RELIABILITY AND FACTORIAL VALIDITY OF THE JUNIOR EYSENCK PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE IN ZIMBABWE

Six-hundred and thirteen girls and 601 boys in Zimbabwe completed the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (JEPQ). The reliability of the Neuroticism (N) and Social Desirability (L) factors was acceptable but the Psychoticism (P) and Extraversion (E) factors possessed modest reliability. While the factorial validity of the P, N and L scales was acceptable, the factorial validity of the E scale was poor. L scores were significantly correlated with N and P scores among girls and boys. Whereas Zimbabwean girls reported higher P scores than did Canadian girls, Zimbabwean boys reported lower P scores than did Canadian boys. Zimbabwean girls and boys reported lower E and N and higher P scores than their Canadian counterparts. This study provides broad support for Eysenck's basic personality model, but it does not support the use of this version of the JEPQ, and especially the E scale, among Zimbabwean children.     

Acoustic analysis in the differentiation of Parkinson's disease and major depression

In its early stages, Parkinson's disease (P.D.) may be difficult to distinguish from major depression (M.D.) leading to inappropriate management. Both illnesses are characterized by psychomotor retardation. The neurovegetative symptoms used to diagnose M.D. are not specific and in P.D. may be due to the physical illness itself. Currently, differentiation of the two disorders relies on subjective clinical observation. Improved diagnostic accuracy based on more objective data is needed. To this end, this study used computerized acoustic analysis to contrast speech patterns in P.D. and M.D. The sample consisted of 30 P.D. patients without depression or dementia, 30 patients with uncomplicated M.D., and 31 normal controls, each 60 years of age or over. Of the acoustic variables studied, M.D. patients had significantly reduced rates of speech compared with P.D. patients. The data suggest that this temporal measure of speech may be useful in the differentiation of P.D. and M.D.     

Worldviews about change: Their structure and their implications for understanding responses to sustainability,technology, and political change

People hold different perspectives about how they think the world is changing or should change. We examined five of these “worldviews” about change: Progress, Golden Age, Endless Cycle, Maintenance, and Balance. In Studies 1–4 (total N = 2733) we established reliable measures of each change worldview, and showed how these help explain when people will support or oppose social change in contexts spanning sustainability, technological innovations, and political elections. In mapping out these relationships we identify how the importance of different change worldviews varies across contexts, with Balance most critical for understanding support for sustainability, Progress/Golden Age important for understanding responses to innovations, and Golden Age uniquely important for preferring Trump/Republicans in the 2016 US election. These relationships were independent of prominent individual differences (e.g., values, political orientation for elections) or context-specific factors (e.g., self-reported innovativeness for responses to innovations). Study 5 (N = 2140) examined generalizability in 10 countries/regions spanning five continents, establishing that these worldviews exhibited metric invariance, but with country/region differences in how change worldviews were related to support for sustainability. These findings show that change worldviews can act as a general “lens” people use to help determine whether to support or oppose social change.     

PICTORIAL DEPTH PERCEPTION IN GHANAIAN CHILDREN1

Perception de la profondeur picturak chez les enfants ghanéens. — Une étude de la perception de la profondeur picturale chez 122 enfants ghanéens, fréquentant I'école primaire et âgés de 5 à 10 ans, a apporté les résultats suivants : — 1. l'identification correcte des représentations picturales des objets croît progressivement avec l'âge; ce qu'on peut interpréter comme un effet de l'expérience croissante avec les objets représentés. — 2. Les représentations picturales impliquant des abstractions, comme les lignes d'horizon ou les bords de route vues en perspective, sont fréquemment mal identifiées, quelque soit l'âge. Elles sont perçues bidimensionnellement et communément identifiées comme des objets, à qui est souvent attribuée une fonction d'utilité par rapport aux autres composantes du dessin. — 3. Un seul enfant donne des preuves constantes d'une perception tridimensionnelle. Les réponses des autres sujets suggèrent une perception bidimensionnelle. l'A. pense que la familiarité, culturellement déterminée, avec un matériel pictural est d'une importance critique pour le développement de la perception par les enfants de la profondeur picturale. — 4. Une analyse des explications relatives aux relations causales entre les é1éments picturaux suggère I'existence d'un schème commun de pensée, quelque soit l'âge. Ce schème est comparable à la “ pensée égocentrique ” telle que la conçoit Piaget, à condition qu'un contexte culturellement familier puisse entraîner différents schèmes de pensée.     

Finite-state recall revealed by backward learning curves constructed from confidence ratings

Two experiments were carried out to show that the constancy of Type II d’ in recall is not an artifact, but is due to finite-state processes as suggested by Bernbach (1967). The following conclusions were reached: (1) The constancy of Type II d’ is not an artifact due to the inclusion of intralist intrusions in the class of incorrect responses; (2) backward learning curves constructed from confidence ratings gave clear evidence of all-or-none recall; (3) recall appeared to be all or none whether the subjects learned by rote or with a mnemonic; (4) the discriminability index derived from Luce’s (1959) choice theory did not exhibit constancy over trials, unlike Type II d’ and despite the fact that backward rating curves indicated all-or-none processes.