A force of change: Chris Peterson and the US Army’s Global Assessment Tool

The US Army launched the Global Assessment Tool (GAT) – a 105-item psychometric instrument taken by approximately one million soldiers annually – in October, 2009 in support of a population-wide resilience development initiative known as the Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2) program. The lead developer of the GAT was Chris Peterson, and his work on this project – along with that of Nansook Park and Colonel Carl Castro – will likely leave an important and indelible mark on not only the Army, but also the field of military psychology. In this paper, we provide more detail on the history and components of the GAT. In addition, we demonstrate the practical utility of the GAT by showing that high-performing soldiers (soldiers who attained Ranger status) have relatively high GAT scores, and that soldiers with behavioral problems generally evidence low GAT scores. We conclude by discussing future directions of GAT methodology and usage in support of research.     

Deeds that Help and Words that Hurt: Helping and Gossip as Moderators of the Relationship Between Leader–Member Exchange and Advice Network Centrality

We examine the relationship between leader–member exchange (LMX) quality and advice network centrality using multisource data from a sample of 250 retail employees and their respective managers in Turkey to test our hypothesized model of value and costs of being sought out for advice. Drawing upon the tenets of network generation theory (Nebus, 2006 ), we predict that the tendency of focal actors to help others and their own tendency to gossip would be behavioral moderators of the relationship between LMX quality and their advice network centrality. Consistent with network generation theory, our results reveal that LMX quality is positively related to centrality only for those actors with a high tendency to help coworkers and a low tendency to gossip about coworkers, suggesting that behaviors indicating helpfulness and discretion are necessary for high LMX members to maintain a central position in their work group's advice network. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

A discriminant analysis of Whissell's New Testament data: on the statistical trail of the author of Hebrews

Discriminant analyses of data on 6 dimensions from Whissell's analyses of 27 books of an English translation of the New Testament seem to support Clement of Alexandria's contention that Luke was involved in the authorship, but it is difficult after centuries to rule out definitively a few other contenders.     

Fragments of the Roelofs effect: a bottom-up effect equal to the sum of its parts

The Roelofs effect is a distortion of perceived space that occurs when a large frame whose center is offset left or right from the objective midline is presented visually to an observer and causes a bias in the observer's subjective judgment of midline. Experiments were designed to test whether an isolated fragment (left or right end) of a Roelofs-inducing frame was capable of generating the Roelofs effect and to determine whether prior experience with intact frames would provide a top-down influence that would bias the Roelofs effect resulting from fragment presentation. Although the fragments did induce an effect, top-down information did not play a significant role even after a 5-day training paradigm. Instead, we found that the effect generated by an intact frame was equal in magnitude to the sum of the effects generated by the individual fragments. In addition, perception was found to be differentially affected by the two ends of the frame, with fragments falling in the right visual field causing a larger effect than those falling in the left.     

Personality prototypes in eating disorders based on the Big Five model

A three factor model of personality pathology was investigated in a clinical sample of 335 female eating disordered patients. Cluster analysis of the Big Five NEO-FFI scales (Costa & McCrae, 1992) yielded three distinct personality profiles, which were consistent with previous studies: (1) a resilient/high functioning cluster with no clinical elevations on the NEO-FFI scales; (2) an undercontrolled/emotionally dysregulated cluster with elevated scores on the Neuroticism scale and low scores on Conscientiousness and Agreeableness; (3) an overcontrolled/constricted cluster showing high scores on Neuroticism and Conscientiousness and low scores on Openness to Experience. Comparing the three personality prototypes with respect to Axis I and Axis II disorders,resilients reported systematically less clinical and personality problems than both undercontrollers and overcontrollers. Compared to the latter, undercontrollers showed more impulsive personality features and behaviors. Finally, cluster membership was not clearly associated with eating disorder subtypes, suggesting that there is considerable variance in personality features and/or pathology within the various eating disorder categories.