Graduate student WAIS-III scoring accuracy is a function of full scale IQ and complexity of examiner tasks

Research on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition (WAIS-III) suggests that practicing clinical psychologists and graduate students make item-level scoring errors that affect IQ, index, and subtest scores. Studies have been limited in that Full-Scale IQ (FSIQ) and examiner administration, recording, and scoring tasks have not been systematically varied. In this study, graduate student participants score a high (FSIQ = 112) and low (FSIQ = 85) IQ record form in one of two stimulus conditions: digitized film clips (N = 13) or partially completed record forms (N = 11). Results demonstrate that examiners are less accurate in the high IQ condition, and that recording examinee responses from scoring video clips results in more scoring errors. Obtained FSIQs are significantly higher than criterion IQ scores in the high IQ condition (8.46 for video condition, 2.55 for record form condition). Self-reported proficiency in WAIS-III administration and scoring is positively related to number of scoring errors.     

An interpersonal analysis of pathological personality traits in DSM-5

The proposed changes to the personality disorder section of the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.) places an increased focus on interpersonal impairment as one of the defining features of personality psychopathology. In addition, a proposed trait model has been offered to provide a means of capturing phenotypic variation on the expression of personality disorder. In this study, the authors subject the proposed DSM-5 traits to interpersonal analysis using the inventory of interpersonal problems-circumplex scales via the structural summary method for circumplex data. DSM-5 traits were consistently associated with generalized interpersonal dysfunction suggesting that they are maladaptive in nature, the majority of traits demonstrated discriminant validity with prototypical and differentiated interpersonal problem profiles, and conformed well to a priori hypothesized associations. These results are discussed in the context of the DSM-5 proposal and contemporary interpersonal theory, with a particular focus on potential areas for expansion of the DSM-5 trait model.     

Evaluating the Evidence for the General Factor of Personality across Multiple Inventories

A general factor of personality (GFP) has been proposed as the apex of a personality trait hierarchy that explains covariance among the lower-order factors measured by various personality inventories. In this study we evaluated the GFP hypothesis across several personality inventories, unlike most previous research in which the GFP has been derived from individual instruments in isolation. Exploratory analyses did not produce substantial evidence for the existence of a single cross-instrument higher-order factor of factors and efforts to specify a range of GFP-inspired models in a confirmatory framework led to significant estimation difficulties and poor fit to the data. Overall these results fail to support a common GFP that is positioned at the top of a personality trait hierarchy.     

‘The Extremely Difficult Realization That Something Other Than Oneself Is Real’: Iris Murdoch on Love and Moral Agency

Abstract: In the last few years, there has been a revival of interest in the philosophy of Iris Murdoch. Despite this revival, however, certain aspects of Murdoch's views remain poorly understood, including her account of a concept that she famously described as ‘central’ to moral philosophy—i.e., love. In this paper, I argue that the concept of love is essential to any adequate understanding of Murdoch's work but that recent attempts by Kieran Setiya and David Velleman to assimilate Murdoch's account of love to neo‐Aristotelian or neo‐Kantian theories of moral agency are misconceived. We will not understand what Murdoch is trying to do unless we understand her position as a radical alternative to such theories. Here, I present a reading of Murdoch's account of love as a form of Platonic eros directed toward two objects: the Good and the particular individual. It is in navigating the tension between these two objects that we find ourselves facing what Murdoch famously described as ‘the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real’. When properly understood, Murdoch's account of love opens up conceptual space for an alternative approach to some of the central questions in contemporary moral theory.     

Evidence of mnemonic ability selectively affecting truthful and deceptive response dynamics

In the executive model of deception, the telling of a lie necessitates the inhibition of a veridical prepotent response (the truth), and such inhibition incurs a temporal penalty, manifest as a longer response time. If memory processes are engaged in generating such truths, then memory function should affect truthful and deceptive response times. To investigate this we examined the relationship between performance on a semantic knowledge deception task and a test of verbal memory in 40 college students. We found that verbal memory performance differentially affects the temporal parameters of truth and deception.     

Psychometric Properties and Norms for the Personality Assessment Inventory in Egg Donors and Gestational Carriers

Although psychological evaluations are an integral element of screening for third-party reproduction and the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) is commonly used for these evaluations, little is known about the psychometric properties or normative scores on the PAI among egg donors and carriers. We evaluated the PAI among 1,044 egg donors and gestational carriers from various fertility clinics across the United States. PAI scales were generally internally consistent in this population, although range restriction appeared to attenuate reliability on several scales. The PAI profiles of egg donors and carriers had elevated positive impression management and suppressed clinical scale scores relative to the community standardization sample, as would be expected given the contingencies of this assessment context. Scores were similar across egg donors and carriers and were similar whether the carrier or donor was known or not known to the prospective parents. Sample-specific norms are provided for the use of the PAI in this setting.     

Validity of the Personality Assessment Screener in Veterans Referred for Psychological Testing

Screening for psychopathology is desirable in many settings where routine administration of full assessment batteries is not practical or cost efficient. The Personality Assessment Screener (PAS) is a 22-item self-report subset of Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) items that was designed to screen for respondents who would be likely to achieve a clinically significant PAI profile. In this study, the PAS demonstrated classification rates in a sample of veterans referred for psychological evaluations that were similar to those described in initial validation studies. In addition, the three-item Negative Affect element of the PAS demonstrated impressive reliability and sensitivity given its brevity. These results support the use of the PAS as a screening tool to indicate clinically significant PAI profiles among veterans.