Role of Researchers in the Ethical Conduct of Research: A Discourse Analysis From Different Stakeholder Perspectives

The ethical conduct of research rests largely on researchers, and as such, an understanding of how they perceive and enact their role in research is paramount. However, the literature around ethics and research mostly focuses on researchers’ perception of Research Ethics Boards (REB; also known as Institutional Review Boards) roles and functions. To fill that gap, we analyzed the perceptions of researchers, REB members, and influential parties (n = 40) about researchers’ role in the ethical conduct of research through discourse analysis. Three discourses emerged: researchers as reflective practitioners, protectors of participants, and technicians. Understanding the commonalities and differences among the discourses may foster a shared and compelling institutional research culture.     

A probabilistic account of exemplar and category generation

People are capable of imagining and generating new category exemplars and categories. This ability has not been addressed by previous models of categorization, most of which focus on classifying category exemplars rather than generating them. We develop a formal account of exemplar and category generation which proposes that category knowledge is represented by probability distributions over exemplars and categories, and that new exemplars and categories are generated by sampling from these distributions. This sampling account of generation is evaluated in two pairs of behavioral experiments. In the first pair of experiments, participants were asked to generate novel exemplars of a category. In the second pair of experiments, participants were asked to generate a novel category after observing exemplars from several related categories. The results suggest that generation is influenced by both structural and distributional properties of the observed categories, and we argue that our data are better explained by the sampling account than by several alternative approaches.     

Test-Retest Reliability of the Emotional Stroop Task: Examining the Paradox of Measurement Change

The Emotional Stroop (ES) task (I. H. Gotlib & C. D. McCann, 1984) has been proposed as an experimental measure to assess the processing of emotion or the bias in attention of emotion-laden information. However, study results have not been consistent. To further examine its reliability for empirical research, the authors of this study administered the ES task to 33 participants on 2 separate occasions separated by 1 week. Results indicated that retest reliabilities for reaction times (RTs) derived from the 3 separate emotion conditions (manic, neutral, and depressive) across the 1 week interval were very high. However, consistent with previous research, the reliabilities were very low for the interference indices (manic and depressive). These low reliabilities reflect the very high intercorrelation between the RTs derived from the 3 conditions. The authors concluded that a better indicator of the reliability for this task is the individual RTs from each emotion condition.     

Triggering Conservation of the Self's Regulatory Resources

Three experiments investigated people's motivation to conserve the self's limited regulatory resource after it is depleted by initial self-control exertion. Across the experiments, the results supported the idea of a conservation process. In Experiment 1, depleted participants' subsequent performance decreased when expecting to engage in a future self-regulation task compared to engaging in no task at all. In Experiments 2 and 3 we employed the “end-effect” pattern found in past vigilance research to further examine conservation. In Experiment 2, depleted and nondepleted participants who knew the study ran for 30 min performed similarly following 20 min of self-regulation, whereas 3 min or 10 min of self-regulation produced typical depletion effects. Likewise, the findings from Experiment 3 revealed this same conservation pattern using a shortened 6-min initial task. Specifically, when depleted participants believed the study was finished their task performance was better compared to those who believed the study would run for another 20 min. In short, the current findings support the idea of conservation—decrements in self-regulatory performance may represent an adaptive inclination to conserve the self's diminished resources rather than an inability to wield further self-control.     

Overgeneral autobiographical memory and chronic interpersonal stress as predictors of the course of depression in adolescents

This study investigated whether overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) predicts the course of depression in adolescents. As part of a larger longitudinal study of risk for emotional disorders, 55 adolescents with a past history of major depressive disorder or minor depressive disorder completed the Autobiographical Memory Test. Fewer specific memories predicted the subsequent onset of a major depressive episode (MDE) over a 16-month follow-up period, even when covarying baseline depressive symptoms. This main effect was qualified by an interaction between specific memories and chronic interpersonal stress: Fewer specific memories predicted greater risk of MDE onset over follow-up at high (but not low) levels of chronic interpersonal stress. Thus, our findings suggest that OGM, in interaction with chronic interpersonal stress, predicts the course of depression among adolescents, and highlight the importance of measuring interpersonal stress in OGM research.     

