Dual imputation model for incomplete longitudinal data

Missing values are a practical issue in the analysis of longitudinal data. Multiple imputation (MI) is a well‐known likelihood‐based method that has optimal properties in terms of efficiency and consistency if the imputation model is correctly specified. Doubly robust (DR) weighing‐based methods protect against misspecification bias if one of the models, but not necessarily both, for the data or the mechanism leading to missing data is correct. We propose a new imputation method that captures the simplicity of MI and protection from the DR method. This method integrates MI and DR to protect against misspecification of the imputation model under a missing at random assumption. Our method avoids analytical complications of missing data particularly in multivariate settings, and is easy to implement in standard statistical packages. Moreover, the proposed method works very well with an intermittent pattern of missingness when other DR methods can not be used. Simulation experiments show that the proposed approach achieves improved performance when one of the models is correct. The method is applied to data from the fireworks disaster study, a randomized clinical trial comparing therapies in disaster‐exposed children. We conclude that the new method increases the robustness of imputations.     

Changes in disengagement coping mediate changes in affect following mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy in a non‐clinical sample

Past research has shown that mindfulness‐based interventions increase positive affect in non‐clinical populations. However, the mechanisms underlying this increase are poorly understood. On the basis of previous empirical and theoretical accounts, we hypothesized that a decreased use of disengagement coping strategies in daily life would explain the benefits of a mindfulness‐based intervention in terms of increased positive affect. We analysed the data of 75 healthy adult participants (58 women; 17 men) of different ages (M = 49 years old; SD = 13; age range 19–81) who had been randomly allocated to 8‐week Mindfulness‐Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) or to a waitlist control group. The results confirmed our hypothesis: Participants in the MBCT group showed significant improvements in positive affect compared to the control group, with decreased use of disengagement coping styles mediating these improvements. The implications of this study are discussed.     

Economic cooperation in western Asia

Any changing system both develops and evolves (individuates). The evolution of the biosphere must therefore be taken in context of the development of the earth, which appears to have followed typical developmental rules of dissipative structures. Two different perspectives are possible on dissipative structures—the classical externalist perspective, which views open systems as becoming progressively negentropic, and the newer, internalist perspective, which views them from within as becoming increasingly disorderly. A history of the universe can be traced, alternately stressing the one and the other perspective, which can form the basic structure of a modern, science‐based creation myth.     

Caught in the crossfire: A case of mistaken identity among religious revivalists and secularists

The discussion of Islamic and Protestant revivalisms inflames not only believers but secularists as well. This paper is about standpoint and perceived standpoint in relation to carrying out feminist research about why some women in a liberal democracy join revivalist movements. The article also discusses the variegated nature of power relations within the research process. Situated within a Women's Studies Centre the author found herself in the crossfire between secular feminists and religious revivalists—some members of each group insisting she represented the position of the opposing view. This paper explores the conflictual situation and resulting ‘epistemological vertigo’ in circumstances where revivalists and secularists each believed in the stereotype of the other and assumed the researcher embodied it.     

A tutorial on how to do a Mokken scale analysis on your test and questionnaire data

Over the past decade, Mokken scale analysis (MSA) has rapidly grown in popularity among researchers from many different research areas. This tutorial provides researchers with a set of techniques and a procedure for their application, such that the construction of scales that have superior measurement properties is further optimized, taking full advantage of the properties of MSA. First, we define the conceptual context of MSA, discuss the two item response theory (IRT) models that constitute the basis of MSA, and discuss how these models differ from other IRT models. Second, we discuss dos and don'ts for MSA; the don'ts include misunderstandings we have frequently encountered with researchers in our three decades of experience with real‐data MSA. Third, we discuss a methodology for MSA on real data that consist of a sample of persons who have provided scores on a set of items that, depending on the composition of the item set, constitute the basis for one or more scales, and we use the methodology to analyse an example real‐data set.     

