaluation of the test battery. Opportunity is provided for reference to relevant test evidence.

While such a form in no way lessens the necessity for full understanding of test results, it helps systematize presentation of test findings as well as serving as a guide to interpretation of the test battery.     

Psychological Responses to the Threat of Nuclear War

We investigated the nature of psychological responses to the threat of nuclear war and the relationships between attitudes and behavior in three studies. The first was a quasi-experimental study of the effects of a film depiction of nuclear war on attitudes and behavior. Results suggested that exposure was mediated by a sense of control over political events, but that exposure itself had no significant effect on psychological responses to nuclear war. The second was an experimental investigation of the effects of efficacy enhancing, fear arousing, or informational tactics as well as individual differences on memory for relevant information and political activism on the issue of nuclear arms control. Results indicated that men exposed to the fear arousal tactic were less likely to take action than those exposed to information alone or efficacy enhancement, whereas women exposed to fear arousal were more likely to act. Gender differences are explained in terms of the socialization of male responses to fear, the "macho" response. Those who showed less denial were more likely to act, as were those who stated intentions to take action. The third study employed structural modeling to examine the relationships between attitudes and behavior. Results supported the Model of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) in showing that intentions to act mediated the relationship between attitudes and behavior on this issue.     

Psychological Counseling Over the Radio: Listening Motivations and the Threat to Self-Esteem

The study applied help-seeking models in order to elucidate individuals' motivations underlying listening to radio counseling programs. Listening motivations for two different counseling programs were compared among listeners and callers to the programs. In addition, the study compared the degree of perceived threat to self-esteem associated with seeking help from a psychologist in a clinic as compared to a psychologist on the air, and examined the self-esteem of listeners and callers to these counseling programs.
Results showed that listeners and callers attribute motivations of receiving psychological information and help to the consumers of these programs. Seeking help from a radio psychologist was found to be less threatening than turning to a psychologist in a clinic. Finally, the self-esteem of callers was lower than that of listeners. The results support the utility of psychological help-seeking models for research in the field of media psychology.     

Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing: More Than a Symbolic Exercise

The 1985 edition of the American Psychological Association's Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing has greatly expanded its coverage of the testing of special populations including handicapped students. The enforcement of the Standards depends upon professionals themselves. Yet, recent surveys of practitioners' knowledge of basic testing and measurement concepts raise serious questions about the extent to which they are prepared to administer and interpret not only standard versions of tests but also modified ones. Extensive in-service training to upgrade skills is recommended.     

The Cognitive-Miser Response Model: Testing for Intuitive and Deliberate Reasoning

In a number of psychological studies, answers to reasoning vignettes have been shown to result from both intuitive and deliberate response processes. This paper utilizes a psychometric model to separate these two response tendencies. An experimental application shows that the proposed model facilitates the analysis of dual-process item responses and the assessment of individual-difference factors, as well as conditions that favor one response tendency over another one.     

Accuracy of Predicting a Child's Response to Potential Threat: A Comparison of Children and Their Mothers

Considerable research has indicated that children and their parents often demonstrate marked discrepancies in their reporting of anxiety-related phenomena. In such cases, the question arises as to whether children are capable of accurately reporting on their anxiety. In the present study, 50 children (aged 5 to 14 years) were asked to approach a large, German Shepherd dog. Prior to the task, both the mother and child independently predicted the closest point likely to be reached by the child and the degree of anxiety likely to be experienced. These predictions were then compared with the actual phenomena displayed by the child during the task. On the behavioural measure (closest step reached), both the child and mother demonstrated equivalent predictive accuracy. On the subjective measure (fear ratings) children were considerably more accurate than their mothers. The data were not influenced by gender, age, or clinical status. The results indicate the ability of children to accurately predict their anxious responses, and support the value of incorporating children's self-reports in the assessment of emotional disorders.     

The Impact of Theory on Psychological Testing: How Psychoanalytic Theory Makes Diagnostic Testing More Enjoyable and Rewarding

The psychometric properties of three scales of alexithymia were examined in a sample of 187 female undergraduates. The Shalling Sifneos Personality State (SSPS) and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality inventory (MMPI) Alexithymia scale had little internal consistency. The scored archetypal test with nine elements (SAT) had very low interrater reliability. As predicted, the three measures were not significantly related to one another and the SSPS had a more clearly defined factor structure than the MMPI scale. The MMPI and SSPS scales were differentially related to measures of symptomatology but were similarly related to extraversion, absorption, and SAT scores. Of the three scales, the SSPS appeared to have the highest content validity. The results suggest that alexithymia is not a unitary construct and that its reification as such may be premature.     

Toward a Domain-Specific Approach to the Study of Parental Psychological Control: Distinguishing Between Dependency-Oriented and Achievement-Oriented Psychological Control

ABSTRACT Theory and research suggest that psychologically controlling parenting can be driven by parental concerns in two different domains, that is, interpersonal closeness and achievement. Three studies addressing this hypothesis are presented. Study 1 provides evidence for the validity of the Dependency-Oriented and Achievement-Oriented Psychological Control Scale (DAPCS), a new measure assessing psychological control in these two domains. Study 2 showed that dependency-oriented and achievement-oriented psychological control were related in expected ways to parental separation anxiety and perfectionism in a sample of mothers and fathers. Finally, Study 3 showed that dependency-oriented and achievement-oriented psychological control were differentially related to middle adolescent dependency and self-criticism and that these personality features act as specific intervening variables between the domain-specific expressions of psychological control and depressive symptoms. It is argued that the distinction between two domain-specific expressions of psychological control may allow for a more intricate analysis of the processes involved in intrusive parenting.     

