The Equivalence of Contingency Structure for Intuitive Covariation Judgments About Height,Weight, and Body Fat

In a complete between-subjects design, 576 respondents judged covariations of problems framed around height, weight, and body fat. A verbal measure was used, consisting of prepositional statements representing relationships between two of the variables, as well as two types of response options: true or false, and a 7-point, bipolar, Likert-type scale. Consistent with previous findings, weight and body fat were unambiguously judged as if positively correlated; there were indications of a perceived negative correlation of height and body fat; and there was no evidence that participants regarded height and weight as positively correlated. Furthermore, there was no reliable evidence in support of framing effects. However, there were indications of influence for conditional format. These findings are discussed relative to previous and ongoing research efforts, and it is concluded that it may be inappropriate to regard variations in conditional format as parallel items. Measures involving all possible variations are considered fundamentally unbiased and consistent with I. Ajzen's (1988) principle of aggregation.     

Childhood Sexual Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence in a Clinical Sample of Men: The Mediating Roles of Adult Attachment and Anger Management

This study examined the association between men’s experience of childhood sexual abuse and later perpetration of intimate partner violence, considering the roles of attachment insecurity and poor anger regulation. The sample was 302 Canadian men undergoing counseling for relationship difficulties or aggression. They completed questionnaires assessing childhood sexual abuse, the two dimensions of attachment insecurity (anxiety and avoidance), anger regulation processes, physical and psychological aggression, and social desirability bias. Path analyses showed that men who experienced childhood sexual abuse scored higher on attachment anxiety, which in turn was associated with aggressive behaviors directly and through four anger-related variables (trait anger, anger-in, anger-out, and low anger control). Attachment-related avoidance predicted psychological aggression, but not physical aggression, through men’s trait anger and anger-in.     

Childhood Maltreatment,Adult Attachment,and Depression as Predictors of Parental Self-Efficacy in At-Risk Mothers

Childhood abuse and neglect can have far-reaching effects on adult relationships, mental health, and parenting. This study examined relations between maltreatment types, anxious and avoidant adult attachment, maternal depression, and parental self-efficacy in a community sample of 76 at-risk mothers. After controlling for other forms of maltreatment, emotional abuse uniquely predicted higher levels of anxious attachment and maternal depression. Structural equation modeling revealed that childhood maltreatment predicted lower parental self-efficacy through indirect pathways involving anxious attachment and depression. Specifically, maltreatment's influence on maternal depression was mediated by attachment anxiety, while its influence on parental self-efficacy was mediated by depressive symptoms. Results are discussed in terms of attachment theory and ways in which parental self-efficacy contributes to adaptive caregiving behavior.     

Cognitive Fatigue During Testing: An Examination of Trait,Time-on-Task,and Strategy Influences

Two-wave data from a large sample of employees (N = 1,155) 25–65 years of age were used to evaluate rank-order and mean level stability and change in supervisor-rated job performance obtained twice (4 years apart). Results showed moderated levels of rank-order stability across the career span. However, although rank order stability increased during the first phases of one’s career, peaking at age 55, it then demonstrated a decline from age 55 to age 65. Patterns of mean-level change showed that job performance was generally higher for younger workers than for older workers. All in all, our results support the value of investigating different definitions of job performance change and offers insights for planning/programming and implementing interventions aimed to improve (or maintain) job performance.     

Reporting Ethics Committee Approval in Public Administration Research

While public administration research is thriving because of increased attention to social scientific rigor, lingering problems of methods and ethics remain. This article investigates the reporting of ethics approval within public administration publications. Beginning with an overview of ethics requirements regarding research with human participants, I turn to an examination of human participants protections for public administration research. Next, I present the findings of my analysis of articles published in the top five public administration journals over the period from 2000 to 2012, noting the incidences of ethics approval reporting as well as funding reporting. In explicating the importance of ethics reporting for public administration research, as it relates to replication, reputation, and vulnerable populations, I conclude with recommendations for increasing ethics approval reporting in public administration research.     

Herb Childress. The Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty,Their Students,and Their Mission

The Journal of Value Inquiry -     

Correction to: Speculative Fiction and the Political Economy of Healthcare: Chang-Rae Lee’s On Such a Full Sea

Journal of Medical Humanities - Due to an editing error, this article was initially published with an incorrect title. The correct title is reflected above. The original article has been corrected.     

Structure-mapping in metaphor comprehension

Metaphor has a double life. It can be described as a directional process in which a stable, familiar base domain provides inferential structure to a less clearly specified target. But metaphor is also described as a process of finding commonalities, an inherently symmetric process. In this second view, both concepts may be altered by the metaphorical comparison. Whereas most theories of metaphor capture one of these aspects, we offer a model based on structure-mapping that captures both sides of metaphor processing. This predicts (a) an initial processing stage of symmetric alignment; and (b) a later directional phase in which inferences are projected to the target. To test these claims, we collected comprehensibility judgments for forward (e.g., "A rumor is a virus") and reversed ("A virus is a rumor") metaphors at early and late stages of processing, using a deadline procedure. We found an advantage for the forward direction late in processing, but no directional preference early in processing. Implications for metaphor theory are discussed.     

Trait complexes and academic achievement: Old and new ways of examining personality in educational contexts

Background . Although recent research has provided evidence for the predictive validity of personality traits in academic settings, the path to an improved understanding of the nature of personality influences on academic achievement involves a reconceptualization of both criterion and predictor construct spaces. Aims . For the criterion space, one needs to consider student behaviours beyond grades and level of educational attainment, and include what the student does among other things outside of the classroom. For the predictor space, it is possible to bring some order to the myriad personality constructs that have been developed over the last century, by focusing on common variance among personality and other non‐ability traits. Methods . We review these conceptual issues and several empirical studies. Conclusions . We demonstrate the possible increments in understanding non‐ability determinants of academic achievement that may be obtained by focusing on areas where there is a theoretical convergence between predictor and criterion spaces.