Stanford-Binet and WAIS IQ differences and their implications for adults with intellectual disability (aka mental retardation)

Stanford-Binet and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) IQs were compared for a group of 74 adults with intellectual disability (ID). In every case, WAIS Full Scale IQ was higher than the Stanford-Binet Composite IQ, with a mean difference of 16.7 points. These differences did not appear to be due to the lower minimum possible score for the Stanford-Binet. Additional comparisons with other measures suggested that the WAIS might systematically underestimate severity of intellectual impairment. Implications of these findings are discussed regarding determination of disability status, estimating prevalence of ID, assessing dementia and aging-related cognitive declines, and diagnosis of ID in forensic cases involving a possible death penalty.     

A metaphoric evaluation: students' self‐appraisal at the end of the course year

This article focuses on an exercise to facilitate students' self‐evaluation at the end of a course year. It describes an externalizing technique using objects as metaphors . Although developed in the context of a foundation level course, it is equally relevant for evaluating learning at any stage.     

Team capability beliefs over time: Distinguishing between team potency,team outcome efficacy,and team process efficacy

Teams that have positive beliefs about their capability tend to perform more effectively. However, relatively little is known about the nature and change of different types of team capability beliefs. Team potency and team efficacy are two approaches to understanding team capability beliefs, but few studies have considered these beliefs simultaneously. We investigate their distinctiveness and relative predictive power. Additionally, we propose two types of team efficacy: team outcome efficacy and team process efficacy. In two longitudinal samples of executive MBA study teams (sample 1, N=213 individuals in 41 teams; sample 2, N=360 individuals in 89 teams), we showed that team potency, team outcome efficacy, and team process efficacy are factorially distinct and measure invariant at four time points over 7 months (except for high levels of team outcome efficacy for which factorial invariance emerged). We also show differential predictive validity. Team outcome efficacy was the strongest predictor of objective team performance, whereas team process efficacy was the best predictor of citizenship behaviours. Team potency predicted both outcomes, albeit more weakly. Collectively, the findings show the value of a more fine‐grained approach to teams' capability beliefs, including a new validated measure of team process efficacy.     

Issues in Data Management

Data management raises a number of issues, both regulatory and non-regulatory. Researchers should understand how data are defined by their particular institutions and regulatory authorities. Data are the bases of scientific communication and provide a strong defense against allegations of scientific misconduct. Authorization is often necessary before collection of data can commence. Proper handling, retention, and storage of data, especially that involving humans, are crucial for the researcher. Data ownership by the institution leads to a responsibility by the institution to educate all its researchers in responsible data management practices.     

Temporal dynamics of unimodal and multimodal feature binding

In two experiments, we studied the temporal dynamics of feature integration with auditory (Experiment 1) and audiovisual (Experiment 2) stimuli and manual responses. Consistent with previous observations, performance was better when the second of two consecutive stimuli shared all or none of the features of the first, rather than when only one of the features overlapped. Comparable partial-overlap costs were obtained for combinations of stimulus features and responses. These effects decreased systematically with increasing time between the two stimulus-and-response events, and the decreased rate was comparable for unimodal and multimodal bindings. General effect size reflected the degree of task relevance of the dimension or modality of the respective feature, but the effects of relevance and of temporal delay did not interact. This suggests that the processing of stimuli on task-relevant sensory modalities and feature dimensions is facilitated by task-specific attentional sets, whereas the temporal dynamics might reflect that bindings “decay” or become more difficult to access over time.     

Putting the psychology back into psychological models: Mechanistic versus rational approaches

Two basic approaches to explaining the nature of the mind are the rational and the mechanistic approaches. Rational analyses attempt to characterize the environment and the behavioral outcomes that humans seek to optimize, whereas mechanistic models attempt to simulate human behavior using processes and representations analogous to those used by humans. We compared these approaches with regard to their accounts of how humans learn the variability of categories. The mechanistic model departs in subtle ways from rational principles. In particular, the mechanistic model incrementally updates its estimates of category means and variances through error-driven learning, based on discrepancies between new category members and the current representation of each category. The model yields a prediction, which we verify, regarding the effects of order manipulations that the rational approach does not anticipate. Although both rational and mechanistic models can successfully postdict known findings, we suggest that psychological advances are driven primarily by consideration of process and representation and that rational accounts trail these breakthroughs.     

The time of the crime: cognitively induced tonic arousal suppression when lying in a free recall context

Previous research has shown that suspects in real-life interviews do not display stereotypical signs of nervous behaviours, even though they may be experiencing high detection anxiety. We hypothesised that these suspects may have experienced cognitive load when lying and that this cognitive load reduced their tonic arousal, which suppressed signs of nervousness. We conducted two experiments to test this hypothesis. Tonic electrodermal arousal and blink rate were examined during task-induced (Experiment 1) and deception-induced cognitive load (Experiment 2). Both increased cognitive difficulty and deception resulted in decreased tonic arousal and blinking. This demonstrated for the first time that when lying results in heightened levels of cognitive load, signs of nervousness are decreased. We discuss implications for detecting deception and more wide-ranging phenomena related to emotional behaviour.     

Safety in work vehicles: a multilevel study linking safety values and individual predictors to work-related driving crashes

Although work-related driving is associated with high accident rates, limited research has investigated the factors influencing driving crashes in the work setting. This study explored multilevel influences on self-reported crashes in the workplace by surveying a sample of work-related drivers (n = 380), their workgroup supervisors (n = 88), and fleet managers (n = 47). At the driver level of analysis, safety motivation predicted self-reported crashes. In turn, drivers' perceptions of their fleet managers' safety values (but not drivers' perceptions of their supervisors' safety values), their own attitudes, and their own efficacy beliefs predicted motivation to drive safely. Furthermore, the influence of supervisors and fleet managers interacted such that drivers were more motivated to drive safely if they perceived both their supervisor and fleet manager to value safety. This study also explored the cross-level relationships between supervisors' and fleet managers' perceptions of organizational safety values and drivers' perceptions of managerial safety values and found a relationship between fleet managers' perceptions of organizational safety values and drivers' perceptions of fleet managers' safety values. These results illustrate that perceptions of workplace safety values are transmitted across levels of the organization.     

Reflections on the Meaning and Structure of the Horizontal/Vertical Distinction

The commentaries by Aaker (2006), Meyers‐Levy (2006), and Oyserman (2006) extend the implications of the horizontal/vertical distinction described in our article (Shavitt, Lalwani, Zhang, & Torelli, 2006) in a number of interesting directions. We join these authors in calling for further research on horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism constructs. We also highlight conceptual and structural issues that remain to be resolved and evaluate priming and other operational approaches to the study of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism.