Use of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test with the educationally handicapped

Despite widespread use of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) as a measure of intelligence for educationally handicapped students, few studies have related PPVT scores of such students to their scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). Using 100 public school students consecutively referred for learning difficulties, their mean PPVT IQ (97.75) was found to be consistently and significantly higher than WISC Full Scale IQ (89.65), Verbal IQ (88.68), and Performance IQ (92.73). Correlations between the PPVT IQ and the WISC Full Scale, Verbal, and Performance IQs were .70, .69, and .54, respectively. A tabular summary of previous studies comparing PPVT and WISC IQs is included.     

Notes on a pilgrimage to science: A fly on the wall

The paper is a set of reflections on the moral culture of modern biology built around the author's experience as a participant observer in two university laboratories. I draw parallels between laboratory culture and organized religion and point out practical problems in conducting scientific research. The notion that good biologists must be atheists is questioned and failures of organized religion are noted. The paper concludes with a suggestion that research ethics should be rooted in laboratory practice and must include vigorous principles of honesty and justice. Those are not requirements imposed from outside but internal requirements of the research community.     

Staff and Boarders Perspectives of the Boarding Environment

This research provides support for a direct comparison between the home and boarding environments, the inference being that boarding staff who fulfil an in loco parentis role have an integral part to play in the developmental outcomes of adolescents (boarders). Research in the area of family functioning has found that adolescents tend to view the family environment more negatively than their parents and that these discrepant perceptions have been linked to both internalising and externalising disorders in adolescents. In an attempt to further clarify the influence of the parenting role of boarding staff and of the boarding environment in general, 121 staff and 415 boarders from schools in Queensland, Australia, were asked to rate the boarding environment on levels of conflict, social support and climate. It was found that boarders, like adolescents in the home environment, perceived significantly higher levels of conflict and lower levels of social support and positive climate than did staff. These findings lend further support to the conceptualisation of the boarding environment as a home away from home. The implications of these findings for boarders’ developmental outcomes are discussed.     

Loving, liking, looking and sensation seeking in unmarried college couples

This study examined the relationships between sensation seeking or sensation seeking similarity and relationship satisfaction in college couples. Fifty-eight couples were tested with the Sensation Seeking Scale form V and the Loving and Liking Scales, and each couple was observed for eye gaze behavior. Eye gaze was found to be unrelated to the questionnaire measures of relationship involvement and a low but significant negative relationship was found between the female partner's love rating and mutual gaze and focus. As in previous research, couples' sensation seeking scores were significantly correlated, indicating tendencies toward assortative mating. However, only the women's relationship satisfaction scores were related to discrepancies in the couples' SSS scores. Individual sensation seeking scores correlated negatively with relationship satisfaction for both sexes. The latter effect was explained in terms of the high sensation seeker having a variety of interests outside of their primary relationships, and stronger tendencies for boredom and independence.     

Rating ability in performance judgments: The joint influence of implicit theories and intelligence

The purpose of this study was to approach the issue of rating ability by examining the influence of rater implicit theories and rater intelligence on rating outcomes. Using the inferential accuracy model (Jackson, 1972), raters were identified as either possessing a normative or idiosyncratic implicit theory of the occupation of college instructor. In a laboratory setting, 50 normative and 50 idiosyncratic raters judged the videotaped performance of either a good or poor lecturer. Results showed that (a) intelligence was positively related to rating accuracy and to possessing a normative implicit theory, (b) rater type moderated the relationship between intelligence and rating accuracy, and (c) controlling for intelligence, normative raters committed stronger halo effects than idiosyncratic raters. These results were discussed in relation to furthering the understanding of rating ability.     

Understanding the attitudes and intentions of future professionals toward self-help

Examined the attitudes, beliefs, and intentions toward self-help groups of 168 graduate students in clinical psychology and social work from five universities using the theory of reasoned action as a model (Fishbein, 1979). Participants held positive attitudes and beliefs regarding self-help and intended to collaborate. Participants who were members of self-help groups had significantly greater intentions to collaborate and had more positive beliefs vs. nonmembers. There were no differences between social work and psychology students. Path analysis showed that students who held positive attitudes and beliefs and perceived that their faculty were positive regarding self-help had intentions to collaborate with self-help groups. Involving self-help groups as partners in professional training was considered empowering and a wise use of the expert resources that groups can provide.     

Theatre Review

DreamPlay. Conceived and directed by Tracy Young. Performed in Los Angeles, June 2002. The ensemble: Daniel T. Parker, Angela King, Evie Peck, Scott Proudfit, Chris Wells, Daniel Passer, Will McFadden, Cynthia Ettinger, Don Luce, Melanie Lora, Alison Tatlock, Gary Kelley     

Political weather reports

According to the hermeneutical theory of the evolution of conciousness, the development of a new relationship between our species and the biosphere may be encouraged by monitoring political and ecological variables or indicators, and feeding them back into society through broadcasting media. This possibility was foreseen by Richardson in 1919, as a means for avoiding wars. In this paper we describe a practical implementation of this program, based on the animated atlas technique.     

How to Model Heterogeneity in Costly Punishment: Insights from Responders' Response Times

We investigate what processes may underlie heterogeneity in social preferences. We address this question by examining participants' decisions and associated response times across 12 mini‐ultimatum games. Using a finite mixture model and cross‐validating its classification with a response time analysis, we identified four groups of responders: one group takes little to no account of the proposed split or the foregone allocation and swiftly accepts any positive offer; two groups process primarily the objective properties of the allocations (fairness and kindness) and need more time the more properties need to be examined; and a fourth group, which takes more time than the others, appears to take into account what they would have proposed had they been put in the role of the proposer. We discuss implications of this joint decision–response time analysis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.