Representation of on-line questionnaires in an editable,auditable database

A general way of describing multiple-choice questionnaires for on-line presentation is described. Some of the important features supported include random ordering of and sampling among questions, substitution of specific-question text into boilerplate question and response formats, a limited ability to bypass irrelevant questions, experimenter editing of response arrays, and automatic production of hard-copy versions of the questionnaire for use during computer breakdowns and for archival documentation. All editing operations on both questionnaires and response data create audit trails for future reference.     

Programs for visual psychophysics on the Amiga: A tutorial

A typical psychophysical experiment presents a sequence of visual stimuli to an observer and collects and stores the responses for later analysis. Although computers can speed up this process, paint programs that allow one to prepare visual stimuli without programming cannot read responses from the mouse or keyboard, whereas BASIC and other programming languages that allow one to collect and store observer’s responses unfortunately cannot handle prepainted pictures. A new programming language called The Director provides the best of both worlds. Its BASIC-like commands can manipulate prepainted pictures, read responses made with the mouse and keyboard, and save these on disk for later analysis. A dozen sample programs are provided.     

Cognitive mechanisms mediating the biasing effects of leader sex on ratings of leader behavior

The present study examined the effects of the sex of the leader, the sex of the rater, and the temporal position of leader performance information on ratings of leader behavior. Male and female subjects listened to an audiotape of a male or female leader and then rated the leader's initiating structure and consideration behaviors. The position of the leader performance information was manipulated by describing the leader as successful before or after raters listened to the audiotape or not presenting raters with the performance information. Analyses indicated that the sex of the leader and/or sex of the rater biased ratings of initiating structure when the performance information was presented after the audiotape and when no leader performance information was presented. Consideration ratings were affected only by the position of the leader performance information. The results are interpreted within a cognitive/implicit sex theory framework. Implications for leadership research are also discussed.Portions of the data analyzed in this study were collected by the second author as part of a master's thesis directed by Joseph A. Sgro.     

On structural equation modeling with data that are not missing completely at random

A general latent variable model is given which includes the specification of a missing data mechanism. This framework allows for an elucidating discussion of existing general multivariate theory bearing on maximum likelihood estimation with missing data. Here, missing completely at random is not a prerequisite for unbiased estimation in large samples, as when using the traditional listwise or pairwise present data approaches. The theory is connected with old and new results in the area of selection and factorial invariance. It is pointed out that in many applications, maximum likelihood estimation with missing data may be carried out by existing structural equation modeling software, such as LISREL and LISCOMP. Several sets of artifical data are generated within the general model framework. The proposed estimator is compared to the two traditional ones and found superior.The research of the first author was supported by grant No. SES-8312583 from the National Science Foundation and by a Spencer Foundation grant. We wish to thank Chuen-Rong Chan for drawing the path diagram.     

Incorporating good programs into the larger laboratory context

The Scheduled Measurement System (SMS) is a collection of related programs for administering performance and rating tasks to human subjects. It was designed to provide a common task scheduling and data management environment for a diversity of measures. SMS has greatly reduced the effort required to analyze and archive data after experiments, but it has been less successful in reducing some of the effort required to implement experiments. While programming is not difficult, documentation and user training remain the most primitive parts of the system.     

Family crisis intervention: fish or fowl?

This paper considers the status of family intervention as an area of interest defined by its literature (70 publications) and includes a brief history, assessment of present status, and recommendations for future development of family crisis intervention as a distinct field with concepts and goals that can be clearly defined, taught, researched, and repeated in treatment. Recommendations are made for the development of an explicit paradigm for intervention with a clear, common language of terms and concepts for family involvement. Suggested directions for developing the paradigm and language are explored.     

Visual stimuli on the Commodore Amiga: A tutorial

The Commodore Amiga home microcomputer, together withDeLuxePaint, a commercial software package, can generate many useful visual stimuli, including random-dot stereograms, apparent motion, texture edges, aftereffects from dimming and brightening, motion aftereffects, dynamic random noise, and drifting and counterphase gratings. Videotapes can readily be made of these displays. No programming experience is necessary.     

Reflections on the idea of personal fate and its psychopathology: Helene Deutsch's "Hysterical Fate Neurosis" revisited

The idea of a psychopathology of fate or what had come to be called a fate neurosis has failed to retain any established place in the structure of psychoanalytic thought. The clinical observations and theoretical formulations, to which the idea of a fate neurosis answered, have been subsumed in the course of things by more fundamental and systematic conceptualizations. A review of Helene Deutsch's (1930) paper, "Hysterical Fate Neurosis," is therefore bound to be largely an excursion into an area of intellectual history. However, such history never fails to shed light on certain ongoing clinical and theoretical problems that may have lost too much to current developments in psychoanalytic thought. It is with this historical purpose that the present study of Deutsch's classic paper on a fate neurosis is undertaken.