The Psychological Dimension of Informed Consent: Dissonance Processes in Genetic Testing

This paper discusses the issue of the psychological dimension of informed consent. In this paper, the author proposes that informed consent is a continuous variable rather than a dichotomous one. When clients better understand their motives and actual, rather than just perceived degree of choice in pursuing a particular option in a medical setting, their level of informed consent is greater. Findings from existing literature in the field of genetic testing are examined in terms of dissonance theory. These findings suggest that testing candidates sometimes overestimate their coping skills and minimize the threat to psychological integrity that a particular genetic result may pose. Counseling directed towards realistic appraisal of degree of choice in pursuing testing is examined as an aspect of supporting informed consent and possibly reducing the potential for adverse psychological outcome in the longer term.     

Theoretical Value of Psychological Testing

Apart from their diagnostic value, psychological tests, especially the Rorschach test, have an important theoretical value for understanding psychopathology. They present a picture of a living person, in contrast to a picture of forces and agencies within the person. This rests on 2 advantages of tests over the usual psychiatric and psychoanalytic interviews: Tests are ahistorical and they present information primarily of a formal kind.     

Perceived Threat,Social Identification,and Psychological Well‐Being: The Effects of Political Conflict Exposure

Using data drawn from the adult population in Northern Ireland (N = 1,515), this article examines the relationship between perceived intergroup threat and psychological well‐being, taking into consideration the mediating role of social identification and the moderating role of political conflict exposure. Results by and large confirmed our predictions that perceived threat would be directly associated with poorer well‐being but would also exert a positive indirect effect on well‐being via increased social identification. However, these relationships were dependent on individuals' prior conflict exposure, such that the positive indirect relationship between perceived threat and psychological well‐being emerged only for two subpopulations: individuals who had high direct and high indirect exposure to conflict, and individuals who had low direct, but high indirect conflict exposure. No indirect effects emerged for individuals with relatively lower conflict exposure. Results are discussed with regard to their implications for research on the consequences of intergroup threat in political conflict settings and beyond.     

The Empirical Foundations of Psychoanalytic Approaches to Psychological Testing

The view that psychoanalytic approaches to psychological testing lack empirical foundations is disputed by systematically examining the ways in which psychoanalytic theory expands the sources of data available to the psychological tester at each step in the assessment process. The contention is made that it is unscientific to restrict the concept of what constitutes scientific rigor to formal experimentation with statistical analysis.     

Threat,Knowledge, and Support for a Collective Response to Urban Flooding1

The most realistic solution to recurring urban flooding in most American cities is some form of land use planning (zoning), i.e., an integrated, collective response to this type of threat to the community. Yet there is frequently little public support for such action. The present study surveyed persons living in and around a notorious urban floodplain to assess support for such land use planning as a function of (a) threat, i.e., the motivational effect of proximity to the floodplain, ownership of property at risk, personal flooding history, perceived likelihood of one's home being flooded in the next 5 years, and the presence of small children in the home; and (b) amount of knowledge about variables affecting flooding, i.e., the cognitive element. Although proximity was related strongly to expressions of concern, none of the measures of threat was related to support for land use planning. Knowledge of the variables involved, however, was positively related to support for a planning solution. The findings are discussed in terms of theoretical implications of the cognitive element in collective responses to environmental hazards.     

Parental Psychological Control and Childhood Anxiety: The Mediating Role of Perceived Lack of Control

Parental psychological control has been found to relate to the development of childhood anxiety; however, this relation has not been thoroughly examined. The purpose of this study was to understand the nature of the relation between parental psychological control and anxiety symptoms in children, as well as to understand whether this relation is mediated by children’s perceived control. Questionnaires were administered to children ages 8–11. Results indicated a significant relation between parental psychological control and child anxiety symptoms. Results further indicated that this relation was fully mediated by children’s perceptions of how much control they feel they have over events in their lives. These findings suggest that although parental psychological control and a child’s perceived control both contribute to the development of anxiety, it is possible that parental psychological control contributes to the development of anxiety by affecting a child’s perception of control.     

Traditional and Contemporary Views of Psychological Testing

Using a combination of classical test theory and Rasch item analysis, we developed a short scale designed to measure the effectiveness of mental health treatment across a wide range of mental health services and populations. Item development for the scale was guided by literature review and interviews with senior clinicians and with patients. Using 3 different samples consisting of inpatients, outpatients, and nonpatients, we reduced our initial item pool from 81 to 10 items. The 10-item scale had an alpha of .96 and showed strong correlations with commonly used measures of psychological well-being and distress. Our results suggest that the scale appears to measure a broad domain of psychological health. The scale appeared to lack ceiling and floor effects, and it discriminated between inpatients, outpatients, and nonpatients, suggesting the scale has excellent potential to be broadly responsive to a variety of treatment effects. In addition, the new scale proved to be sensitive to treatment changes in a sample of 20 psychiatric inpatients. Overall, the initial data suggest that we have developed a brief, sensitive outcome measure designed to have wide application across psychiatric and psychological treatments and populations.