Development of physical ability tests for police officers: a construct validation approach.

A construct validation approach was followed to affirm that 8 physical ability test events were significantly related to two important constructs underlying the job performance of police officers: strength and endurance. A sample of 115 incumbent police officers took 8 physical ability tests and were rated by supervisors on their physical performances in their job. LISREL methods were used to test the model specified, and a reasonable fit was achieved. Portions of the model were tested on an independent sample of 161 applicants; the fit of the model was again acceptable. A nomological network of relationships, in which strength and endurance factors correlated in expected directions with other physiological and demographic variables, was hypothesized and tested. Finally, the data were examined for potential gender differences and bias. Considerable differences were shown between men and women on both test and performance variables, and women would be overpredicted if a common regression line were used for selection purposes.     

Role perceptions: Variations by sex and roles

A Role Perception Scale utilizing a combined projective-objective methodology was developed to assess female and male perceptions of each of three single roles — work, marriage, and parent — and two combined roles — work-marriage and work-parent. Research participants were 134 college students, 88 females and 46 males. Factor analysis of the objective scale, the only part to be scored, resulted in two major orthogonal factors labeled role engagement and competition factors. Sex and role differences for each factor were analyzed using 2×5 split block analysis of variance design with repeated measures. On three out of the five single and combined roles women perceived more engagement than men. In general males perceived roles as more competitive. These sex differences and patterns identified in within-sex analyses across roles are discussed.Parts of this paper were presented at the American Psychological Association Convention, Washington, D.C., September 1976. Research was supported in part by the Dean's Development Fund, New York University, School of Education, Health, Nursing, and Arts Professions. Both authors are senior authors. The order of names is randomly determined. The authors wish to thank Philip Merrifield and Barbara Hummel-Rossi for their statistical assistance in data analysis.     

Do learning-disabled children exhibit peripheral deficits in selective attention? An analysis of eye movements during reading

It has been suggested that deficits in selective attention play a functional role in the learning and behavior problems of children diagnosed as learning- disabled. In the present study, peripheral and central aspects of selective attention were distinguished and peripheral aspects were examined. The attending eye movements during reading of 12 fifth-grade learning-disabled children who read at the third-grade level were compared with 12 fifth-grade children who read at the fifth-grade level (grade placement controls) and 12 third-grade children who read at the third-grade level (reading level controls). The learning-disabled children did not differ from their reading level controls on any of W measures but showed a pattern of eye movements that was generally slower and less smooth than their grade placement controls. While these patterns might be considered to be immature relative to normal readers of the same age, they are not indicative of peripheral deficits in selective attention. Males, however, did exhibit more variability in duration of fixations and made more regressive eye movements than did females.     

The unimportance of experimenter-bias in sensory deprivation research.

3 graduate student experimenters' expectations about the stress reaction of 24 subjects to sensory deprivation or to an ambulatory control condition were factorially manipulated. No significant differences were found for experimenters' expectation, directly or through interaction. Results were interpreted as a refutation ofthe assumed pervasiveness of experimenter-bias effects.     

Back to Basics: Application of the Principles of Bioethics to Heritable Genome Interventions

Science and Engineering Ethics - Prior to their announcement of the birth of gene-edited twins in China, Dr. He Jiankui and colleagues published a set of draft ethical principles for discussing the...     

Where Men Appear More Religious Than Women: Turning a Gender Lens on Religion in Israel

Past research, typically focused on Christians in Christian nations, has found that women tend to be more religious than men. This study uses original nationally representative data (N = 5,601) with strategic oversamples of minority groups to examine variation in how religion and gender intersect across ethnoreligious identities in Israel. We demonstrate that Israel diverges from the typical pattern of women appearing more religious than men. In fact, Israeli men are consistently more religious than Israeli women on commonly used measures and frequently more religious on a broader set of questions specific to Judaism and Israel. Subgroup analyses highlight the intersectional nature of gender and religion, showing that men's greater religiosity in Israel is limited to Jews, and, more specifically, nonsecular Jews. We suggest that gender gaps arise, at least in part, because religions are gendered institutions with gendered norms, expectations, and incentives, and that these norms, expectations, and incentives vary from religion to religion.     

