Showing papers in "American Psychologist in 1979"

Metacognition and Cognitive Monitoring: A New Area of Cognitive-Developmental Inquiry.

Abstract: Preschool and elementary school children were asked to study a set of items until they were sure they could recall them perfectly (Flavell, Friedrichs, & Hoyt, 1970). The older subjects studied for a while, said they were ready, and usually were, that is, they showed perfect recall. The younger children studied for a while, said they were ready, and usually were not. In another study, elementary school children were asked to help the experimenter evaluate the communicative adequacy of verbal instructions, indicating any omissions and obscurities (Markman, 1977). Although the instructions were riddled with blatant omissions and obscurities, the younger subjects were surprisingly poor at detecting them. They incorrectly thought they had understood and could follow the instructions, much as their counterparts in the study by Flavell et al. (1970) incorrectly thought they had memorized and could recall the items. Results such as these have suggested that young children are quite limited in their knowledge and cognition about cognitive phenomena, or in their metacognition, and do relatively little monitoring of their own memory, comprehension, and other cognitive enterprises (see, e.g., Brown, 1978; Flavell, 1978; Flavell & Wellman, 1977; Kreutzer, Leonard, & Flavell, 1975; Flavell, Note 1, Note 2, Note 3; Markman, Note 4). Investigators have recently concluded that metacognition plays an important role in oral communication of information, oral persuasion, oral comprehension, reading comprehension, writing, language acquisition, attention, memory, problem solving, social cognition, and, various types of self-control and self-instruction; there are also clear indications that ideas about metacognition are beginning to make contact with similar ideas in the areas of social learning theory, cognitive behavior modification, personalty development, and education (Flavell, Note 1, Note 2, Note 3). Thus, the nature and de-

The robust beauty of improper linear models in decision making.

