An Inter-Rater Reliability Study for the Rorschach Performance Assessment System

Summary: Presented definitions for the construct of ambiguity tolerance. The measun: of ambiguity tolerance (MAT-50) had high internal reliability (r = .88) and high test-retest reliability (r = .86) over a 10-to-12 week period. A content analysis of the measure and a subjective imalysis by 20 graduate students indicated adequate content validity. A multivariate comparison with two other ambiguity measures, two rigidity measures, and a short dogmatism measure provided strong evidence for criteria-related validity. Finally, four independent empirical studies showed good construct validity.     

Parents of the Handicapped by Alfred H. Katz

As the sexual abuse of children becomes more widely discussed, clinicians have become increasingly aware of the forgotten group of clients: the adult victim of childhood incestuous abuse. This article presents a group model useful in the treatment of these women. It outlines a time-limited, structured approach based on contextual theory. The selection of group participants is explored with an emphasis on the screening procedure that is used. A profile of the individual who most benefits from this treatment is also included. The various stages of the group are highlighted and the therapists' role during each phase is discussed. Case examples are used to illustrate many of these points.     

The fear of the body in psychotherapy

This paper identifies the fear of attending to and engaging with the patient's body and the therapist's body, regardless of therapeutic orientation, as a topic rarely explored in books and articles but pervasively experienced because of the cultural norms brought to the consulting room. It explores how we might name the constituent parts of this fear and describes how they inter-link. A case study then exemplifies learning about and transforming such fear in both patient and therapist. Finally, the paper offers suggestions of how therapists might increase their awareness and turn this fear into a tool which extends their range of skills.     

How Viewers Process Live,Breaking, and Emotional Television News

This study experimentally tested the effects of negative emotional video and presentation style of television news stories on viewers' attention to, and memory for, the stories. News stories were selected that elicited either fear or disgust. Also, stories were presented either as “breaking” news, “live” news, or traditional news. Findings suggest that stories that elicited disgust reduced processing resources available at encoding more than stories that elicited fear, and were recognized less. A signal detection analysis was conducted that indicated higher sensitivity for fear stories than for disgust, but there was a conservative criterion bias shift for disgust stories. Presentation style had little impact on resources available at encoding and recognition memory, except that fewer resources were available at encoding shortly after the story was verbally labeled “live” or “breaking,” but that did not translate into differences in recognition memory. These results suggest that including disgust-eliciting images in television news stories hinders processing. These results also suggest that discrete emotional theory is applicable to the limited capacity model of mediated message processing.     

fMRI reliability: Influences of task and experimental design

As scientists, it is imperative that we understand not only the power of our research tools to yield results, but also their ability to obtain similar results over time. This study is an investigation into how common decisions made during the design and analysis of a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study can influence the reliability of the statistical results. To that end, we gathered back-to-back test–retest fMRI data during an experiment involving multiple cognitive tasks (episodic recognition and two-back working memory) and multiple fMRI experimental designs (block, event-related genetic sequence, and event-related m-sequence). Using these data, we were able to investigate the relative influences of task, design, statistical contrast (task vs. rest, target vs. nontarget), and statistical thresholding (unthresholded, thresholded) on fMRI reliability, as measured by the intraclass correlation (ICC) coefficient. We also utilized data from a second study to investigate test–retest reliability after an extended, six-month interval. We found that all of the factors above were statistically significant, but that they had varying levels of influence on the observed ICC values. We also found that these factors could interact, increasing or decreasing the relative reliability of certain Task × Design combinations. The results suggest that fMRI reliability is a complex construct whose value may be increased or decreased by specific combinations of factors.     

