Biased Evaluation of Abstracts Depending on Topic and Conclusion: Further Evidence of a Confirmation Bias Within Scientific Psychology

The present paper investigated whether academic psychologists show a tendency to rate the quality and appropriateness of scientific studies more favorably when results and conclusions are consistent with their own prior beliefs (i.e., confirmation bias). In an online experiment, 711 psychologists completed a questionnaire (e.g., about their belief in astrology) and evaluated research that was presented in form of a short abstract in which 40 different behaviors (e.g., alcohol consumption, willingness to share money) have been tried to be predicted. The research to be evaluated varied on three dimensions which were all manipulated between subjects: (1) the predictors of the 40 behaviors (either Big Five or astrological factors), (2) the methodological quality of the study (low, medium, high), and (3) the results and subsequent conclusion of the study (confirmation or disconfirmation of the hypotheses). Factor-analyzed scores of participants’ ratings on 8 scales, resulting in 2 factors termed quality and appropriateness, served as dependent measures. The main result of the study is a two-way interaction: Psychologists tended to evaluate results qualitatively higher when they conformed to their own prior expectations, as in this case, when astrological hypotheses were disconfirmed.     

Willingness to Falsely Take Blame among Friends: Closeness,Reporting Wrongdoing,and Identity

This study examined people’s willingness to falsely take the blame for a friend’s offense. We sought to identify whether friendship closeness and individual differences would predict false blame-taking. Participants were randomly assigned to think of either a close or casual friend engaging in driver negligence and indicated their willingness to falsely take responsibility. Although self-construal was unrelated to willingness, oneness mediated the relationship between friendship closeness and blame-taking willingness. Negative attitudes about reporting wrongdoing predicted a greater willingness, and men were more willing to take the blame than women. Results may help those in the legal system to better identify false confessions.     

Personality,Social Activities,Job-Search Behavior and Interview Success: Distinguishing Between PANAS Trait Positive Affect and NEO Extraversion

Past research has found that trait positive affect as measured by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and extraversion as measured by the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) are highly correlated. We examined the relation between these two measures within the context of three social behaviors. Approximately 4 months before graduation, college seniors entering the job market completed the PANAS and the NEO-FFI and reported on their social activities during college. Three months later, these students were contacted again and described their job search strategies and success at obtaining follow-up job interviews. Trait positive affect scores and extraversion scores were highly correlated and both predicted behavior in each of the three areas investigated. Regression analyses indicated that trait positive affect predicted behavior in all three areas after the effects of extraversion were removed. However, extraversion did not add significantly to predicting behavior in any of the three areas after the effects of trait positive affect were removed. The findings have implications for the conceptual relation between extraversion and trait positive affect.     

Public Self-Disclosure and Speaker Persuasiveness1

Two experiments were conducted to examine the conclusion of several rhetorical critics that intimate self-disclosure by high-ranking officials will be viewed by an audience as inappropriate and will result in lowered speaker persuasiveness. In Experiment 1 college students viewed a videotape of a speaker described as either a member of an oratory club, a candidate for Congress, or a congressman. Half of the subjects heard a speech in which the speaker revealed some intimate information about himself. Little disclosure was included in the other speech. It was found that the greater the prestige of the speaker, the more self-disclosure was seen as inappropriate. The audience was least likely to be persuaded by the speaker when he was perceived as a congressman who had disclosed personal information. This effect was replicated in Experiment 2, where individual differences in the audience members' l]evels of perceptiveness about disclosure appre priateness were examined. No significant effects for this individual difference variable were uncovered.     

Recalled parental behavior and objective personality measures: a canonical analysis.

Information about an individual's past relationships with his parents is an important component in psychological assessment procedures. To systematically connect these relationships and personality, two groups of college students completed an objective inventory designed to assess parental child rearing behaviors. Canonical correlational analysis was employed to relate these measures to the CPI and MMPI. A recalled parental behavior component described as Acceptance vs. Hostile Detachment/Involvement emerged as being highly related to aspects of both personality inventories, with greater recalled acceptance (and lesser recalled hostility) being associated with the more positive aspects of personality. Additional findings are enumerated.     

Differential effects of ethnic membership, sex, and occupation on the California Psychological Inventory

This study investigated the effects of race, sex, and occupation on college students' responses to the California Psychological Inventory. Analyses of variance of the standard CPI scales indicated numerous race, sex, and race X sex effects. A comparison of the results of factor analyses of the responses of black and white subjects (within each sex) indicated a similarity in factor structure between the two female groups, but not for the two male groups. These findings suggested that, due to these major differences in scale means and factor structure, care be taken in interpreting scores from the CPI when they are obtained from nonwhite populations.     

When Manipulation Backfires: The Effects of Time Delay and Requester on the Foot-in-the-Door Technique

We examined the effects of 2 variables on compliance rates within the foot-in-the-door procedure. Participants who agreed to a small request were presented with a larger request either immediately after the first request or 2 days later. The second request was presented either by the same person or by a different requester. Compared to a control group receiving only the large request, participants were more likely to agree to the second request in all experimental conditions except one. When the same requester presented the second request without delay, participants were less likely than the control group to agree to the target request. This latter condition represents a situation in which typical foot-in-the-door procedures can backfire on the requester.     

The assessment of alexithymia in medical settings: implications for understanding and treating health problems

The construct of alexithymia encompasses the characteristics of difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, externally oriented thinking, and a limited imaginal capacity. These characteristics are thought to reflect deficits in the cognitive processing and regulation of emotions and to contribute to the onset or maintenance of several medical and psychiatric disorders. In this article, we review recent methods for assessing alexithymia and examine how assessing alexithymia can inform clinical practice. Alexithymia is associated with heightened physiological arousal, the tendency to notice and report physical symptoms, and unhealthy compulsive behaviors. Alexithymic patients may respond poorly to psychological treatments, although perhaps not to cognitive-behavioral techniques, and it is unclear whether alexithymia can be improved through treatment. Interpretive problems regarding alexithymia include its overlap with other traits, whether it is secondary to illness or trauma, the possibility of subtypes, and low correlations among multiple measures. Nonetheless, we encourage the assessment of alexithymia in applied settings.     

Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders Among Children of Different Ethnic Origin

The present study assesses the population prevalence of DSM-IV disorders among native and immigrant children living in low socio-economic status (SES) inner-city neighborhoods in the Netherlands. In the first phase of a two-phase epidemiological design, teachers screened an ethnically diverse sample of 2041 children aged 6–10 years using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). In the second phase, a subsample of 253 children was psychiatrically examined, while their parents were interviewed. In addition, teachers completed a short questionnaire about 10 DSM-IV items. Prevalence was estimated using the best-estimate diagnosis based on parent, child and teacher information. Projected to the total population, 11% of the children had one or more impairing psychiatric disorders, which did not differ between native and non-native children. In the total group a clear relationship was observed between the prevalence of psychiatric disorders and gender, parental psychopathology, peer problems and school problems, but not among all ethnic groups separately. This study suggests that the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among non-treated minority and native children in low SES inner-city neighborhoods does not materially differ. However, associated mechanisms may be influenced by ethnicity.