Abstract: Proper linear models are those in which predictor variables are given weights in such a way that the resulting linear composite optimally predicts some criterion of interest; examples of proper linear models are standard regression analysis, discriminant function analysis, and ridge regression analysis. Research summarized in Paul Meehl's book on clinical versus statistical prediction—and a plethora of research stimulated in part by that book—all indicates that when a numerical criterion variable (e.g., graduate grade point average) is to be predicted from numerical predictor variables, proper linear models outperform clinical intuition. Improper linear models are those in which the weights of the predictor variables are obtained by some nonoptimal method; for example, they may be obtained on the basis of intuition, derived from simulating a clinical judge's predictions, or set to be equal. This article presents evidence that even such improper linear models are superior to clinical intuition when predicting a numerical criterion from numerical predictors. In fact, unit (i.e., equal) weighting is quite robust for making such predictions. The article discusses, in some detail, the application of unit weights to decide what bullet the Denver Police Department should use. Finally, the article considers commonly raised technical, psychological, and ethical resistances to using linear models to make important social decisions and presents arguments that could weaken these resistances. Paul MeehPs (1954) book Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence appeared 25 years ago. It reviewed studies indicating that the prediction of numerical criterion variables of psychological interest (e.g., faculty ratings of graduate students who had just obtained a PhD) from numerical predictor variables (e.g., scores on the Graduate Record Examination, grade point averages, ratings of letters of recommendation) is better done by a proper linear model than by the clinical intuition of people presumably skilled in such prediction. The point of this article is to review evidence that even improper linear models may be superior to clinical predictions. Vol. 34, No. 7,571-582 A proper linear model is one in which the weights given to the predictor variables are chosen in such a way as to optimize the relationship between the prediction and the criterion. Simple regression analysis is the most common example of a proper linear model; the predictor variables are weighted in such a way as to maximize the correlation between the subsequent weighted composite and the actual criterion. Discriminant function analysis is another example of a proper linear model; weights are given to the predictor variables in such a way that the resulting linear composites maximize the discrepancy between two or more groups. Ridge regression analysis, another example (Darlington, 1978; Marquardt & Snee, 1975), attempts to assign weights in such a way that the linear composites correlate maximally with the criterion of interest in a new set of data. Thus, there are many types of proper linear models and they have been used in a variety of contexts. One example (Dawes, 1971) was presented in this Journal; it involved the prediction of faculty ratings of graduate students. All graduWork on this article was started at the University of Oregon and Decision Research, Inc., Eugene, Oregon; it was completed while I was a James McKeen Cattell Sabbatical Fellow at the Psychology Department at the University of Michigan and at the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research there, I thank all these institutions for their assistance, and I especially thank my friends at them who helped. This article is based in part on invited talks given at the American Psychological Association (August 1977), the University of Washington (February 1978), the Aachen Technological Institute (June 1978), the University of Groeningen (June 1978), the University of Amsterdam (June 1978), the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan (September 1978), Miami University, Oxford, Ohio (November 1978), and the University of Chicago School of Business (January 1979). I received valuable feedback from most of the audiences. Requests for reprints should be sent to Robyn M. Dawes, Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403. AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST • JULY 1979 • 571 Copyright 1979 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0003-066X/79/3407-0571$00.75 ate students at the University of Oregon's Psychology Department who had been admitted between the fall of 1964 and the fall of 1967—and who had not dropped out of the program for nonacademic reasons (e.g., psychosis or marriage)— were rated by the faculty in the spring of 1969; faculty members rated only students whom they felt comfortable rating. The following rating scale was used: S, outstanding; 4, above average; 3, average; 2, below average; 1, dropped out of the program in academic difficulty. Such overall ratings constitute a psychologically interesting criterion because the subjective impressions of faculty members are the main determinants of the job (if any) a student obtains after leaving graduate school. A total of 111 students were in the sample; the number of faculty members rating each of these students ranged from 1 to 20, with the mean number being 5.67 and the median being 5. The ratings were reliable. (To determine the reliability, the ratings were subjected to a oneway analysis of variance in which each student being rated was regarded as a treatment. The resulting between-treatments variance ratio (»j) was .67, and it was significant beyond the .001 level.) These faculty ratings were predicted from a proper linear model based on the student's Graduate Record Examination (GRE) score, the student's undergraduate grade point average (GPA), and a measure of the selectivity of the student's undergraduate institution. The cross-validated multiple correlation between the faculty ratings and predictor variables was .38. Congruent with Meehl's results, the correlation of these latter faculty ratings with the average rating of the people on the admissions committee who selected the students was .19; 2 that is, it accounted for one fourth as much variance. This example is typical of those found in psychological research in this area in that (a) the correlation with the model's predictions is higher than the correlation with clinical prediction, but (b) both correlations are low. These characteristics often lead psychologists to interpret the findings as meaning that while the low correlation of the model indicates that linear modeling is deficient as a method, the even lower correlation of the judges indicates only that the wrong judges were used. An improper linear model is one in which the weights are chosen by some nonoptimal method. They may be chosen to be equal, they may be chosen on the basis of the intuition of the person making the prediction, or they may be chosen at random. Nevertheless, improper models may have great utility. When, for example, the standardized GREs, GPAs, and selectivity indices in the previous example were weighted equally, the resulting linear composite correlated .48 with later faculty rating. Not only is the correlation of this linear composite higher than that with the clinical judgment of the admissions committee (.19), it is also higher than that obtained upon cross-validating the weights obtained from half the sample. An example of an improper model that might be of somewhat more interest—at least to the general public—was motivated by a physician who was on a panel with me concerning predictive systems. Afterward, at the bar with his' wife and me, he said that my paper might be of some interest to my colleagues, but success in graduate school in psychology was not of much general interest: "Could you, for example, use one of your improper linear models to predict how well my wife and I get along together?" he asked. I realized that I could—or might. At that time, the Psychology Department at the University of Oregon was engaged in sex research, most of which was behavioristically oriented. So the subjects of this research monitored when they made love, when they had fights, when they had social engagements (e.g., with in-laws), and so on. These subjects also made subjective ratings about how happy they were in their marital or coupled situation. I immediately thought of an improper linear model to predict self-ratings of marital happiness: rate of lovemaking minus rate of fighting. My colleague John Howard had collected just such data on couples when he was an undergraduate at the University of Missouri—Kansas City, where he worked with Alexander (1971). After establishing the intercouple reliability of judgments of lovemaking and fighting, Alexander had one partner from each of 42 couples monitor these events. She allowed us to analyze her data, with the following results: "In the thirty happily married ^This index was based on Cass and Birnbaum's (1968) rating of selectivity given at the end of their book Comparative Guide to American Colleges. The verbal categories of selectivity were given numerical values according to the following rale: most selective, 6; highly selective, 5; very selective (+), 4; very selective, 3; selective, 2 ; not mentioned, 1. Unfortunately, only 23 of the 111 students could be used in this comparison because the rating scale the admissions committee used changed slightly from year to year. 572 • JULY 1979 • AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST

Infant–mother attachment.

