Attitudes in the fiber of everyday life: the discourse of racial evaluation and the lived experience of desegregation

This article critically reviews the social-psychological literature on race attitudes, which has assumed that the prejudicial status of any expression is determined by the underlying psychological attitude that motivated it. Variation and inconsistency in individuals' attitudinal expressions and disagreement over how to measure prejudice have bedeviled attitude research. Contemporary theories of racial attitudes (symbolic racism, self-presentation, aversive racism) have responded to this problem by explaining how, when, and why attitudes vary and by proposing research paradigms for isolating prejudiced from nonprejudiced expressions. The authors argue that research in this area may be enhanced by the use of qualitative methods that place fewer constraints on the expression of racial attitudes and variability than quantitative methods do. Using empirical materials from a South African case study, the authors show that a focus on attitudinal discourse and the lived experience of desegregation allow researchers to investigate attitudes as social practices.     

Preference for progressive delays and concurrent physical therapy exercise in an adult with acquired brain injury

The purpose of this study was to increase self-control and engagement in a physical therapy task (head holding) for a man with acquired traumatic brain injury. Once impulsivity was observed (i.e., repeated impulsive choices), an experimental condition was introduced that consisted of choices between a small immediate reinforcer, a large fixed-delay reinforcer, and a large progressive-delay reinforcer. The participant showed a preference for the progressive-delay option, even when the duration of the delay exceeded that of the fixed delay. The results have implications for establishing optimal choice making and teaching life-enhancing skills.     

Likelihood ratios: A simple and flexible statistic for empirical psychologists

Empirical studies in psychology typically employ null hypothesis significance testing to draw statistical inferences. We propose that likelihood ratios are a more straightforward alternative to this approach. Likelihood ratios provide a measure of the fit of two competing models; the statistic represents a direct comparison of the relative likelihood of the data, given the best fit of the two models. Likelihood ratios offer an intuitive, easily interpretable statistic that allows the researcher great flexibility in framing empirical arguments. In support of this position, we report the results of a survey of empirical articles in psychology, in which the common uses of statistics by empirical psychologists is examined. From the results of this survey, we show that likelihood ratios are able to serve all the important statistical needs of researchers in empirical psychology in a format that is more straightforward and easier to interpret than traditional inferential statistics.     

Personality disorders and personality dimensions in anorexia nervosa

Information on the relationship between anorexia nervosa (AN) and personality disorders (PDs) and dimensions of temperament and character (measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory [TCI; Cloninger, Przybeck Svrakic, & Wetzel, 1994]) is limited. This study examines the predictive validity of the TCI for PD diagnoses assessed by the International Personality Disorder Examination-ICD-10 (IPDE-ICD-10; Loranger, Janca, & Sartorius, 1997) interviews of 46 women with DSM-IV-defined AN. Patients with a PD reported higher levels of harm-avoidance and lower levels of self-directedness than those without a PD. Scores on the TCI were predictive of the number of PD features present, particularly for those PDs in the anankastic, anxious, and dependent groups accounting for 40% to 51% of the variance. Cluster analysis based on scores on the TCI identified a subgroup of patients characterized by low levels of novelty seeking, self-directedness, and cooperativeness and high levels of harm avoidance. This cluster included the majority of those with avoidant, anxious, or dependent PDs. Assessment of particular personality dimensions was able to predict PDs in an anorexic sample. Since normal personality dimensions have greater validity than the categorical PDs, a consideration of normal temperament and character may assist in clinical decisionmaking and considerations concerning treatment.     

Performance variability is related to change in cognition: evidence from the Victoria Longitudinal Study

Performance variability across repeated task administrations may be an important indicator of age-related cognitive functioning. In the present investigation, the authors examined whether age differences and change in inconsistency were related to 6-year (3 occasion) cognitive change. Inconsistency scores were computed from 4 reaction time tasks performed by 446 older adults (54-89 years). Replicating previous cross-sectional results, greater inconsistency was observed for older participants even after controlling for differences in response speed. New longitudinal results demonstrated (a) associations between inconsistency at baseline measurement and 6-year change in cognitive performance; (b) longitudinal change in inconsistency; and (c) intraindividual covariation between 6-year change in inconsistency and 6-year change in level of cognitive function. These findings support the view that performance variability serves as a marker of cognitive aging.     

Seeing big things: overestimation of heights is greater for real objects than for objects in pictures

In six experiments we demonstrate that the vertical-horizontal illusion that is evoked when viewing photographs and line drawings is relatively small, whereas the magnitude of this illusion when large objects are viewed is at least twice as great. Furthermore, we show that the illusion is due more to vertical overestimation than horizontal underestimation. The lack of a difference in vertical overestimation between pictures and line drawings suggests that vertical overestimation in pictures depends solely on the perceived physical size of the projection on the picture surface, rather than on what is apparent about an object's represented size. The vertical-horizontal illusion is influenced by perceived physical size. It is greater when viewing large objects than small pictures of these same objects, even when visual angles are equated.     

Stimulus Equivalence and The Blocking Effect

The Psychological Record - The purpose of this experiment was to examine the blocking effect within the context of a stimulus equivalence paradigm. Ten subjects were provided with a prior history...     

Why scientists valuep values

According to almost any approach to statistical inference, attained significance levels, orp values, have little value. Despite this consensus among statistical experts,p values are usually reported extensively in research articles in a manner that invites misinterpretation. In the present article, I suggest that the reasonp values are so heavily used is because they provide information concerning the strength of the evidence provided by the experiment. In some typical hypothesis testing situations, researchers may be interested in the relative adequacy of two different theoretical accounts: one that predicts no difference across conditions, and another that predicts some difference. The appropriate statistic for this kind of comparison is the likelihood ratio,P(D|M ₀)/P(D|M ₁), whereM ₀ andM ₁ are the two theoretical accounts. Large values of the likelihood ratio provide evidence thatM ₀ is a better account, whereas small values indicate thatM1 is better. I demonstrate that, under some circumstances, thep value can be interpreted in the same manner as the likelihood ratio. In particular, forZ,t, and sign tests, the likelihood ratio is an approximately linear function of thep value, with a slope between 2 and 3. Thus, researchers may reportp values in scientific communications because they are a proxy for the likelihood ratio and provide the readers with information about the strength of the evidence that is not otherwise available.