The short-form Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ-SF): a validation study with federal offenders

The 12-item short form of the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ-SF) was originally developed by Bryant and Smith (2001) and modified and confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis with mentally ill offenders by Diamond, Wang, and Buffington-Vollum (2005). In the current study, construct validity of the BPAQ-SF was assessed with a sample of 1,181 male and 435 female general population federal offenders. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the four-factor structure. Tests confirmed factorial invariance across gender for all loadings and covariances. Reliabilities were found to be adequate and comparable to those found in the studies cited above. Concurrent validity was supported by high correlations between the subscales of the BPAQ-SF and several relevant subscales on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI). In addition, those offenders with prior history of violence, head injuries, childhood abuse, residential treatment, custody, or foster care as a child had higher scores on the BPAQ subscales.     

A typology of motor vehicle consumers using motives for leasing versus financing

• Previous consumer research suggests that individuals who finance high‐cost items tend to differ from those who lease the same items. Some differences are economic, such as income and wealth, while other dissimilarities involve non‐economic issues such as personal preferences. We employ non‐hierarchical cluster analysis to create consumer segments of motor vehicle lessees and financers based on motives for leasing versus financing and demographics. Five segments were uncovered. Lessees predominate in two categories: budget gourmets and automotive hedonists. Another two categories, utility seekers and basic transportation seekers, are mainly comprised of financers. The final group, mature luxury seekers, consists of a roughly equal mix of lessees and financers. Differences between the segments are addressed here, along with a discussion of findings and implications.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The distinct contributions of age of acquisition and word frequency in auditory word perception

We report two studies of the distinct effects that a word's age of acquisition (AoA) and frequency have on the mental lexicon. In the first study, a purely statistical analysis, we show that AoA and frequency are related in different ways to the phonological form and imageability of different words. In the second study, three groups of participants (34 seven-year-olds, 30 ten-year-olds, and 17 adults) took part in an auditory lexical decision task, with stimuli varying in AoA, frequency, length, neighbourhood density, and imageability. The principal result is that the influence of these different variables changes as a function of AoA: Neighbourhood density effects are apparent for early and late AoA words, but not for intermediate AoA, whereas imageability effects are apparent for intermediate AoA words but not for early or late AoA. These results are discussed from the perspective that AoA affects a word's representation, but frequency affects processing biases.     

A theory of dynamic occluded and illusory object perception

Humans see whole objects from input fragmented in space and time, yet spatiotemporal object perception is poorly understood. The authors propose the theory of spatiotemporal relatability (STR), which describes the visual information and processes that allow visible fragments revealed at different times and places, due to motion and occlusion, to be assembled into unitary perceived objects. They present a formalization of STR that specifies spatial and temporal relations for object formation. Predictions from the theory regarding conditions that lead to unit formation were tested and confirmed in experiments with dynamic and static, occluded and illusory objects. Moreover, the results support the identity hypothesis of a common process for amodal and modal contour interpolation and provide new evidence regarding the relative efficiency of static and dynamic object formation. STR postulates a mental representation, the dynamic visual icon, that briefly maintains shapes and updates positions of occluded fragments to connect them with visible regions. The theory offers a unified account of interpolation processes for static, dynamic, occluded, and illusory objects.     

Maternal socialization goals, parenting styles, and social-emotional adjustment among Chinese and European American young adults: testing a mediation model

The authors compared the associations among perceived maternal socialization goals (self-development, filial piety, and collectivism), perceived maternal parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, and training), and the social-emotional adjustment (self-esteem, academic self-efficacy, and depression) between Chinese and European American young adults. The mediation processes in which socialization goals relate to young adults' adjustment outcomes through parenting styles were examined. Results showed that European American participants perceived higher maternal self-development socialization goals, whereas Chinese participants perceived higher maternal collectivism socialization goals as well as more authoritarian parenting. Cross-cultural similarities were found in the associations between perceived maternal authoritative parenting and socioemotional adjustment (e.g., higher self-esteem and higher academic self-efficacy) across the two cultural groups. However, perceived maternal authoritarian and training parenting styles were found only to be related to Chinese participants' adjustment (e.g., higher academic self-efficacy and lower depression). The mediation analyses showed that authoritative parenting significantly mediated the positive associations between the self-development and collectivism goal and socioemotional adjustment for both cultural groups. Additionally, training parenting significantly mediated the positive association between the filial piety goal and young adults' academic self-efficacy for the Chinese group only. Findings of this study highlight the importance of examining parental socialization goals in cross-cultural parenting research.     

Personality and Defensive Reactions: Fear,Trait Anxiety,and Threat Magnification

ABSTRACT The revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (rRST) of personality ( Gray & McNaughton, 2000 ) maintains that trait individual differences in the operation of defensive systems relate to facets of human personality, most notably anxiety and fear. We investigated this theory in 2 separate studies (total N=270) using a threat scenario research strategy ( Blanchard, Hynd, Minke, Minemoto, & Blanchard, 2001 ). Consistent with rRST, results showed that individuals with high fear questionnaire scores tended to select defensive responses entailing orientation away from threat (e.g., run away) and that fear‐prone individuals also tended to perceive threats as magnified. The extent of this threat magnification mediated the positive association observed between fear and orientation away from threat. Overall, results suggest that interindividual variance in defensive reactions is associated with a variety of existing personality constructs but that further research is required to determine the precise relationship between personality and defensive reactions.     

Internalizing Trajectories in Young Boys and Girls: The Whole is Not a Simple Sum of its Parts

There is support for a differentiated model of early internalizing emotions and behaviors, yet researchers have not examined the course of multiple components of an internalizing domain across early childhood. In this paper we present growth models for the Internalizing domain of the Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment and its component scales (General Anxiety, Separation Distress, Depression/Withdrawal, and Inhibition to Novelty) in a sample of 510 one- to three-year-old children. For all children, Internalizing domain scores decreased over the study, although girls had significantly higher initial levels and boys had steeper declines. General Anxiety increased over the study period and, when modeled individually, girls evidenced higher initial levels and greater increases. For all children, Separation Distress and Inhibition to Novelty decreased significantly over time, while Depression/Withdrawal remained low without change. Findings from our parallel process model, in which all components were modeled simultaneously, revealed that initial levels of internalizing scales were closely associated while rates of change were less closely related. Sex differences in variability around initial levels and rates of change emerged on some scales. Findings suggest that, for one- to three-year-olds, examining scales of the internalizing domain separately rather than as a unitary construct reveals more meaningful developmental and gender variation.