General and Specific Question Sequence Effects in Satisfaction Surveys: Integrating Directional and Correlational Effects

Researchers investigate relationships between well-being variables and the antecedents to well-being by examining statistical results from survey data. A common measurement approach in survey designs is to include measures of more specific aspects (i.e., facets) and more global assessments of well-being in the same survey. Research shows, however, that the sequence of specific and general measures within the survey affects the magnitude of relationships between specific and general measures. In the current study, we extend such general-specific sequence research by offering an alternative explanation for the occurrence of such sequence effects. Specifically, we propose that having the specific measure before the more general one can shift the mean-level of the specific measure toward the extremes, thereby yielding restricted variance and, ultimately, attenuated correlations between the two measures. We test our proposal on two separate samples examining job-related well-being. Our findings show that the general-specific measure relationship is stronger and the mean-level of satisfaction is lower when the general measure is read first. Our findings suggest important theoretical implications for the study and measurement of well-being. Most importantly, our study suggests that placing general measures before specific measures could avoid sequence-related bias.     

Gendered Religiosity

This study uses measures of cognitive and expressive aspects of gender as a social identity from the General Social Survey to examine whether and how they relate to religiosity. I find that religiosity is clearly gendered, but in different ways for women and men. Consistent with the feminine-typing of religion in the Christian-majority context of the United States, gender expression is linked with more religiousness among women but not men. Consistent with religion being a sometimes patriarchal institution, those with more pride in being men are more religious. I conclude that religiosity is gendered, that degendering and secularization processes could go hand-in-hand, and that future research on gender differences in religiosity should further examine variation among women and among men.     

Stimulus control depends on the subjective value of the outcome

Stimuli that provide information about likely future reinforcers tend to shift behavior, provided a reliable relation between the stimulus and the reinforcer can be discriminated. Stimuli that are apparently more reliable exert greater control over behavior. We asked how the subjective value (measured in terms of preference) of reinforcers associated with stimuli influences stimulus control. Five pigeons worked on a concurrent chains procedure in which half of all trials ended in a smaller reinforcer sooner, and the other half in a larger reinforcer later. In Signaled trials, the color and flash duration on the keys in the initial link signaled the outcome of the trial. In Conflicting probe trials, the color and the flash duration signaled conflicting information about the outcome of the trial. Choice in Signaled trials shifted toward the signaled outcome, but was never exclusive. In Conflicting probe trials, control was divided idiosyncratically between the 2 stimulus dimensions, but still favored the outcome with the higher subjective value. Thus, stimulus control depends not only on the perceived reliability of stimuli, but also on the subjective value of the outcome.     

An experimental and theoretical investigation of the constant-ratio rule and other models of visual letter confusion

The constant-ratio rule (CRR) and four interpretations of R. D. Luce's (In R. D. Luce, R. R. Bush, & E. Galanter (Eds.), Handbook of mathematical psychology (Vol. 1). New York: Wiley, 1963) similarity choice model (SCM) were tested using an alphabetic confusion paradigm. Four stimulus conditions were employed that varied in set size (three, four or five stimulus elements) and set constituency (block letters: A, E, X; F, H, X; A, E, F, H; A, E, F, H, X), and were presented to each subject in independent blocks. The four interpretations of the SCM were generated by constraining one, both, or neither of its similarity and bias parameter sets to be invariant in across-stimulus set model predictions. The strictest interpretation of the SCM (both the similarity and bias parameters constrained), shown to be a special case of the CRR, and the CRR produced nearly equivalent across-set predictions that provided a reasonable first approximation to the data. However, they proved inferior to the least strict SCM (neither the similarity nor bias parameters were constrained; the common interpretation of the SCM in visual confusion). Additionally, the least strict SCM was compared to J. T. Townsend's (Perception and Psychophysics, 1971, 9, 40–50, 449–454) overlap model, the all-or-none model (J. T. Townsend, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1978, 18, 25–38), and a modified version of L. H. Nakatani's (Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1972, 9, 104–127) confusion-choice model. Both the least strict SCM and confusion-choice models produced nearly equivalent within stimulus set predictions that were superior to the overlap and all-or-none within-set predictions. Measurement conditions related to model structure and equivalence relations among the models, many of them new, were examined and compared with the statistical fit results of the investigation.