Abstract: Bowlby's (1969) ethological-evolutionary attachment theory implies that it is an essential part of the ground plan of the human species—as well as that of many other species—for an infant to become attached to a mother figure. This figure need not be the natural mother but can be anyone who plays the role of principal caregiver. This ground plan is fulfilled, except under extraordinary circumstances when the baby experiences too little interaction with any one caregiver to support the formation of an attachment. The literature on maternal deprivation describes some of these circumstances, but it cannot be reviewed here, except to note that research has not yet specified an acceptable minimum amount of interaction required for attachment formation. However, there have been substantial recent advances in the areas of individual differences in the way attachment behavior becomes organized, differential experiences associated with the various attachment patterns, and the value of such patterns in forecasting subsequent development. These advances have been much aided by a standardized laboratory situation that was devised to supplement a naturalistic, longitudinal investigation of the development of infant-mother attachment in the first year of life. This strange situation, as we entitled it, has proved to be an excellent basis for the assessment of such attachment in 1-year-olds (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). The assessment procedure consists of classification according to the pattern of behavior shown in the strange situation, particularly in the episodes of reunion after separation. Eight patterns were identified, but I shall deal here only with the three main groups into which they fell—Groups A, B, and C. To summarize, Group B babies use their mothers as a secure base from which to explore in the preseparation episodes; their attachment behavior is greatly intensified by the separation episodes so that exploration diminishes and distress is likely; and in the reunion episodes they seek contact with, proximity to, or at least interaction

The Nature of Mental Abilities.

Abstract: : A theory of the nature of mental abilities is presented. In this theory, mental abilities are hierarchically organized into four progressively deeper levels--the levels of composite tasks, subtasks, information-processing components, and information-processing metacomponents. Composite tasks can be decomposed into subtasks, subtasks into components. Metacomponents control the use of components in composite tasks and subtasks. Each of the four levels of mental abilities is described and interrelated to the others. The fundamental theoretical questions relevant at each level are posed, and answers to these questions are proposed. The role of factors in the theory is described, and is shown to be quite different from the role of factors in traditional theories of mental abilities. Full understanding of mental abilities requires understanding of all four levels. (Author)

The American Child and Other Cultural Inventions.

Abstract: The theme of the child as a cultural invention can be recognized in several intellectual and social occasions. Aries' (1962) commentary on the discovery and transformation of childhood has become common knowledge; there is an agitated sense that American children' are being redefined by the present times (Lasch, 1978); there is a renewed appreciation of the complexity of all our children (Keniston, 1977); and ethnographic and journalistic reports tell us of the marvelous departures from our own ways of seeing children that exist in other lands (Kessen, 197S). In simple fact, we have recently seen a shower of books on childish variety across cultures and across the hierarchies of class and race. We could have just as readily discovered commanding evidence of the shifting nature of childhood by a close look at our own history. Consider just three messages drawn haphazardly from the American past. To the parents of the late 18th century:

Research settings in industrial and organizational psychology: Are findings in the field more generalizable than in the laboratory?

