The Effects of Coaching Subjects in the Recognition of Facial Expressions

A wide range of individual differences in the ability to identify facial expressions of emotion has been reported. As evidence that these inequalities are due in large part to differences of practice in reacting to expressive criteria, rather than to innate factors, F. H. Allport has offered the data from an experimental observation of the effects of training subjects of varying ability for fifteen minutes in the analysis of facial expressions. The gain in score made by his subjects on the facial expression test after the training period was roughly inversely proportional to their original standing; i.e., the less proficient persons gained the most and the more proficient gained the least. Repeating this procedure with larger groups of subjects, both with the same and longer study periods, the writer largely confirmed Allport's data. However, a control experiment, affording no opportunity for study, yielded similar data, except that on the average no gain in score resulted. The inverse relationship between original ability and amount of gain or loss should not, therefore, be attributed to the effects of training. Further analysis shows that when the reliability of the facial expression test, found by retesting a group of subjects, is taken into account, the negative coefficient practically disappears. The negative coefficient, upon which Allport bases his theory, is thus found to result in this study from the erroneous assumption that the reliability of the facial expression test is perfect. The writer, though inclined to agree with Allport's theory, concludes that this type of experimental evidence, when closely scrutinized, fails to support the theory.     

Violent Delinquency: An Examination of Psychopathic Typologies

This study sought to determine the combined effects of psychopathy, low intellectual functioning, and love deprivation on violent delinquency. Low-intellectual-functioning psychopaths were significantly more violent than were low or high-intellectual-functioning nonpsychopaths or high-intellectual-functioning psychopaths. Love deprivation was more strongly related to violence than was psychopathy/intellectual functioning, and severely love-deprived, low-intellectual-functioning psychopaths were the most violent.     

Stability of the MCMI Among Depressed Psychiatric Outpatients

The Milton Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) is a promising, yet somewhat unproven psychometric inventory developed to identify clinical syndromes and personality traits consonant with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed. [DSM-III]; American Psychiatric Association, 1980). The stability of its measures for both the theoretically more stable personality characteristics and the clinical syndromes was investigated in a group of depressed psychiatric outpatients. In this test-retest design with a 3-month interval between tests, clinical syndrome scales of relevance changed significantly as expected. However, many of the personality scales also changed significantly. Only four of the personality scales met a two-fold test of stability. Findings are discussed in terms of characteristics of self-report inventories such as the MCMI, the uniqueness of the depressed population, and characteristics of personality disorders.     

Society for Personality Assessment — the Way to Go

For six consecutive days, six series of inkblots, similar to Rorschach cards, were shown to six male and six female university students. The results showed that the M + Sum C scores fluctuate close to a sine curve. According to Rorschach M and color responses are sensitive to mood changes. Therefore these results suggest that different persons have mood changes with different amplitudes and periods. It also points out that the current use of test-retest reliability measurements of these scores are not appropriate and the criticisms of Rorschach based on the poor test-retest reliability measurements of these scores are unwarranted.     

Functions of Clinical Psychological Service in California Juvenile and Adult Courts

Subjects provided free responses to six concepts representing varying degrees of involvement. Responses were obtained from each subject under normal and negative affect conditions. Group data were used. Under negative affect conditions, significant correlations were found between concept involvement and type/token ratio (TTR), tokens per type, response variation index (RVI), and total types. Correlations were in the direction of increased redundancy as involvement decreased and, conversely, increased response variation as involvement increased. These relationships held only under negative affect conditions. Implications were discussed for the problems of communication under negative affect conditions and the assessment of individuals’ internal states from verbal behavior. Finally, a sociolinguistic view of the “language community” concept was offered.     

Fostering At-Risk Kindergarten Children's Number Sense

A 9-month training experiment evaluated whether computer-assisted discovery learning of arithmetic regularities can facilitate kindergartners’ fluency with the easiest sums. After a pretest, kindergartners with at least one risk factor (n = 28) were randomly assigned to either a structured add-0/1 training condition, which focused on recognizing the n + 0/0 + n = n and the n + 1/1 + n = the number-after-n rules, or an active control group. Using pretest fluency as the covariate, ANCOVAs revealed that the structured add-0/1 group significantly outperformed the control group on both practiced and unpracticed (transfer) n + 0/0 + n and n + 1/1 + n items at the delayed posttest and had significantly larger gains in mathematics achievement. Key instructional implications include: Early intervention that targets discovering rules for adding with 0 and 1 and family-specific developmental prerequisites is feasible and more effective than typical classroom instruction in promoting fluency with such basic sums. Such rules may be a critically important bridge between informal and formal mathematics.