“Blocks test” of multiple response

A simple test of multiple serial response is proposed which makes use of materials that are inexpensive and easily prepared, and that do not get out of order. The test employs twenty-four colored blocks placed in two rows on a table. The total equipment needed consists of the blocks and a watch.     

Psychotherapie und Internet

Zusammenfassung  Die Außendarstellung im Internet ist wichtig und in der Zukunft unverzichtbar. Jedoch hat die Liberalisierung des Werberechts der freien Berufe keineswegs zur absoluten Schrankenlosigkeit geführt. Vielmehr sind die zu beachtenden Regeln auf verschiedene Gesetze und Rechtsgebiete verstreut, so dass ohne fachkundige Hilfe—etwa durch die Kammern oder durch juristische Beratung—die Selbstdarstellung im Internet schnell zu einem bösen Erwachen führen kann.

Victimization and PTSD in a Faroese youth total-population sample

Petersen, T., Elklit, A. & Olesen, J. G. (2010). Victimization and PTSD in a Faroese youth total-population sample. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 56–62.
The prevalence of twenty traumatic events and negative life events in relation to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was studied in a Faroese total-population sample of 687 eighth-grade students with a mean age of 14.2 years. Ninety-four percent of the females and 89% of the males were directly exposed to or had witnessed at least one traumatic event or a negative life event. The odds ratios for PTSD after direct and indirect exposure to specific events are described. The lifetime prevalence of PTSD was 20%, whereas another 14% reached a subclinical level of PTSD. After exposure, females had PTSD more than twice as often as males. Being exposed to multiple traumatic events, living with a single parent, and having experienced a traumatic event or a negative life event within the last year were all associated with PTSD and its subscales.     

A comparison of the thurstone method of multiple factors with the hotelling method of principal components

The factors found by the Hotelling method of principal components present the same necessity for rotation as those found by the Thurstone method of multiple factors.The Thurstone method of multiple factors is here found superior to the Hotelling method of principal components, and is suggested as the method of choice for all problems requiring the determination of elemental components from a group of related variables, since it was found on every point of comparison that, when applied to a correlation matrix of unknown communalities, the Thurstone method was more accurate than the Hotelling method, and also required much less time.     

Ill-structured measurement designs in organizational research: implications for estimating interrater reliability

Organizational research and practice involving ratings are rife with what the authors term ill-structured measurement designs (ISMDs)--designs in which raters and ratees are neither fully crossed nor nested. This article explores the implications of ISMDs for estimating interrater reliability. The authors first provide a mock example that illustrates potential problems that ISMDs create for common reliability estimators (e.g., Pearson correlations, intraclass correlations). Next, the authors propose an alternative reliability estimator--G(q,k)--that resolves problems with traditional estimators and is equally appropriate for crossed, nested, and ill-structured designs. By using Monte Carlo simulation, the authors evaluate the accuracy of traditional reliability estimators compared with that of G(q,k) for ratings arising from ISMDs. Regardless of condition, G(q,k) yielded estimates as precise or more precise than those of traditional estimators. The advantage of G(q,k) over the traditional estimators became more pronounced with increases in the (a) overlap between the sets of raters that rated each ratee and (b) ratio of rater main effect variance to true score variance. Discussion focuses on implications of this work for organizational research and practice.     

A little learning is a dangerous thing: an experimental demonstration of ignorance-driven inference

Studies of ignorance-driven decision making have been employed to analyse when ignorance should prove advantageous on theoretical grounds or else they have been employed to examine whether human behaviour is consistent with an ignorance-driven inference strategy (e.g., the recognition heuristic). In the current study we examine whether - under conditions where such inferences might be expected - the advantages that theoretical analyses predict are evident in human performance data. A single experiment shows that, when asked to make relative wealth judgements, participants reliably use recognition as a basis for their judgements. Their wealth judgements under these conditions are reliably more accurate when some of the target names are unknown than when participants recognize all of the names (a "less-is-more effect"). These results are consistent across a number of variations: the number of options given to participants and the nature of the wealth judgement. A basic model of recognition-based inference predicts these effects.     

Counterfactual thinking about controllable events

When people think about what might have been, they mentally undo controllable rather than uncontrollable events. We report the results of two experiments in which we examined this controllability effect in counterfactual thinking. The experiments show that the mutability of controllable events is influenced by the perceived appropriateness or inappropriateness of the events. The first experiment shows that people change inappropriate controllable actions more than appropriate controllable ones. The second experiment shows that people mutate inappropriate controllable events whether the outcome is exceptional or normal with respect to intrapersonal habitual norms, and whether the outcome is positive or negative. We discuss the implications for alternative theories of counterfactual thinking.     

Training conditional and cumulative risk judgements: the role of frequencies,problem‐structure and einstellung

Two experiments implement and evaluate a training scheme for learning to apply frequency formats to probability judgements couched in terms of percentages. Results indicate that both conditional and cumulative probability judgements can be improved in this manner, however the scheme is insufficient to promote any deeper understanding of the problem structure. In both experiments, training on one problem type only (either conditional or cumulative risk judgements) resulted in an inappropriate transfer of a learned method at test. The obstacles facing a frequency‐based training programme for teaching appropriate use of probability data are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.