Evolving judgments of terror risks: foresight, hindsight, and emotion: a reanalysis

The authors examined the evolution of cognitive and emotional responses to terror risks for a nationally representative sample of Americans between late 2001 and late 2002. Respondents' risk judgments changed in ways consistent with their reported personal experiences. However, they did not recognize these changes, producing hindsight bias in memories for their judgments. An intensive debiasing procedure failed to restore a foresightful perspective. A fear-inducing manipulation increased risk estimates, whereas an anger-inducing manipulation reduced them-both in predictions (as previously observed) and in memories and judgments of past risks. Thus, priming emotions shaped not only perceptions of an abstract future but also perceptions of a concrete past. These results suggest how psychological research can help to ensure an informed public.     

Exploring the Relationship Between Interrater Correlations and Validity of Peer Ratings

A field study was conducted to investigate the relationship between interrater correlations and validity estimates of peer ratings. Validity coefficients and interrater correlations were calculated for 281 work units in a large law enforcement organization in Israel. The main result was a weak positive linear relationship between these two variables. Furthermore, in some of the analyses conducted, a nonlinear quadratic component in the relationship between these measures was evident. Validity was low only when interrater correlation was very low (r = .4 and less). Above this level, validity was stable and almost did not change as interrater correlation increased. This finding, together with other studies (Borman, 1975 Borman, W. C. 1975. Effects of instructions to avoid halo error on reliability and validity of performance evaluation ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60: 556–560. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Buckner, 1959 Buckner, D. N. 1959. The predictability of ratings as a function of interrater agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 43: 60–64.  [Google Scholar]; Freeberg, 1969 Freeberg, N. E. 1969. Relevance of rater-ratee acquaintance in the validity and reliability of ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 53: 518–524.  [Google Scholar]; Weekley & Gier, 1989 Weekley, J. A. and Gier, J. A. 1989. Ceilings in the reliability and validity of performance ratings: The case of expert raters. Academy of Management Review, 32: 213–222.  [Google Scholar]), cast doubt on the assertion that interrater correlation in the field of performance rating is a proper measurement of reliability.     

“Anxious” and “reckless” drivers

This paper presents personality profiles of two types of recidivist traffic offenders. One is the “anxious” traffic offender who imputes legitimacy to traffic norms, yet due to innate structural personality defects, he tends to enter into a state of anxiety, when confronted with risky traffic situations or a traffic jam. The other type is the “reckless” driver, who does not impute legitimacy to traffic norms nor to other legal norms. From this personality theory a number of hypotheses were derived and tested by means of multiple regression. Our ability to predict the number of traffic offenses suggests that similar tools may be used by the traffic authorities and traffic courts.     

Development and Validation of the Scientific Reasoning Scale

Scientific findings and innovations play an important role in a range of decisions faced by nonscientists, yet little is known about the skills that nonscientists need in order to read and evaluate scientific evidence. Drawing on research in public understanding of science, cognitive developmental psychology, and behavioral decision research, we develop an individual difference measure of scientific reasoning skills, defined as the skills needed to evaluate scientific findings in terms of the factors that determine their quality. We present the results of three studies assessing its psychometric validity. Our results indicate that the Scientific Reasoning Scale (SRS) is internally consistent and distinct from extant measures of scientific literacy. Participants with higher SRS scores are more likely to have beliefs consistent with the scientific consensus on potentially contentious issues, above and beyond education, political and religious beliefs, and scores on two widely used measures of scientific literacy. Participants with higher SRS scores also had better performance on a task requiring them to analyze scientific information. Our results suggest that the SRS provides a theoretically informed contribution to decoding lay responses to scientific results and controversies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cognitive behavioral therapy in practice: treatment delivered by trainees at an outpatient clinic is clinically effective

Cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) is known to be effective for a number of disorders, and can be delivered effectively by trainees in controlled settings. However, the effectiveness of trainee therapists in general practice compared to that of more experienced therapists is unknown. In this study, the authors used a benchmarking strategy to compare the outcomes of naturalistic CBT delivered by trainee therapists to those of efficacy and effectiveness studies using primarily professional therapists. Patients (N = 249) with mood and anxiety disorders were treated by trainees (primarily by interns and postdocs) using nonstandardized nonmanualized CBT at an outpatient clinic in an urban academic medical center. Changes in anxiety and depression were assessed using effect sizes, reliable and clinically significant change, and benchmarked to efficacy and effectiveness studies. Symptoms of anxiety and depression significantly improved from start to end of treatment. Rates of improvement and recovery compared favorably to those achieved in other studies, with the exception of recovery rates in severe depression. Effect sizes were in the medium to large range, but generally lower than those achieved in other studies. Results suggest that CBT can be delivered effectively by trainees in an outpatient setting.     

