Assessing within-person personality variability via frequency estimation: More evidence for a new measurement approach

Variability in personality has been recognized in recent years as an important aspect of personality both conceptually and empirically. A relatively new and efficient method of obtaining variability information is frequency-based personality assessment (Edwards & Woehr, 2007). The purpose of the present research is to further examine the viability of frequency-based personality measurement as an alternative to traditional (Likert-type) measurement and to assess the usefulness of the variance-based parameters. Toward this end, three studies are presented. Specifically, Study 1 examined relationships between a frequency-based measure of the Big Five personality traits and several motivational variables. Study 2 examined the moderating role of temporal consistency information (provided by frequency-based measurement) on relationships between personality and peer ratings of task performance. Study 3 compared the frequency-based measure to a Likert-type measure with respect to each measure’s susceptibility to deliberate response distortion. Results indicated that consistency information increases the predictive validity of agreeableness and conscientiousness and that a frequency-based format is less susceptible to faking than a Likert-type format for conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.     

Let's Talk: Getting Out of the Counseling Center to Serve Hard‐to‐Reach Students

This article describes Let's Talk, a counseling center outreach program. Counselors hold walk‐in hours across campus to engage students who might not otherwise seek counseling. Locations are chosen to reach underserved communities. Counselors offer informal consultation, a less formal alternative to traditional counseling. Este artículo describe Let's Talk (Hablemos), un programa de acercamiento a los centros de consejería. Los consejeros mantienen horas de puertas abiertas sin cita previa en distintos lugares del campus para atraer a estudiantes que de otra forma no buscarían acceso a la consejería. Las ubicaciones se eligen para alcanzar comunidades con servicios insuficientes. Los consejeros ofrecen consultas informales, una alternativa menos formal a la consejería tradicional.     

Observed reach trajectory influences executed reach kinematics in prehension

Previous studies have demonstrated that the observation of action can modulate motor performance. This literature has focused on manipulating the observed goal of the action, rather than examining whether action observation effects could be elicited by changing observed kinematics alone. In the study presented here, observed reach trajectory kinematics unrelated to the goal of the action were manipulated in order to examine whether observed movement kinematics alone could influence the action of the observer. Participants observed an experimenter grasp a target object using either a normal or an exaggeratedly high reaching action (as though reaching over an invisible obstacle). When participants observed the experimenter perform actions with a high reach trajectory, their own movements took on aspects of the observed action, showing greater wrist height throughout their reaching trajectory than under conditions in which they observed normal reaching actions. The data are discussed in relation to previous findings which suggest that kinematic aspects of observed movements can prime action through kinematic or intention based matching processes.     

Identity,Incentives, and Religious Defense of Human Rights: Marshall Meyer and the DAIA in Argentina's Dirty War

Whether religious groups advance or limit human rights has been a topic of recent debate among human rights scholars. This article studies the conditions under which religious leaders advance human rights in the context of Argentina's Jewish community during the country's 1976–1983 military dictatorship. Three major influences on religious support for human rights—autonomy from a religious community's establishment, a missionary-reformer identity, and congregational mobilization—are highlighted. Original archival research from the papers of U.S.-born rabbi Marshall T. Meyer illustrates his defense of human rights in Argentina, contrasting his work with the inaction of a major established Jewish organization. Quantitative cross-national analysis extends the case study findings by showing a relationship between religious institutions’ autonomy from the state and defense of human rights.     

Differential susceptibility and the early development of aggression: interactive effects of respiratory sinus arrhythmia and environmental quality

The purpose of the current study was to predict the development of aggressive behavior from young children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and environmental quality. In a longitudinal sample of 213 children, baseline RSA, RSA suppression in response to a film of crying babies, and a composite measure of environmental quality (incorporating socioeconomic status and marital adjustment) were measured, and parent-reported aggression was assessed from 18 to 54 months of age. Predictions based on biological sensitivity-to-context/differential susceptibility and diathesis-stress models, as well as potential moderation by child sex, were examined. The interaction of baseline RSA with environmental quality predicted the development (slope) and 54-month intercept of mothers' reports of aggression. For girls only, the interaction between baseline RSA and environmental quality predicted the 18-month intercept of fathers' reports. In general, significant negative relations between RSA and aggression were found primarily at high levels of environmental quality. In addition, we found a significant Sex × RSA interaction predicting the slope and 54-month intercept of fathers' reports of aggression, such that RSA was negatively related to aggression for boys but not for girls. Contrary to predictions, no significant main effects or interactions were found for RSA suppression. The results provide mixed but not full support for differential susceptibility theory and provide little support for the diathesis-stress model.     

