Men who batter, because of particular personality traits and sense of entitlement, may select partners whom they perceive will be dependent on them, meet their emotional needs, or be "objects" of physical attractiveness. During treatment intake, 181 offenders responded to the question, "What attracted you to her (your…

Second language acquisition studies can contribute to the body of research on the influence of language on thought by examining cognitive change as a result of second language learning. We conducted a longitudinal study that examined how the acquisition of Spanish grammatical gender influences categorization in native English-speaking adults. We…

Homicides of dependent elderly and nonelderly adults by their caregivers violate trust and have long-term consequences for families. A better understanding of the characteristics of homicide by caregivers may provide insights that can inform prevention efforts. Data collected in the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) between 2003 and…

This study explored the attitudes of 147 undergraduate social work majors to working with difficult families. Students indicated which problems (from a list of 42, including hot topics such as homosexuality, transgender issues, abortion, and substance abuse) they believed they would find most difficult to work with and provided information…

Many examination agencies, policy makers, media houses, and the public at large make high-stakes decisions based on test scores. Unfortunately, in some cases educational tests are not statistically equated to account for test differences over time, which leads to inappropriate interpretations of students' performance. In this study we illustrate…

The present study examined whether a sample of 214 (52.8% male, M age = 15.76, SD = 1.29) institutionalized adolescents could be classified into subgroups based on psychopathic traits. Confirmatory Factor Analyses revealed a relationship between the subscales of the Youth Psychopathic traits Inventory (YPI) and the three latent constructs of the…

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic and impairing clinical disorder in childhood, often characterized by a heterogeneous symptomatic profile and high co-occurrence with other disorders. The present study introduces a new perspective on the description of OCD symptoms in youth, and empirically examines the value of a personality…

The ability to categorize problems based upon underlying principles, rather than surface features or contexts, is considered one of several proxy predictors of expertise in problem solving. With inspiration from the classic study by Chi, Feltovich, and Glaser, we assess the distribution of expertise among introductory physics students by asking…

School superintendents annually need to gain affirmative votes from their governing bodies to approve their district budgets. This paper proposes a framework through which the superintendent can express the district's educational needs and concomitant resource allocations in conceptual terms rather than in multi-columned ledgers. The framework…

The contribution of HBCUs as "colleges of origin," i.e., where Black doctorates earned their bachelors' degrees, remains of interest, given the historical role of HBCUs and the current desire to increase the percentage of doctorates awarded to African Americans in all fields. Using national survey data from multiple sources, we estimated…

Vocabulary development is a critical goal for early childhood education. However, it is difficult for researchers and teachers to determine whether this goal is being met, given the limitations of current assessment tools. These tools tend to view word knowledge dichotomously--as right or wrong. A clear sense of children's depth of semantic…

The one-parameter logistic model with ability-based guessing (1PL-AG) has been recently developed to account for effect of ability on guessing behavior in multiple-choice items. In this study, the authors developed algorithms for computerized classification testing under the 1PL-AG and conducted a series of simulations to evaluate their…

A contrast category effect on categorization occurs when the decision to apply a category term to an entity not only involves a comparison between the entity and the target category but is also influenced by a comparison of the entity with 1 or more alternative categories from the same domain as the target. Establishing a contrast category effect…

This article details a multi-modal active learning experience to help students understand elements of social categorization. Each student in a group dynamics course observed two groups in conflict and identified examples of in-group bias, double-standard thinking, out-group homogeneity bias, law of small numbers, group attribution error, ultimate…

Forecasting of ethnolinguistic vitality can only be done within a well-functioning descriptive and explanatory model of the dynamics of language stability and shift. It is proposed that the Perceived Benefit Model of Language Shift, used with a taxonomy of language shift motivations, provides that model. The model, based on individual language…