The Adult Attachment Projective Picture System: Integrating Attachment Into Clinical Assessment

This article summarizes the development and validation of the Adult Attachment Projective System (AAP), a measure we developed from the Bowlby–Ainsworth developmental tradition to assess adult attachment status. The AAP has demonstrated excellent concurrent validity with the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, &; Main, 1984/1985/1996 Finn, S. E. 2007. In our client's shoes: Theory and techniques of therapeutic assessment., New York, NY: Psychology Press.  [Google Scholar]; Main &; Goldwyn, 1985–1994 Lis, A., Mazzeschi, C., Di Riso, D. and Salcuni, S. 2011/this issue. Attachment, assessment, and psychological intervention: A case study of anorexia. Journal of Personality Assessment, 93: 434–444. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Main, Goldwyn, &; Hesse, 2003 Lyons-Ruth, K. and Jacobvitz, D. 2008. “Attachment disorganization: Unresolved loss, relational violence, and lapses in behavioral and attentional strategies”. In Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications , 2nd ed, Edited by: Cassidy, J. and Shaver, P. R. 666–697. New York, NY: Guilford.  [Google Scholar]), interjudge reliability, and test–retest reliability, with no effects of verbal intelligence or social desirability. The AAP coding and classification system and application in clinical and community samples are summarized. Finally, we introduce the 3 other articles that are part of this Special Section and discuss the use of the AAP in therapeutic assessment and treatment.     

Mutual Suppression: Comment on Paulhus et al. (2004)

Paulhus, Robins, Trzesniewski, and Tracy (Multivariate Behavioral Research, 2004 Paulhus, D. L., Robins, R. W., Trzesniewski, K. H. and Tracy, J. L. 2004. Two replicable suppressor situations in personality research. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39: 303–328. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 39, 305–328) suggested that the three types of two-predictor suppression situations—classical suppression, cooperative suppression, and net suppression—-can all be considered special cases of mutual suppression, in that the magnitude of each of the two standardized partial regression coefficients exceeds the magnitude of its corresponding standardized bivariate regression coefficient. Classical suppression and cooperative suppression can be considered mutual suppression, but net suppression cannot. Hypothetical and empirical examples of net suppression in which the magnitude of the standardized partial regression coefficient for the suppressor variable is greater than, equal to, and less than the magnitude of its standardized bivariate regression coefficient are provided. The empirical examples were drawn from the social psychology literature relating psychological well-being outcomes to life aspirations.     

A Lesson on Courage: Monks, Martyrs, and Muslims—but Strangers No Longer in Algeria

This article uses the work of Heinz Kohut and Julia Kristeva to reflect upon and interpret the experience of nine Trappist monks—especially Brother Christian—in Algeria in the mid-1990s who shared an incredible bond of faith with the Muslim villagers living around the monastery in Tibhirine. Specifically, I examine how an understanding of Kohut’s nuclear self and Kristeva’s stranger may assist us in transforming resistance concerning interfaith dialog in seminary classes and faith communities alike when we bring these two ideas into conversation around the religious and community experiences of the monks and the villagers. I argue that if individuals are able to “make peace” or establish rapport with the stranger within they will exemplify the kind of narcissistic balance Kohut describes in his theory of a nuclear self that allows for a demonstration of courage in the face of difficulty.     

Uncertainty, credal sets and second order probability

The last 20 years or so has seen an intense search carried out within Dempster–Shafer theory, with the aim of finding a generalization of the Shannon entropy for belief functions. In that time, there has also been much progress made in credal set theory—another generalization of the traditional Bayesian epistemic representation—albeit not in this particular area. In credal set theory, sets of probability functions are utilized to represent the epistemic state of rational agents instead of the single probability function of traditional Bayesian theory. The Shannon entropy has been shown to uniquely capture certain highly intuitive properties of uncertainty, and can thus be considered a measure of that quantity. This article presents two measures developed with the purpose of generalizing the Shannon entropy for (1) unordered convex credal sets and (2) possibly non-convex credal sets ordered by second order probability, thereby providing uncertainty measures for such epistemic representations. There is also a comparison with the results of the measure AU developed within Dempster–Shafer theory in a few instances where unordered convex credal set theory and Dempster–Shafer theory overlap.     

