Detection of Feigned Psychosis with the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS): A Study of Coached and Uncoached Simulators

The aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS) to detect feigned psychosis in naïve, informed, and coached participants. Sixty undergraduate students were administered the SIMS and a number of filler questionnaires and asked to fill out the questionnaire honestly (controls; n = 15) or instructed to malinger psychosis because they were standing trial for a serious offense. Before they completed the SIMS, instructed malingerers either received no further information (naïve malingerers; n = 15), some information about psychotic symptoms (informed malingerers; n = 15), or some information about psychosis and a warning not to exaggerate symptoms (coached malingerers; n = 15). Even in the group of coached malingerers, the SIMS had acceptable sensitivity and specificity rates. These findings suggest that the SIMS may be of value in forensic assessments.     

Voters’ Partisan Responses to Politicians’ Immoral Behavior

Politicians’ moral behaviors affect how voters evaluate them. But existing empirical research on the effects of politicians’ violations of moral standards pays little attention to the heterogeneous moral foundations of voters in assessing responses to violations. It also pays little attention to the ways partisan preferences shape responses. We examine voters’ heterogeneous evaluative and emotional responses to presumably immoral behaviors by politicians. We make use of moral foundation theory’s argument that people vary in the extent to which they endorse, value, and use the five universally available moral intuitions: care, fairness, loyalty, authority and sanctity. We report on a 5 × 3 between‐subjects experiment asking a random sample of 2,026 U.S. respondents to respond to politicians’ violations of different moral foundations. We randomly vary which of the five foundations is violated and the partisanship of the actor (Republic/Democrat/Nonpartisan). Results suggest that partisanship rather than moral foundations drives most of U.S. voters’ responses to moral foundations violations by politicians. These foundations seem malleable when partisan actors are involved. While Democrats in this sample show stronger negative emotional response to moral violations than Republicans, partisans of both parties express significantly greater negativity when a politician of the other party violates a moral foundation.     

The role of moral utility in decision making: An interdisciplinary framework

What decisions should we make? Moral values, rules, and virtues provide standards for morally acceptable decisions, without prescribing how we should reach them. However, moral theories do assume that we are, at least in principle, capable of making the right decisions. Consequently, an empirical investigation of the methods and resources we use for making moral decisions becomes relevant. We consider theoretical parallels of economic decision theory and moral utilitarianism and suggest that moral decision making may tap into mechanisms and processes that have originally evolved for nonmoral decision making. For example, the computation of reward value occurs through the combination of probability and magnitude; similar computation might also be used for determining utilitarian moral value. Both nonmoral and moral decisions may resort to intuitions and heuristics. Learning mechanisms implicated in the assignment of reward value to stimuli, actions, and outcomes may also enable us to determine moral value and assign it to stimuli, actions, and outcomes. In conclusion, we suggest that moral capabilities can employ and benefit from a variety of nonmoral decision-making and learning mechanisms.     

Spatial-frequency-contingent color aftereffects: adaptation with one-dimensional stimuli.

The McCollough effect was shown to be spatial-frequency selective by Lovegrove and Over (1972) after adaptation with vertical colored square-wave gratings separated by 1 octave. Adaptation with slide-presented red and green vertical square-wave gratings separated by 1 octave failed to produce contingent color aftereffects (CAEs). However, when each of these gratings was adapted alone, strong CAEs were produced. Adaptation with vertical colored sine-wave gratings separated by 1 octave also failed to produce CAEs, but strong effects were produced by adaptation with each grating alone. By varying the spatial frequency of the test sine wave, CAEs were found to be tuned for spatial frequency at 2.85 octaves after adaptation of 4 cycles per degree (cpd) and at 2.30 octaves after adaptation of 8 cpd. Adaptation of both vertical and horizontal sine-wave gratings produced strong CAEs, with bandwidths ranging from 1.96 to 2.90 octaves and with lower adapting contrast producing weaker CAEs. These results indicate that the McCollough effect is more broadly tuned for spatial frequency than are simple adaptation effects.     

Cross-cultural validity of the masculine and feminine gender role stress scales

The objective was to examine the usefulness of Dutch versions of the Masculine Gender Role Stress (MGRS; Eisler & Skidmore, 1987) Scale and the Feminine Gender Role Stress (Gillespie & Eisler, 1992) Scale in The Netherlands. Undergraduate students (N = 2,239) completed both gender role stress scales. A subgroup (n = 508) also completed questionnaires about masculinity-femininity and daily hassles. With regard to both gender role stress scales, results of confirmatory factor analyses supported the original 5-factor structures and revealed no cross-sex differences on the factor models. Reliability and homogeneity indexes were all well within acceptable to satisfactory limits. Further evidence of construct validity was found in (a) medium to large correlations with daily hassles, (b) sex differences on the FGRS scale, and (c) small to medium correlations with masculinity-femininity. The major discrepancy with previous studies was that for Dutch female and male students, the MGRS scale was not sex specific. Taken together, this study sustained the utility of both gender role stress scales for use in The Netherlands.