The ability of individuals with psychoactive substance use disorders to dissimulate successfully on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) was evaluated with 236 adults from treatment, nonclinical, control, and forensically referred groups. Findings indicate that the PAI scales measuring drug and alcohol problems are susceptible to…

Subjects Sack's (1992) conjecture about there being "omni-relevant devices" in specific kinds of conversation to empirical analysis. Examines a data fragment taken from a corpus of materials in which "resettled" mental patients are undergoing "quality of life assessments." (Author/VWL)

Examines the concurrent validity of the Slosson Full-Range Intelligence Test (S-FRIT) by comparing S-FRIT scores to the scores of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) and the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement-Revised (WJ-R). Results revealed that the S-FRIT scores were more related to overall intelligence,…

Anxiety is one of the most pervasive symptoms seen in clinical psychological disorders. The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) is a popular measure to assess the construct of anxiety. This study was concerned with an examination of potential study factors that are associated with the variability of the reliability estimates of the BAI scores. A review…

A central theme in recent research on attitudes is the distinction between deliberate, "explicit" attitudes and automatic, "implicit" attitudes. The present article provides an integrative review of the available evidence on implicit and explicit attitude change that is guided by a distinction between associative and propositional processes.…

Several norms for how people should assess a question's usefulness have been proposed, notably Bayesian diagnosticity, information gain (mutual information), Kullback-Liebler distance, probability gain (error minimization), and impact (absolute change). Several probabilistic models of previous experiments on categorization, covariation assessment,…

It is hypothesized that there is a pervasive and fundamental bias in humans' understanding of physical causation: Once the roles of cause and effect are assigned to objects in interactions, people tend to overestimate the strength and importance of the causal object and underestimate that of the effect object in bringing about the outcome. This…

Data from a community-based longitudinal study were used to investigate the associations of parental psychiatric disorders evident by early adulthood with child-rearing behavior during middle adulthood. A series of psychiatric assessments was conducted during the adolescence (mean ages 14 and 16) and early adulthood (mean age 22) of 153 males and…

This article addresses a 2006 article by Hojnoski, Morrison, Brown, and Matthews on the use of performance-based measurement among school-based practitioners. Their results suggest that many of their survey respondents favor the use of this form of measurement. This line of research is important and addresses an important issue in current clinical…

This paper discusses Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) data obtained from individuals exposed to chlorine dioxide in the workplace who developed Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome. The paper explores current research on chlorine dioxide exposed persons who were misdiagnosed on the basis of MMPI interpretations. Difficulties…

In the use of projective tests, there is a certain role of responsibility that should be maintained in the administration of these tests and their interpretations. Thoughts regarding these factors are expressed in this article. (DEP)

If a therapist conceptualizes human behavior systemically, he may process information and devise therapeutic strategies from many different vantage points, ranging from the intrapsychic to the macrosystemic. Although psychodiagnostic examination of the individual has a long history in the field of psychology, and psychodiagnostics can greatly…

Psychobiography, the analysis of public persons by competent clinicians, is discussed as a possible assessment technique. Its position in relation to traditional personality assessment is considered as well as major previous efforts. Psychobiography is a part of the curriculum at several leading universities and suggestions are made for future…