Reliability of psychophysiological assessment

In order to assess the reliability of psychophysiological recording, 15 subjects were assessed on multiple response measures (forehead EMG and forearm flexor EMG, heart rate, skin resistance level, hand surface temperature and cephalic vasomotor response), under multiple stimulus conditions (baseline, self-control, cognitive and physical Stressors), on multiple occasions (Days 1, 2, 8 and 28). Three forms of reliability coefficients were computed for each response measure: coefficients on absolute scores, coefficients on change scores from baseline to stressful conditions and coefficients on percent change from baseline. Only frontal EMG appeared to have consistently high absolute reliability coefficients, with hand surface temperature having high reliability if sessions are repeated within 1 week. Heart rate was less consistently reliable. Treating the responses as relative measures did not increase their reliability; indeed, hand surface temperature was completely unreliable when examined in this fashion. Implications of this study for behavioral medicine, biofeedback and anxiety-based disorders research, as well as Lang's tripartite response system model of fear and emotion, are discussed.     

Measuring the economic impact of human resource programs

Methods that allow estimating the dollar impact of human resource programs are now available to Industrial/Organizational (I/O) psychologists and other human resource professionals. Dollar estimates running into the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars (and higher) have been established for various recruitment, selection and training programs across a wide variety of white and blue collar jobs. Most of this work has gone largely unnoticed by mainstream business communities due in large part to the inability of psychologists and other human resource professionals to communicate their research findings in a manner that is clear and credible to organizational decision makers and consistent with typical business conventions. It is concluded that I/O psychologists and other technical human resource professionals should place more emphasis on adequately communicating cost-benefit estimates to managers and other organizational decision makers, and that managers and organizational decision makers should routinely request such estimates from internal professional staff members and/or outside consulting firms.John M. Rauschenberger is a personnel research consultant in the Workforce Research and Selection Systems Section of Ford Motor Company. Frank L. Schmidt is the Sheets Distinguished Professor of Human Resources at the University of Iowa. He is on the Editorial Board of theJournal of Applied Psychology, and has been the recipient of the James McKeen Cattell Award for Research Design.     

Attitudinal ambivalence, rumination, and forgiveness of partner transgressions in marriage

Although positive and negative attitudes toward a transgressor are related to increased and decreased forgiveness, respectively, prior research has failed to investigate forgiveness among those who feel both positively and negatively toward a transgressor. Therefore, the authors examined such ambivalence and its relationship to forgiveness. It was hypothesized that spouses with ambivalent attitudes toward their partner will be less forgiving of a partner transgression because such an event is likely to prime the negative component of their ambivalence. Because ruminating about a transgression also has the potential to prime the negative component of one's ambivalence, an interaction between rumination and ambivalence was predicted. Data from 87 married couples showed that greater attitudinal ambivalence toward the partner was associated with decreased forgiveness only when husbands and wives thought about the transgression frequently; ambivalence was not related to forgiveness in the absence of rumination. The implications of these findings for understanding forgiveness in marriage and for increasing forgiveness among married couples are discussed.     

Processes operative during delay of gratification

Sixty-four middle-class preschool children chose between waiting for a preferred item and receiving a less desired item immediately. The items were of different classes, i.e., one food and one toy, and subjects waited with one, both, or neither of the rewards available for viewing. The likelihood that a subject would continue waiting for the delayed reward was found to increase as a function of previous waiting time rather than decrease or remain constant as required by two current theories of delay of gratification processes, an aversive affect model implied by Mischel and Ebbesen (1970) and Atkinson and Birch's (1970) dynamics of action. Although display of rewards impaired successful delay, replicating previous results, dynamics of action predictions of differential effects for display of immediately available and delayed outcomes of different classes were not confirmed. Systematic observation of spontaneous subject activities during the delay period offered additional support for the notion that distraction facilitates successful waiting behavior. A decision-attention model is proposed to account for the present results as well as those of previous studies of delay of gratification.We would like to thank the director, Mr. Jack Lewis, and the staff of the Red Bell Nursery of Plymouth, Michigan, for helping us obtain subjects for this study and providing access to their facilities. We are also grateful to Ms. Shirley St. Peter and Ms. Carolyn Jagacinski for their work as experimenters.     

