Using confidence ratings to identify a target among foils

Sauer, Brewer, and Weber (2008) advanced a novel procedure for testing eyewitness recognition memory. Rather than providing a single decision (i.e., identifying a lineup member or rejecting the lineup as a whole), participants rated their confidence that each lineup member was the culprit. Classification algorithms determined when patterns of confidence ratings indicated suspect guilt or innocence. Across varied test stimuli, confidence-based classifications equalled or out-performed single decisions. However, Sauer et al.’s classification criteria were designed to optimize performance for the data to which they were applied. If effective classification using confidence ratings requires such idiosyncratic criteria, the applied utility of the confidence procedure is nil. We re-analysed the data from Sauer et al.’s two identification experiments and demonstrated that confidence-based classification performance exceeding that of a traditional lineup task did not depend on uniquely developed classification criteria. Confidence-rating lineups offer a potentially promising alternative to procedures requiring single decisions from witnesses.     

Clinical Psychology Students’ Experiences of a Pilot Objective Structured Clinical Examination

There is a need to improve methods used to assess students’ clinical skills in postgraduate clinical psychology training, but research into the use of new competency‐based assessments are sparse. The current study examines the potential application of the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) to clinical psychology training. Commonly used in medical training, the OSCE requires students to demonstrate clinical skills across a number of standardised stations with trained actors playing the part of patients. A pilot OSCE was conducted with nine students from a psychology doctoral program. Participants completed a brief student feedback questionnaire and attended a focus group after the OSCE. They also completed the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory before and after the OSCE. The results showed that students viewed the OSCE as a valid, realistic, and fair assessment method. They reported high levels of anxiety during the OSCE but noted that the OSCE was a positive learning experience. These results suggest that OSCEs should be considered in clinical psychology training programs for the assessment of clinical competence. Further evaluations of the validity and reliability of the clinical psychology OSCE using a larger sample size are required. Other limitations and implications of the study are discussed.     

The reciprocal relationship between psychological contract fulfilment and employee performance and the moderating role of perceived organizational support and tenure

This study investigated the reciprocal relationship between perceptions of psychological contract fulfilment and employee performance (sales made and sales targets), and whether this was moderated by the quality and length of the social exchange relationship captured, respectively, through perceived organizational support (POS) and organizational tenure. We used a sample of 146 sales advisors and a four‐point longitudinal design and found support for reciprocal links where performance predicted subsequent psychological contract fulfilment and vice versa. The strength of the relationship between performance and psychological contract fulfilment increased over time. The quality of the social exchange relationship (i.e., POS) moderated reciprocal links between sales made and sales targets met and perceptions of psychological contract fulfilment at earlier, but not later, time points. One way to interpret the findings is the changing nature of the unfolding relationship between support, psychological contract fulfilment, and performance, where a supportive relationship buffers failing to deliver at earlier time points, but at later time points employee performance and psychological contract fulfilment associate more strongly as both parties prioritize delivery.     

Ruminative coping and post-event processing in social anxiety

Cognitive models of social anxiety implicate various factors in the initiation and maintenance of socially anxious states, including anticipatory processing, self-focused attention and post-event processing. The present study focused on post-event processing, which is a post-mortem analysis following a social event that is described as ruminative in nature and serves to maintain social anxiety. Participants (N=112; 64 women, 48 men) were presented with vignettes that involved making mistakes in public and were instructed to record their thoughts to allow for the examination of the content of post-event processing. Ruminative coping and distraction were assessed via self-report. Results indicated that participants high in social anxiety (n=55) were more likely to ruminate and less likely to distract when faced with socially anxious stressors compared to those low in social anxiety (n=57). Further, as hypothesized, participants high in social anxiety recorded more negative thoughts and more upward counterfactual thoughts ('if only' type thoughts on how things could have been better; associated with negative affect) compared to those low in social anxiety. These results are discussed in terms of cognitive models of social anxiety.     

