Psychometric properties of the mini-social phobia inventory (Mini-SPIN) in a large online treatment-seeking sample

The Mini-Social Phobia Inventory (Mini-SPIN) is a brief, three-item measure designed as a screening tool for social anxiety disorder (SAD). This study investigated the Mini-SPIN’s psychometric properties in a series of trials of Internet-delivered treatment. Participants were 993 people seeking Internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy for a range of anxiety and mood disorders. Participants completed the Mini-SPIN, and were diagnosed using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview Version 5.0.0 (MINI). They also completed measures of depression, general anxiety, panic, neuroticism and general impairment. The Mini-SPIN’s ability to discriminate between people with and without SAD, within a large sample of people seeking treatment for a range of psychological disorders, was assessed at initial assessment and three-month follow-up. The Mini-SPIN’s criterion group validity, internal consistency, test–retest reliability, construct validity and responsiveness to treatment were also examined. Results demonstrated that the Mini-SPIN has an excellent ability to discriminate between those with and without SAD in a highly comorbid clinical sample, and also has good criterion group validity. The Mini-SPIN also exhibited excellent internal consistency, good test–retest reliability, and was responsive to treatment. These results highlight the Mini-SPIN’s potential as an efficient and reliable measure of SAD in heterogenous populations.     

To Be or Not to Be: Exploring the Nature of Positively and Negatively Keyed Personality Items in High-Stakes Testing

Including equal numbers of positively and negatively keyed items is common in Five-Factor Model (FFM) personality measures. Much literature has demonstrated the presence of positive and negative keying factors in low-stakes testing situations, but there is a dearth of research investigating these factors in high-stakes testing. To address this gap, we investigated whether an FFM measure used in high-stakes testing was influenced by positive and negative keying factors. We also examined the overlap of the positive and negative keying factors with social desirability, rule-consciousness, acquiescence, and cognitive ability. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the inclusion of distinct factors associated with positively and negatively keyed items and suggested that the keying factors accounted for a substantial portion of variation in responses to FFM items. Social desirability and rule-consciousness were found to have significant relations with both keying factors, whereas acquiescence was only related to the negative keying factor. Implications for the construct validity of FFM measures used in high-stakes testing and directions for future research are discussed.     

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The impact of the activation of positive and negative components of an ethnic stereotype on judgments of responsibility for both positive and negative stereotypic behaviors was considered. Overall, stereotype activation biased judgments in a stereotype-consistent manner, across both positive and negative scenarios. Generalization of these judgments to more global trait perceptions of the target was limited to the negative scenario. Results are discussed in terms of both the use of stereotypes as inferential shortcuts and in-group favoritism mechanisms.     

Perceptual inhibition of expected inputs: The key that opens closed minds

The mind appears to be biased simultaneously toward both expected and unexpected inputs. For example, familiar scenes are usually perceived more readily than novel scenes, indicating the former bias, but a single novel object sometimes pops out from a familiar field, indicating the latter bias. A diverse literature and a computational model converge on the following resolution to this paradox: The former bias is conceptually driven and actually suppresses data-driven processing of expected inputs; in turn, this suppression disinhibits data-driven processing of unexpected inputs, yielding the latter bias. Evidence for suppressed data-driven processing of expected inputs is drawn from studies of perceptual habituation, semantic satiation, memory inhibition, inhibition of return, repetition blindness, primed inhibition, the word-inferiority effect, registration without learning, and both expert- and schema-based inhibitory effects. Evidence for enhanced data-driven processing of unexpected inputs is drawn from studies of the orienting response, mismatch negativity, memory facilitation, both expert- and schema-based facilitatory effects, and perceptual popout. The model, calledmismatch theory, incorporates inhibitory and facilitatory perceptual dynamics and is found to simulate the opposing biases. Implications of mismatch theory for perceptual phenomenology, dynamic systems theory, mental health, and individual differences are also discussed.     

