Good-Fast-Cheap: Pick Any Two: Dilemmas About the Value of Applicable Research1

Questions of internal validity vs. external validity have long been of concern to social and organizational psychologists. In recent years, the issue of applicability of research data has been emphasized as well. The present paper distinguishes between basic, applied, and applicable research. It is concluded that sufficient criteria for judging basic and applied research are available. However, there appears to be little agreement about the value and the quality of most applicable research. To help alleviate this problem, criteria for judging applicable research are suggested. The potential contributions of basic, applied, and applicable research to policy formation and to the search for solutions which are relevant to social, organizational, and governmental problems are considered.     

Beyond Dichotomy—Towards Creative Synthesis

There are two ways for overcoming limitations of methods used in psychology, as Toomela (Integr. Physiol. Behav. Sci. doi:, 2007) points out. These are inventing new methods of research, and looking back into the history of methodological thought for new ideas. Though he limited the former as if it is a quantitative area and he declared to take the latter path, his paper actually advocates the need to create new methodology for understanding the human psyche through historical approach. We discuss problems of sampling and generalization in that context, and suggest a new way to creative synthesis through elaboration of qualitative methodologies. To us this direction constitutes an updated version of the German–Austrian methodology exactly as Toomela suggests.

Negative misconceptions about disaster behaviour through availability cascades: An examination of secondhand information and the moderating effect of trait anxiety on disaster myths

The present study was designed to shed light on the origin of disaster myths, such as panic, looting, crime, and psychological shock in postdisaster situations, by examining effects of secondhand information and the moderating effect of anxiety on such negative misconceptions. It was hypothesized that secondhand information on disaster behaviour, such as media reports and word‐of‐mouth rumours, and trait anxiety would increase the degrees to which people gave credit to four popular disaster myths. Also, trait anxiety was predicted to moderate the association between information sources and disaster myths. Questionnaire data obtained from 1,500 Japanese participants indicated that people relying on secondhand information gave more credit to all the four misconceptions than those relying on firsthand information such as direct disaster experience. However, trait anxiety was not found to significantly affect the degrees of the disaster myths. Furthermore, the moderating effect of trait anxiety on the association between the information sources and the disaster myths was not observed in any of the four myths. The present results imply that although reliance on secondhand information increases the degree of disaster myths to some extent, there should be other causes from which disaster myths originate.     

Reexamination of the Association Between Anonymity and Self-Interested Unethical Behavior in Adults

The Psychological Record - The well-established notion that the frequency of self-interested unethical behavior increases among anonymous people was reexamined employing a more strict definition of...     

Misattributions in attribution research: Choices of scientific certainty vs. understanding of reality: A rejoinder

Fincham (1984) has argued that Nogami and Streufert (1983) advanced a thesis which (1) attempts to empirically demonstrate that attributions for an accident are lower with severe as opposed to less severe outcomes and (2) applies these data to account for previous contradictory findings of the ‘defensive attribution’ literature. The present authors show that Fincham's attribution of intent to Nogami and Streufert is in error and that the divergent views of Nogami and Streufert versus those of Fincham and associates reflect legitimate but different approaches toward the problem of attribution theory and research.     

Ideogram writing in a disconnection syndrome

A case of disconnection-type agraphia coupled with alexia was reported. The patient showed several asymmetrical manual capacities between the two hands, i.e., dissociated difficulty of Kanji (ideogram) writing between the two hands, left unilateral difficulty of Kana (phonogram) writing, right unilateral dyscopia of letters as well as geometrical figures, and right unilateral difficulty in drawing without a model. Anatomically, lesions involved most of the corpus callosum in its posterior portion including the splenium and the left medial occipital lobe. From these data, a possible liguistic capacity of the right hemisphere was suggested.     

Modulations of use-dependent excitability changes of human motor cortex (M1) by practice condition

Effects of repetitive index finger abductions on excitability changes in the human primary motor cortex (Ml) are assumed to be dependent on practice conditions of the task. To address how different effects occur dependent on various practice conditions, motor evoked potentials (MEPs) elicited from the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscle were investigated. Practice effects on the index finger abduction were examined for changes in excitability of first dorsal interosseous muscle under three forearm position changes (neutral vs prone) and two muscle contraction modes (isometric vs isotonic). Analysis showed that after practice MEP amplitude increased in the prone position but not in the neutral position and MEP increases in the isotonic contraction were larger than those in the isometric mode. These results suggest that use-dependent excitability changes are largely dependent on practice conditions because the amount of afferent input depends on the practice conditions.     

Facilitation of motor evoked potentials and H-reflexes of flexor carpi radialis muscle induced by voluntary teeth clenching

In order to examine the effects of remote facilitation on cortical and spinal sites, we recorded motor evoked potentials (MEPs) and H-reflexes from the flexor carpi radialis muscle of 13 healthy subjects. The H-reflex was used to assess excitability changes at the spinal level, while the MEP following transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to study excitability changes at the cortical level. We induced remote facilitation by means of voluntary teeth clenching (VTC), the so-called Jendrassik maneuver, because this procedure is known to be effective and reliable. Although the facilitation induced by VTC was observed in both evoked potentials (i.e., H-reflex and MEP), which is consistent with previous reports, MEP onset latencies were shortened by VTC in proportion to an increased MEP amplitude, whereas the latencies of the H-reflex were not. Furthermore, statistically significant relationships between MEP latencies and amplitudes were observed in all subjects, whereas no such relationships were observed for the H-reflex. On the basis of these results, two neural pathways are presumed: one involving a release of pre-synaptic inhibition at the spinal level and the other involving an unmasking of lateral excitatory projections at the cortical level.     

Effects of proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation on the initiation of voluntary movement and motor evoked potentials in upper limb muscles

To better understand the mechanisms behind proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), an important method in motor rehabilitation, we investigated the effects of assuming a PNF posture relative to a neutral posture on the initiation of voluntary movement (Experiment 1) and the excitability of the motor cortex (Experiment 2) using a wrist extension task. The initiation of voluntary wrist movement was operationalized in terms of the electromyographic reaction time (EMG-RT), and the excitability of the motor cortex in terms of motor evoked potentials (MEPs). Compared to the neutral position, we found that (1) the facilitation position changed the muscle discharge order enhancing the movement efficiency of the joint, (2) the facilitation position led to a reduction in EMG-RT, the magnitude of which depended on the proximity of the muscle to the movement joint, and (3) MEP amplitude increased and MEP latency decreased in the facilitation position as a function of the proximity of the muscle to the joint. These findings corroborate the presumed effects of PNF and provide insights into the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the PNF method.     

Launching a new journal: Fifty years of the journal of applied social psychology

This paper describes the background and the process leading to the 1970–1971 launch of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. In the late 1960s, founding editor Dr. Siegfried Streufert had a deep belief in the need to create an outlet for excellent research addressing applications of social psychology to “real-world” problems. He looked forward to marking this milestone year of publication of JASP with this article. Sadly, Siegfried passed away in April 2019, 50 years after developing and implementing the concept for the journal. We present the history as he wrote it, with some editing, in his honor.