Normative data on the Missouri Children's Picture Series and the Missouri Children's Behavior Checklist with southern black children

Normative data are presented for Southern black children on two objective personality inventories for children: the Missouri Children's Picture Series (MCPS), a child picture-sorting task, and the Missouri Children's Behavior Checklist (MBCL), a parent rating scale. The MCPS was administered to 615 black children attending public schools in a low socioeconomic area of the southeast United States. Parents returned the MBCL on 437 of the children. Means and standard deviations on eight MCPS personality scales and six MCBL behavior rating scales are presented for black males and females at ages 5 through 16, and effects of age, sex, and various scale intercorrelations are discussed. Results suggest systematic age and sex differences on the various scales for black children that are quite atypical when compared with the MCPS in other samples. Various empirical questions regarding the validity of these instruments when used with Southern black children are raised.     

Reflective judgment: Concepts of justification and their relationship to age and education

This paper describes a seven-stage model of post-adolescent reasoning styles, the most advanced of which is called “Reflective Judgment.” The model outlines a sequence of increasingly complex methods of justification of beliefs. This model demonstrates how people's conceptions of the nature of knowledge, the nature of reality, and their concepts of justification change over age/educational levels. Sixty subjects from three age/educational levels (high school, college, and graduate school) were administered the Reflective Judgment Interview. In addition, subjects were tested on four other factors hypothesized to affect reflective judgment scores. Two were competing theoretical constructs: verbal ability (using Terman's Concept Mastery Test) and Piagetian formal operations (chemicals and pendulum tasks); and two were potentially confounding factors: socio-economic status (using Hollingshead's two-factor index) and verbal fluency (number of words spoken during the interview). Highly significant differences (p < .001) were found on reflective judgment level between the three age/educational groups, and could not be statistically accounted for by scores earned on measures of the other four factors. Whereas verbal ability was found to be closely related to reflective judgment level, the differences between groups on reflective judgment could not be solely attributed to this factor.     

Grade Expectations as a Function of Sex, Academic Discipline, and Sex of Instructor

Twelve hundred and fifty college students starting introductory courses in thirteen academic disciplines were asked to predict their grade in the course. Results showed that overall, males predicted higher grades for themselves than did females (p <.001). This held true for entering freshmen as well as for those with previous college experience. The phenomena was noted in 26 of 37 classes tested, including 7 of 9 in the natural sciences, 11 of 13 in the social sciences, but only 8 of 15 in the humanities. Sex of the instructor was irrelevant, raising the question of whether female instructors as role models have the positive effect upon women students that has been claimed. The differences found were slight, but persistent. Both sexes predicted very high grades. The data suggest that sex differences in prediction were not based on a female sense of incompetence, but upon a greater willingness among males to make highly positive predictions.     

Virtual Reality One-Session Treatment of Child-Specific Phobia of Dogs: A Controlled,Multiple Baseline Case Series

Specific phobia (SP) typically onsets in childhood and frequently predicts other mental health disorders later in life. Fortunately, childhood SP can be effectively treated with cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), including the exposure-based one-session treatment (OST) approach. Despite empirical support for CBT and OST, clinicians, for various reasons, frequently fail to implement exposure-based therapy in routine clinical practice, including perceived difficulties in implementing exposure. Virtual reality (VR) exposure therapy may overcome some of these challenges and provides an alternative modality of therapy. This preliminary study examined the efficacy of VR OST for 8 children with a SP of dogs (aged 8–12 years) (M = age 10.25; SD = 2.11) using a multiple-baseline controlled case series. Following a stable baseline period of either 2, 3, or 4 weeks, it was expected that specific phobia severity would significantly decline after VR OST and remain improved over the 3-week maintenance phase. Assessments were conducted posttreatment and at 1-month follow up (study end-point). It was found that phobia symptoms remained relatively stable across the baselines, with significant reductions from pretreatment to posttreatment and to follow-up on clinician severity ratings (pre- to post- g = 1.12; pre- to follow-up g = 2.40), target symptom ratings (g = 1.14; 1.29), and behavioral avoidance (g = -1.27; -1.96). The treatment was also associated with clinically significant outcomes, whereby at one-month follow up, 75% of children were considered “recovered” and 88% completed the BAT (interacted with their feared stimuli). This study provides support for the effectiveness of VR OST.     

The psychology of confessions: A comparison of expert and lay opinions

Despite a body of confessions research that is generally accepted in the scientific community, courts often exclude experts on the ground that such testimony would not assist the jury, which can use its common sense. To examine whether laypeople know the contents of expert testimony on confessions, we asked 151 lay participants to indicate their beliefs about 30 confession‐related statements used in a recent survey of 87 confession experts (Kassin et al., American Psychologist, 2018, 73, 63–80). Participants agreed with experts on only 10 of the 30 propositions, suggesting that much of the psychology of confessions is not common knowledge and that expert testimony can assist the trier of fact.