Two Studies Examining the Error Theory Underlying the Measurement Model of the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale

Meta‐analysis indicates moderate correlations between the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale (VAS) and other self‐report measures but near‐zero correlations with behavioral measures. Accurately interpreting correlations between the VAS and other variables, however, requires an examination of the untested error theory underlying the measurement model for the VAS. In two separate studies, the results of single‐factor correlated uniqueness confirmatory factor analytic models revealed a pattern of significant error covariances indicating that VAS item scores are confounded by systematic error attributable to multiple unspecified latent effects. After pruning the item sets, we identified 4 items that were free of latent variable influences other than trait verbal aggressiveness. Implications for interpreting the verbal aggressiveness literature are discussed along with recommendations for revising the VAS.     

Behavioral Adaptation,Confidence, and Heuristic-Based Explanations of the Probing Effect

Researchers have found that asking probing questions of message sources does not enhance deception detection accuracy. Probing does, however, increase recipient and observer perceptions of source honesty, a finding we label the probing effect. This project examined 3 potential explanations for the probing effect: behavioral adaptation, confidence bias, and a probing heuristic. In Study 1, respondents (N = 337) viewed videotaped interviews in which probes were present or not present, and in which message source behaviors were controlled. Inconsistent with the behavioral adaptation explanation, respondents perceived probed sources as more honest than nonprobed sources, despite the fact that source behaviors were constant across conditions. The data also were inconsistent with the confidence bias explanation. Studies 2 and 3 investigated the probing heuristic explanation. The data from Study 2 (N = 136) were ambiguous, but the results of third study (N = 143) were consistent with the heuristic processing explanation of the probing effect.     

The Effects of Truth–Lie Base Rate on Interactive Deception Detection Accuracy

Consistent with the Park and Levine's (PL) probability model of deception detection accuracy, previous research has shown that as the proportion of honest messages increases, there is a corresponding linear increase in correct truth–lie discrimination. Three experiments (N = 120, 205, and 243, respectively) varied the truth–lie base rate in an interactive deception detection task. Linear base‐rate effects were observed in all 3 experiments (average effect r#x02009;= .61) regardless of whether the judges were interactive participants or passive observers, previously acquainted or strangers, or previously exposed to truths or lies. The predictive power of the PL probability model appears robust and extends to interactive deception despite PL's logical incompatibility with interpersonal deception theory.     

Pina Bausch and the Interweaving of Trauma,Memory, and Creative Transformation: Commentary on Papers by Sarah Mendelsohn and Deborah Dowd

In her “dance-theater” (Tanztheater), Pina Bausch famously instructed her dancers with almost no language, encouraging her dancers to feel their way into the dance, to get in touch with their deepest vulnerabilities. In their papers, Sarah Mendelsohn and Deborah Dowd share with us, their audience, ways in which they, too, struggled to get in touch with their most vulnerable selves. Caught in an unending present with their challenging, traumatized patients, their struggle to locate themselves, and their own vulnerabilities in their patients, to experience the shame of their own childhood trauma, allowed for enlivened creative movement and profound psychic change.