Inter-Parent Agreement on the Syndrome Scales of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL): Correspondence and Discrepancies

Using multiple informants from a clinical setting, potential associations between inter-parental agreement and age, gender, and child diagnosis were explored in the current study. Archival data from psychological evaluations conducted on 174 children ages 5–18 through a hospital-affiliated outpatient psychology clinic were analyzed, focusing on mothers’ and fathers’ scores on the syndrome and index scales of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Although inter-parent correspondence levels on each of the subscales were found to be moderately high (averaging r = .50), significant discrepancies between the severity levels of parent reports were found on nine of 11 subscales, with mothers’ ratings consistently being slightly higher. Data from this clinical sample suggest that although single-informant ratings of child behavior may be generally representative of reports from both parents on many of the CBCL narrow-band scales, age, gender, and child diagnosis were related to several patterns of agreement on specific syndrome scales. Therefore, it is important to include fathers, because they provide a unique perspective on social problems, delinquency, and attention problems, in particular. Both correspondence and discrepancies between parent reports of specific child problems can provide valuable clinical information that is useful for child assessment and treatment.     

Self-statement modification in the treatment of child behavior disorders: a meta-analysis

Reviews 48 outcome studies that applied self-statement modification (SSM) to childhood behavior disorders. Selection criteria restricted the review to controlled experimental studies and to children with disorders of clinically relevant severity. Meta-analysis was used to provide summary information about the observed effects of SSM. Collectively, SSM outcomes surpassed no treatment and placebo treatment by roughly a half of a standard deviation, on the average. Efficacy varied considerably with length of follow-up, experience level of therapists, age of children, outcome content area, and a number of other clinical and methodological differences among the studies. These qualifiers of observed efficacy are summarized and discussed in terms of implications for further research and application of SSM in child psychotherapy.     

Self-concept, social anxiety, and interpersonal perception skills

The Interpersonal Perception Task videotape provided a criterion variable to test hypotheses about social information processing skills of socially anxious subjects. Results from 68 undergraduates show negative correlations between both shyness social anxiety and nonverbal decoding scores, and positive correlations between shyness and measures of test anxiety. Results are interpreted in light of cognitive conceptions of social anxiety and its role in decoding nonverbal communication.     

Verification of nonwords: The baseword frequency effect in children’s pseudohomophone reading

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - In this study, we investigated the baseword frequency effect in children and its implications for models of visual word recognition. The baseword frequency...     

Stakes, withholding, and pragmatic encroachment on knowledge

Several authors have recently endorsed the thesis that there is what has been called pragmatic encroachment on knowledge??in other words, that two people who are in the same situation with respect to truth-related factors may differ in whether they know something, due to a difference in their practical circumstances. This paper aims not to defend this thesis, but to explore how it could be true. What I aim to do, is to show how practical factors could play a role in defeating knowledge by defeating epistemic rationality??the very kind of rationality that is entailed by knowledge, and in which Pascalian considerations do not play any role??even though epistemic rationality consists in having adequate evidence.     

Précis of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Slaves of the Passions</Emphasis>

In this paper, I show how a solution to Lewis?? problem of temporary intrinsics is also a response to McTaggart??s argument that the A-series is incoherent. There are three strategies Lewis considers for solving the problem of temporary intrinsics: perdurantism, presentism, and property-indexing. William Lane Craig (Analysis 58(2):122?C127, 1998) has examined how the three strategies fare with respect to McTaggart??s argument. The only viable solution Lewis considers to the problem of temporary intrinsics that also succeeds against McTaggart, Craig claims, is presentism. This gives us prima facie reason to be presentists. But there is a strategy Craig does not consider-indexing, or relativizing, the copula. In this paper, I show that to the degree that indexing the copula solves the problem of temporary intrinsics, it also shows the invalidity of McTaggart??s argument. The upshot: the copula-indexer needn??t affirm the unreality of time, nor need she embrace presentism.