Personnel Selection with Top‐Score‐Referenced Banding: On the Inappropriateness of Current Procedures

The method of selecting among job applicants using statistically based banding has been proposed over the last 10 years as a way to increase workforce diversity. The method continues to be reviewed by academics and considered by practitioners. Although the goal of increasing workforce diversity is important, statistical banding of scores remains controversial. We present a set of unique, statistically and theoretically based criticisms of a form of banding (top‐score‐referenced banding) that is widely used in hundreds of jobs in the public sector throughout the United States. We suggest that even within the premises of such banding, the wrong formula is used to estimate the standard error of measurement and standard error of the difference. One consequence is that too many individuals are labeled as essentially equal with respect to test scores. A related consequence is that test scores within a single band are statistically different and should therefore be treated as such for selection purposes. A more logically and statistically defensible procedure for responding to diversity concerns is to continue to attend to adverse impact issues at each step of the recruiting and test development process.     

Efficacy of a Manualized and Workbook-Driven Individual Treatment for Social Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety disorder is a prevalent and impairing disorder for which viable cognitive-behavioral therapies exist. However, these treatments have not been easily packaged for dissemination and may be underutilized as a result. The current study reports on the findings of a randomized controlled trial of a manualized and workbook-driven individual cognitive-behavioral treatment for social anxiety disorder (Hope, Heimberg, Juster, & Turk, 2000; Hope, Heimberg, & Turk, 2006). This treatment package was derived from an empirically supported group treatment for social anxiety disorder and intended for broad dissemination, but it has not previously been subjected to empirical examination on its own. As a first step in that examination, 38 clients seeking treatment for social anxiety disorder at either the Adult Anxiety Clinic of Temple University or the Anxiety Disorders Clinic of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln were randomly assigned to receive either immediate treatment with this cognitive-behavioral treatment package or treatment delayed for 20 weeks. Evaluation at the posttreatment/postdelay period revealed substantially greater improvements among immediate treatment clients on interviewer-rated and self-report measures of social anxiety and impairment. Three-month follow-up assessment revealed maintenance of gains. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Social support as a mediator in the relation between sensation seeking (need for stimulation) and psychological adjustment in older adults

This article investigates the potential role of social support as a mediator between sensation seeking (in the sense of a basal need for stimulation) and psychological adjustment in older adults. A sample of 325 individuals aged between 65 and 95 years were tested using questionnaires, which assess social support, sensation seeking, global self-worth, sense of coherence, and satisfaction with life. Path analyses provided support for a mediator model in which the relationship between sensation seeking and psychological adjustment was fully mediated by social support (the path coefficient between sensation seeking and psychosocial adjustment declines from β = .27 to β = .02, when adding an indirect path mediated by social support). Findings further suggest that this mediation effect was independent of sex and age. The study demonstrates the relevance of measuring sensation seeking as a personality trait in older adults.     

The effect of context on the structure of categories

Three experiments examined the effect of context on the representativeness ordering of exemplars of a category. Experiments 1 and 2 employed an online reading time paradigm to examine the effect of context on the time it takes to establish an anaphoric reference between an exemplar and a category term. Experiment 1 demonstrated that context can change the relation between a category term and an exemplar at the time of comprehension. Experiment 2 showed that category terms presented in context generate graded goodness-of-example distributions of exemplars that are different from the distributions generated in the absence of explicit context. These distributions cannot be derived by assuming that the exemplar most strongly suggested by the context serves as the category representation. Experiment 3 employed a membership verification paradigm. Response time was found to be a function of degree of relatedness to the contextdependent category representation. Typicality, as determined in the absence of explicit context, had no effect on decision time. Several models, including some extensions of current semantic memory theories, are developed to account for the results of these experiments.     

Countertransference and the group therapist's state of mind

In this paper countertransference is discussed as an interference in the psychotherapists' state of mind. For the group psychotherapist the interferences have multiple origins. Oscillating demands for closeness to the group or distance from patients are indicators of complex dynamics. Inherent in group psychotherapy is the requirement of multiple identification with objects covering a developmental range for the therapist. A schematic model for the therapist's state-of-mind is offered in the hope that there can be greater clarity when countertransference is discussed.Paper presented at EGPS annual conference, Nov. 1, 1980.