Concurrent Validity of the Child Behavior Checklist DSM-Oriented Scales: Correspondence with DSM Diagnoses and Comparison to Syndrome Scales

This study used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) methodology and discriminative analyses to examine the correspondence of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) rationally-derived DSM-oriented scales and empirically-derived syndrome scales with clinical diagnoses in a clinic-referred sample of children and adolescents (N = 476). Although results demonstrated that the CBCL Anxiety, Affective, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity, Oppositional and Conduct Problems DSM-oriented scales corresponded significantly with related clinical diagnoses derived from parent-based structured interviews, these DSM-oriented scales did not evidence significantly greater correspondence with clinical diagnoses than the syndrome scales in all cases but one. The DSM-oriented Anxiety Problems scale was the only scale that evidenced significantly greater correspondence with diagnoses above its syndrome scale counterpart —the Anxious/Depressed scale. The recently developed and rationally-derived DSM-oriented scales thus generally do not add incremental clinical utility above that already afforded by the syndrome scales with respect to corresponding with diagnoses. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Personality Saturation in Structured Interviews

Applied psychologists have long been interested in the relationship between applicant personality and employment interview ratings. Analysis of data from two studies, one using a situational interview and one using a behavioral interview, suggests that the correlations of structured interview ratings with self‐report measures of personality factors are generally rather low. Further, a small meta‐analysis integrates these two studies and the limited previous literature to arrive at a similar conclusion – there is relatively little relationship between structured interviews and self‐reported personality factors.     

Do instructional warnings reduce false recognition?

After previously encoding lists of related words (e.g. bed, rest, awake, etc.) associated with one critical word (e.g. sleep), participants frequently falsely recognize critical words as having been previously presented. Past research indicates that warning participants of this memory illusion can reduce false recognition of critical words. However, the memory processes responsible for this reduction are not known. We investigated whether the increase in critical‐word memory performance reflects changes that are specific to the processing of critical words, or alternatively, changes that are applied generally to processing in all conditions. Different participants were warned (in two different ways) or not warned before encoding, and recognition sensitivity for critical words, related words and unrelated words was tested. The warnings increased memory performance equally across all conditions, not just for critical words. These results help to more effectively conceptualize false recognition and reductions in false recognition in this paradigm. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Probing the link between narcissism and gambling: the mediating role of judgment and decision‐making biases

In this paper, three studies link narcissism to gambling in general, and gambling‐related problems in particular, and the predictive link is shown to be mediated by judgment and decision processes. In Study 1, we demonstrate that narcissism relates to greater self‐reported gambling frequency and gambling‐related monetary expenditures in two samples. We extend these initial findings in Study 2 by showing that narcissism predicts higher reports of gambling‐related pathology, as measured with a DSM‐IV‐based pathological gambling (PG) screen. Finally, we demonstrate in Study 3 that the link between gambling pathology and narcissism is partially mediated by narcissists' overconfidence, heightened risk acceptance, and myopic focus on reward, as measured by participants' behavioral performance on the Georgia Gambling Task (GGT) and Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Discussion focuses on the empirical validation of the long‐assumed narcissism–gambling link, the decision processes that underlie this link, and relations between narcissists' self‐perceptions and their self‐defeating behavior, especially in risk‐relevant contexts. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stereotypes and retrieval-provoked illusory source recollections

When expectations and stereotypes are activated at retrieval, they spontaneously create distorted and illusory recollections that are consistent with these expectations. Participants studied doctor (physician)-related and lawyer-related statements that were presented by 2 different people. When informed, on a subsequent source memory test, (i.e., of who presented what) that one of the study sources was actually a doctor and the other source was a lawyer, there was a strong tendency to attribute the test items in a stereotype-consistent manner. In 3 experiments, participants frequently reported recollecting specific details, such as via "remember" judgments, to justify their stereotype-consistent but incorrect responses. These experiments rule out explanations involving either the misattribution of strong familiarity or differences in the bias to making remember responses as accounts for the illusory source attributions. Instead, the illusory recollections are consistent with the notion that recollective experience is manufactured from both the information in the memory trace and information in the retrieval environment, such as an individual's expectations, stereotypes, and general knowledge.     

