Coalition formation: Political attitudes and power

In this study 2 theories have been tested: Minimum Range theory (de Swaan, 1970; Leierson, 1970) and Minimal Resource theory (Caplow, 1956; Riker, 1962; Gamson, 1964). In an experimental simulation (Runkel and McGrath, 1972)political attitudes (left, centre and right) and power differences (40 seats in parliament, 30 seats and 20 seats) have been induced. The results suggest that in the beginning of the bargaining process people communicate about the composition of the coalition programme. The minimal range theory may explain this behaviour: parties with more similar ideological interests do coalesce. Later on, one more often bargains about the division of the outcomes, i.e. portfolios. Minimum Resource theory only partly explains the formed coalitions. Minimal winning coalitions, which are predicted by Minimum Resource theory, are formed more often within centre-left-coalitions. This is not the case for centre-right-coalitions. It is discussed that the link between the parity norm and minimal winning coalitions, which is assumed by Minimum Resource theory, possiblv does not hold in this experiment. The parity norm being used by right together with centres strong position leads to the frequent occurrence of minimal winning centre-left-coalitions.     

The effects of intelligence test preparation

The first goal of this study was to investigate the effects of reading a book concerning intelligence tests and the effects of a specific test-training programme on numerical and verbal intelligence tests. The second goal was to investigate to what extent the acquisition of test-specific problem-solving strategies affects the ability to solve items on different, but comparable tests (transfer). In the experimental design two factors were included: practice (pretest or no pretest) and (level of) preparation (none, book, or training), so there were six conditions. Each condition consisted of about 26 subjects, who had been randomly assigned to one of the conditions. The results showed a strong effect of preparation, especially for the numerical intelligence test and to a lesser degree for the verbal intelligence test. No practice or pretest effects were found. Positive transfer was demonstrated for the numerical test. The results for the verbal test were less clear. The implications for the predictive and construct validity are discussed.     

Component analysis with different sets of constraints on different dimensions

Many of the classical multivariate data analysis and multidimensional scaling techniques call for approximations by lower dimensional configurations. A model is proposed, in which different sets of linear constraints are imposed on different dimensions in component analysis and classical multidimensional scaling frameworks. A simple, efficient, and monotonically convergent algorithm is presented for fitting the model to the data by least squares. The basic algorithm is extended to cover across-dimension constraints imposed in addition to the dimensionwise constraints, and to the case of a symmetric data matrix. Examples are given to demonstrate the use of the method.The work reported in this paper has been supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, grant number A6394, and by the McGill-IBM Cooperative Grant, both granted to the first author. The research of H. A. L. Kiers has been made possible by a fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. We thank Michael Hunter for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.     

Maintenance of semantic information in capacity-limited item short-term memory

We report a semantic effect in immediate free recall, which is localized at recency and is preserved under articulatory suppression but is highly reduced when recall is delayed after an intervening distractor task. These results are explained by a neurocomputational model based on a limited-capacity short-term memory (STM) store, consisting ofactivated long-term memory representations. The model makes additional predictions about serial position functions in semantically cued recall, indicating capacity limitations caused by a displacement type mechanism, which are confirmed in a second experiment. This suggests that in addition to the phonological component in verbal STM, there is an activation/ item-limited component with semantically sensitive representations.     

Differential Prediction of Immigrant Versus Majority Group Training Performance Using Cognitive Ability and Personality Measures

There are very few studies of the differential prediction of work and training performance for immigrant groups in the Netherlands. Scores on the General Aptitude Test Battery, an intelligence test, and the Amsterdamse Biografische Vragenlijst (ABV), a frequently used Dutch personality test, and training data for 78 immigrant and 78 Dutch trainee truck drivers were collected. Lautenschlager and Mendoza’s (1986) method of step-down hierarchical regression analysis was used to check for bias in the prediction of training results. Some predictor-criterion combinations showed differential prediction, especially with less cognitive and less objective criteria. The results with respect to the intelligence test appear to be in line with the findings of the US literature.     