Measuring category intuitiveness in unconstrained categorization tasks

What makes a category seem natural or intuitive? In this paper, an unsupervised categorization task was employed to examine observer agreement concerning the categorization of nine different stimulus sets. The stimulus sets were designed to capture different intuitions about classification structure. The main empirical index of category intuitiveness was the frequency of the preferred classification, for different stimulus sets. With 169 participants, and a within participants design, with some stimulus sets the most frequent classification was produced over 50 times and with others not more than two or three times. The main empirical finding was that cluster tightness was more important in determining category intuitiveness, than cluster separation. The results were considered in relation to the following models of unsupervised categorization: DIVA, the rational model, the simplicity model, SUSTAIN, an Unsupervised version of the Generalized Context Model (UGCM), and a simple geometric model based on similarity. DIVA, the geometric approach, SUSTAIN, and the UGCM provided good, though not perfect, fits. Overall, the present work highlights several theoretical and practical issues regarding unsupervised categorization and reveals weaknesses in some of the corresponding formal models.     

The Functional Analytic Psychotherapy Rating Scale: a Replication and Extension

Few theories of psychotherapy give direction to the therapist on a moment-to-moment level or make predictions about how specific therapist techniques change client behavior in session. Functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP, Kohlenberg and Tsai in Functional analytic psychotherapy: a guide for creating intense and curative therapeutic relationships. Plenum, New York 1991) provides this direction and prediction. Specifically, FAP claims that client problem behaviors will be displayed in the therapeutic relationship and that the therapist can improve client in-session behavior through differential, contingent responding. Further, it is assumed that these improvements in session can be generalized to out of session relationships. The FAP rating scale (FAPRS) was developed for the purpose of coding in-session client and therapist behaviors in an effort to test FAP’s purported mechanism of change. The current study seeks to replicate and extend initial FAPRS findings (Callaghan et al. in J Contemp Psychother 33:321–339, 2003) regarding mechanism of change and to address transportability. FAPRS coding data from a single successful case of an individual diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and treated with FAP is presented. Results indicate that the FAPRS system is transportable and are generally supportive of the claim that therapist contingent responding leads to client improvement.     

Generalist and specialist graduate business degrees: Tangible and intangible value

Completion of a graduate degree in business, be it the general MBA or a specialized Master program, should add value to graduates and provide them with certain competencies to make them better managers and leaders. This article evaluates the impact of several Master level studies in business at a large, urban university in the southwestern US. We analyzed competencies, skills, self-perception, and career progress as well as salary and performance. Participant choice of degree program was either the generalist MBA degree or specialist graduate Master degree. Responses from 318 alumni, most of them now working managers, clearly indicate the value they gained from pursuing a graduate business degree. The most prominent impact of competencies and skills portfolio gained was on both internal and external measures of career success, for both the MBA and specialized programs.     

A face recognition by similarity (FRBS) conjecture

Cohen (1963) investigated free recall in two lists of words. The first contained unrelated words. The second comprised words drawn from several semantic categories, where the number of categories was equal to the number of words in the first list. He found that recall of unrelated words was equal to the recall of categories. The face recognition by similarity (FRBS) conjecture proposes that this relation cannot be applied to face recognition. Following Cohen's design, two different experimental situations for generating two target faces were constructed. The findings showed that the number of correct recognitions of specific facial features belonging to the first target face (e.g., nose, chin) was greater than or equal to the number of categories of visually similar facial features belonging to the second target face (e.g., different long noses, round chins). In addition, theoretical underpinnings for the FRBS conjecture were suggested.