Yours or mine? Ownership and memory

An important function of the self is to identify external objects that are potentially personally relevant. We suggest that such objects may be identified through mere ownership. Extant research suggests that encoding information in a self-relevant context enhances memory (the so-called 'self-reference effect'), thus an experiment was designed to test the impact of ownership on memory performance. Participants either moved or observed the movement of picture cards into two baskets; one of which belonged to self and one which belonged to another participant. A subsequent recognition test revealed that there was a significant memory advantage for objects that were owned by self. Acting on items (i.e., moving them) had no impact on memory. Results are discussed with reference to the importance of self-object associations in cognition.     

The Relationship Between Caregiver Capacity and Intensive Community Treatment for Children with a Mental Health Crisis

We studied 9,220 children referred to a comprehensive mental health crisis stabilization program to examine the impact of caregiver capacity on crisis worker decisions to refer children for intensive community-based treatment as opposed to inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. Due to the different role of caregivers in the child welfare system, analyses were stratified by state custody status. Among both groups, there was a significant inverse association between child mental health need and referral to intensive community-based treatment. For children not in state custody with low mental health need, there was no difference in the likelihood of referral to intensive community-based treatment across levels of caregiver capacity. However, for children not in state custody with medium and high mental health needs, those whose caregivers were deficient or severely deficient were significantly more likely to be referred for intensive community-based treatment than were those who had capable caregivers. Multivariate analyses demonstrated similar results after controlling for potential confounding variables and confirmed that caregiver capacity contributes significantly to the logistic model’s classification accuracy. Results suggest further investigation of the impact of caregiver capacity on mental health crisis worker referral decisions is needed.     

The River Model: A Metaphor and Tool for Training New Psychotherapists

A conceptual frame of reference called The River is presented for training of beginning psychotherapists. Using metaphors, trainees are taught specific tools (Equipment) and to identify salient features of the therapy process (Topography) by means of a series of metaphors for the process elements of timing and of level of intervention. Student therapist feedback indicated that this model facilitated learning of how much or little to do at given points in the therapeutic process, and that these metaphors appeared to transcend specific theoretical orientations.     

Relative judgment and knowledge of the category structure

For evenly spaced stimuli, a purely relative judgment account of unidimensional categorization performance is trivial: All that is required is knowledge of the size of stimulus difference corresponding to the width of a category. For unevenly spaced stimuli, long-term knowledge of the category structure is required. In the present article, we will argue that such knowledge does not necessitate a direct, absolute mapping between (representations of ) stimulus magnitudes and category labels. We will show that Stewart, Brown, and Chater’s (2005) relative judgment model can account for data from absolute identification experiments with uneven stimulus spacing.     

Accuracy and awareness in the perception and categorization of male sexual orientation

For clear and unambiguous social categories, person perception occurs quite accurately from minimal cues. This article addresses the perception of an ambiguous social category (male sexual orientation) from minimal cues. Across 5 studies, the authors examined individuals' actual and self-assessed accuracy when judging male sexual orientation from faces and facial features. Although participants were able to make accurate judgments from multiple facial features (i.e., hair, the eyes, and the mouth area), their perceived accuracy was calibrated with their actual accuracy only when making judgments based on hairstyle, a controllable feature. These findings provide evidence that suggests different processes for extracting social category information during perception: explicit judgments based on obvious cues (hairstyle) and intuitive judgments based on nonobvious cues (information from the eyes and mouth area). Differences in the accuracy of judgments based on targets' controllability and perceivers' awareness of cues provides insight into the processes underlying intuitive predictions and intuitive judgments.     

Four pathways to young-adult smoking status: adolescent social-psychological antecedents in a midwestern community sample.

Evaluated the ability of social-psychological factors, measured in adolescence, to predict young-adult smoking outcomes. Results showed substantial continuity in the antecedents of adolescent and young-adult smoking but important discontinuities as well. Beliefs in the negative social consequences of smoking and beliefs about academic success and independence were important to adolescent but not to adult smoking. Conversely, beliefs in the negative health consequences of smoking were more important to adult smoking than to adolescent smoking. Results also showed an appreciable amount of smoking onset after the high school years, as well as an appreciable amount of adolescent smoking that did not persist into young adulthood. Antecedents of late-onset smoking and of nonpersistent smoking are described.