One table or two? scientific anti-realism and Husserl’s phenomenology

Continental Philosophy Review - In this study I argue that Husserl’s phenomenology is compatible with a realistic interpretation of scientific theories. That said, I distinguish between the...     

Stability over age and sex of children's responses to embedded figures test

240 children in Grades K to 4 were administered the entire Children's Embedded Figures Test to determine whether similar factor structures are obtained from samples of different sex and age as well as when the population is randomly split. Data were analyzed by principal axis factor analysis and relevant factor structures were compared using Veldman's 1967 program "Relate". There was one stable factor which was consistent across sex and accounted for about 19% of the variance. Results were inconsistent across grades and indicated a possible lack of agreement of factor structures.     

The false consensus effect: A meta-analysis of 115 hypothesis tests

False consensus refers to an egocentric bias that occurs when people estimate consensus for their own behaviors. Specifically, the false consensus hypothesis holds that people who engage in a given behavior will estimate that behavior to be more common than it is estimated to be by people who engage in alternative behaviors. A meta-analysis was conducted upon 115 tests of this hypothesis. The combined effects of the tests of the false consensus hypothesis were highly statistically significant and of moderate magnitude. Further, the 115 tests of false consensus appear to be relatively heterogeneous in terms of significance levels and effect sizes. Correlational analyses and focused comparisons indicate that the false consensus effect does not appear to be influenced by the generality of the reference population, nor by the difference between alternative choices in actual consensus. However, the significance and magnitude of the false consensus effect was significantly predicted by the number of behavioral choices/estimates subjects had to make, and the sequence of measurement of choices and estimates. These patterns of results are interpreted as being inconsistent with the self-presentational, motivational explanation for the false consensus effect.     

Characteristics of Adult Caretakers of Children and Youth Served by an Urban Child Welfare Agency

The child welfare system of the early 1990s was marked by the proliferation of home-based services. Research on the effectiveness of various home-based interventions indicates results have been equivocal. The need to make explicit the specific characteristics of the adults and children targeted for home-based services, particularly families from diverse cultural backgrounds, has been identified as a critically needed contribution to the literature. In this study, the characteristics and service utilization experiences of adults and families served in an urban, home-based, child welfare program was examined. The results are discussed in relation to findings on the characteristics and experiences of adults and families served in other settings. Implications for future research and service delivery are discussed.     

The effects of commercial interruption of violent and nonviolent films on viewers' subsequent aggression

Aggressive responses following the viewing of violent and nonviolent films were studied. Groups of subjects saw one of three full-length films: (1) a staged violent film, (2) a realistic violent film, or (3) a nonviolent film. For half of the groups of subjects, films were interrupted periodically by sets of commercials. Results confirmed predictions that aggressive responses will be greater after viewing aggressive films than nonaggressive films, and that aggressive responses will be greater if films are interrupted by commercials than when not interrupted. A hypothesis predicting an interaction such that aggressive responses will be maximal when violent films are interrupted by commercials was supported. No differences in aggressiveness following presentation of realistic and staged violent films were found.     

Psychological Skills and “the Paras”: The Indirect Effects of Psychological Skills on Endurance

We examined the indirect effects of basic psychological skills (PS) on military endurance through enhanced advanced PS while controlling for fitness. British Army recruits (n = 159) participated in three endurance events for Parachute Regiment selection and completed an adapted Test of Performance Strategies questionnaire (Hardy et al., 2010 Hardy, L., Roberts, R., Thomas, P. R., &; Murphy, S. M. (2010). Test of performance strategies (TOPS): Instrument refinement using confirmatory factor analysis. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 11, 27–35. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2009.04.007[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Following confirmatory factor analyses, the multiple mediation regression analyses using PROCESS (Hayes, 2013 Hayes, A.F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York, NY: Guilford Press. [Google Scholar]) suggested that goal setting, imagery and relaxation all had positive indirect effects on endurance via activation, with goal setting also impacting on endurance via negative thinking. These data provide some support for basic PS influencing endurance via advanced PS.