Testing different interpretations for the mistaken belief that rays exit the eyes during vision

Research has shown that children and adults believe that emissions from the eye occur during the act of vision. Such beliefs are similar to ancient extramission theories of perception. In Study 1, the authors tested the idea that extramission beliefs might stem from people's thinking about what might occur during vision as opposed to what is necessary for seeing. Training participants to think about what is necessary for vision, however, had no effect on extramission responses. The results of Study 2 indicated that emphasizing the idea of visual input led to a decline in extramission responses and supported the hypothesis that extramission notions stem from the outer-oriented phenomenology of vision.     

Language, Love, and Healing: A Psychoanalyst's Perspective

This lecture addresses the task of psychotherapy as enabling both patient and therapist to feel personally alive, sensibly responsible and to be able to experience compassion and civility. Freud's notion of the end of analysis issuing in a capacity for common unhappiness is examined. The metaphorical nature of psychotherapy is the frame for understanding these concepts.He is associate editor of     

The Reduction of Adverse Impact in an Employment Setting Using a Short-Term Memory Test

Research suggests that less adverse impact should result from the use of employment tests assessing memory abilities than is obtained from tests assessing cognitive abilities. To test the application of this principle, a Short-Term Memory test and a Reading Comprehension test were administered as part of a selection battery for entry level police. Subjects were 1423 police officer applicants for a Midwestern city in the U.S. The results for the overall sample showed a smaller standardized difference between the scores of Blacks and Whites on the Short-Term Memory test than on the Reading Comprehension test, a difference which was further reduced when a subsample of Blacks and Whites was created which had been matched on gender, years of education and age.     

A unitary Neo-Piagetian/Neo-Eriksonian model of development: Fundamental assumptions and meta-issues

The article briefly reviews a stage model of change in human development that integrates a Neo-Piagetian model and a Neo-Eriksonian model into one unitary stage model across the lifespan (as presented in Young, 2011). The model suggests a generic model of stages in change. The article explores the fundamental assumptions underlying the model as well as considering meta-issues. The article adds to the book by describing the Neo-Eriksonian stages as reflections of a social “participatory” process. It adds to the change process in development by describing it as possibly reflecting “punctuated disequilibrium.” Finally, it adds a “multiple psychodynamics” model.     

Personal reputation in organizations: Two‐study constructive replication and extension of antecedents and consequences

Personal reputation has been argued to demonstrate important influences on work outcomes. However, substantive research on personal reputation is relatively scarce. This two‐study investigation empirically supports and extends existing theory regarding the temporal development of personal reputation (i.e., antecedents and consequences), and thus contributes to a more informed understanding of both the construct and criterion‐related validity of this important construct. Study 1 is conducted longitudinally, in order to assess the development of personal reputation over time, which is undertaken to demonstrate the effects of human capital and social effectiveness as antecedents of reputation. Study 2 complements and extends the first study by conducting a field investigation examining the effects of time, human capital, and social effectiveness as antecedents of personal reputation, while also exploring the reputation consequences of autonomy, power, and career success. Our findings suggest that human capital, time, and social effectiveness play a part in the development of a reputation. Furthermore, career success, power, and autonomy were shown to be outcomes of the reputation construct. Contributions and strengths of this investigation, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Parent Participation Within Community Center or In-Home Outreach Delivery Models of the Early Risers Conduct Problems Prevention Program

A variety of predictors of parent participation in prevention programming have been identified in past research, but few studies have investigated how those predictors may vary by implementation context. Patterns of parent participation were examined in the Early Risers Conduct Problems Prevention Program using two family-focused service delivery models: a community center model (Center) and an in-home outreach-based model (Outreach). An ethnically diverse sample of Kindergarten through second grade students (n = 246) displaying elevated levels of aggression were recruited for the study and randomly assigned to either the Center (n = 121) or Outreach (n = 125) models. In both delivery models, participants and their families completed an assortment of baseline measures and received family skills and child skills intervention components and family- and school-based case management. Parents in the Center model demonstrated greater overall participation in family-focused components of the intervention. Parent motivation with parent-focused expectancies for the intervention represented the strongest predictor of parent participation across both delivery models. Family income differentially predicted parent participation across the two models, with low income predicting greater participation in the Center model and lower participation in the Outreach model. A qualitative finding emerged showing that parents receiving parent skills in the Center model via groups preferred to learn skills related to facilitating overall family relationships, whereas parents receiving parent skills via individual Outreach meetings preferred to improve a child’s behavior and emotion skills. Implications are discussed for the design of prevention programming in order to maximize parent participation in high risk populations.     

Examining the impact of unscorable item responses on the validity and interpretability of MMPI-2/MMPI-2-RF Restructured Clinical (RC) Scale scores

This article examined the impact of unscorable item responses on the psychometric validity and practical interpretability of scores on the Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2/Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2/MMPI-2-RF). In analyses conducted with five archival samples, we found that relatively large proportions of unscorable responses (defined as 10% or more of the items scored on a scale) were relatively uncommon, occurring most often in forensic samples. Simulated unscorable responses were inserted in varying proportions (10% to 90%) in place of the responses of participants in two of the archival samples for which criterion data were available. Analyses were conducted to gauge the impact of unscorable responses on the criterion validity of scores on these scales and their interpretability. Impact on validity was evaluated by examining correlations with extra-test variables as a function of increasing levels of unscorable responding. Interpretability was evaluated by examining the proportion of participants who produced clinically elevated RC Scale scores as a function of unscorable responding. Results indicate that whereas scale score validity was relatively robust up to a level of 50% unscorable responses, interpretability was substantially compromised at only 10% unscorable responding. This suggests that prorated scores may be used to correct for the impact of unscorable responses on the interpretability of RC Scale scores at levels as high as 50% unscorable responses. Classification analyses supported this possibility. Further steps needed to explore the feasibility of using prorated scores are discussed.     

MMPI-2-RF characteristics of custody evaluation litigants

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) is a 338-item objective self-report measure drawn from the 567 items of the MMPI-2. Although there is a substantial MMPI-2 literature regarding child custody litigants, there has been only one previously published study using MMPI-2-RF data in this population that focused on Validity scales L-r and K-r. The current study evaluated the MMPI-2-RF results of 344 child custody litigants and showed substantial consistency between T-score elevations typically found on MMPI-2 Validity scales L and K, and comparable elevations for MMPI-2-RF validity scales L-r and K-r. Mean T-scores well within normal limits characterized results for clinical scales on both instruments. The RC scale intercorrelation patterns, and alpha coefficient values found for MMPI-2-RF scales in a custody population, were also found to be very similar to those reported for other populations. Directions for future research are presented.