Sex differences in the eyes of expert personality assessors: unwarranted conclusions.

In a recent paper, Haan and Livson reported sex differences between male and female psychologists in their evaluations of adult men and adult women. Their conclusions have implication for the validity of clinical assessments and were interpreted in terms of stereotypic sex role perceptions. However, their statistical analysis was in fundamental error. When the data they employed were reanalyzed, no reliable sex differences between men and women psychologists were found, a finding in accord with a number of previous investigations of this problem.     

Group round]

The traditional clinical round as a means of communication, information and teaching has considerable disadvantages; therefore a procedure is proposed after 5-years testing called "group round" as a supplementary procedure. It spares the time of the physician, enables the orientation in the individual patient and moreover the observation of interaction between the patients themselves and between patients and personal staff and facilitates teaching. The less experienced physician gets an easier approach to group psychotherapy, essential effects of which become effective in the procedure. The breaking of professional secrecy can be avoided.     

Counteradaptation after exposure to displaced visual direction

Counteradaptation, previously demonstrated in connection with adaptation in distance perception, was obtained after exposure to displaced visual direction. When S adapted to a laterally displacing wedge prism by walking during the exposure period, there was not only a change in the perceived visual direction, but also a change m the proprioceptively perceived walking direction. When S adapts to lateral displacement of the visual direction by looking at his stationary or his moving arm, visual adaptation is obtained in the latter, but not in the former, case (Held & Hein, 1958). We obtained a change in the proprioceptively perceived position of the arm when it was stationary during the exposure period, a condition which had not yielded visual adaptation, and a much smaller, not significant, change in the felt position in the case of the actively moved arm. In the present experiments, changes in proprioceptively perceived direction or position amounted to counteradaptation.     

The effect of non-verbal information on the recall of negation

The influence of non-verbal information on storage of different versions of negated sentences was investigated in a one-trial learning experiment. The negation governed either the subject, the object, or the predicate of the sentence. One group was presented with the sentences together with pictures. Another group the sentences only. The picture which was shown with a sentence represented the sentence content with an alternative for the negated concept. It was found that pictorial information had an effect on the recall of the sentences and that this effect is different for the different sentence versions.     

Zur Kritik der wissenschaftlichen Grundbegriffe

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Discrepancy in Personality Perceptions Is Related to Relationship Satisfaction: Findings from Dyadic Latent Discrepancy Analyses

The current study investigated discrepancies in self‐, partner‐, and meta‐perceptions of the Big Five traits and their associations with relationship satisfaction in intimate couples. The study was based on a subsample of the Swiss study “Co‐Development in Personality: Longitudinal Approaches to Personality Development in Dyads Across the Life Span” (CoDiP) including cross‐sectional data of 216 heterosexual couples. We adapted the Latent Congruence Model (LCM) for the study of discrepancies in personality perceptions in dyads. Beyond personality trait levels, the discrepancies between self‐ and partner‐perceptions and between partner‐ and meta‐perceptions of the Big Five traits were related to relationship satisfaction as actor and partner effects. In general, flattering and favorable partner‐perceptions in relation to self‐ and meta‐perceptions seem to positively contribute to relationship satisfaction. The present study implies that not only personality trait levels but also discrepancies between personality perceptions are important for understanding relationship satisfaction.     

Mental health of outpatient pediatric patients

The purpose of this study is to estimate the percentage of mental health problems in a pediatric outpatient Norwegian clinic. We used the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire to screen for mental health problems. Families of children aged 4–11 took part in the study, and 380 out of 982 possible families consented to take part, and 349 families contributed with questionnaire data. The main referral reasons for the patients were asthma, eneuresis and stomach pain. Mothers reported that 17.4% of boys and 17.8% of girls displayed mental clinical problems. The prevalence of problems did not differ significantly between somatic diagnostic groups. Although the study has low participation, it underlines the necessity of screening all pediatric patients for mental health problems. Future research in pediatric clinics should include factors of psychology because pediatric problems are not caused by somatics alone.