Measurement and mismeasurement of mood: recurrent and emergent issues

The affective explosion in psychology has led to tremendous advances in mood measurement. Mood ratings reflect a hierarchical structure consisting of two broad dimensions-Positive Affect and Negative Affect-and multiple specific states. Brief scales have been developed that reliably assess Positive and Negative Affect across different populations and time frames, in both between- and within-subject data. We examine controversies related to (a) the content of these higher order scales and (b) the independence of Positive and Negative Affect. Regarding the latter, we show that Positive and Negative Affect scales remain largely independent across a wide range of conditions, even after controlling for random and systematic error. Finally, there remains little consensus regarding the lower order structure of affect. This lack of a compelling taxonomy has substantially slowed progress in assessing mood at the specific affect level.     

Of science, meta-science, and clinical practice: the generalization of a generalization to a particular

Although science is the most powerful method for advancing knowledge and scientific and statistical formalisms are generally much sounder than impressionistic judgment, advanced methodological training (as it is presently comprised) is often of little direct use to practicing clinicians. Practitioners should be able to identify grossly deficient knowledge claims and clear scientific winners, but beyond this, the trick usually is to determine which scientific authority or authorities on whom to depend, a decision task that is ultimately to be tackled through the type of meta-scientific studies that Faust and Meehl have proposed. In applying scientific knowledge, the clinician usually must choose between the generalization of a scientific generalization to a particular versus the application of a clinical generalization to a particular. Determining the relative power of scientific generalizations developed outside, versus clinical generalizations developed within the setting of application, can be very difficult, and there are few established guides. A more advanced science of generalization, another meta-scientific problem, would allow sounder predictions about application to new domains and could greatly aid the practitioner.     

Problems in Rorschach research and what to do about them

This article identifies many interrelated problems that interfere with progress in Rorschach research. These include vague hypotheses, confounded comparisons, failure to control extraneous variables; misuse of statistics, and distorted interpretation of results. Two crucial solutions to address many of these problems are offered: knowing the data and paling out rival hypotheses. Underlying conceptual confusions are addressed and prototypical examples derived from the literature, are discussed is the hope of improving the scientific foundation of the Rorschach.     

Is there implicit memory without attention? A reexamination of task demands in Eich’s (1984) procedure

The relation between memory and attention has been of long-standing interest. Eich (1984) made an important discovery of implicit but not explicit memory for contextually determined homophones (e.g., taxi-FARE) presented in a channel to be ignored within a selective listening procedure. However, his slow rate of presentation of shadowing task materials may have allowed frequent attention shifts to the allegedly ignored channel. With a direct replication of Eich’s timing parameters, we reproduced his results, but when the attended channel was presented twice as fast as Eich’s, implicit memory for the to-be-ignored words vanished. Our results contradict claims of extensive semantic processing of unattended auditory information in this task.     

Need probability affects retention: A direct demonstration

Recent memory theory has emphasized the concept ofneed probability—that is, the probability that a given piece of learned information will be tested at some point in the future. It has been proposed that, in real-world situations, need probability declines over time and that the memory-loss rate is calibrated to match the progressive reduction in need probability (J. R. Anderson & Schooler, 1991). The present experiments were designed to examine the influence of the slope of the need-probability curve on the slope of the retention curve. On each of several trials, subjects memorized a list of digits, then retained the digits in memory for 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 sec. Some trials ended with a recall test; other trials ended with the message, “no test.” In Experiment 1, the likelihood of encountering a memory test (i.e., the need probability) was made to either increase or decrease as the retention interval increased; in Experiment 2, need probability either was flat (invariant across retention intervals) or decreased as the retention interval increased. The results indicated that the shape of the need-probability curve influenced the slope of the retention curve (Experiment 1) and that the effect became larger as the experimental session progressed (Experiment 2). The findings support the notion that memory adapts to need probabilities and that the rate of forgetting is influenced by the slope of the need-probability curve. In addition, all of the forgetting curves approximated a power function, suggesting that need probability influences the slope but not the form of forgetting.     

Perfectionism and Suicide Ideation in Adolescent Psychiatric Patients

This study was conducted to examine the relations between dimensions of perfectionism and suicide ideation in an adolescent psychiatric sample. A sample of 66 adolescents from an inpatient psychiatric facility completed the Child and Adolescent Perfectionism Scale, the Child's Hopelessness Scale, and the Suicide Ideation Questionnaire. Overall, the results indicated that socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with greater suicide ideation and that it, along with hopelessness, accounted for unique variance in suicide ideation scores. The findings are discussed in terms of their practical and theoretical significance as well as their consistency with similar research with adults.     

Clinical pragmatism: a method of moral problem solving

This paper presents a method of moral problem solving in clinical practice that is inspired by the philosophy of John Dewey. This method, called "clinical pragmatism," integrates clinical and ethical decision making. Clinical pragmatism focuses on the interpersonal processes of assessment and consensus formation as well as the ethical analysis of relevant moral considerations. The steps in this method are delineated and then illustrated through a detailed case study. The implications of clinical pragmatism for the use of principles in moral problem solving are discussed.     

A Comparison of Active Student Response and On-Task Instruction on the Acquisition and Maintenance of Health Facts by Fourth Grade Special Education Students

An alternating treatments design was used to compare the effects of active student response (ASR) and on-task (OT) instruction on the acquisition and maintenance of health facts during small-group lessons. Five students with learning difficulties (4 students identified as developmentally handicapped and 1 student identified as learning disabled) participated in daily instruction on weekly sets of 20 unknown health facts (10 facts assigned to the ASR condition and 10 to the OT condition). During ASR instruction, the teacher modeled the correct response to a health question that was presented visually on a health fact card, and the students immediately repeated the correct response in unison three times. During OT instruction, students attended visually to the health fact card as the teacher modeled the correct response. All 5 students made more correct responses on end-of-day tests on health facts taught with ASR instruction than they did on health facts taught with OT instruction. ASR instruction also produced consistently superior results on maintenance tests administered 2 weeks after instruction.