Jane Ellen Harrison's contribution to the study of religion

Sandra J. Peacock, Jane Ellen Harrison: The Mask and the Self, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1988.     

tolerance of nonconformity and its effect on attitudes toward the legalization of prostitution: a multivariate analysis

An increasingly popular clinical impression is that physical victimization plays an important role in the etiology of bulimia. There are few data based studies, however, which have tested this belief. Therefore, data were collected to determine if those who have been victimized are more apt to be bulimic than those who have not been victimized. The four forms of victimization explored were rape, sexual molestation, child abuse and partner abuse. Only child abuse was statistically significantly related to bulimia in the bivariate analyses, although all relationships were in the predicted direction. In the multivariate analysis, severity of bulimic‐like symptoms was regressed on the four forms of victimization and on nine demographic characteristics. Child abuse was the only form of victimization related to the severity of symptoms, when controlling for the effects of the other variables. Contrary to clinical impressions, the effect of sexual molestation on severity of bulimic symptoms was negative, but not statistically significant. Among the demographic characteristics, only the number of sisters had a significant effect. The combined effect of being both bulimic as well as a victim did not increase the likelihood of seeking therapy for an eating disorder. The need for empirical evidence to verify clinical impressions is stressed.     

Parity and disparity among three measures of fear of crime: A research note

Research on fear of crime often concerns problems associated with measuring fear of crime. Most of the literature in this area critiques “global measures,” which are the most commonly used, and suggests movement to more specific measures of fear of crime. Although much has been said about the use of alternative measures of fear, seldom has research provided comparative analyses of the alternative measures. Using a conceptual model based on previous research, the present study illustrates the differences among findings using three measures of fear of crime: global fear, fear of property crime, and fear of violent crime. This is achieved by employing each of the three measures of fear as the dependent variable in identical models. Comparing the results, the parity and disparity of these measures are demonstrated. The results suggest that conflicting findings from previous research may be a consequence of the types of measures used in the analyses. Thus, it is theoretically important to understand what dimensions of fear are being measured by our operational procedures.     

Answer Similarity Analysis at the Group Level

Answer similarity indices were developed to detect pairs of test takers who may have worked together on an exam or instances in which one test taker copied from another. For any pair of test takers, an answer similarity index can be used to estimate the probability that the pair would exhibit the observed response similarity or a greater degree of similarity under the assumption that the test takers worked independently. To identify groups of test takers with unusually similar response patterns, Wollack and Maynes suggested conducting cluster analysis using probabilities obtained from an answer similarity index as measures of distance. However, interpretation of results at the cluster level can be challenging because the method is sensitive to the choice of clustering procedure and only enables probabilistic statements about pairwise relationships. This article addresses these challenges by presenting a statistical test that can be applied to clusters of examinees rather than pairs. The method is illustrated with both simulated and real data.     

Configural effects in human memory: The superiority of memory over external information sources as a basis for inference verification

The ability to integrate information from diverse texts and to detect logical implications of the integrated information is fundamental to the understanding process. This paper shows that identifying and configuring relevant facts in order to support hypothesized inferences is extremely difficult unless the facts have been committed to memory. Simply reading relevant texts for familiarization and then referring to them as needed provides an inadequate basis for deductive logic. Further, apprehension of the logical configuration of fads underlying a particular inference can be an essentially automatic process for the reasoner who has structured the facts appropriately in memory. A model of search and memory mechanisms is proposed. It accounts for accuracy and reaction time data, as well as individual differences in inference evaluation. The implications of the superiority of memorization over familiarization-plus-referencing as a basis for learning and reasoning are discussed.