Intraclass correlation associated with therapists: estimates and applications in planning psychotherapy research

It is essential that outcome research permit clear conclusions to be drawn about the efficacy of interventions. The common practice of nesting therapists within conditions can pose important methodological challenges that affect interpretation, particularly if the study is not powered to account for the nested design. An obstacle to the optimal design of these studies is the lack of data about the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), which measures the statistical dependencies introduced by nesting. To begin the development of a public database of ICC estimates, the authors investigated ICCs for a variety outcomes reported in 20 psychotherapy outcome studies. The magnitude of the 495 ICC estimates varied widely across measures and studies. The authors provide recommendations regarding how to select and aggregate ICC estimates for power calculations and show how researchers can use ICC estimates to choose the number of patients and therapists that will optimize power. Attention to these recommendations will strengthen the validity of inferences drawn from psychotherapy studies that nest therapists within conditions.     

Attentional Performance in Children and Adolescents with Tic Disorder and Co-Occurring Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: New Insights from a 2 × 2 Factorial Design Study

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of both tic disorder (TD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on attentional functions. N = 96 children and adolescents participated in the study, including n = 21 subjects with TD, n = 23 subjects with ADHD, n = 25 subjects with TD+ADHD, and n = 27 controls. Attentional performance was tested based on four computerized attention tasks (sustained attention, divided attention, go/nogo and set shifting). The effect of TD as well as ADHD on attentional performance was tested using a 2 × 2 factorial approach. A diagnosis of TD had no negative impact on attentional functions but was associated with improved performance in the set shifting task. By contrast, regardless of a diagnosis of TD, subjects with ADHD were found to perform worse in the sustained attention, divided attention and go/nogo task. No interaction effect between the factors TD and ADHD was revealed for any of the attention measures. Our results add to findings from other areas of research, showing that in subjects with TD and ADHD, ADHD psychopathology is often the main source of impairment, whereas a diagnosis of TD has little or no impact on neuropsychological performance in most cases and even seems to be associated with adaptive mechanisms.     

Defending the Faith(s)? Democracy and Hereditary Right in England

The persistence of traditional monarchies in modern societies, which are otherwise characterized by democratic and egalitarian values, remains a paradox in the social sciences. In part this is attributable to the lack of psychological investigation into the relationship between subject and sovereign, and in particular the ways in which the political and social values of the citizenry shape understandings of a hereditary monarch's right to represent a national community. Adopting the qualitative analysis methods of discursive psychology and grounded theory, the current study examines vernacular accounts of nationhood and monarchy in England in both formalized conversational interviews (n = 60) and impromptu street interviews (n = 56). Focusing on accounts of Prince Charles's recent proposal to change the role of the monarch, from “Defender of the (Christian) Faith” to “Defender of Faiths,” those in favor treated it as a positive step towards reflecting a diverse (religious) community, bringing the monarchy into line with current concerns of pluralism and upholding values of personal choice and individual rights. Participants who rejected the proposed change in title construed it as antithetical to these values in terms of reflecting personal stake and interest, an abuse of power, or an imposition on other faiths. In all accounts, the prime concern was in safeguarding the political and social values of the citizenry. In conclusion it is argued that the study of subjects' relationship to the monarch, its function and legitimacy, can provide an opportunity to examine how values can characterize a national community and facilitate national diversity.     

The concept of leakage in threat assessment

Leakage in the context of threat assessment is the communication to a third party of an intent to do harm to a target. Third parties are usually other people, but the means of communication vary, and include letters, diaries, journals, blogs, videos on the internet, emails, voice mails, and other social media forms of transmission. Leakage is a type of warning behavior that typically infers a preoccupation with the target, and may signal the research, planning, and implementation of an attack. Nomothetic data suggest that leakage occurs in a majority of cases of attacks on and assassinations of public figures, adult mass murders, adolescent mass murders, and school or campus shootings: very low-frequency, but catastrophic acts of intended and targeted violence. Idiographic or case data illustrate the various permutations of leakage. We discuss the operational importance of the concept, place it in the context of other warning behaviors, emphasize the need for further research, and outline risk management strategies for the mitigation of such acts of violence in both law enforcement and clinical mental health settings.     

Downward spirals of body surveillance and weight/shape concern among African American and Caucasian college women

Within dominant American culture, females often learn to view themselves from an observer's perspective and to treat themselves as objects to be looked at (i.e., self-objectification), which can result in negative outcomes. Body surveillance (the indicator of self-objectification) has been found to predict concern with weight/shape in predominantly Caucasian samples, but research has not yet examined the potential reciprocal relations between body surveillance and weight/shape concern. Participants were 226 women attending a Midwestern university (70 self-identified as African American and 156 as Caucasian) who provided data at two time points, spaced about 5 months apart. Results revealed that downward spirals of body surveillance and weight/shape concern were apparent for the Caucasian but not the African American women. However, there was evidence that body surveillance helped account for change in weight/shape concern for the African American women.     