A systematic review of studies comparing body image concerns among female college athletes and non-athletes, 1997–2012

Research prior to 2001 indicated that athletes experienced better body image than non-athletes, with no differences among sport types. Since then, female athletes have become increasingly sexually objectified in the media, and the sociocultural beauty ideal has shifted to emphasize appearing both athletic and thin. Part I of this paper explores the literature describing these changes. Part II presents a systematic and comprehensive literature review of 10 recent studies comparing body image concerns (BIC) among collegiate female athletes and non-athletes to identify the current status of BIC in female athletes. Findings indicate that involvement in collegiate athletics provides some protection from BIC; however, this protection appears attenuated for athletes in more feminine sports (e.g., gymnastics), and higher level athletes (Division I). Researchers should examine how sociocultural pressures unrelated to competition predict female athletes’ BIC using measures that focus on objectification, positive body image, body functionality, and thin- and athletic-ideal internalization.     

Diffusion of entitlement: An inhibitory effect of scarcity on consumption

Four studies demonstrated that increasing a desirable commodity's scarcity (i.e., decreasing its supply or increasing demand for it) can inhibit people from claiming the commodity for themselves, thereby delaying its consumption. In Study 1, participants were slower to claim a commodity when its supply was limited versus unlimited. In Study 2, participants expressed more disapproval of someone who took the last commodity compared to the second-last commodity. Participants in Study 3 anticipated that increased demand for a commodity would make them less likely to claim it despite wanting it more. Study 4 showed that the more participants there were who could claim a commodity, the longer it went unclaimed. The inhibitory effect of scarcity was mediated by diminished entitlement to the commodity (Study 3), and increasing entitlement reduced the inhibition against taking scarce commodities (Studies 1 and 2). These findings are discussed in the context of individuals' concern with equality.     

A domain-specific validation of the core self-evaluations scale

Core self-evaluations have been recently proposed as indicating positive self-concept and as being predictive of various forms of subjective wellbeing. In an effort to further validate the Core Self-Evaluations Scale (CSES), structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed in three independent samples of university students to examine the extent to which scores on the Core Self-Evaluations Scale predicted two measures of university satisfaction. Good fit was found for models that also controlled for status in college, student major, class satisfaction, life satisfaction, college grade point average, and overall grade fairness. Statistically significant relationships corrected for attenuation by SEM between scores on the Core Self-Evaluations Scale and university satisfaction range from .24 to .37.     

Fusion prevents the redundant signals effect: evidence from stereoscopically presented stimuli

In a simple reaction time (RT) experiment, visual stimuli were stereoscopically presented either to one eye (single stimulation) or to both eyes (redundant stimulation), with brightness matched for single and redundant stimulations. Redundant stimulation resulted in two separate percepts when noncorresponding retinal areas were stimulated, whereas it resulted in a single fused percept when corresponding areas were stimulated. With stimulation of noncorresponding areas, mean RT was shorter to redundant than to single stimulation, replicating the redundant signals effect (RSE) commonly found with visual stimuli. With stimulation of corresponding areas, however, no RSE was observed. This suggests that the RSE is driven by the number of percepts rather than by the number of stimulated receptors or sensory organs. These results are consistent with previous findings in the auditory modality and have implications for models of the RSE.     

The Emotional Citizen: Emotion as a Function of Political Sophistication

Scholars and popular commentators have often stereotyped emotion as a tool that citizens use to reason about politics in place of hard fact and critical thought. Indeed, critics have often seen emotion as a potentially dangerous force that can sway the unsophisticated masses to undesirable ends. This article challenges the view that emotion is an outgrowth of low sophistication, arguing that high sophisticates are more likely to experience emotion in reaction to politics and that emotions are more influential on the political behavior of high sophisticates. Drawing upon appraisal theory, this article develops a theory of how political engagement elicits emotionality about politics, and how emotion interacts with understanding and motivation to produce its greatest impact on the behavior of those citizens who are the most politically sophisticated. Behavioral effects are examined in the contexts of presidential voting behavior and Iraq War policy attitudes. Hypotheses are tested on pooled American National Election Studies (ANES) data and an original web‐based survey of undergraduates.