Size,convexity, and curvature magnitude estimations of curvilinear forms

Groups of Os made magnitude estimates of size, convexity, and curvature of patterns along a shape continuum. College Os repeated the procedure for a given physical measure in three successive sessions, but high school Os made only one set of estimates. The apparent size for the patterns was found to grow with an exponent between .700 and .755 for high school and college Os. The magnitude estimates for convexity and curvature were less reliable than the size estimates both between college and high school Os and within college Os over successive sessions. The magnitude estimates from the high school and college Os showed a faster apparent growth of curvature than of convexity.     

An analysis of anxiety and depression scales

The relationship between the constructs of anxiety and depression are examined through the administration of nine self-report scales to male and female undergraduates. The results showed strong correlations among all measures, and factor analyses revealed one major "psychological distress" factor for each sex. No sex differences were found on the measure employed. The discussion focused on the implications of the findings for research in the areas of anxiety and depression, and further research that is required.     

An experimental investigation of the cognitive vulnerability to depression

The present study employed an experimental design, to examine the role of metacognitive processing in the prevention of relapse to depression. Eighty remitted depressed participants were randomly allocated to receive training in the metacognitive style of rumination, distraction, acceptance or no training control prior to a negative mood induction. Rumination prolonged the intensity of the negative mood consistent with no training, whereas both distraction and acceptance reduced the intensity of the negative mood. Changes in attitudes were only found in the acceptance condition, as participants in this condition reduced negative attitudes towards negative experiences. These results are consistent with information processing theory, and imply that acceptance-based preventative interventions may operate by both reducing the intensity of sad moods and altering one's attitudes towards temporary moments of sadness.     

Memory for Objects and Faces by the Mentally Retarded and Nonretarded

Visual recognition skills of 26 mentally retarded high school students were compared with the skills of two groups of nonretarded students. All groups were taught to recognize 32 target faces and objects and were retested 1 week, 1 month, and 2 months later. The counterintuitive findings were that there were no significant differences between the retarded and nonretarded groups in memory for faces on any of the retest trials. All groups remembered faces significantly better than they did objects and remembered more of the pictures at 1 week than they did at 1 month or at 2 months. There was no significant loss over time in memory for faces. Relative to nonretarded subjects, the retarded subjects exhibited deficits in encoding and remembering objects but showed no such deficits in encoding and remembering faces. The results suggest that different configurational features may be used to encode objects as opposed to faces.     

An Evaluation of the Validity and Fairness of the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) Used for MBA Selection in a UK Business School

The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) has been shown to be a valid predictor of Masters of Business Administration (MBA) performance in the USA, but no UK validity studies have been published. This study uses a large sample of UK MBA students to examine the validity and fairness of GMAT. It is found that GMAT-Verbal is a good predictor of MBA examination performance but GMAT-Quantitative is not. It is also found that both components are unfair to native English speakers. The reasons for these findings are to be found in the nature of the criterion employed. Some observations are made regarding the consequences for best practice of the competitive and political context of MBA selection.     

Information processing and cognitive organization in unipolar depression: specificity and comorbidity issues

This study investigated information processing and cognitive organization in clinical depression. The specificity of various cognitive mechanisms to depression was also examined. Twenty-six depressed/anxious individuals, 24 pure depressives, 25 never-depressed anxious controls, and 25 nonpsychiatric controls completed a modified Stroop task, the Self-Referent Encoding Task, and two tasks designed to assess cognitive structure. Comorbid depressed/anxious, depressed, and anxious groups performed similarly to one another but differed significantly from nonpsychiatric controls, on the processing and organization of negative content. Specificity to depression was also obtained, as both depressed groups endorsed and recalled less positive information and organized positive self-relevant information with less interconnectedness than anxious individuals and nonpsychiatric controls. These results suggest that depressed individuals have an interconnected negative self-representational system and lack a well-organized positive template of self. These findings are discussed in terms of cognitive models of depression and the tripartite model of depression and anxiety.     

Negative thoughts in depression: A study in Iran

The cognitive theory of depression proposes significant relations between negative thoughts and depression. Evidence for the model has been widely observed in Western countries. However, despite the high prevalence of depression in the Middle East (ME), there has been limited research that has evaluated the cognitive profiles of people living in this region, and especially in non-Arab countries like Iran. The current research examined these relationships in Iran. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 80 depressed and 80 non-depressed individuals via advertising in clinics and public areas, respectively. Depression status was checked with a structured interview, the Major Depressive Disorder subscale of the Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire, and the Beck Depression Inventory-II. All participants completed the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire-Negative to examine the frequency of negative automatic thoughts. Unlike other results from Arab countries, depressed participants indicated significantly more negative thoughts towards self and future compared with the non-depressed group. The results of the present study are consistent with the negativity hypothesis of the cognitive theory of depression. Further research is needed in the in ME, to investigate other hypotheses of this theory in this region. Strengths and limitations of the present study are discussed.     

Assessing Agreement between the K10 and MHI-5 Measures of Psychological Wellbeing

Responses to the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) and the Mental Health Index-5 (MHI-5) mental health subscale of the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form (SF-36) survey cover broadly similar constructs. The aim of this paper is to use the equipercentile method to produce a concordance between K10 and MHI-5 across the whole score distribution. Comparisons were made using survey data from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) and the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, which used both the K10 and the MHI-5 measures at the same time for the same participants. Agreement was assessed with Bland-Altman plots. The differences between MHI-5 scores and transformed K10 scores were assessed with paired t-tests. For the ALSWH data there is good agreement between MHI-5 scores and scores equated from the K10. The mean of the differences is −0.15 with standard deviation 10.8. Using the ALSWH transformation on the HILDA data for different age groups and genders, the mean differences ranged from 0.43 to 3.38 with corresponding standard deviations of 11.1 to 9.9. The concordance table was very similar to one obtained by the more complicated item response theory method. The results suggest that longitudinal surveys of the same respondents that previously used MHI-5 could adopt the K10 (or vice versa) without loss of comparability.

     

The Theory-Practice Gap in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Reflections and a Modest Proposal to Bridge the Gap

This paper examines the issues related to the gap between theory and practice in the area of cognitive-behavioral therapy. The article begins with a review of the evidence for such a gap, and having demonstrated that the gap exists, provides a discussion of some of the factors that are likely important in its genesis and maintenance. The article then focuses on potential strategies to reduce the theory-practice gap that go beyond the common recommendation for both efficacy and effectiveness research. In particular, we provide recommendations for protocol planning and design, training and competency maintenance, dissemination research, and implementation and policy change. We conclude with the proposition that theory and research should not only inform practice, but that practice should have a reciprocal benefit on theory and research.