Some effort for some: further evidence that scalar implicatures are effortful

Under the assumption of the principle of cooperation (Grice, 1989), a statement such as "some eels are fish" is thought to be false since it contains less information than is considered sufficient. However, the statement is logically sound since the meaning of "some" is compatible with "all". Currently, the primary interpretation of such underinformative statements remains subject to debate. According to Levinson (2000), the pragmatic "some but not all" interpretation is the default interpretation, while others (e.g., Sperber & Wilson, 1995) argue that this pragmatic interpretation only comes to the fore when relevant within the context and is thus considered secondary to the logical "some and perhaps all" interpretation. In this study, three factors that may influence the answer pattern are studied: task load, working memory capacity, and repetition of the statements. In Experiment 1, we used a secondary task paradigm to manipulate the cognitive load under which a number of underinformative statements had to be judged. We observed that for participants with a rather limited working memory span it is harder to reach a pragmatic interpretation under cognitive load. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the repetition of the statements. We observed that with a higher number of filler statements, participants produced fewer consistent answer patterns. This study provides further evidence against the automaticity of the pragmatic interpretation: It shows that the pragmatic interpretation requires more cognitive effort than the logical interpretation and that increasing the number of filler statements inhibits the development of a response strategy.     

Work–nonwork boundary management profiles: A person-centered approach

The goal of this paper is to advance the measurement and theory of work–nonwork boundary management styles. Boundary management styles are defined as the approaches individuals use to demarcate boundaries and attend to work and family and other nonwork roles, given identity centralities and perceived boundary control. We argue that research should be augmented with a person-centered approach, which examines how psychological measures are integrated into configurations. Integrating role and boundary theories, we identify three main characteristics of work-nonwork boundary management: (1) cross-role interruption behaviors (work to nonwork, and nonwork to work interruptions); (2) identity centrality of work and family roles, and (3) perceived control of boundaries. Using a variable-centered approach, we refined and validated these measures to create an assessment (Work–Life Indicator) that captured boundary management profiles. The profiles reflect how interruption behaviors, identity centralities, and boundary control interrelate to cluster into profiles, a set of psychological characteristics organized into a pattern of work–nonwork boundary functioning. We identify boundary management profiles and examine their relationships to key work-family outcomes. Regardless of the level and direction of interruption behaviors and centrality of work–family identities, we found that low control boundary management profiles (reactors, job warriors) tended to experience more negative work and family outcomes than did high control profiles (fusion lovers, dividers, family guardians, eclectics).     

Emerging bilingualism: dissociating advantages for metalinguistic awareness and executive control

The present studies revealed different factors associated with the reported advantages found in fully bilingual children for metalinguistic awareness and executive control. Participants were 100 children in Study 1 and 80 children in Study 2 in the process of becoming bilingual by attending immersion programs. In both studies, level of proficiency in the language of testing was related to performance on metalinguistic tasks and length of time in the immersion program was related to performance on executive control tasks. This dissociation is consistent with models of lifespan development that distinguish between representational structure and executive control.     

Development and reliability of a Brazilian Portuguese version of the MCMI-III

This paper describes the methodology used to translate the MCMI-III into Brazilian Portuguese and presents results from a reliability study conducted in Brazil with the translated instrument. The sample was comprised of 222 Brazilian college students. Test-retest correlations between first and second testings (over a period of 7 to 14 days) ranged from .70 to .93 across 27 scales. Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from .54 to .87. The procedures described in this paper represent preliminary steps in the development of a Brazilian Portuguese translation of the MCMI-III. Further studies are needed to obtain reliability data with a clinical sample, evaluate the diagnostic validity of the scales, and derive appropriate base rates for the Brazilian population.     

Urban district identity as a common ingroup identity: The different role of ingroup prototypicality for minority and majority groups

In this paper, we examined how identification with urban districts as a common ingroup identity and perceived ingroup prototypicality influence the attitudes of residents toward other ethnic groups in their neighborhood. The overall conclusion of two field studies (N = 214 and N = 98) is that for majority‐group members, there may be a positive relation between identification with an overarching identity and outgroup attitudes but only when they perceive their ingroup as low in prototypicality for the overarching group (Study 1 and 2). Conversely, for minority‐group members, there may be a positive relation between identification and outgroup attitudes but only when they perceive their ingroup as high in prototypicality for the overarching group (Study 2). Outgroup prototypicality did not moderate the relation between identification and outgroup attitudes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.