Perceptual experience shapes our ability to categorize faces by national origin: A new other-race effect

People are better at recognizing own-race than other-race faces. This other-race effect has been argued to be the result of perceptual expertise, whereby face-specific perceptual mechanisms are tuned through experience. We designed new tasks to determine whether other-race effects extend to categorizing faces by national origin. We began by selecting sets of face stimuli for these tasks that are typical in appearance for each of six nations (three Caucasian, three Asian) according to people from those nations (Study 1). Caucasian and Asian participants then categorized these faces by national origin (Study 2). Own-race faces were categorized more accurately than other-race faces. In contrast, Asian American participants, with more extensive other-race experience than the first Asian group, categorized other-race faces better than own-race faces, demonstrating a reversal of the other-race effect. Therefore, other-race effects extend to the ability to categorize faces by national origin, but only if participants have greater perceptual experience with own-race, than other-race faces. Study 3 ruled out non-perceptual accounts by showing that Caucasian and Asian faces were sorted more accurately by own-race than other-race participants, even in a sorting task without any explicit labelling required. Together, our results demonstrate a new other-race effect in sensitivity to national origin of faces that is linked to perceptual expertise.     

Psychobiography and the Psychology of Religion: A Tribute to the Work of Donald Capps

This article examines Donald Capps’s work on the psychology of major religious figures and the social forces that informed their psychic lives, spiritual worldviews, and teachings. Drawing on four texts that were published between 2000 and 2014, the essay explores Capps’s views on the importance of psychobiography to the study of religion and the specific contributions his thinking has made to a greater understanding of the historical Jesus. The article considers Capps’s analysis of Jesus’s illegitimacy and his role as healer within the society in which he lived and preached. Building on Capps’s work, the article also expands on feminist and postcolonial theories that offer insight into the psychosocial development of religious figures whose teachings and beliefs emerged out of their individual life circumstances and the larger socio-political culture in which they lived.     

A Method for Universal Screening of Elementary School Students: Development of the Social Challenges Screening Questionnaire

Schools regularly screen students for hearing and vision impairments because they present impediments to academic progress. For the same reason, schools should consider adding a universal screening for social challenges, which may also impede the learning process. This study reports on the development of the Social Challenges Screening Questionnaire (SCSQ), an efficient teacher-report screening questionnaire that identifies students with challenges who may benefit from a psychological evaluation. Further, the questionnaire may help identify students with Autism Spectrum Disorder who were previously undiagnosed. The SCSQ was administered to 549 general education students in the third and fourth grades. Internal consistency was.85. A smaller sample of students (n = 50) was selected for additional follow up assessment using the Social Responsiveness Questionnaire, Second Edition. Scores on the two instruments were strongly correlated (r =.87, p <.01), and sensitivity (.94) and specificity (.88) indicate the SCSQ can efficiently detect students with social challenges in need of a formal evaluation.     

Measuring Anhedonia in Adolescents: A Psychometric Analysis

Anhedonia—the reduced capacity to experience pleasure—is a trait implicated in mental and physical health. Yet, psychometric data on anhedonia measures in adolescents are absent. We conducted an in-depth psychometric analysis of the Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS; Snaith et al., 1995 Snaith, R. P., Hamilton, M., Morley, S., Humayan, A., Hargreaves, D., & Trigwell, P. (1995). A scale for the assessment of hedonic tone: The Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure Scale. British Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 99–103. doi:10.1192/bjp.167.1.99[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar])—a self-report measure of anticipated pleasure response to 14 pleasant experiences—in adolescents. Adolescents (N = 585, M age = 14.5) completed the SHAPS and other paper-and-pencil surveys. Item response theory models were used to evaluate the psychometric performance of each SHAPS item. Correlations of the SHAPS with other personality and psychopathology measures were calculated to evaluate construct validity. Results showed that (a) certain items (e.g., reported pleasure from basic experiences like “seeing smiling faces” or “smelling flowers”) provided more information about latent anhedonia than others; and (b) SHAPS scales exhibited construct-consistent convergent and discriminant validity (i.e., stronger correlations with low positive affect constructs, weaker correlations with negative affect). Reporting diminished pleasure from basic pleasant experiences accurately indicates adolescent anhedonia, which is important for future scale development and understanding the phenomenology of anhedonia in teens. These data support using the SHAPS for assessing anhedonia in epidemiological research and school-based universal prevention programming in general adolescent populations.     

On becoming textually active at Youthline,New Zealand

The phones hardly ring at Youthline New Zealand anymore; youth still have problems and seek help, but it mostly happens silently. This article reports on experiences of texting at a 24-hour crisis helpline for young people. To date, there has been no formal evidence base for this practice; however, for new practice, there never is. In prompting discussion, this article attends to the tight constraints that texting imposes, returning to the necessary and sufficient conditions of any effective therapeutic relationship particularly in regard to working with young people. New possibilities are demonstrated with emotional support being demonstrated even in the tightly constrained space of a text-based medium.     

Evaluating the Psychometric Properties of the Teamwork KSA Test

The Teamwork KSA Test has been a welcome addition to the practitioner's selection toolkit as well as a useful measure for teamwork researchers. We analyzed the psychometric properties of the Teamwork KSA Test and recognized correlates of the construct using three samples of working individuals recruited through a university (N = 241, N = 230, N = 332) and found slim evidence for a factor structure of the underlying constructs. Furthermore, classical reliability estimates did not meet traditional psychometric standards. Total TKSA scores predicted self‐ratings and instructor ratings of teamwork in two of the samples; effect sizes were small.     

Residential mental health assessment within Dutch criminal cases: a discussion

In Dutch criminal cases in which doubts arise about the defendant's mental health, a forensic assessment will be requested. This is provided either by the multidisciplinary staff of residential clinics who conduct forensic evaluations for the court, or by mental health professionals contracted on a part-time basis by district courts. This article discusses the procedures applied in such cases as well as the relevant legal provisions. It focuses particularly on the clinical observation, evaluation, and reporting that is carried out over a number of weeks in the residential setting of the Pieter Baan Centrum. Specific attention is paid to procedures applied in this clinic. It is suggested that Dutch procedures for the use of mental health expertise can best be characterized by three aspects: multidisciplinary observation and reporting, the use of a sliding scale for indicating degree of responsibility, and, finally, the involvement and payment of experts by the state as such, rather than by the prosecution and/or the defense. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.