Planning is for doing: Implementation intentions go beyond the mere creation of goal-directed associations

Studies on implementation intentions so far have mainly pointed towards strengthened cue-behavior associations as the mechanism underlying the effectiveness of this self-regulatory tool. However, we propose that because it triggers people to look into the future and to mentally simulate their future behavior, planning by means of implementation intentions might go beyond the creation of goal-directed associations and thus lead to more enduring effects on behavior. We tested this hypothesis in an experiment using a longitudinal design, where participants formed an intention for a behavior that deviates from their routine, and furnished it either with associative learning of cue and behavior, forming implementation intentions, or nothing at all. Results showed that initially, learning cue-behavior associations led to the same rate of goal completion as forming implementation intentions. However, only the effect of implementation intentions was maintained at the second measurement one week later. These findings suggest that planning does more than merely create goal-directed associations, which might offer a new perspective on the workings and use of this important tool for behavior change.     

Increase in counselling communication skills after basic and advanced microskills training

Background Mastering counselling communication skills is one of the requirements that lead to the diploma of a registered European psychologist. The microcounseling method proves to be effective in training these skills. Aim Research into the effectiveness of the microcounseling method often reports overall effect sizes only. The aim of this study was to investigate the adequate use of separate counselling communication skills (seven basic skills: minimal encouragements; asking questions; paraphrasing; reflection of feeling; concreteness; summarizing; and situation clarification and five advanced skills: advanced accurate empathy; confrontation; positive relabelling; examples of one's own; and directness) after respectively a basic and an advanced training in these skills. Sample Participants were 583 first year or second year bachelor students in psychology who took the counselling communication skills progress test (CSPT). The participants are divided in a group of freshmen, who had not received any training in counselling communication skills; first year students, who had received a training in basic skills; second year students who had followed a training in advanced skills and a control group. Method A between‐subject design, a within‐subject design and a pre‐test–post‐test‐control group design were used to examine the scores on these skills. Results Seven basic skills and four advanced skills had large effect sizes. One advanced skill had a moderate effect size. Conclusio The microcounseling method is very effective on the level of separate microskills. However, students perform better on the basic skills than on the advanced skills. More training seems to be needed in the latter to achieve the same level of mastery.     

Bootstrap confidence intervals in multi‐level simultaneous component analysis

Multi‐level simultaneous component analysis (MLSCA) was designed for the exploratory analysis of hierarchically ordered data. MLSCA specifies a component model for each level in the data, where appropriate constraints express possible similarities between groups of objects at a certain level, yielding four MLSCA variants. The present paper discusses different bootstrap strategies for estimating confidence intervals (CIs) on the individual parameters. In selecting a proper strategy, the main issues to address are the resampling scheme and the non‐uniqueness of the parameters. The resampling scheme depends on which level(s) in the hierarchy are considered random, and which fixed. The degree of non‐uniqueness depends on the MLSCA variant, and, in two variants, the extent to which the user exploits the transformational freedom. A comparative simulation study examines the quality of bootstrap CIs of different MLSCA parameters. Generally, the quality of bootstrap CIs appears to be good, provided the sample sizes are sufficient at each level that is considered to be random. The latter implies that if more than a single level is considered random, the total number of observations necessary to obtain reliable inferential information increases dramatically. An empirical example illustrates the use of bootstrap CIs in MLSCA.     

Oblique rotation in correspondence analysis: A step forward in the search for the simplest interpretation

Correspondence analysis (CA) is a popular method that can be used to analyse relationships between categorical variables. It is closely related to several popular multivariate analysis methods such as canonical correlation analysis and principal component analysis. Like principal component analysis, CA solutions can be rotated orthogonally as well as obliquely into a simple structure without affecting the total amount of explained inertia. However, some specific aspects of CA prevent standard rotation procedures from being applied in a straightforward fashion. In particular, the role played by weights assigned to points and dimensions and the duality of CA solutions are unique to CA. For orthogonal simple structure rotation, procedures recently have been proposed. In this paper, we construct oblique rotation methods for CA that take into account these specific difficulties. We illustrate the benefits of our oblique rotation procedure by means of two illustrative examples.