The hierarchy of consistency: A review and model of longitudinal findings on adult individual differences in intelligence,personality and self-opinion

When viewed in the aggregate, studies of the longitudinal consistency of intelligence, personality traits and self-opinion (self-esteem, life satisfaction etc.) show a hierarchy of consistency. Uncorrected retest coefficients over periods of 6 months to 50 yr are analyzed as the product of period-free reliability (R) and the true stability of the construct (sⁿ, where s is the coefficient of annual stability and n the number of years of the retest interval). The annual stabilities of intelligence, personality traits and self-opinions are estimated as 0.99, 0.98 and 0.94, respectively. While intelligence and personality may be regarded as relatively stable characteristics over the length of the adult lifespan, self-opinion has little stability over periods of more than 10 yr. The hierarchy of consistency should be taken into account in causal models of human development. Although self-opinion is not a longitudinally-stable characteristics, it may still be predicted over long periods of time by higher-order constructs such as personality traits and intelligence.     

Physiological and psychological effects of acute intentional hyperventilation

Research is reviewed which suggests that hyperventilation syndrome is an underdiagnosed disorder for the presentation of many patients experiencing apparent anxiety states. In a test of this hypothesis, 21 normal individuals (9 female) underwent a 2 min period of intentional hyperventilation following a 10 min baseline phase. Hyperventilation was accompanied by increased subjective anxiety and tachycardia, and indications of peripheral vasoconstriction. Following hyperventilation, Ss experienced increased levels of state anxiety and perceived autonomic arousal, as indexed by self-report instruments. These results support the hypothesis that undiagnosed hyperventilatory phenomena may be etiologically implicated in states of pathologic anxiety.     

Infant sensitivity to figural coherence in biomechanical motions

Two experiments assessed infant sensitivity to figural coherence in point-light displays moving as if attached to the major joints of a walking person. Experiment 1 tested whether 3- and 5-month-old infants could discriminate between upright and inverted versions of the walker in both moving and static displays. Using an infant-control habituation paradigm, it was found that both ages discriminated the moving but not the static displays. Experiment 2 was designed to clarify whether or not structural invariants were extracted from these displays. The results revealed that (1) moving point-light displays with equivalent motions but different topographic relations were discriminated while (2) static versions were not, and (3) arrays that varied in the amount of motion present in different portions of the display were also not discriminated. These results are interpreted as indicating that young infants are sensitive to figural coherence in displays of biomechanical motion.     

Human Agency in the Missio Dei and the Problem of Discipleship

At the heart of this article is an inquiry into the relationship between human and divine agency in the doctrine of the missio Dei and a critique of the turn to the language of discipleship in looking to articulate this agency. Taking the World Council of Churches’ Commission of World Mission and Evangelism's two recent documents, Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes (TTL) and the “Arusha Call to Discipleship,” as a case study, this article will seek to articulate an account of human participation in the missio Dei which maintains the emphasis on spirituality in TTL. Through a close reading of TTL and the Arusha Call, the article will demonstrate that the introduction of discipleship language has not solved the issue of agency but rather has changed the account of agency and, as a result, the missiology. By turning to accounts of faithful participation from qualitative research into British Methodism, to John V. Taylor's Go-between God, and to Pope Francis’ Evangelii gaudium, I will suggest that a better account of human agency in the missio Dei can be developed by emphasizing the pneumatology of TTL and by turning to language of attentiveness, accompaniment, and discernment.     

People who help people: A needs assessment of those who provide interpersonal support to individuals with chronic illnesses

Social support during an ongoing illness has been shown to be beneficial for both the provider and the receiver, but people often struggle with offering effective, appropriate support. There is a lack of communication-focused training not specifically tied to caregiving or training that is designed for all social network members of a person experiencing a chronic illness, which we call interpersonal support providers (ISPs). We conducted a concurrent mixed-methods needs assessment, surveying both ISPs and support receivers, to understand communicative challenges and inform an evidence-based intervention. Analysis of results from an online survey (N_providers = 91, N_receivers = 97), consisting of five open-ended and 15 quantitative items, suggests that ISPs have difficulty managing their worries and emotions while providing comfort to others, which may impact support quality. In addition, ISPs and receivers both identify “listening” as a key skill for ISPs to hone, though ISPs feel they are more skilled at listening than receivers say they are. Lastly, ISPs feel they are good at sharing information and advice, but receivers often perceive it as patronizing or unhelpful. These results will inform the creation of an intervention for everyone offering emotional, esteem, and informational support to individuals with chronic illnesses.     

Status faking on the SVIB-M

A study and replication of students faking interest in high status occupations on the Strong Vocational Interest Blank for Men. In general, the faking was successful in shifting the specific target occupational scales and especially the occupational level scale. Other scales are affected, many with decisive upward or downward shifts. Demonstration is made of the extent to which the faking condition led to differences in the overall test results. Various aspects of the general problem of test faking are reviewed.     

Response latency,confidence, and ROCs in auditory signal detection

Response latencies were obtained from 10 Ss in auditory signal-detection experiments. The response latencies were inversely related to certainty that a signal was (or was not) presented. The S’s decision criterion was found to have an influence on response latency, which was consistent with the hypothesis that stimuli close to the current criterion elicit longer response latencies than stimuli more distant from the criterion. Comparisons among receiver operating characteristics derived from binary decisions, from the latencies of binary decisions, and from confidence ratings show that response latencies and binary decisions together yield more information about the stimulus than does the binary decision alone. However, the increment in information gained from the measurement of response latencies is in general (though not for every S) smaller than that gained by shifting from yes-no responses to a confidence-rating procedure.     

Alterations of the phonetic coding of speech sounds during repetition

One aspect of the comprehension of speech is the assignment of a phonetic representation to the sounds being heard. However, if a person listens to a meaningless syllable that is continually repeated, over time he will hear the syllable undergo a variety of changes. These changes are very systematic in character and represent alterations in the phonetic coding assigned to an unchanging sound stimulus. When the restricted nature of the changes that occur is analyzed phonetically, these changes are found to invlove a reorganization of the phones constituting the syllables and changes in a small number of distinctive features.     

The detection of visual intensity differences by pigeons

Pigeons were trained in a conditional discrimination procedure to discriminate between visual stimuli that varied in intensity. The magnitude of the intensity difference ranged from 0.80 to 0.05 logarithmic units. Psychometric functions were calculated from the data and the mean difference threshold for the 11 subjects was approximately 0.12 logarithmic units. A signal-detection analysis of the data suggested that stimuli that were below the calculated threshold were detectible to the subjects.