The Inventory of Children's Individual Differences: Development and Validation of a Short Version

The development of programmed, actuarial interpretation of personality tests, especially the MMPI, is discussed. The presentation seeks to present a synoptic overview of the topic, including its more important trends, apparent present status, and possible consequences. Several commercially available systems are described, and an example of the output of each of three of them, in interpreting the same MMPI protocol, is presented for comparative illustration.     

the impacts of self-control and social bonds on juvenile delinquency in a national sample of midadolescents

This study examines the effects of self-control and social bonds on delinquent behavior in a nationally representative sample. It is proposed that both self-control and social bonds affect delinquency and that the effects of these factors interact with each other. These hypotheses were tested in a regression model controlling for race, gender, delinquent association, and illegitimate opportunity. As predicted, low self-control is positively related to juvenile delinquency while social bonds are negatively related to delinquency. Some of the interaction terms between self-control and social bonds significantly impact delinquency, suggesting that the effects of self-control and social control are interdependent.     

Perceived relevance of honesty and agreeableness to situations with non‐correspondent and correspondent outcomes: An interdependence perspective

According to interdependence theory, interpersonal situations that vary in their surface characteristics can be united by similarities in their underlying structure. Likewise, factor analytic approaches to personality combine many traits into a small number of factors. In the current research, we use interdependence theory and existing factor analyses of personality traits to measure people's lay theories about the ways traits and situations interact. We predict that traits representative of honesty–humility/virtue will be rated as more relevant to situations with non‐correspondent outcomes (a gain in one person's outcomes is associated with a loss in the other person's outcomes) than to situations with correspondent outcomes (a gain in one person's outcomes is associated with a gain in the other person's outcomes). Conversely, we predict that traits representative of agreeableness will be rated as more relevant to situations with correspondent outcomes than to situations with non‐correspondent outcomes. An experiment found the expected trait X situation interaction revealing that subjects expect certain types of traits to be most relevant to specific types of situations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Directions for judgment and decision making research based on comparison selection: Reply to Arkes,Johnson, and Kardes

Our target article proposed an alternative perspective for studying consumer judgment and decision making, focusing on the types and weights of comparisons consumers select. In this response we consider the major points made by each of the commentators and examine their implications for future work addressing our comparison-focused approach.     

Information underpinning anticipation of goal-directed throwing

We identified the information used to anticipate throw direction in handball. In two experiments, we examined how anticipation performance is affected when the information from one of five body areas (right arm, shoulders, hips, trunk, or total throw side) was either neutralized or decoupled from the motion of other body segments. In the first experiment, performance was significantly reduced when information from the throwing arm was neutralized, irrespective of skill levels. Skilled participants were negatively affected when the shoulders, hips, and trunk were neutralized, whereas less-skilled participants showed trends toward improvement under identical conditions. In the second experiment, partially disrupting relative motion via decoupling was not enough to reduce the anticipation performance among skilled participants to chance levels, whereas less-skilled participants lost their ability to anticipate in three conditions. Our findings suggest that skilled and less-skilled participants employ different information extraction strategies, yet information from the throwing arm is critical to anticipation for both groups. The two experiments suggest that relative motion mediated by both the absolute displacement trajectories of individual marker locations and their relative timings are important in informing anticipation, irrespective of skill level.     

Facilitating the Academic Success of International Students

International seminarians seeking an education at academic institutions located in the United States often face a host of learning challenges. Seminary faculty that teach in these institutions are often confronted with a need to adjust their teaching methods to facilitate learning by international students. This essay outlines specific strategies to facilitate academic success of international seminarians by offering specific teaching methods for faculty and learning strategies for international students. Topics include training faculty in how to respond to diverse learning styles, expanding learning environments beyond the classroom, methods for enhancing student participation, and development of assignments. Strategies for student success include developing skills in how to improve note taking, critical reading, and writing.