Stuart’s tau measure of effect size for ordinal variables: Some methodological considerations

The reporting of measures of effect size has become increasingly important in psychology. A Monte Carlo resampling permutation procedure is introduced to find near-optimum maximum values for Stuart’s τ _c measure for two-way ordinal contingency tables, also termed Kendall’s τ _c since Kendall introduced τ _a and τ _b . Comparisons between resampling and exact procedures demonstrate the accuracy and utility of resampling measures of effect size for two-way ordinal contingency tables. The resampling procedure is shown to be more precise than the traditional method of standardizing τ _c .     

Depression,self-focus,and social interaction

The accuracy of depressed and nondepressed subjects' perceptions of their own and a social interactional partner's performance was investigated. Twenty depressed and twenty nondepressed college students participated in dyadic interactions and then rated their own and their partner's social behavior. The interactions were also rated by objective coders. Depressed subjects were differentiated from nondepressed subjects on several measures by both the coders and the subjects. Depressed subjects' self-ratings were correlated with the coders' ratings more often than were the nondepressives' ratings, suggesting depressives provided more accurate self-observations. Contrary to prediction, depressives were also more accurate in judging their partner's behavior. Depressives experienced heightened levels of self-focused attention, but this attentional focus did not mediate the relationship between depression level and self-accuracy. Finally, an analysis of the verbal statements suggests that performance differences between depressives and nondepressives may be a function of the quantity, rather than the quality, of the verbal production.     

The incidence,prevalence, and severity of behavior disorders among preschool-aged children in day care

This study examined the incidence, prevalence, and severity of 14 empirically derived externalizing (unsocialized aggressive) and internalizing (socially withdrawn) behaviors among 2- through 5-year-olds attending day care. Teacher ratings were obtained for 558 children in the incidence sample and 709 children in the expanded prevalence sample. Within each age, data were cross-tabulated by sex of child and severity of behavior, and chi-square analyses were computed. Results indicated that a substantial proportion of children in the normal preschool population exhibit relatively high severities of selected externalizing and internalizing behaviors; this proportion varied with the age of the child and the behavior rated. Preschool-aged boys were consistently rated as demonstrating greater frequencies of externalizing behaviors than preschool-aged girls. The diagnostic and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Individual differences in neural regions functionally related to real and imagined stuttering

Recent brain imaging investigations of developmental stuttering show considerable disagreement regarding which regions are related to stuttering. These divergent findings have been mainly derived from group studies. To investigate functional neurophysiology with improved precision, an individual-participant approach (N = 4) using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging and test–retest reliability measures was performed while participants produced fluent and stuttered single words during two separate occasions. A parallel investigation required participants to imagine stuttering or not stuttering on single words. The overt and covert production tasks produced considerable within-subject agreement of activated voxels across occasions, but little within-subject agreement between overt and covert task activations. However, across-subject agreement for regions activated by the overt and covert tasks was minimal. These results suggest that reliable effects of stuttering are participant-specific, an implication that might correspond to individual differences in stuttering severity and functional compensation due to related structural abnormalities.     

Exact and resampling probability values for weighted kappa

Permutation procedures to compute exact and resampling probability values for weighted kappa are described. Comparisons with asymptotic probability values demonstrate that exact permutation procedures are advantageous for sparse data sets, whereas resampling permutation procedures are appropriate for both sparse and nonsparse data sets.     

Outpatient groups for chronic psychiatric patients

Long-term support groups have been utilized at the University of Alberta Hospitals since 1977 in order to meet the needs of chronic psychiatric patients who are unwilling or unable to commit to insight-oriented therapy. These groups meet once weekly for one hour and are intended to be drop-in groups, which patients can use regularly or only while in crisis. It is hypothesized that the institution or style of therapy practiced at an institution, rather than the specific therapists, provides a source of stability and support to these patients. Our experience suggests these groups are beneficial and cost-efficient, but research is necesssary to evaluate them to determine components of therapeutic effectiveness.Linda McAuley, M.A., was a staff therapist at the Psychiatric Walk-in Clinic and is currently in private practice.An earlier version of this paper was presented at a meeting of the Canadian Group Psychotherapy Association in Banff, Alberta, October, 1987.     

The effect of exercise absence on affect and body dissatisfaction as moderated by obligatory exercise beliefs and eating disordered beliefs and behaviors

AIM: Research suggests that exercise absence is frequently associated with greater guilt and negative affect, particularly when obligatory exercise beliefs and eating disordered psychopathology are considered. Two separate studies used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine differences in mood on exercise and non-exercise days and the moderating impact of obligatory exercise beliefs and eating disordered beliefs and behaviors. METHOD: Both studies recruited female university students who endorsed frequent exercise behavior and study two also recruited based on level of eating disordered psychopathology. Participants completed the Obligatory Exercise Questionnaire at baseline and EMA measures of affect and exercise behavior for approximately one week. Study two participants also completed measures of body dissatisfaction and cognitions. RESULTS: Results of study one suggest that obligation to exercise appears to have a greater impact on general level of affect than does exercise absence or the interaction of these two. In addition, in study two, eating disorder symptomatology was significantly associated with affect and cognition while exercise absence and obligatory exercise beliefs were not. CONCLUSIONS: The present studies suggest that the absence of exercise is not associated with significant changes in affect or cognitions. However, obligation to exercise and eating disorder symptomatology do impact affect and cognitions.