Untangling the Links between Narcissism and Self‐esteem: A Theoretical and Empirical Review

The links among narcissism, explicit (deliberate, controllable) self‐esteem, and implicit (automatic, uncontrollable) self‐esteem are unclear despite numerous attempts to illuminate these links. Some investigations suggest that narcissism reflects high explicit self‐esteem that masks low implicit self‐esteem, but other investigations fail to replicate this pattern. Here, we place the ‘mask’ model of narcissism in historical context and review the existing empirical evidence for this model. We then discuss three possible issues that might shed light on the inconsistent findings that have emerged from tests of the mask model. These issues include the unreliability of implicit attitude measures, narcissism's different associations with agentic versus communal self‐views, and distinctions between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism subtypes. We also summarize several alternatives to the mask model of narcissism. Throughout, we offer suggestions for improving the study of narcissism and self‐esteem and point to directions for future research on this topic.     

Evidence that blatant versus subtle stereotype threat cues impact performance through dual processes

An experiment tested three competing hypotheses for how blatant and subtle stereotype threat cues influence the performance of female sports participants on a golf-putting task. A “predominant” model predicts that blatant threat cues have a more negative effect on performance than subtle threat cues, whereas an “additive” model predicts that both cues combine to have a greater negative effect than either threat cue alone. However, a “dual process” model predicts that each threat cue has an independent negative influence through separate mechanisms. To test these predictions, we varied the presence of blatant (e.g., the task frame) and subtle cues (e.g., the gender of the experimenter) for negative stereotypes about female athletes, and then measured both the number of strokes required to finish the course and accuracy on the last putt of each hole. The results supported the dual process model prediction: females required more strokes to finish the golf task when it was framed as measuring gender differences compared to racial differences in athletic ability, and females performed less accurately on the last putt of each hole in the presence of a male versus a female experimenter. The discussion focuses on how the presence of multiple stereotype threat cues can induce independent mechanisms that may have separate but simultaneously deleterious effects on performance.     

Instructional effects on performance in a matching-to-sample study

Conducting studies using an undergraduate participant pool is fraught with difficulties. Among them are problems with adequately motivating subjects both to come to the study, and once there, to actively engage the experimental task. Thirty-one college students participated in a matching-to-sample (MTS) study involving substantial training, testing, retraining, and retesting of conditional discriminations and equivalence relations among four 4-member classes of nonsensical words. The study was conducted during the end of the semester, when performance often had been observed to be poorer than at other points in the semester. Eleven of the participants, in addition to standard instructions about the task, received additional instructions specifying molar consequences for high rates of "correct" responses throughout the procedure. This subset of participants displayed markedly improved performance as compared to those who did not receive the additional instructions. Results suggest that specification of molar contingencies improves participants' sensitivity to molecular contingencies within the study. Instructions that specify and increase the consequential functions of feedback provided during MTS trials may be one means of reducing unwanted variability in human MTS performance.     

Initial storage of unfamiliar objects: examining memory stores with signal detection analyses

The memory source(s) underlying performance of the object decision task were examined. Application of signal detection theory with independent indices of sensitivity and bias indicated that greater object decision sensitivity (possible vs. impossible object discrimination) is observed for primed than for unprimed objects and a greater bias to respond "possible" is observed for primed than for unprimed objects. To test whether a single memory store underlies the two effects, we assessed whether the two effects would be influenced in similar ways by a particular experimental manipulation. Sensitivity did not differ between processing of 180 degrees -rotated primed objects vs. un-rotated primed objects, but bias to respond "possible" differed between those conditions in predictable ways depending on the cerebral hemisphere of direct test presentations. Results support a conciliatory resolution to the debate concerning memory in this task and help to clarify properties of memory stores underlying the initial storage of unfamiliar objects.     

Assessing personality with a structured employment interview: construct-related validity and susceptibility to response inflation

The authors evaluated the extent to which a personality-based structured interview was susceptible to response inflation. Interview questions were developed to measure facets of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. Interviewers administered mock interviews to participants instructed to respond honestly or like a job applicant. Interviewees completed scales of the same 3 facets from the NEO Personality Inventory, under the same honest and applicant-like instructions. Interviewers also evaluated interviewee personality with the NEO. Multitrait-multimethod analysis and confirmatory factor analysis provided some evidence for the construct-related validity of the personality interviews. As for response inflation, analyses revealed that the scores from the applicant-like condition were significantly more elevated (relative to honest condition scores) for self-report personality ratings than for interviewer personality ratings. In addition, instructions to respond like an applicant appeared to have a detrimental effect on the structure of the self-report and interview ratings, but not interviewer NEO ratings.