Abstract: The authors analyzed for content all the empirical articles from the 1966, 1970, and 1974 volumes of the Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, and Personnel Psychology to determine the types of organizations, subjects, and dependent measures studied Contrary to the common belief that field settings provide for more generalisation of research findings than laboratory settings do, field research appeared as narrow as laboratory research in the actors, settings, and behaviors sampled Indeed, industrial-organisational psychology seems to be developing in the laboratory a psychology of the college student, and in the field, a psychology of the self-report of male, professional, technical, and managerial employees in productiveeconomic organizations The authors suggest that coordinated strategies of research in both laboratory and field settings are needed to construct an externally valid industrial and organizational psychology Should industrial and organizational psychologists conduct their research in laboratory settings? For many industrial and organizational psychologists, the answer to this question would be an emphatic no, but others would defend the laboratory as a legitimate setting for research (Fromkin & Streufert, 1976; Weick, 196S) The relative merits of laboratory and field settings have been debated within many areas of psychology, including comparative psychology (Miller, 1977), environmental psychology (Proshansky, 1976), social psychology (Ellsworth, 1977; McGuire, 1967; Ring, 1967), race relations (Fromkin & Ostrom, 1974), and perception (Gibson, 1966) Two common criticisms of laboratory research are that laboratory settings are susceptible to experimental artifacts (Rosenthai & Rosnow, 1969; Silverman, 1977) and serious ethical problems (Kelman, 1967) Although these two criticisms have been debated in numerous articles and have not been resolved entirely, Fromkin and Streufert have argued persuasively that artifacts and ethical problems also exist in field settings and are not unique to the laboratory A third criticism of laboratory research is that the artificiality of the laboratory imposes severe restraints on the external validity of findings Even those critics who concede that laboratory settings provide for more elimination of alternative interpretations of results than the typical field settings do are often doubtful that one can generalize findings from the laboratory to predict, understand, or control real-world phenomena A perusal of the recent Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (Dunnette, 1976) reveals the differences of opinion that exist among industrial and organizational psychologists with regard to the generalizability of laboratory research Ohapanis (1976) observed that "most laboratory experiments in psychology have only very limited relevance for the solution of practical Vol 34, No 2, 141-150 Portions of this article were presented at the meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, May 1977 The authors' names are listed in alphabetical order, reflecting equal contributions by both to the design, implementation, analysis, and writing of this study The authors thank John Dzamba, Claude Mattox, Brian Robinson, and William Wratten for their assistance with the data analysis Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert L Dipboye, Rice University, Department of Psychology, Houston, Texas 77001 AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST • FEBRUARY 1979 • 141 Copyright 1979 by the American Psychological Association, Inc 0003-066X/79/3402-0141$0075 problems Unsuspected interactions in real life may nullify or even reverse conclusions reached in the laboratory" (p 730) Similarly, Bouchard (1976) observed that "laboratory experiments seldom deal adequately with boundary conditions or context factors and therefore, lend themselves to unjustified and often erroneous extrapolations" (p 364) In contrast with these arguments, Fromkin and Streufert (1976) argued that "the artificiality of laboratories is being unjustly elevated to the status of a fatal flaw" (p 433) Furthermore, they asserted that instead of reinforcing the myth that laboratory settings seldom yield data which are relevant to real world problems, it is proposed that laboratory settings merely impose identifiable limitations upon the range of criterion situations to which a particular set of laboratory findings may be practically applied, (p 442) Despite the firm convictions held by proponents and critics, many of the arguments for and against the external validity of laboratory research are based on stereotypes rather than data One such stereotype has been that a field setting, because it is natural to the subject and not contrived, automatically provides for more generalization of results than an artificial laboratory setting does However, the problem of external validity is one of making inferences not only from settings but from actors and the behaviors of these actors (Runkel & McGrath, 1972) Critics of laboratory research often place inordinate weight on the setting, in discussions of external validity, to the neglect of actors and their behavior For instance, some have assumed that because the setting in field research is typically an actual organization, data collected in such a setting must be more generalizable to other organizations than are data collected in the laboratory However, there are differences among organizational settings that are as large as the differences that exist between an organizational setting and a laboratory Rather than assuming that field research in the abstract is more generalizable, there is a need to determine the types of organizations with which field researchers have been concerned The belief that laboratory research in industrial and organizational psychology is less externally valid than field research also results from the tendency to infer from the setting characteristics of the actors and their behaviors Such inferences are often without empirical support For example, the assumption has been made that field research involves subjects who are more representative of the working population than the college students typically used in the laboratory But is this assumption correct? Instead of rejecting laboratory research on the basis of an untested stereotype, we need to examine more carefully who the participants are in laboratory and field research Another assumption has been that research in field settings has as the focus of investigation natural behavior, defined by Tunnell (1977) as behavior that is not established or maintained for the sole or primary purpose of conducting research; the behavior is part of the person's existing response repertoire Whether the procedure used to record the behavior is human or mechanical (eg, videotapes, audiotapes, explicit behavioral checklists) the essential naturalness of the observation is maintained Self-reports should not be considered natural behaviors unless they are made by the person in real life (pp 426-427) The critics of laboratory research often seem to assume that the dependent variables examined in the field are more natural and thus more externally valid than the dependent variables examined in the laboratory But what are the dependent variables used in laboratory and field research? Again, arguments for and against the external validity of laboratory research have been based on assumptions rather than data The issue of the relative external validity of laboratory and field settings is an important one not only to industrial and organizational psychologists but to all psychologists conducting laboratory and field research or utilizing the findings of such research A more objective analysis of the issue of external validity is needed than has appeared in previous literature In this article, our intent was to test empirically some of the assumptions underlying the belief that findings from field research are more generalizable to other settings, behaviors, and actors than are the findings of laboratory research Of course, one cannot conclude that any one study or set of studies possesses complete external validity (Campbell & Stanley, 1963, p 17), but one can discuss the relative limits that seem to exist for generalizing findings from research using different strategies The intent of this article is to assess empirically the limits that seem to exist for recent laboratory and field research in industrial and organizational psychology In order to achieve this objective, articles in three major journals were analyzed for content to determine the types of organizations, persons, and behaviors studied 142 • FEBRUARY 1979 • AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST

Whatever happened to little Albert

Abstract: John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner's 1920 conditioning of the infant Albert B. is a well- known piece of social science folklore. Using pub- lished sources, this article reviews the study's actual procedures and its relationship to Watson's career and work. The article also presents a history of psycholo- gists' accounts of the Albert study, focusing on the study's distortion by Watson himself, general textbook authors, behavior therapists, and most recently, a prominent learning theorist. The author proposes pos- sible causes for these distortions and analyzes the Albert study as an example of myth making in the history of psychology.