Examining the effects of differential item (functioning and differential) test functioning on selection decisions: when are statistically significant effects practically important?

Item response theory differential test functioning (DTP) methods are often used to address issues in personnel selection, but the results are frequently difficult to interpret because statistically significant findings may have little practical importance. In this article, the authors proposed 2 effect size measures for DTP. One related DTP to mean raw score differences across groups: the other related DTP to the 4/5th rule for adverse impact at successive cut scores. The effects of DTP were examined in the context of personality assessment, professional licensure, and college admissions. Overall, the result indicated that although many items exhibited bias in analyses of the large samples, the net magnitudes of effect on potential selection decisions were nugatory.     

Gender Differences in Problem Drinking and Depression: Different “Vulnerabilities?”

This study examines the relationship between stressors and resources and the functioning of a sample of 515 men and women who had a drinking problem. At a one-year follow-up, both women and men had improved on three functioning measures: alcohol consumption, days intoxicated, and depression. There were no gender differences at Time 2 on alcohol consumption, but men had more days intoxicated and women had more symptoms of depression. The impact of stressors and resources varied by life domain, functioning criterion, and gender. Although the predictors varied, the amount of variance in depression accounted for was the same for women and men. The most striking gender difference was the stronger impact of friendships for women on all aspects of functioning. This study provides support for reconsideration of the stress vulnerability of women and men.     

Life Circumstances and Personal Resources as Predictors of the Ten-Year Course of Depression

A 10-year naturalistic study of 313 patients who entered treatment for unipolar depression and a community comparison group of 284 nondepressed adults was conducted. We compared life stressors, social resources, personal resources, and coping among patients who were remitted (N = 76), partially remitted (N = 146), or nonremitted (N = 91). Compared with the controls and the remitted patients, the partially remitted and nonremitted patients consistently experienced more life stressors and fewer social resources, were less easygoing, and relied more on avoidance coping. A less easygoing disposition, fewer close relationships, and more reliance on avoidance coping were associated with higher odds of experiencing a course of partial remission or nonremission. In addition, more depressive symptoms and medical conditions predicted nonremission.     

Contrasting Cortical Activity Associated with Category Memory and Recognition Memory

We collected functional neuroimaging data while volunteers performed similar categorization and recognition memory tasks. In the categorization task, volunteers first studied a series of 40 dot patterns that were distortions of a nonstudied prototype dot pattern. After a delay, while fMRI data were collected, they categorized 72 novel dot patterns according to whether or not they belonged to the previously studied category. In the recognition task, volunteers first studied five dot patterns eight times each. After a delay, while fMRI data were collected, they judged whether each of 72 dot patterns had been studied earlier. We found strikingly different patterns of brain activity in visual processing areas for the two tasks. During the categorization task, the familiar stimuli were associated with decreased activity in posterior occipital cortex, whereas during the recognition task, the familiar stimuli were associated with increased activity in this area. The findings indicate that these two types of memory have contrasting effects on early visual processing and reinforce the view that declarative and nondeclarative memory operate independently.     

The rise and fall of Christian science

This paper applies a general theory of why religious movements succeed or fail to explain the meteoric rise of Christian Science, and to explain why the movement began an equally precipitous decline and may soon simply disappear. The analysis is based on quantitative data, on field work and on a variety of historical documents. The fall of Christian Science has many aspects, but particular emphasis is given to inadequate fertility, ineffective socialization, compromises in distinctiveness, a decline in the relative effectiveness of its placebo effects and to the greatly increased occupational opportunities for women.     

Context and coping: Toward a unifying conceptual framework

After offering a conceptual framework to unify the domains of context and coping, some conclusions are drawn about the underlying patterns of social climate and the characteristics of growth-promoting environments. New directions of research on the dynamics of the environmental system are described. The conceptual framework is used to exemplify ways to explore the stress and coping process in regard to such issues as stress and resource predictors of adaptation, stress prevention and resistance, and cross-situational influences. The foregoing material then highlights implications of a social ecological perspective for conducting conceptually informed evaluation research and changing and improving community settings. Finally, such conceptual problems as person-environment matching and the need to formulate unified perspectives of stressors and resources are discussed to identify promising ways to spark the maturation of community psychology.     

The conceptual structure of aphasic and schizophrenic patients in a nonverbal sorting task

Hierarchical and overlapping cluster methods were applied to the sortings of aphasic, nonaphasic brain-damaged, schizophrenic, and normal subjects presented with 30 pictures of animals. The hierarchical structure solutions were most diffuse for the groups of the schizophrenics and the fluent aphasics. The structure for the nonfluent aphasics showed more clarity, but was also deviant from the structures of the normals and the brain-damaged without aphasia. Fluent aphasics but not nonfluent aphasics tended to sort pictures which they could not name into smaller groups. For the nonfluent aphasics, there was a significant correlation between the commonality of the sortings and the severity of aphasic disturbances as measured by the Token Test. The relationship between conceptual disorganization and language impairment seems to be functionally different for fluent and nonfluent aphasics.This research was supported by a research grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.