Predicting career performance of physicians using the biographical inventory approach

Two critical problems face professional and technical schools and their admissions committees: (1) the criterion problem of defining what constitutes a “good” career practitioner, and (2) the predictor problem of assessing in advance which applicants to the various schools are most likely to become these “good” career practitioners (and not just good students). The present project, working with a 333 physician sample, was designed to establish such criteria and predictors in the field of medicine. Seven important composite and summary criteria were established and five of them were successfully predicted with cross-validities at levels beyond .40 and ranging as high as .56 by a 351-item biographical inventory. A triplecross validation item-analysis design was used.     

An apparatus for the study of motivation and learning in children

An apparatus is described for use in learning ana motivation research with children. A dual track with cars permits singular or paired presentation of stimuli, presents different types of reinforcing events, counts the occurrence of these events, and automatically prints out latencies and correct or incorrect responses. Although designed primarily for studying the motivational properties of stimulus events, the apparatus is suitable for use in simple and complex learning studies.     

MATERNAL EXPECTATIONS FOR MASTERY OF DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS IN JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES*

Maternal expectations about development help organize parental behavior by providing internal referents against which a child's growth and behavior are evaluated, thus identifying occasions for intervention by the adult. Fifty-eight mothers from Japan and 67 mothers from the United States were interviewed about the ages at which they expected their four-year-old children to acquire a number of specific developmental skills. There were no differences between the two groups of mothers in mean age of mastery expectation across all 38 items but Japanese mothers expected early mastery on skills that indicated emotional maturity, self-control, and social courtesy. Mothers in the U.S. expected mastery at an earlier age on items indicating verbal assertiveness and social skills with peers. Maternal expectations were found to correlate with children's performance on tests of school aptitude when the children were six years of age.     

Conservation studies in Papua New Guinea: A review

Among the most widely used measures of cognitive development are Piaget's tests of conservation. In general, children in Western cultures achieve conservation between the ages of about 7 and 11 years. In recent years considerable attention has been focussed on the performance of non-Western children. In Papua New Guinea the education system is based on the Western pattern and the assumptions underlying Western education have been adopted. These assumptions include many about the level of cognitive development achieved at various ages. The published research on conservation in Papua New Guinea is reviewed, and it is concluded that the performance of children in P.N.G. on conservation tasks is well below that of Europeans of the same age. Suggestions are presented for the development of more adequate standardised procedures for cross-cultural research in the area.     

Primary prevention of secondary disorders: A proposal and agenda

This paper calls for consideration of a new class of preventive interventions designed explicitly to prevent comorbidity of psychiatric disorders. Epidemiologic data show that successful interventions of this type could be extremely valuable, as up to half of lifetime psychiatric disorders and an even larger percent of chronic and seriously impairing disorders occur to people with a prior history of some other disorder. Furthermore, a review of etiologic hypotheses concerning the causes of comorbidity suggests that interventions aimed at primary prevention of secondary disorders might be feasible. However, more basic risk factor research is needed on the causes of comorbidity before we can make a clear assessment of feasibility and discover promising intervention targets. A number of methodological problems arise in carrying out this type of formative research. These problems are reviewed and suggestions are offered for solutions involving innovations in measurement, design, and data analysis.     

Learning Styles of Mexican American and Anglo-American Elementary School Students

The learning style characteristics of Mexican American and Anglo-American elementary school children are identified and the implications for counseling and learning are discussed.     

Rational selective exploitation and distress: employee reactions to performance-based and mobility-based reward allocations

Prior research has demonstrated that allocators frequently distribute greater rewards to persons with high professional and geographic mobility than to persons with constrained mobility, especially among the very competent. This phenomenon has been termed rational selective exploitation. Do the recipients of such allocations actually experience this distribution rule as unjust and distressing, or is it a misnomer to refer to this phenomenon as exploitation? Two studies were conducted to explore this question. Study 1 was a laboratory experiment in which we manipulated relative performance level, relative mobility level, and allocation standard: performance based versus mobility based. Study 2 was a cross-sectional survey of actual employees in which subjects reported the degree to which performance and mobility were the basis for pay decisions at their places of employment, as well as the degree to which they perceived each standard to be fair. Both studies demonstrated that people regard mobility-based allocations as less fair and more distressing than performance-based allocations. Furthermore, the degree of distress resulting from mobility-based allocations is greater among persons who are disadvantaged by that standard: among people with constrained mobility, especially those who perform at high levels. These findings provide good support for the assertion that so-called rational selective exploitation is indeed distressing to employees. Reactions to this form of distress are also explored, and the implications of these findings for the allocation process are discussed.     

Event frequency and children's suggestibility: a study of cued recall responses

Research examining the effect of repeated experience on children's suggestibility for particular kinds of information has produced differing results. In one study, responses to recognition questions revealed heightened suggestibility for variable details in children who repeatedly experienced an event compared to children who experienced an event once. In other studies, no such effect was found with cued recall. In this study, 4–5‐year old children engaged in one or four play sessions. Children were later given a biasing interview wherein half of the details were incorrectly represented. Children were then given a final memory test using free and cued recall prompts that was preceded by one of three instruction types: no special instructions, moderate instructions, or opposition instructions. Children in the repeated‐event condition were more suggestible than those in the single‐event condition, regardless of instructions. No significant differences in suggestibility were found across instructions conditions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiple studies and weak evidential defeat

When a study shows statistically significant correlation between an exposure and an outcome, the credence of a real connection between the two increases. Should that credence remain the same when it is discovered that further independent studies between the exposure and other independent outcomes were conducted? Matthew Kotzen argues that it should remain the same, even if the results of those further studies are discovered. However, we argue that it can differ dependent upon the results of the studies.