Validation of the Dutch version of the aggression questionnaire in adolescent male offenders

This study examined the construct validity of the Dutch version of Buss and Perry’s Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) in 73 adolescent male offenders aged 12 to 18 years who were participating in a residential rehabilitation program. There was a strong positive association between the Hostility subscale of the AQ and psychological and physical symptoms. The nature of this connection was discussed. It was argued that the Hostility subscale measures some unique aspect of aggression that is not incorporated by the Physical Aggression, Verbal Aggression, or Anger subscales of the AQ. As expected, the AQ scales correlated significantly with trait anger, social desirability, and age. Furthermore, staff ratings of physical violence, verbal aggression, anger, and negative attitude were obtained for each subject. Correlations between the AQ scales and these ratings were low. Possible explanations for this unexpected finding are discussed. Finally, normative and internal structure data are presented. Aggr. Behav. 28:87–96, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Biodata Validity Decay and Score Inflation with Faking: Do Item Attributes Explain Variance Across Items?

Rating scales were developed to assess the biodata dimensions offered by Mael (1991). Biodata items assessing conscientiousness were administered under honest-responding and faking-good conditions. Item attributes were examined to determine their value in predicting item validity for honest respondents and item validity for faking respondents. Analyses were also conducted to determine whether the degree of item faking was related to item attributes. Item attributes associated with item validity for honest respondents are not the same as the item attributes indicative of item validity for the faking respondents. We suggest that this makes it very difficult to develop a biodata questionnaire which will be equally valid for both honest and faking respondents.     

Understanding Self-Report Bias in Organizational Behavior Research

Self-report and mono-method bias often threaten the validity of research conducted in business settings and thus hinder the development of theories of organizational behavior. This paper outlines a conceptual framework for understanding factors that influence the motivation of an employee to bias his or her responses to questions posed by organizational researchers. Using a longitudinal, multitrait-multimethod dataset, we illustrate various aspects of the problem and argue that traditional approaches for controlling self-report bias do not adequately prevent the problem. The results suggest the need for developing a theory of method effects and companion analytic techniques to improve the accuracy of psychological research in business settings.     

Speaking Your Mind: Large Inarticulateness Constitutional and Circumstantial

When someone is asked to speak his mind, it is sometimes possible for him to furnish what his utterance appears to have omitted. In such cases we might say that he had a mind to speak. Sometimes, however, the opposite is true. Asked to speak his mind, our speaker finds that he has no mind to speak. When it is possible to speak one's mind and when not is largely determined by the kinds of beings we are and by the kinds of resources we are able to draw upon. In either case, not speaking one's mind is leaving something out whose articulation would or could matter for the purposes for which one was speaking in the first place. Inarticulation is no fleetingly contingent and peripheral phenomenon in human thinking and discourse. It is a substantial and dominant commonplace. In Part One I attempt to say something about what it is about the human agent that makes inarticulateness so rife. In Part Two, I consider various strategies for making the unarticulated explicit, and certain constraints on such processes. I shall suggest, among other things, that standard treatments of enthymematic reconstruction are fundamentally misconceived.     

Validité de construit d’une épreuve de jeu de rôle dans le cadre d’un centre d’évaluation chez des officiers de marine.

The present study was designed to obtain validity estimates for a role-play test. Participants were 125 french Navy officers who were rated by a pool of professional assessors and psychologists. All the assessors received reccurring training sessions, focusing on the behavioral checklist, on rating errors, and on share frame of reference. The assessment procedure included role play exercise, cognitive ability scale (g factor) and personality scale (big five factors). First, exploratory factor analyses were conducted on the data gathered, and four factors were identified (authoritarianism, oral communication, consideration with others and frankness). In a nomological perspective, we also analysed the links between the exercises dimensions, personality inventorie and intelligence scale. The findings suggest that role play dimension, personality and intelligence seem to measure different thinks.     

What sources contribute to variance in observer ratings? Using generalizability theory to assess construct validity of psychological measures

Cronbach and Meehl (Psychol. Bull. 1955; 52:281–302) stated that the key question to be addressed when assessing construct validity is ‘What sources contribute to variance in test performance?’ We illustrate the utility of generalizability theory (GT) as a conceptual framework that encourages psychological researchers to address this question and as a flexible set of analytic tools that can provide answers to inform both substantive theory and measurement practice. To illustrate these capabilities, we analyze observer ratings of 27 caregiver–child dyads, focusing on the importance of situational (contextual) factors as sources of variance in observer ratings of caregiver–child behaviors. Cross‐situational consistency was relatively low for the categories of behavior analyzed, indicating that dyads vary greatly in their interactional patterns from one situation to the next, so that it is difficult to predict behavioral frequencies in one context from behaviors observed in a different context. Our findings suggest that single‐situation behavioral measures may have limited generalizability, either to behavior in other contexts or as measures of global interaction tendencies. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and measurement design in developmental psychology. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

青少年心理韧性量表（HKRA）的修订

心理韧性研究起源于20世纪70年代,而国内的相关研究还刚刚处于起步阶段,为有利于国内心理韧性研究的开展,选定青少年心理韧性量表(HKRA)进行中文版修订。以初中二年级学生884人(男生468人,女生416人)为被试,采用探索性因子分析法,共提取11个因子,其中外部保护因子7个,心理韧性特质因子4个,各个题目在相应因子上的载荷在0.34-0.88之间,各个因子的同质性信度在0.62-0.84之间,累积方差解释率为55.77%。结果表明,量表符合测量学的信度和效度要求,可以作为测量心理韧性的工具在国内使用。     

坚韧人格量表的编制

通过开放式问卷调查、专家访谈及参考国外同类问卷,结合中国社会文化特点,编制了坚韧人格量表。经过两次施测,对数据分别进行探索性因素分析及验证性因素分析,最终确定坚韧人格量表包含四个维度,共27个项目。数据分析表明,坚韧人格量表具有良好的信度和效度,可以作为人格坚韧性的测量工具。     

Public Health Asks of Community Psychology…

As the field of public health has increasingly recognized the social and behavioral aspects of the changing epidemiology of diseases and injuries, it has added social and behavioral scientists to the faculties of schools of public health and most federal and state public health agencies. Community psychology can play a crucial role in helping to bridge the dominant psychological theories with the family and community contexts in which individuals are conditioned and reinforced in their tendencies toward violent behavior. Public health asks of community psychology a helping hand in bridging the clinical endpoints of most NIH-sponsored behavioral research with the community endpoints of most CDC-sponsored programs such as injury control.     

Individual differences in processing styles: validity of the Rational-Experiential Inventory

In Study 1 (N= 203) the factor structure of a Swedish translation of Pacini and Epstein's Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI-40) was investigated using confirmatory factor analysis. The hypothesized model with rationality and experientiality as orthogonal factors had satisfactory fit to the data, significantly better than alternative models (with two correlated factors or a single factor). Inclusion of "ability" and "favorability" subscales for rationality and experientiality increased fit further. It was concluded that the structural validity of the REI is adequate. In Study 2 (N= 72) the REI-factors were shown to have theoretically meaningful correlations to other personality traits, indicating convergent and discriminant validity. Finally, scores on the rationality scale were negatively related to risky choice framing effects in Kahneman and Tversky's Asian disease task, indicating concurrent validity. On the basis of these findings it was concluded that the test has satisfactory psychometric properties.