The personality of the Scottish police officer: The issue of positive and negative affectivity

During the past 20 years, interest has arisen concerning the existence of a specific police personality. Much of the early studies had significant methodological difficulties. The present study aimed to examine the personality traits of ‘Positive and Negative Affectivity’ in a group (n = 699) of serving Scottish police officers. The PANAS scale (Watson, Clark & Tellegen, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070, 1988) suggested that the sample did not differ from the norm on either of these indices. No differences were found according to age or length of service, which brings into question previous assertions made concerning the role of the police organisation in the development of police personality. However, the complexity of the issue was demonstrated, as differences in affectivity were observed according to gender, marital status, rank, working location and job satisfaction level.     

Seven Sins of Behaviourism

First, a cautionary tale. Once upon a time there were two hard-working tailors (never mind the quality, measure the width) who promised psychology a new set of clothes. In due course, the old clothes of mentalism and introspectionism were cast off and psychology congratulated itself on its new tough look. But there were murmurings. Then one of the tailors went too far and claimed that his new clothes covered everything. Even the Emperor's Verbal Behavior! At this point a young linguist cried out ‘Transformational Grammar!’ and everyone could see that the Emperor had no clothes at all. Everyone that is apart fiom the tailors.     

Evaluation of self-contained training procedures for the Time-Sample Behavioral Checklist

The comparative effectiveness of two time-limited modes of training observers to code the behavior of clients in residential treatment programs on the Time-Sample Behavioral Checklist (TSBC) was evaluated. The susceptibility of training procedures to consensual observer drift and the predictability of TSBC mastery from trainee characteristics were also examined. Two equated groups of undergraduate students (N=15 each) participated in full-time training on the TSBC and another instrument for 27 days, followed by criterion testingin vivo and on videotapes. One group was trained by experienced personnel using procedures known to be effective but potentially subject to consensual observer drift. The other group was trained using a previously untested set of written and videotape procedures that do not rely on experienced personnel. Comparative effectiveness and observer drift were evaluated by multivariate and univariate ANOVAs on mastery scores reflecting both pattern agreement and level differences between each trainee and criterion codings. The new, more efficient training procedures were found to be as effective as the original training procedures in the degree of mastery achieved by trainees. Original training procedures were found to be resistant to consensual observer drift, with such a phenomenon appearing in only 1 instance of 156 opportunities. The high degree of mastery achieved by trainees during the time-limited training period was comparable to that previously achieved with the original training procedures. No meaningful predictions of coding mastery were found, with only one trainee characteristic being significantly related to one of six mastery criteria. The results document procedures that are both efficient and resistant to invalidity for training observers in the use of multidimensional observational systems, as well as providing guidelines for the development of standardized procedures.This article is based on a thesis submitted to the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in psychology by the first author and under direction of the second author. The third and fourth authors also participated as supervisors. Appreciation is extended to other members of the thesis committee, Fred Kanfer, Ross Parke, and Julian Rappaport, and to John Gottman and W. Robert Nay for their comments and recommendations. This study was partially supported by Public Health Service Grants MH-25464 and MH-14257 from the National Institute of Mental Health and by grants from the Joyce Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities.     

The comparative effectiveness of two modes of observer training on the Staff-Resident Interaction Chronograph

The comparative effectiveness of two time-limited modes of training observers to code activity on the Staff-Resident Interaction Chronograph (SRIC) in residential treatment programs for mentally disabled adults was evaluated. The susceptibility of training procedures for consensual observer drift was also examined, as was the predictability of SRIC mastery from trainee characteristics. Two equated groups of undergraduate student trainees (N=15 each) participated in full-time training for 27 days, followed by two weeks of criterion testing in vivo and on videotapes. One group received training by experience personnel using procedures known to be effective (original method). The other group received training via a previously untested set of written and videotaped procedures that do not rely on experienced personnel (package method). Multivariate and univariate analyses of variance found both methods to be equally effective in the degree of mastery achieved by trainees, without evidence of observer drift. No meaningful predictions of coding mastery were found, but conceptual mastery was predictable from individual characteristics. Differences were obtained for both groups between in vivo versus videotaped criterion tests. The results document procedures that are both efficient and resistant to invalidity for complex observational methodology as well as feasible for standardizing assessment of staff functioning across residential settings.This article is based on a thesis submitted to the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in psychology by the first author under direction of the second author. The third and fourth authors also participated as supervisors. Appreciation is extended to other members of the thesis committee, Fred Kanfer, W. Robert Nay, Julian Rappaport, and James Wardrop, for their comments and recommendations. This study was partially supported by Public Health Service Grants MH-25464 and MH-14257 from the National Institute of Mental Health, and by grants from The Joyce Foundation and the Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities.     

