High-Stakes Testing Case Study: A Latent Variable Approach for Assessing Measurement and Prediction Invariance

Psychometrika - The existence of differences in prediction systems involving test scores across demographic groups continues to be a thorny and unresolved scientific, professional, and societal...     

The impact of parent behavior-management training on child depressive symptoms

The present study tested the impact of a parent behavior-management intervention on child depressive and internalizing symptoms. One hundred eighty-one children were randomly assigned to receive a videotape modeling parenting intervention, the Incredible Years, or to a wait-list control group. Children who received the intervention were more likely to have lower mother-rated mood and internalizing symptoms at post-treatment, compared with children in a wait-list control group. The effect sizes observed in the present intervention fell in the small-to-medium range for the sample as a whole, and some evidence supported the authors' hypothesis that effects would be strongest for children with baseline internalizing symptoms in the clinical range. Subsequent analyses also revealed that perceived changes in parenting effectiveness mediated the effect of treatment on children's post-treatment internalizing symptoms. The finding was consistent with study hypotheses and social learning explanations of child internalizing symptoms that guided selection of putative mechanisms. Implications for counseling psychologists and for designing interventions and prevention strategies for children with internalizing symptoms are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).     

Ethical issues in the use of the bogus pipeline

This article addresses the ethics of utilizing the bogus pipeline (BPL) procedure in social psychological research. A debate is presented between 2 positions: One challenges the use of the BPL based on ethical principles, and the other confronts these challenges. The debate addresses the void in previous BPL literature regarding concerns about the ethics of using this technique, and raises awareness about potential ethical dilemmas faced by BPL users. The BPL is discussed from utilitarian and deontological ethical perspectives.     

The unique ethical challenges of the bogus pipeline methodology: let the data speak

Sigall (1997) asserted that the bogus pipeline (BPL) methodology is not a uniquely deceptive technique and, therefore, does not pose unique ethical challenges for social psychology researchers. We argue that empirical research is needed to clarify the controversial issue of the ethics of using the BPL. Results of such a research program will provide guidance for researchers as well as institutional review boards regarding conditions under which the use of the BPL may or may not be ethically justified.     

Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Adrenocortical Regulation Following Lesions of the Central Nucleus of the Amygdala

Previous reports indicate that the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) stimulates adrenocorticotropin and corticosterone secretion, suggesting a role for this region in central hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) stress regulation. To evaluate this hypothesis, this study assessed the impact of CeA lesion on the response of hypophysiotrophic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) neurons to acute restraint and chronic unpredictable stress exposure. In contrast to previous reports, CeA lesions did not affect corticosterone or ACTH secretion induced by acute stress. Acute restraint increased PVN corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) mRNA expression, increased the number of parvocellular PVN neurons expressing the co-secretagogue arginine vasopressin (AVP), and induced cFOS mRNA expression in the parvocellular PVN. However, there was no additional effect of CeA lesion on any measure of PVN activation. Chronic unpredictable stress exposure induced long-term activation of the HPA axis, noted by thymic involution, adrenal hypertrophy and increased PVN CRH mRNA expression. Stress-induced changes in thymus and adrenal weights were not affected by CeA lesion. Further, CeA lesion rats did not differ from controls in post-stress CRH mRNA expression. However, basal CRH mRNA expression was increased in the PVN of CeA rats, suggesting that the CeA plays a role in long-term inhibition of the PVN. The results of these studies are not consistent with the hypothesis that the CeA is necessary for stress-induced pituitary-adrenocortical activation. Rather, this region may play a stressor-specific modulatory role in regulation of HPA function.     

Beyond Postmodernism: Restoring the Primal Quest for Meaning to Political Inquiry

My paper picks up a long ignored suggestion of Sheldon Wolin - that we use Thomas Kuhn's analysis of scientific revolutions to examine the crisis of "normal" political science. This approach allows us to see the connection between the state of the discipline and the larger crisis of meaning afflicting modernity. I then use Eric Voegelin's notion of a multicivilizational "truth quest" - or search for meaning - to make a case for institutionalizing "extraordinary" or "revolutionary" political science. I attempt such a discipline by following Voegelin - reflecting on "the full amplitude of human experience." Such a meditation takes place within the "first reality of existence" - Plato's metaxy or the "in-between" - the experience of human existence between the sacred and the mundane. I bring to Voegelin's exploration of the metaxy the realm of experience which is most radically "other" for modernity - the primal political order of paleolithic and contemporary hunting gathering societies. I argue that shamanic "Urreligion" and Socratic discussion share a boundary crossing logic which provides a basis for a discipline of "extraordinary political science." Finally I suggest that such a discipline is both the quest for, and, in a sense, a realization of, the Good Life - a source of order for the individual and society.