Facilitating Accuracy in Showup Identification Procedures: The Effects of the Presence of Stolen Property

Law enforcement personnel regularly present suspects to eyewitnesses using showups. In this study, we examined the impact of the presence of stolen property on live showup identification performance. Two hundred seventy university students were exposed to a simulated theft. During the subsequent showup, we manipulated the presence of the target and stolen property. Binary logistic regression analyses indicated that both factors independently predicted the accuracy of identification decisions. Participants were more accurate when the target was in the showup and when the stolen property was present during the identification. Consistent with the item, context, and ensemble theory of recognition, the presence of stolen property led to an increase in sensitivity, suggesting ensemble formation. Future research on showups should continue to examine contextual variables that may lead to changes in sensitivity or criterion shift. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pre-Entry Expectations,Attitudes, and Intentions to Join Predict Military Tenure

The objective of this study was to examine pre-entry expectations, attitudes, and intentions as predictors of tenure among military members. Data from nationally representative (U.S.) samples of youth on attitudes toward military service, expectations about the effect of joining the military on quality of life, and intentions to join the military were linked to tenure among those who later joined the military as adults. Results from survival analyses indicate that those who initially had no desire to join the military and did not expect military service to have positive effects on their quality of life, but ultimately joined the military nonetheless, tended to have shorter military careers. Explanations for these findings are offered along with implications for military staffing.     

Eating Together at the Firehouse: How Workplace Commensality Relates to the Performance of Firefighters

Cooperative activities among coworkers can provide valuable group-level benefits; however, previous research has often focused on artificial activities that require extraordinary efforts away from the worksite. We investigate organizational benefits that firms might obtain through various supports for coworkers to engage in commensality (i.e., eating together). We conducted field research within firehouses in a large city to explore the role that interacting over food might have for work-group performance. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, our field research shows a significant positive association between commensality and work-group performance. Our findings establish a basis for research and practice that focuses on ways that firms can enhance team performance by leveraging the mundane and powerful activity of eating.     

Balancing Treatment and Control Groups in Quasi‐Experiments: An Introduction to Propensity Scoring

Organizational and applied sciences have long struggled with improving causal inference in quasi‐experiments. We introduce organizational researchers to propensity scoring, a statistical technique that has become popular in other applied sciences as a means for improving internal validity. Propensity scoring statistically models how individuals in a quasi‐experiment have been assigned to conditions in order to estimate treatment effects among individuals with approximately equal probabilities of receiving the treatment. If propensity scores are created from relevant covariates, matching on the propensity score makes treatment assignment ignorable and approximates a true experimental design. We illustrate how matching on the propensity score can be applied by using 2 examples: examining the effects of online instruction and estimating the benefits of preparatory coaching for the SAT. In both cases, propensity‐scoring methods effectively reduced inequivalence between treatment and control groups on many variables. Propensity scoring stands out as a valuable technique capable of improving causal inference from many of organizational research's quasi‐experiments.     

Can Teleosemantics Deflect the EAAN?

Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism aims to show that the conjunction of contemporary evolutionary theory (E) with the claim that there is no God (N) cannot be rationally accepted. Where R is the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable, the argument is:

1. The probability of R given N and E is low or inscrutable.
2. Anyone who sees (1) and accepts (N&E) has a defeater for R, and this defeater cannot be defeated or deflected.
3. Anyone who has an undefeated, undeflected defeater for R has an undefeated, undeflected defeater for everything she believes.
4. Therefore she has an undefeated, undeflected defeater for (N&E).

Plantinga (2011) defends the second premise. It examines and rejects several candidate defeater defeaters and defeater deflectors. One candidate is Millikan’s teleosemantics. I show that Plantinga’s motives for rejecting teleosemantics as a defeater deflector are inadequate. I then show that teleosemantics is not on its own an adequate defeater deflector. Then I offer an additional premise that constitutes a defeater deflector in conjunction with teleosemantics.     

Why Malcolm X Never Developed an Islamic Approach to Civil Rights

This paper considers recent developments in the relations between state, education and religion in Britain in the light of analogous developments in pre-war Japan. The discussion focuses on the emergence of a government-sponsored state cult developed in the late 19th century and retrospectively referred to as ‘state Shinto’. Defined as ‘non-religious’ and disseminated through the school system, it eventually incorporated all other Japanese religions. The analogy with contemporary Britain involves an examination of the background and content of the 1988 Education Reform Act and subsequent (1994) government ‘Guidance’ to schools, particularly in relation to schools religious worship and Religious Education (RE). The analogy with pre-war Japan highlights shifts in the ‘constitutional topography of the sacred’, only partially achieved so far in Britain, whereby religious authority passes from ‘real’ religions to the state, and is then disseminated through the education system as morality.     

Anxiety, Sensory Over-Responsivity, and Gastrointestinal Problems in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience high rates of anxiety, sensory processing problems, and gastrointestinal (GI) problems; however, the associations among these symptoms in children with ASD have not been previously examined. The current study examined bivariate and multivariate relations among anxiety, sensory over-responsivity, and chronic GI problems in a sample of 2,973 children with ASD enrolled in the Autism Treatment Network (ages 2–17 years, 81.6 % male). Twenty-four percent of the sample experienced at least one type of chronic GI problem (constipation, abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, and/or nausea lasting three or more months). Children with each type of GI problem had significantly higher rates of both anxiety and sensory over-responsivity. Sensory over-responsivity and anxiety were highly associated, and each provided unique contributions to the prediction of chronic GI problems in logistic regression analyses. The results indicate that anxiety, sensory over-responsivity and GI problems are possibly interrelated phenomenon for children with ASD, and may have common underlying mechanisms.     

Early Adolescent Growth in Depression and Conduct Problem Symptoms as Predictors of Later Substance Use Impairment

Most studies of adolescent substance use and psychological comorbidity have examined the contributions of conduct problems and depressive symptoms measured only at particular points-in-time. Yet, during adolescence, risk factors such as conduct problems and depression exist within a developmental context, and vary over time. Though internalizing and comorbid pathways to substance use have been theorized (Hussong et al. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 25:390-404, 2011), the degree to which developmental increases in depressive symptoms and conduct problems elevate risk for substance use impairment among adolescents, in either an additive or potentially a synergistic fashion, is unclear. Using a school-based sample of 521 adolescents, we tested additive and synergistic influences of changes in depressive symptoms and conduct problems from 6th to 9th grade using parallel process growth curve modeling with latent interactions in the prediction of late adolescent (12th grade) substance use impairment, while examining gender as a moderator. We found that the interaction between growth in depression and conduct disorder symptoms uniquely predicted later substance use problems, in addition to main effects of each, across boys and girls. Results indicated that adolescents whose parents reported increases in both depression and conduct disorder symptoms from 6th to 9th grade reported the most substance use-related impairment in 12th grade. The current study demonstrates that patterns of depression and conduct problems (e.g., growth vs. decreasing) are likely more important than the static levels at any particular point-in-time in relation to substance use risk.     

Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function – Preschool Version (BRIEF-P): Test Review and Clinical Guidelines for Use

The Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Preschool Version (BRIEF-P) is a standardized questionnaire that measures executive functioning in preschoolers. This test review provides an overview of the BRIEF-P, including scale structure, administration, norms, score interpretation, current reliability and validity evidence, and provides general guidelines for clinical use.