Showing papers by "Stephen G. West published in 1999"

The problem of units and the circumstance for POMP

Abstract: Many areas of the behavioral sciences have few measures that are accepted as the standard for the operationalization of a construct. One consequence is that there is hardly ever an articulated and understood framework for the units of the measures that are employed. Without meaningful measurement units, theoretical formulations are limited to statements of the direction of an effect or association, or to effects expressed in standardized units. Thus the long term scientific goal of generation of laws expressing the relationships among variables in scale units is greatly hindered. This article reviews alternative methods of scoring a scale. Two recent journal volumes are surveyed with regard to current scoring practices. Alternative methods of scoring are evaluated against seven articulated criteria representing the information conveyed by each in an illustrative example. Converting scores to the percent of maximum possible score (POMP) is shown to provide useful additional information in many cases.

Emotionality and self-regulation, threat appraisal, and coping in children of divorce

Abstract: A model of the effects of children’s temperament (negative and positive emotionality, impulsivity and attention focusing) on post-divorce threat appraisals, coping (active and avoidant), and psychological symptoms (depression and conduct problems) was investigated. The study utilized a sample of 223 mothers and children (ages 9 to 12 years) who had experienced divorce within the last two years. Evidence was found of direct effects of child-report negative emotionality on children’s threat perceptions and of child-report positive emotionality and impulsivity on children’s coping. Indirect effects of negative emotionality on active and avoidant coping through threat appraisal were found. Direct effects of the temperament variables on symptoms were also found. Cross group analyses indicated that the models were robust to age differences, but gender differences were found in the relation between negative emotionality and depression. The results of this study indicate that temperament and threat appraisals are important predictors of children’s post-divorce symptoms, and that temperament is a predictor of children’s appraisal and coping process.

Cognitive moderators of children's adjustment to stressful divorce events: the role of negative cognitive errors and positive illusions

Abstract: This study examined whether children's cognitive appraisal biases moderate the impact of stressful divorce-related events on psychological adjustment in 355 children ages 9 to 12, whose families had experienced divorce within the past 2 years. Multiple regression indicated that endorsement of negative cognitive errors for hypothetical divorce events moderates the relations between stressful divorce events and self- and maternal reports of internalizing and externalizing symptoms, but only for older children. Positive illusions buffer the effects of stressful divorce events on child-reported depression and mother-reported externalizing problems. Implications of these results for theories of stress and coping, as well as for interventions for children of divorced families, are discussed.

Methodological issues in evaluating Rorschach validity: a comment on Burns and Viglione (1996), Weiner (1996), and Ganellen (1996)

Abstract: The old controversy regarding the Rorschach Inkblot Test has recently revived. The present article suggests that the debate will be most productive if careful attention is paid to methodological is...

The Impact of Males Proposing Condom Use on Perceptions of an Initial Sexual Encounter

Abstract: about condoms, and self-efficacy for condom use (Bryan, Aiken, & West, 1997; Wulfert & Biglan, 1994). In this study, we sought to explore the interpersonal considerations of the sexual encounter into which condom use is being introduced. We asked three main research questions: (a) How is an individual who proposes condom use viewed? What kind of attributions are made about his character? (b) Does the manner in which the condom is introduced into the encounter moderate the effects on either the perception of the proposer or the outcome of the encounter? (c) Regardless of method of introduction, what is the impact of the condom proposition itself? We examined these questions in an experimental analog study in which participants viewed a videotaped progression of events between a couple, ending with an opportunity for a sexual encounter. At the end of the tape, the male in the couple either verbally proposed condom use, nonverbally proposed condom use, or did not propose condom use at all. Participants were then asked how they thought the female in the video viewed her partner on a number of dimensions. They were also asked what they felt was the most likely outcome of the encounter.