Personality variables related to integrity test scores: The role of conscientiousness

Using a broad-based measure of normal personality, we tested the hypothesis that the trait conscientiousness is the best single predictor of scores on two well-researched integrity tests. Data from 180 traditional and nontraditional college students provided clear support for this hypothesis, but also indicated that a number of traits other than conscientiousness were likely to be related to integrity test scores. Scores on all six of the primary scales, and 33 of the 45 homogeneous item clusters (HICs) of the Hogan Personality Inventory were related to scores on the PDI Employment Inventory and/or the Personnel Selection Inventory. Personality variables were better predictors of scores on the PDI Employment inventory, which is a veiled-purpose (also referred to as personality based) test, than of scores on the Personnel Selection Inventory, which measures honesty-related attitudes and includes items calling for direct admissions of misdeeds.We are grateful for the assistance and cooperation of London House Inc., Personnel Decisions Inc., and Hogan Assessment Systems, Inc., and especially to Scott Martin, George Paajanen, and Joyce Hogan.     

Factor structure,validity, and reliability of the fear questionnaire in a Hong Kong Chinese population

This study examined the factor structure, validity, and reliability of the Fear Questionnaire in Hong Kong. The sample consisted of 226 college students who were ethnic Chinese and they came from different parts of Hong Kong. Exploratory factor analysis produced three meaningful factors. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the three-factor model of Marks and Mathews (1979) in the present sample of subjects. Findings also showed that the Fear Questionnaire was both reliable and valid. Limitations of the study and implications for future research in this area were discussed. In particular, the need to assess the cross-cultural application of the Fear Questionnaire was stressed.This research project was supported by the Research and Conference Grants of the University of Hong Kong.     

Child protection investigations: Discourse analysis and the management of incommensurability

This paper asks whether discourse analytic approaches in social psychology have yet produced methodologies adequate to the investigation of institutional ‘gaze’. Institutional language has been explored to the extent that state agencies construct members of the public by speaking about them in particular ways. This has often provided insight into the co-existence and competition of incommensurable discourses. However, studies of representation in the sense of speaking for have been notably absent from social psychology. It is argued that this aspect of discourse is a vital component in the study of contemporary governmental multi-agency strategy in the area of child protection, where recent legislation and policy aims at the coordination of incommensurable discourses. A methodology for studying this strategy is outlined through an account of the actor network approach in science studies, accounts of the State under the post-modern condition, and analyses of sections of interviews with social workers.     

Categorization response time with multidimensional stimuli

Categorization response time (RT) was examined in three separate experiments, in each of which exemplars varied on two physical dimensions. Three different types of stimuli were used: (1) horizontal and vertical line segments of varying length that were joined at an upper left corner, (2) rectangles of varying width and height, and (3) circles or semicircles of varying size with a radial arm of varying orientation. No evidence was found that stimulus familiarity or the category prototypes played any special role in determining categorization RT. Instead, RT decreased with distance from the stimulus to the categorization decision bound.     

Intelligence,classroom behavior,and academic achievement in children at high and low risk for psychopathology: A structural equation analysis

The intelligence, academic achievement, and classroom behavior of 158 children were assessed in a sample that is being followed longitudinally. The sample included children at high risk for mental disorder by virtue of having a parent with a psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia or affective disorder, children at moderate risk, and children at low risk, A series of path analyses indicated that in this sample (1) classroom behavior was more likely an affect than a cause of academic achievement, and (2) the influence of parental psychopathology on classroom behavior was mediated by a child's intelligence and academic achievement. We were unable to substantiate an unmediated causal link between parental psychopathology and children's academic achievement or classroom behavior.This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH 24819 to Drs. E. J. Anthony and J. Worland. The authors appreciate the help of the entire Harry Edison Child Development Research Center staff, especially Janet Penniman, Steven Finn, Harriet Lander, Arlene Stiffman, Victor Hesselbrock, Darcy Gilpin, Janice Hensiek, and Crisanne Roberts. Special thanks are expressed to Myra Ferrel and Alice Woods for making arrangements with the schools. Our gratitude is expressed to the principals, counselors, and teachers of the St. Louis area schools and to the children and families who participated in this effort.     