The motivational effects of thinking and worrying about the effects of smoking cigarettes

We tested a strategy to encourage cigarette smokers to think more frequently about the negative consequences of smoking, reasoning that increased thought might lead to greater worry and motivation to quit. College students who smoked daily were randomly assigned to one of three conditions in which they wore watches for one week that sounded an alarm randomly four times each day. When alerted, the students read one of eight cards that either had a written statement about studying (control condition), a statement about the negative effects of smoking behaviour (text condition), or a negative smoking statement accompanied by a picture (e.g., a blackened lung; image condition). Measures collected at week's end revealed that the smoking cards had no effects on perceived risk, but they increased worry and reports of intrusive thoughts, and had a small but reliable effect on plans to quit. Correlational data also supported the relationship between worry and motivation to quit, and we discuss the possible benefits of “normal” worrying and strategies for capitalising on the worry–motivation relationship to encourage smokers to abandon cigarettes.     

Reading Comprehension: Effects of Individualized,Integrated Language Arts as a Reading Approach with Struggling Readers

This study examined the effects of individualized, integrated language arts as a reading approach on struggling readers' comprehension scores obtained from oral narrative, silent narrative, and silent expository passages at three levels: below-grade, on-grade, and above-grade levels. Students (N = 93) in grades four through eight, who were reading below grade level, participated in the study. Treatment group students (n = 51) received individualized, integrated language arts as a reading approach once a week in place of basal reading instruction. Comparison group students (n = 42) received basal reading instruction for the duration of the study. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to analyze posttest Analytical Reading Inventory (ARI) comprehension scores. Several statistically significant (p < .001) differences in comprehension performance were found for on-grade-level scores and for above-grade-level scores, but few differences were found between treatment and comparison groups on below-grade-level scores. All statistically significant differences favored students in the treatment group. The findings of the study strongly suggest that the use of individualized, integrated language arts as a method for teaching reading is an effective approach for improving the reading comprehension performance of struggling readers.     

The Relationship Between Childhood Trauma,Combat Exposure,and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Male Veterans

The current study investigated the effects of combat exposure, childhood trauma, and depression on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity. Participants were 299 male veterans from the Korean War, World War II, Vietnam, and the first Gulf War who were being screened for admission to the PTSD unit. Participants were assessed with the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), Combat Exposure Scale (CES), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD), Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), and Mississippi Scale for PTSD (MPTSD). Results of multiple regression analyses indicated that, as expected, combat exposure and depression were significant predictors of PTSD severity. When examined with combat exposure, childhood trauma has a complex relationship to PTSD severity. Examination of the interaction between the CES and CTQ suggests that when levels of combat are low and childhood trauma levels are high, the CTQ is related to higher levels of PTSD severity on the CAPS, regardless of depression. Treatment implications are discussed.     

Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation in a Canadian Military Sample

The Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) was administered to 1,060 male and 305 female soldiers from combat support and combat service support units in the U.S. Army. Eighty-four percent of women and 74% of men experienced at least 1 of the behaviors listed in the SEQ during the previous year. However, only 30% of women and 8% of men acknowledged having been sexually harassed in the same time period. Men who experienced SEQ behaviors were less likely to acknowledge harassment than women who experienced these behaviors. The 3 SEQ subscales—gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and coercion—were examined as predictors of organizational commitment, turnover wish, the perception of sexual harassment as a personal and work-unit problem, and as predictors of acknowledged harassment. The more serious behaviors were more likely to be acknowledged as harassment than the milder behaviors when the type of behavior was defined as either present or absent. On the other hand, when milder behaviors occurred frequently, they were the main predictors of the perception of sexual harassment as a personal and work-unit problem. Sexual harassment predicted turnover wish and Army commitment for male soldiers only.