Peer relationships in ADDH and normal children: A developmental analysis of peer and teacher ratings

Peer and teacher perceptions of younger and older ADDH and normal children were compared. Peer nominations on the Pupil Evaluation Inventory revealed that ADDH children received more nominations on the Aggression factor and fewer on the Likability factor. ADDH boys received more nominations on the Withdrawal factor. Generally, older children received fewer nominations, but age did not interact with diagnosis; that is, younger and older ADDH children were perceived by peers as equally deviant. Discriminant analyses showed that peer ratings were useful in discriminating between ADDH and normal boys, but not between ADDH and normal girls. Teacher ratings of peer behavior suggested that older ADDH girls were perceived as less disturbed than younger girls. However, teacher ratings of boys revealed no age by diagnosis interactions. Low to moderate correlations were found between peer and teacher ratings of ADDH boys, and the pattern of relationship varied with age.During the writing of this report, Charlotte Johnston was supported by a Sir James Lougheed Fellowship, Alberta Heritage Scholarship Fund.     

Childhood depression and conduct disorder: I. Behavioral, affective, and cognitive aspects of family problem-solving interactions.

We assessed the family interactions of depressed, conduct-disordered, mixed depressed-conduct-disordered, and nonclinic children, ages 7-14 years, during a standardized family problem-solving discussion in the clinic. The child's and the mother's problem-solving proficiency, aversive behavior, and associated affective behavior (depressed and angry-hostile) were observed. The child and mother also rated each other's affect during the interaction for the dimensions sad, angry, critical, and happy on Likert-type scales. The child's and mother's cognitive constructions about the interaction were assessed using video-mediated recall. Although all clinic groups had lower levels of effective problem solving than did nonclinic children, their deficiencies were somewhat different. Mixed and depressed children displayed high levels of depressed affect and low levels of angry affect, whereas conduct-disordered children displayed both angry and depressed affect. In addition, conduct-disordered children had lower levels of positive problem solving and higher levels of aversive content than did non-conduct-disordered children. Depressed and conduct-disordered children had higher levels of self-referent negative cognitions than did mixed and comparison children, and depressed children also had higher other-referent negative cognitions than did all other groups. The study provides support for theories and treatment that stress the importance of family problem-solving and conflict resolution skills in child psychopathology.     

Involuntary attentional capture by abrupt onsets.

The extent to which brief abrupt-onset visual stimuli involuntarily capture spatial attention was examined in five experiments. The paradigm used was intended to maximize the opportunity and incentive for subjects to ignore abrupt-onset distractor stimuli in nontarget locations. Subjects made a speeded two-choice response to a target letter appearing in one of four boxes. An abrupt-onset visual stimulus, easily discriminable from the target, was flashed briefly prior to the presentation of a target. In separate blocks, the flash stimulus marked the box in which the target would subsequently appear (SAME), a different box (DIFF), fixation (CENTER), or all four boxes (ALL). Prior to each block, subjects were informed of the flash-target relationship. In all five experiments, response time was elevated in the DIFF, CENTER, and ALL conditions. The interference effect was larger for the DIFF condition and persisted for longer flash-target SOAs. These results suggest that, under appropriate conditions, spatial attention can be involuntarily drawn to abrupt-onset events despite the intention of subjects' to ignore them.     

Involuntary covert orienting is contingent on attentional control settings.

Four experiments tested a new hypothesis that involuntary attention shifts are contingent on the relationship between the properties of the eliciting event and the properties required for task performance. In a variant of the spatial cuing paradigm, the relation between cue property and the property useful in locating the target was systematically manipulated. In Experiment 1, invalid abrupt-onset precues produced costs for targets characterized by an abrupt onset but not for targets characterized by a discontinuity in color. In Experiment 2, invalid color precues produced greater costs for color targets than for abrupt-onset targets. Experiment 3 provided converging evidence for this pattern. Experiment 4 investigated the boundary conditions and time course for attention shifts elicited by color discontinuities. The results of these experiments suggest that attention capture is contingent on attentional control settings induced by task demands.