Integrity, conscientiousness, and honesty

Undergraduate volunteers from the Psychology participant pool (N=86, age M=22.7, SD=4.8 yr.; 72 of 86 were female) took two tests, a commercially available integrity test (the Personnel Selection Inventory) and the NEO-Five Factor Inventory. Later in the study, each participant was given an opportunity to report dishonestly the amount of time spent in the laboratory and thus to receive more extra-credit points than earned. An observer recorded participants' actual times in the laboratory to provide an accurate assessment of participants' honesty. Analysis indicated that the Personnel Selection Inventory did not predict whether the participant was honest or dishonest in reporting time spent. Conscientiousness as measured by the NEO-Five Factor Inventory, however, not only predicted behavior, but did so significantly better than did the Personnel Selection Inventory. The study provides new information about the value of integrity tests by comparing integrity and personality tests in the simultaneous prediction of a specific criterion.     

Multiple study trials and judgments of learning

We compared judgments of learning (JOLs) that were made either (a) after 1 study trial, (b) 2 study trials, or (c) in-between the 1st and 2nd study trials. In regard to the absolute accuracy of JOLs at predicting subsequent recall, we replicated previous findings of an underconfidence-with-practice effect for immediate JOLs and report for the first time a new finding of an underconfidence-with-practice effect for delayed JOLs (i.e., delayed JOLs after one trial overestimated the likelihood of subsequent recall, whereas delayed JOLs after two trials underestimated that likelihood). Also, although delayed JOLs always had a greater relative accuracy than did immediate JOLs, the relative accuracy of immediate and delayed JOLs was approximately the same after 1 versus 2 study trials. These results demonstrate that additional study trials affect the absolute accuracy of all JOLs but not the relative accuracy of any JOLs. Thus an increase in the number of study trials produced an increasing bias to be underconfident about the subsequent likelihood of recall but did not affect people's ordering of which items had been more (versus less) well-learned.     

Assessing the factorial invariance of Harter's self-concept measures: comparing preadolescents with and without spina bifida using child,parent, and teacher report

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the structure of children's self-concept, as rated by children themselves on the Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPPC; Harter, 1985), and the structure of children's competence, as rated by their parents on the Rating Scale of Child's Actual Behavior (PRS) and teachers on the Rating Scale of Child's Actual Behavior (TRS; Harter, 1985), are similar across samples of children with and without spina bifida (children were 8 and 9 years of age; n = 68 in each sample). Using confirmatory factor analyses, results revealed that a multidimensional model for the SPPC and the TRS fit the data well for both samples. On the other hand, the model for both mothers' and fathers' PRS ratings did not fit the data for the spina bifida sample. Further tests of factorial invariance conducted on the SPPC and TRS revealed that the spina bifida and able-bodied samples tended to have the same pattern and magnitude of factor loadings for both instruments. There was some invariance, however, in the amount of unique error variance accounted for across samples. These results bolster our confidence in using the SPPC and TRS to compare children with and without spina bifida.     

Children's working-memory processes: a response-timing analysis

Recall response durations were used to clarify processing in working-memory tasks. Experiment 1 examined children's performance in reading span, a task in which sentences were processed and the final word of each sentence was retained for subsequent recall. Experiment 2 examined the development of listening-, counting-, and digit-span task performance. Responses were much longer in the reading-and listening-span tasks than in the other span tasks, suggesting that participants in sentence-based span tasks take time to retrieve the semantic or linguistic structure as cues to recall of the sentence-final words. Response durations in working-memory tasks helped to predict academic skill and achievement, largely separate from the contributions of the memory spans themselves. Response durations thus are important in the interpretation of span task performance.     

Developments in long-term explicit memory late in the first year of life: behavioral and electrophysiological indices

Coincident with developments in the temporal-cortical explicit memory network, long-term recall abilities are newly emergent late in the first year of human life. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in 9-month-olds as an index of the integrity of the neural substrate underlying a task thought to reflect explicit memory, namely, deferred imitation. ERP measures of recognition memory 1 week after unique laboratory experiences predicted whether and how much infants recalled of the experiences 1 month later. The findings further imply that memory storage and consolidation processes are a major source of variability in long-term recall memory late in the first year of life.     

Modeling unipolar depression as a chaotic process

This study inspected the deterministic structure of unipolar depression. Two women self-monitored sadness hourly 10 times a day for 6 months. One woman had a recurrent history of unipolar depression, and the other did not. Data were analyzed by visual inspection, examination of the Fourier transforms of the time plots, and the correlation dimension. Results suggested that in addition to a strong periodic component that existed only within the depressed subject's mood time series, a low-dimensional chaotic process might have been operating. In the nondepressed control subject, no such periodicity or process could be identified. The findings support maladaptive deterministic theories of mood disorders and have implications for the assessment of unipolar depression.     

Respect for the developmentally disabled and forgoing life-sustaining treatment

A developmentally disabled person should be treated at all times as a unique individual and not as some anonymous "disabled person." The developmentally disabled should not be subjected to invasive medical treatment that is unduly burdensome or nonbeneficial, or be forced to endure a quality of life not meaningful to them as individuals. They have a right to refuse or accept treatment that a surrogate must exercise on behalf of each individual in a responsible and careful manner. Three cases and a preliminary approach to the ethical analysis of decisions to allow developmentally disabled persons to die by forgoing medical treatment are offered. The "best interests" of a developmentally disabled individual, properly understood, can serve as a useful and ethically defensible standard for determining the ethical propriety of surrogate decision making about forgoing life-sustaining medical treatment of the disabled.