Implications of direct and indirect range restriction for meta-analysis methods and findings

Range restriction in most data sets is indirect, but the meta-analysis methods used to date have applied the correction for direct range restriction to data in which range restriction is indirect. The authors show that this results in substantial undercorrections for the effects of range restriction, and they present meta-analysis methods for making accurate corrections when range restriction is indirect. Applying these methods to a well-known large-sample empirical database, the authors estimate that previous meta-analyses have underestimated the correlation between general mental ability and job performance by about 25%, indicating that this is potentially an important methodological issue in meta-analysis in general.     

Percent body fat is related to body-shape perception and dissatisfaction in students attending an all women's college

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of aerobic fitness, physical activity, percent body fat, and socioeconomic status on body-shape perceptions among 153 Euro-American students attending an all women's college. Using a set of nine female figure silhouette drawings arranged on an ordinal scale from very thin to very heavy, subjects chose the figure that approximated their Current, Ideal, Most Attractive shapes, and the shape they believed men found the most attractive (Male Attractive). Body Shape Dissatisfaction was assessed by the difference between Current and Ideal shapes. Several significant relationships were noted for body-shape perceptions with percent body fat, aerobic fitness, and physical activity. Overall, data indicate these relationships except for Male Attractive were confounded by percent body fat, as participants with a higher percentage of body fat preferred larger shapes and were more dissatisfied with their shape.     

College students’ perceptions of calling in work and life: A qualitative analysis

This study examined open-ended responses from 295 college students to questions regarding how they define the construct of calling, how having a calling influences their career development, and the extent to which the term “calling” may apply to areas of life other than work. Results indicated that students perceived a calling as originating from guiding forces, co-occurring with unique fit and well-being, having altruistic features, and extending to multiple life roles. These results largely support recent conceptualizations of calling in the career development literature, and suggest themes to explore in counseling with clients who desire to approach work as a calling.     

Evidence of mnemonic ability selectively affecting truthful and deceptive response dynamics

In the executive model of deception, the telling of a lie necessitates the inhibition of a veridical prepotent response (the truth), and such inhibition incurs a temporal penalty, manifest as a longer response time. If memory processes are engaged in generating such truths, then memory function should affect truthful and deceptive response times. To investigate this we examined the relationship between performance on a semantic knowledge deception task and a test of verbal memory in 40 college students. We found that verbal memory performance differentially affects the temporal parameters of truth and deception.     

Probability logic,logical probability,and inductive support

This paper seeks to defend the following conclusions: The program advanced by Carnap and other necessarians for probability logic has little to recommend it except for one important point. Credal probability judgments ought to be adapted to changes in evidence or states of full belief in a principled manner in conformity with the inquirer’s confirmational commitments—except when the inquirer has good reason to modify his or her confirmational commitment. Probability logic ought to spell out the constraints on rationally coherent confirmational commitments. In the case where credal judgments are numerically determinate confirmational commitments correspond to Carnap’s credibility functions mathematically represented by so—called confirmation functions. Serious investigation of the conditions under which confirmational commitments should be changed ought to be a prime target for critical reflection. The necessarians were mistaken in thinking that confirmational commitments are immune to legitimate modification altogether. But their personalist or subjectivist critics went too far in suggesting that we might dispense with confirmational commitments. There is room for serious reflection on conditions under which changes in confirmational commitments may be brought under critical control. Undertaking such reflection need not become embroiled in the anti inductivism that has characterized the work of Popper, Carnap and Jeffrey and narrowed the focus of students of logical and methodological issues pertaining to inquiry.     

Adults' memories of childhood: Affect,knowing, and remembering

Adult questionnaire respondents reported, for each of a number of events, if they had experienced that event during childhood and, if so, if they remembered the experience or merely knew it had happened. Respondents also rated the emotion of each event and judged whether they would remember more about each reportedly experienced event if they spent more time trying to do so. Study 1 respondents were 96 undergraduates, whereas Study 2 tested 93 community members ranging widely in age. Respondents often reported no recollections of reportedly experienced events. Reportedly experienced events rated as emotional were more often recollected than those rated as neutral, and those rated as positive were more often recollected than those rated as negative. Predicted ability to remember more was related to current memory. Claims of remembering reportedly experienced events increased with age, but predicted ability to remember more about them declined with age.     

Applying Multiple Knowledge Structures in Creative Thought: Effects on Idea Generation and Problem-Solving

Prior studies have indicated that multiple knowledge structures, schema, associations, and cases, are involved in creative thought. Few studies, however, have examined how these different knowledge structures operate together in idea generation and creative problem-solving. Accordingly, in the present study 247 undergraduates were asked to generate ideas relevant to a social innovation problem and then provide a potential solution to the problem. A training manipulation was used to encourage application of schematic, associational, or case-based knowledge either alone or in combination. It was found that prompting use of a single knowledge structure, specifically schema or associational knowledge, resulted in the production of more high quality ideas. However, prompting use of multiple knowledge structures, specifically combining either schema or associations with cases, resulted in the production of higher quality and more original problem-solutions. The implications of these findings for understanding the role of different knowledge structures in creative thought are discussed.     

Climate for Creativity: A Quantitative Review

Abstract

Creativity is commonly held to emerge from an interaction of the person and the situation. In studies of creativity, situational influences are commonly assessed by using climate measures. In the present effort, a meta-analysis was conducted to examine 42 prior studies in which the relationships between climate dimensions, such as support and autonomy, and various indices of creative performance were assessed. These climate dimensions were found to be effective predictors of creative performance across criteria, samples, and settings. It was found, moreover, that these dimensions were especially effective predictors of creative performance in turbulent, high-pressure, competitive environments. The implications of these findings for understanding environmental influences on creativity and innovation are discussed.