The detection of differential item functioning (DIF) is important in psychological and behavioral sciences. Standard DIF detection methods perform an item-by-item test iteratively, often assuming that all items except the one under investigation are DIF-free. This article proposes a Bayesian adaptive Lasso method to detect DIF in graded response…

Replies to comments by Maddi (see record 2006-05893-007) on "A Tale of Two Visions: Can a New View of Personality Help Integrate Psychology?" (see record 2005-05480-001). In the original article, the current author proposed a new fieldwide framework for the discipline of personality psychology; in essence, it is a new outline to organize…

"Five roles are considered by which systematic, quantified field research can augment controlled laboratory experimentation in terms of increasing the validity of laboratory studies." Advocates that comparative psychologists should "take more initiative in designing, executing, and interpreting our experiments with regard to the natural history of…

The results of four experiments comparing the behavior of children from two settings are reported in this article. (Authors)

In an effort to learn more about the cumulative nature of psychological gerontology, an analysis was undertaken of professionally published articles dealing with psychological and related processes and listed in Shock's Current Publications in Gerontology and Geriatrics. Findings indicated a remarkable amount of noncomparable data. (Author)

Comments on a preceding discussion of control in Japanese and American cultures by Weisz et al. Discusses forms and modes of control, the context-boundedness of interpersonal relations, and concept of self in Japan. (KH)

The effects of two social contexts on the risk -taking behavior of elementary boys on a shuffleboard task were investigated. It was predicted that Atkinson's motive-probability-incentive (M-P-I) model would be supported in the peer-competitive context, in that the success-oriented subjects would choose more goals with median Ps values than the…

By means of more than a dozen user friendly packages, structural equation models (SEMs) are widely used in behavioral, education, social, and psychological research. As the underlying theory and methods in these packages are vulnerable to outliers and distributions with longer-than-normal tails, a fundamental problem in the field is the…

Israeli Kibbutz and city children, age 8-11, were compared in three experiments in which cooperative-competitive behavior was assessed. City children from the United States were also included in Experiment 3. In Experiments 1 and 2, groups of four children played a cooperation board game in which children represented only themselves in one…

The relationship between external reinforcement of behavior and depression is explored. Specifically, the psychological study measures the role of cognition in depression by comparing decision-making problems, lack of assertiveness, and perceptions of control in male and female undergraduate college students and psychiatric patients. It was…