Longitudinal relations among maternal behaviors, effortful control and young children's committed compliance

In a sample (n = 235) of 30-, 42-, and 54-month-olds, the relations among parenting, effortful control (EC), impulsivity, and children's committed compliance were examined. Parenting was assessed with mothers' observed sensitivity and warmth; EC was measured by mothers' and caregivers' reports, as well as a behavioral task; impulsivity was assessed by mothers' and caregivers' reports; and committed compliance was observed during a cleanup and prohibition task, as well as measured by adults' reports. Using path modeling, there was evidence that 30-month parenting predicted high EC and low impulsivity a year later when the stability of the outcomes was controlled, and there was evidence that 30- and 42-month EC, but not impulsivity, predicted higher committed compliance a year later, controlling for earlier levels of the outcomes. Moreover, 42-month EC predicted low impulsivity a year later. Fixed effects models, which are not biased by omitted time-invariant variables, also were conducted and showed that 30-month parenting still predicted EC a year later, and 42-month EC predicted later low impulsivity. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of differentiating between effortful control and impulsivity and the potential mediating role of EC in the relations between parenting and children's committed compliance.     

Philosophy,Early Modern Intellectual History,and the History of Philosophy

Historians of philosophy are increasingly likely to emphasize the extent to which their work offers a pay‐off for philosophers of un‐historical or anti‐historical inclinations; but this defence is less familiar, and often seems less than self‐evident, to intellectual historians. This article examines this tendency, arguing that such arguments for the instrumental value of historical scholarship in philosophy are often more problematic than they at first appear. Using the relatively familiar case study of René Descartes' reading of his scholastic and Aristotelian contemporaries, the article attempts to problematize this notion of pay‐off from an historian's perspective.     

Sex Differences in Religiosity: The Role of Attachment to Parents and Social Learning

We employed aspects of both attachment theory and social learning theory to develop an understanding of sex differences in young adults’ attachment to God, their concepts of God, and other aspects of their religiosity. We found that attachment to God is more likely to be associated with attachment to the same-sex parent than to the opposite-sex parent. We found that this is also true for concepts of God as loving, controlling, and distant in female, but not male participants in our study. For both males and females, mother’s level of religious involvement when they were growing up was associated with participants’ later attendance at religious services, but for males, attachment to father was an additional influence. In neither males nor females was attachment to either parent or their parent’s past religious involvement a significant predictor of strength of religious faith.     

Christian Social Justice Advocate: Contradiction or Legacy?

In this article, the relationship between Christian religiosity and the principles of social justice is explored, including the sociopolitical aspects of faith and advocacy. A particular emphasis is placed on the historical legacy and theological relationships between Christianity and social justice. The author concludes with a call for increasingly overt and intentional social justice work among counselors who self‐identify as Christian.     

Gender invariance and correlates of the Drive for Leanness Scale

We examined the Drive for Leanness Scale's gender invariance and its relationships with health-related behavior and body image-related drives. Men (N = 342) and women (N = 309) attending British universities completed the Drive for Leanness Scale, Drive for Thinness Scale, Drive for Muscularity Scale, and a demographic inventory. Support for configural and metric, but not scalar, invariance emerged. Drive for leanness was positively correlated with weight training frequency, supplement use, drive for thinness, and drive for muscularity in both genders. Results provide guidance on comparing Drive for Leanness Scale scores across gender and contribute to a coherent understanding of the drive for leanness and its correlates.