Meaning specificity in sentence processing.

Two experiments were conducted to test the principle of encoding specificity in sentence recognition when the target sentence was embedded in a meaningful discourse. The results indicate that change in meaning context resulted in significantly less recognition of the target sentences while change in sentence form and the target-test interval had no significant effects. The findings were discussed within the framework of a semantic interpretation of the encoding specificity principle.     

Defensive behaviors in rats following septal and septal--amygdala lesions

Rats with anterior septal lesions showed a pattern of consistent enhancement of defensive behaviors normally elicited by threatening conspecifics, with no enhancement of attack or general reactivity. Further division of this group indicated that damage to sites anterior and ventral to the septal area, sites previously implicated in the "septal syndrome," produces maximal effect on these behaviors. When amygdala lesions are combined with septal damage this enhanced defensive responding is almost completely eliminated. These results were interpreted as indicating that the septal syndrome represents hyperdefensiveness to conspecific threat stimuli rather than aggression or increased general reactivity, and that amygdaloid mechanisms are also involved in the regulation of conspecific defensive behaviors.     

Does word training increase or decrease interference in a stroop task?

First and second graders (6- and 7-year-olds) practiced reading 20 words. Before and after word training, they named pictures printed with and without these words as distractors. Of interest was whether training would enhance or diminish the interference created by these words in the picture-naming task. Results indicated that children who learned to recognize unfamiliar distractor words more accurately suffered more interference after training. In contrast, children who were already familiar with the words and learned to recognize them faster experienced less interference following training. Results are interpreted as supporting LaBerge and Samuels' model of automatic word processing. Effects of accuracy training are attributed to the elimination of attention as a requirement for processing distractor words. Effects of speed training are attributed to a reduction in the time consumed by distractor words in the central processor.     

A psychological perspective interpretation of the attitude-behavior relationship

In two experiments subjects were shown seven items that described uses for photographs taken of them with an opposite-sex black. The uses formed a graded series ranging from a situation in which only other researchers would see the photos to one in which they would be employed in a nationwide campaign for integration. Subjects were either asked to sign releases so that the photographs could actually be taken and used in the ways specified (behavior) or to indicate their hypothetical agreement or disagreement with each release as part of a survey on attitudes (attitude). In both experiments, the attitude subjects agreed to more of the releases than did the behavior subjects. This difference has been termed an attitude-behavior discrepancy by some researchers. However, in both experiments, behavior subjects judged themselves as no less prejudiced than attitude subjects and scaled agreement with each photographic release as reflecting less prejudice than did attitude subjects. These data are consistent with the interpretation that subjects changed their psychological perspectives (Ostrom & Upshaw, 1968) in order to interpret their own behaviors as attitudinally consistent.     

ESTABLISHMENT OF NONDELUSIONAL RESPONSES IN A SOCIALLY WITHDRAWN CHRONIC SCHIZOPHRENIC1

Multiple treatment interventions including instructions, modelling, timeout, avoidance of repetition, and reinforcement were successful in establishing factual answers to personal background questions in a withdrawn and socially unresponsive chronic schizophrenic. The subject had previously persisted in giving only delusional responses to these questions. A multiple-baseline design across verbal replies to personal background questions demonstrated that the changes in behavior were brought about by the treatment interventions. During baseline, the subject was reinforced for any response to four questions. The experimental interventions were then introduced for the first question and moved sequentially to an additional question when the subject's responses reached the criterion of at least 80% correct for two consecutive sessions. Introduction of the experimental interventions produced an increase from a baseline level of zero to at least 80% correct for each question. The use of the token reinforcement procedure was faded out after the subject was able to answer all four questions correctly at least 80% of the time for two consecutive sessions. Fading of the token reinforcement procedure was accomplished by using increasingly intermittent schedules of token reinforcement during the last seven sessions. In the final session, no tokens were used to reinforce the subject's responding. Nine-, ten-, and 12-month followup interviews were conducted to evaluate the maintenance of treatment gains. Maintenance was found to be complete at the nine- and 10-month followups, but at the 12-month followup interview, the subject answered one question incorrectly. This study replicates an investigation previously reported in this journal.