Negative dominance in hedonic integration of noun-noun pairs

Subjects in Experiment 1 rated the pleasantness of nouns and of noun pairs. Although pair pleasantness was highly correlated with average component-word pleasantness, it was systematically lower than this average. In Experiment 2, subjects rated all combinations of 18 nouns on either pleasantness or unpleasantness of the pair, in a within-subject factorial design. Significant interactions in the two studies were interpreted in the context of algebraic integration theory as indicating a context-sensitive differential weighting of components: the more unpleasant noun of a pair had a greater effect on pair ratings than the more pleasant noun. The potential reliability and generality of this negative dominance effect was considered, and it was contrasted with the Pollyanna effect discussed by previous authors.The authors would like to thank Ronald Fox for his valuable help with the data analysis.     

Social support, positive states of mind, and HIV treatment adherence in men and women living with HIV/AIDS.

Numerous studies have linked social support to better medication adherence among illness groups, but few have examined potential mechanisms for this relationship. Relationships were examined between social support, depression, positive states of mind (PSOM), and medication adherence among HIV positive men who have sex with men (n = 61) and women (n = 29) on highly active antiretroviral therapy. Depression and PSOM were evaluated as potential mediators of the relationship between support and adherence. Cross-sectional data showed that greater social support and PSOM related to better adherence whereas higher depression scores related to nonadherence. PSOM partially mediated the relationship between social support and adherence. PSOM may be an important mechanism through which social support is related to better medication adherence in this population.     

The Use of the MMPI-2 Infrequency–Psychopathology Scale in the Assessment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Male Veterans

This study evaluated the use of the F_P (Infrequency–Psychopathology) scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory—2 (MMPI-2) as a measure of symptom overreporting among 423 service-seeking male veterans with and without PTSD. Results were consistent with several predictions based on the logic of the F_P scale. F_P produced lower scores for PTSD and non-PTSD patients than the other two MMPI-2 measures of infrequent responding; F and F_B. F_P also resulted in fewer invalid protocols than did F or F_B. Finally, F_P yielded lower correlations with MMPI-2 and other measures of psychopathology than did F or F_B. Consistent with previous studies, compensation-seeking status was associated with extreme elevations across clinical and validity scales. Contrary to previous findings, however, compensation-seeking veterans were also more likely to receive a PTSD diagnosis. Implications for the relationship between compensation seeking and symptom overreporting are discussed.     

Explaining the Appeal of Populist Right‐Wing Parties in Times of Economic Prosperity

The assumption that populist right‐wing parties (PRWPs) thrive when the economy slows down is remarkably pervasive. What is often neglected is evidence showing PRWPs can thrive in times of economic prosperity. To examine this, we conducted an experiment in which participants were exposed to different appraisals of the future of the national economy and were subsequently asked to evaluate an anti‐immigration speech (Study 1). Results showed stronger anti‐immigrant sentiments when the national economy was presented as prospering rather than contracting. We then analyzed speeches by PRWP leaders who secured electoral victories during economic prosperity (Study 2) and found that these leaders encourage a sense of injustice and victimhood by portraying ordinary citizens as the victim of an alliance between powerful groups (the elite) and less powerful groups (refugees, immigrants, minorities). More specifically, Study 2 showed that PRWP leaders are crafty identity entrepreneurs who are able to turn objective relative gratification into perceived relative deprivation. We conclude that it is hence problematic to treat PRWP support as evidence of “resonance” with public sentiments and urge PRWP scholars interested in supply‐side factors to engage with the social identity literature on leadership, followership, and social influence.     

Inheritance of Religiosity Among Muslim Immigrants in a Secular Society

This study examined the intergenerational transmission of religiosity within Muslim immigrant families who live in the Netherlands, a rather secular society. We studied whether transmission of religiosity within immigrant families is influenced by warm family relations on the one hand, and integration into the host country on the other hand. Two analyses were carried out on a nationally representative sample of Turkish and Moroccan first- and second-generation immigrants aged 15–45, in the Netherlands. The findings support the hypotheses to some extent: warm family ties are found to facilitate religious transmission but transmission is stronger when parents have different national backgrounds. A stronger transmission is found within families that are stronger embedded in religious communities; however there are large differences between men and women. Our research shows that the influence of parental religiosity cannot be ignored in the study of immigrants’ religiosity.