An interactive preference ordering model and its monte carlo evaluation

A computer-interactive preference ordering procedure that is based on assumed transitivity of relations is described. The procedure includes features that are designed to make it robust in the presence of inconsistency. With errorless data, the method will find the underlying order in close to log₂ n! comparisons. Two simulation studies are described where the responses are assumed to follow the Thurstone Case V model. It was found that the method produces orders that are more valid than does a considerably larger preselected subset of pairs.This research was supported in part by Public Health Service Grant MH 16474. It was part of a larger project, and major contributions were made by Jerald F. Kehoe and Rex S. Green.     

The temperamental nature of personality

Historically, the terms ‘temperament’, ‘character’, and ‘personality’ have been used to refer to what we now mean by the term ‘personality’. Temperament refers to the raw material out of which personality evolves. Personality is a person's coherent manner of interacting with himself/herself and with the environment. The concept of temperament has been prominent with Eastern European psychologists and with developmental psychologists in North America. A number of developmental theories of temperament are discussed, and differences and similarities between temperament parameters and personality parameters are described. The genetics of personality are presented and evaluated. Mechanistic and dynamic interactions are distinguished, and the multidimensional interaction model of anxiety and relevant research are discussed. A preliminary interaction model of anxiety, stress, and coping is presented. Finally, the temperamental nature of personality is discussed, and suggestions for possible rapprochements between personality and temperament are presented.     

The interaction model of anxiety and dental treatment

An empirical test of the interaction model of anxiety was provided by assessing the state anxiety and trait anxiety of 20 female and 7 male dental patients undergoing periodontal surgery. Measures of A-State (PARQ IV), A-Trait (S-R GTA), and perceptions (PSRF) were administered in both a high-stress condition (30 min prior to surgery) and a low-stress condition (4 to 6 days after surgery). It was hypothesized that undergoing periodontal surgery would be perceived as a combination ambiguous/physical danger situation. Accordingly it was predicted that high-ambiguous A-Trait subjects would experience greater decreases in A-State than low-ambiguous A-Trait subjects in proceeding from the high-stress to the low-stress condition. Similarly it was predicted that high-physical danger A-Trait subjects would show greater decreases in A-State than low-physical danger A-Trait subjects. Significant A-Trait × stress condition interactions were not expected to occur for noncongruent A-Trait facets (social evaluation and innocuous). Results indicated that, while the high-stress condition was perceived as an ambiguous/physical danger situation, the A-Trait × stress condition interactions were not significant for ambiguous, physical danger, or innocuous A-Trait facets. Contrary to prediction, a significant interaction was observed between social evaluation A-Trait and stress condition. This finding was explained in terms of the complex relationship between situation perception and situation reaction.     

Differences in intelligence and automatic memory processes

Intelligence-related differences in memory have been viewed as dependent upon control rather than structural memory processes. A test of this notion was made by comparing retarded and nonretarded persons on a subject-paced continuous recognition memory task which was judged to be nonstrategic. The stimuli were computer-generated faces and words. Analyses of pacing rates and posttest interviews provided no consistent evidence for strategy use. Differences in memory between the retarded and nonretarded subjects were attributed to differences in automatic aspects of encoding.     

Is memory for spatial location automatically encoded?

Naveh-Benjamin (1987, 1988) has shown that memory for spatial location does not meet the criteria for automatic encoding as claimed by Hasher and Zacks (1979). Age, intention, concurrent processing demands, practice, strategies, and individual differences affected memory for location. These variables should have affected effortful but not automatic processing. The experiments reported in the present paper, in which a different task was used, showed that intention, practice, and concurrent processing demands did not affect memory for location. I concluded that (1) the location task used by Naveh-Benjamin included effortful subtasks and also incidental cover or concurrent processing tasks that interfered directly with performance, and (2) the variables that he manipulated may not have affected the encoding of location. The need to differentiate processes from task performance in analyzing the automaticity issue is discussed. The dominant mode for remembering location is automatic, but such information may also be remembered voluntarily.     

Frames and images: sequential effects in mental rotation

Recent studies have shown that response time in mental rotation increases with the angular deviation between the current and preceding stimuli, suggesting a frame rotation process in which the intrinsic frame of the previous stimulus is brought into congruence with the coordinates of the current stimulus. In contrast, we show that this process involves image rotation in which the present stimulus is brought into alignment with the orientation of the previous stimulus. Such "backward alignment" succeeds only for shape-preserving sequences (i.e., identical stimuli at different orientations). Four experiments show that the backward alignment process (a) competes with the uprighting process typically found in mental rotation, and the response is determined by the process requiring the shortest rotational path; (b) is related to the tendency to repeat the previous response; (c) is insensitive to the position of the vertical; (d) is indifferent to the representation of the stimulus in long term memory; and (e) is different from the process underlying preparation for a stimulus in a specified orientation.     

Variations on a theme

Epstein (1986) has demonstrated that aggregation leads to high correlations which are not spurious but which reflect only stability. He claims that there is no distinction between a demonstration of test-retest reliability and behavioral stability. It is suggested that Epstein has confused personality theory and measurement models and has made the logical fallacy of claiming that high correlation coefficients uniquely reflect stability. Epstein has failed to distinguish clearly between reaction variables and mediating variables and between temporal stability and cross-situational consistency. While high correlation coefficients may reflect stability there is no necessary one-to-one relationship between personality theories and their measurement models nor between reaction variables and mediating variables. The interaction model recognizes that behavior is consistent in the sense of coherence, i.e. a lawful idiographically predictable pattern of behavior. This pattern involves personsituation interactions, and changes over time. Aggregation may obscure these patterns.     

The ideal advocate and limited resources

The central thesis of this paper is that cost-containment challenges to an Ideal Advocate model of the physician-patient relationship can be met under proper circumstances. More specifically, it is possible for physicians to constrain costs while still making clinical decisions that are free from considerations of the physician's own interests and are uninfluenced by judgements about the patient's worth. But what is required is a closed distributive system, in which savings of resources at one point are applied to others' care of higher priority and a just system, that is, a system whose distributive priorities are consistent with relevant principles of justice under moderate scarcity. The historical context of the argument and a stopgap, “palliative,” step are also developed.