Gender differences on the Five to Fifteen questionnaire in a non‐referred sample with inattention and hyperactivity‐impulsivity and a clinic‐referred sample with hyperkinetic disorder

Lambek, R., Trillingsgaard, A., Kadesjö, B., Damm, D. & Thomsen, P. H. (2010). Gender differences on the Five to Fifteen questionnaire in a non‐referred sample with inattention and hyperactivity‐impulsivity and a clinic‐referred sample with hyperkinetic disorder. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 51, 540–447. The aim of the present study was to examine gender differences in children with inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity on the Five to Fifteen (FTF) parent questionnaire. First, non‐referred girls (n = 43) and boys (n = 51) with problems of attention and hyperactivity‐impulsivity and then clinic‐referred girls (n = 35) and boys (n = 66) with hyperkinetic disorder (HKD) were compared on the FTF. Results suggested that non‐referred boys were more hyperactive‐impulsive than non‐referred girls, whereas clinic‐referred boys and girl with HKD were more similar than dissimilar on the FTF questionnaire. Secondly, it was examined whether the application of gender mixed norms versus gender specific norms would result in varying proportions of clinic‐referred children with HKD being identified as impaired on the subdomains of the FTF questionnaire. Based on results it was concluded that the use of a gender mixed normative sample may lead to overestimation of impairment in boys with HKD, but the type of sample applied to define impairment on the FTF should depend on the purpose for applying the questionnaire.     

From bastion to enactment: The ‘non‐dream’ in the theatre of analysis1

In this paper, the author's objective is to discuss models that express what occurs in the analytical situation. He demonstrates how early models relating to painting and sculpture, to history and archaeology, develop into other models that refer to the relationship between two people. He studies in depth the Barangers analytical eld with its obstructive bastions as a background to understanding what is currently valued as intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis. The container contained model and the phenomenon of recruitment are also discussed. The author uses clinical material to demonstrate how these models are linked to enactment, and a study of this concept provides evidence of the importance of the visual image, the dream and non‐dream, the affective pictogram, as privileged aspects for the understanding and evolution of thought in the analytical process. Its importance leads to a proposal of a model that uses the theatre as a metaphor for the analytical process. In this model, analyst and patient both participate as characters in the scenes, and simultaneously as their co–authors. The analyst should also be responsible for the direction of scenes, as well as acting as critic. His task is to prevent obstructive conspiracies (the non‐dream) and new meanings for the scenes, thus allowing the development of new scenes and plots, and the enlarging of the mental universe.     

Exploring memory in infancy: deferred imitation and the development of declarative memory

Imitation is an important means by which infants learn new behaviours. When infants do not have the opportunity to immediately reproduce observed actions, they may form a memory representation of the event which can guide their behaviour when a similar situation is encountered again. Imitation procedures can, therefore, provide insight into infant memory. The deferred imitation paradigm requires a modelled action to be reproduced following a delay, without prior motor practice. As such, deferred imitation procedures have been proposed to tap declarative memory abilities in non‐verbal populations such as infants. Contrary to the popular belief that infants form sparse or ill‐defined memories, deferred imitation research reveals that infants store and retrieve highly detailed memory representations. The specificity of detail encoded into the representation can, however, cause memory retrieval to fail at young ages. Developing the ability to identify event components which are central (the target stimulus) versus details which are peripheral (the exact context in which learning occurred) is therefore an important aspect of memory development. Using deferred imitation procedures to study the transition from constrained to flexible memory representations can thus facilitate our understanding of the development of declarative memory during the infancy period. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

从认知发展看思维和逻辑的基本类型

人类和个人对事物的认知发展过程可分为感性认知和理性认知两大阶段。思维即理性认知。思维按其意识和复杂性程度可分为直觉思维、形象思维、抽象思维和辩证思维四种基本类型。逻辑学是描述思维的产物即思想的形式结构与其规律的科学,也是为思维提供思维形式与其变形规则的模规范性科学。当代逻辑学按其产生和适用的主要思维领域不同,可分为准逻辑、形象逻辑、形式逻辑和辩证逻辑四种基本类型。