The effect of instructions on the apparent reversal of rotary motion in depth

This study concerns experimental investigation of the effect of instructions on the apparent reversal of rotary motion in depth. It was found that subjects instructed to report apparent reversals of an elliptical shape signalled more reversals than subjects who were instructed to report the non-occurrence of reversals. This difference increased over four trials. When the stimulus object was a trapezium window instructions to report reversals led to a higher rate of reversals than did instructions to report non-occurrence, but this difference did not increase significantly over trials.     

Sentence production and working memory

Previous research has shown that subjects can make up sentences faster from related noun pairs than from unrelated pairs. Two experiments tested the proposal that for the related pairs a subject simply has to access stored information but must make up an appropriate relation for unrelated pairs. In both studies the subjects were asked on some trials to remember a digit preload while they made up their sentences. Contrary to an initial prediction, the latencies were faster rather than slower with a preload. Furthermore, a surprise recall test at the end of Experiment 2 showed that there was no difference in the recall of related and unrelated pairs. The results were interpreted as evidence that semantic work was necessary for both types of noun pairs, and that the subjects did less semantic work with a digit preload. This interpretation was further supported by the finding that with the preload the subjects produced a narrower range of semantic relations between the noun pairs.     

Consumer Wisdom: A Theoretical Framework of Five Integrated Facets

We establish a parsimonious theoretical framework of consumer wisdom based on five mutually reinforcing psychological facets. Our research draws from wisdom literature and a set of 31 phenomenological interviews with informants who were identified through a multi‐stage nomination process. The five facets of consumer wisdom that emerged are Intentionality, Contemplation, Emotional Mastery, Openness, and Transcendence. Together, they comprise a data‐grounded, aspirational model of consumer wisdom—for researchers as well as consumers—to understand, maintain, and improve personal and collective well‐being. We discuss the implications of the framework and directions for future research.     

Anisomycin infused into the hippocampus fails to block "reconsolidation" but impairs extinction: the role of re-exposure duration

Recent studies have reported new evidence consistent with the hypothesis that reactivating a memory by re-exposure to a training context destabilizes the memory and induces "reconsolidation." In the present experiments, rats' memory for inhibitory avoidance (IA) training was tested 6 h (Test 1), 2 d (Test 2), and 6 d (Test 3) after training. On Test 1 the rats were either removed from the shock compartment immediately after entry or retained in the shock context for 200 sec, and intrahippocampal infusions of the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin (75 microg/side) were administered immediately after the test. Anisomycin infusions administered after Test 1 impaired IA performance on Test 2 in animals given the brief re-exposure, but impaired extinction in animals exposed to the context for 200 sec. Rats with anisomycin-induced retention impairment on Test 2 demonstrated spontaneous recovery of retention performance on Test 3, whereas rats showing extinction on Test 2 showed further extinction on Test 3. The findings indicate that post-retrieval administration of anisomycin impairs subsequent retention performance only in the absence of extinction and that this impairment is temporary.     

The role of treatment acceptability in the initiation of treatment for ADHD

Approximately 50% of families of children with ADHD fail to pursue, or adhere to, recommended treatments. The present study examines parent ratings of the acceptability of pharmacological and behavioral treatments for ADHD and the relationships between these ratings and subsequent pursuit of treatment. Fifty-five families whose children received an evaluation for ADHD completed questionnaires and were contacted 3 to 4 months later to assess their pursuit of treatment. Consistent with previous research, parents rated behavior therapy as more acceptable than medication. Parent ratings of medication acceptability significantly predict pursuit of pharmacological treatment, whereas ratings of the acceptability of behavior therapy do not predict pursuit of this treatment. Preliminary analyses found that Caucasian parents' ratings of medication are significantly higher than those of non-Caucasian parents. Furthermore, Caucasian families were more likely to pursue a recommendation for pharmacological treatment than non-Caucasian families. The clinical and research implications of these results are considered.