Creating a Space for Acknowledgment and Generativity in Reflective Group Supervision

Small group supervision is a powerful venue for generative conversations because of the multiplicity of perspectives available and the potential for an appreciative audience to a practitioner's work. At the same time, the well‐intentioned reflections by a few practitioners in a room can inadvertently duplicate normative discourses that circulate in the wider culture and the profession. This article explores the use of narrative practices for benefiting from the advantages of group supervision while mindful of the vulnerability that comes with sharing one's work among colleagues. The reflective group supervision processes described were modified from the work of Tom Andersen and Michael White to provide a venue that encourages the creative multiplicity of group conversation while discouraging unhelpful discourses which constrain generative conversation.     

Do you get what you pay for? Sales incentives and implications for motivation and changes in turnover intention and work effort

This study investigated relations between pay-for-performance incentives designed to vary in instrumentality (annual pay-for-performance, quarterly pay-for-performance, and base pay level) and employee outcomes (self-reported work effort and turnover intention) in a longitudinal study spanning more than 2 years. After controlling for perceived instrumentality, merit pay increase, and the initial values of the dependent variables, the amount of base pay was positively related to work effort and negatively related to turnover intention, where both relationships were mediated by autonomous motivation. The amounts of quarterly and annual pay-for-performance were both positively related to controlled motivation, but were differently related to the dependent variables due to different relations with autonomous motivation.     

Why does the phonological similarity effect reverse with nonwords?

The detrimental phonological similarity effect (PSE), a robust finding in serial recall of words, sometimes reverses with nonwords. The current study tested the hypothesis that nonwords benefit from phonological similarity because they are harder to retrieve. In two experiments serial recall and serial reconstruction of visually presented words and nonwords were compared. Phonological similarity is known to have a positive effect on item memory and a negative effect on position accuracy in serial recall, and the demands on item retrieval were greatly reduced in the latter task. PSE occurred for words in both tasks and was reversed for nonwords in serial recall, but not in serial reconstruction—a new finding in the literature. The following conclusions can be made: (1) the detrimental PSE on order retrieval occurs irrespective of lexicality, in accordance with prominent short-term memory models; and (2), the positive PSE on item retrieval is crucially affected by lexicality, a finding less well explained by the existing models.     

IMPS 2008 PLANNED SESSIONS

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IMPS 2008 PLANNED SESSIONS     

Convergent validity of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI): association with the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV)

This study investigates the relationship between the self-report Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI) and the clinician-rated Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV). A representative sample of 92 girls and 70 boys, 12 to 20 years of age (mean age, 17 years), who received services at a clinic for adolescents with substance misuse problems, was studied. Moderate correlations (r =.30-.51) were found between conceptually corresponding YPI and PCL:YV factor scores among both boys and girls, whereas correlations between individual subscales of the YPI and items of the PCL:YV were not as consistent. A cross-tabulation of groupings based on the three-factor models of the two instruments largely supported the categorical convergent validity of the YPI, particularly for low and high scorers. Although more studies with larger samples are needed, results indicate that the YPI is a cost-effective measure of psychopathic traits in adolescents in research settings.     

Capturing naturally occurring superior performance in the laboratory: translational research on expert performance

One of the central challenges to studying highly skilled performance in the laboratory is methodological. It is necessary to develop standardized methods that allow investigators to make experts repeatedly reproduce their superior performance in the laboratory. The recent increase in demand for translational research has raised related issues of how everyday phenomena, such as successful clinical treatments and expert achievement, can be reproduced in the laboratory and how laboratory studies of these phenomena can lead to successful interventions in everyday life. The expert-performance approach was developed as a framework for capturing, analyzing, and accounting for complex acquired skills and adaptations. Performance is initially captured and elicited in the laboratory using tasks representative of core activities in the domain. Process-tracing measures are employed to identify the mechanisms that mediate the reproducibly superior performance. Finally, the factors responsible for the development of the mediating mechanisms are studied by a retrospective analysis of training activities, such as deliberate practice, as well as genetic prerequisites. The principles and mechanisms discovered need then be validated using more traditional longitudinal and experimental designs.     

The camera perspective bias: a case study

In this case study, we examined how variations of the camera perspective affect adults' assessment of veracity in a real‐life high‐stake situation; a masked male confessing to a very serious crime. The interview, conducted by one of Sweden's most awarded journalists, lasted 30 minutes and consisted of over 100 detailed questions about the crime. The interview was videotaped simultaneously by three cameras positioned at different locations, each taking a unique visual perspective. One camera focused on the suspect only, one on the interviewer only, and one equally on the suspect and the interviewer. Each videotape was shown to 32 adult observers (N = 96) who were asked to assess the suspect's veracity and to report subjective cues justifying their veracity assessment. The results confirmed the camera perspective bias, by showing that the observers in the ‘suspect only’ condition assessed the confession as significantly more reliable than did the observers in the ‘interviewer only’ condition. The observers reported that they relied heavily on verbal cues when assessing the confession, and particularly regarding confidence and consistency. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceiving patterns in dynamic action sequences: Investigating the processes underpinning stimulus recognition and anticipation skill

We examined whether skilled and less‐skilled participants process dynamic sequences comprised of numerous elements using relational information or specific display features. Moreover, the processes underpinning anticipation and recognition judgments were compared. Participants viewed dynamic film sequences showing multiple display features and anticipated what would happen next. New and previously viewed action sequences were then presented in film or point‐light display format. Participants attempted to recognize previously viewed sequences. Skilled participants demonstrated superior anticipation skill and were more sensitive in discriminating previously viewed and novel clips than their less‐skilled counterparts. Skilled participants fixated more locations than less‐skilled participants, implying that they process dynamic scenes as a series of relations between display features. The patterns of eye fixation measures differed between the anticipation and recognition tasks suggesting that different processes underpin these two types of judgments. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The usual and the unusual suspects: level of suspicion and counter-interrogation tactics

The present study investigated guilty mock-suspects' counter-interrogation tactics with respect to the disclosure of possibly self-incriminating information, specifically, to what extent the disclosure of this information was moderated by (1) the suspects' criminal experience (naïve versus experienced) and (2) the degree of suspicion directed towards the suspects (low versus high). We found that experienced (versus naïve) suspects volunteered less self-incriminating information in an initial free recall phase. In a similar vein, when asked crime-specific questions, naïve (versus experienced) suspects admitted having committed more actions fitting with the crime under investigation. Furthermore, experienced suspects' willingness to report information was not affected by the degree of suspicion, whereas naïve suspects in a high-suspicion (versus low-suspicion) condition were more willing to report information. The results were discussed in the light of the psychology of guilt, the Strategic Use of Evidence technique for detecting deception, and the (over)use of naïve suspects as mock-suspects in psycho-legal research. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.