Psychology Commons^™

Bookendings: Beginnings And Endings For Women In Violent Relationships, F. Christopher, Tiffani Kisler, Johnson

Tiffani S. Kisler

No abstract provided.

Developing Early Semantic Networks And The Associative Structure Of Child Directed Speech, Thomas Hills, Josita Maouene, Brian Riordan, Linda Smith

Josita C Maouene

No abstract provided.

Limitations Of Functional Analysis: The Case For Including Valued Outcomes Analysis In The Investigation Of Difficult Behaviour, Vicki Bitsika

Vicki Bitsika

Effective behaviour change is based on understanding the reasons for difficult behaviour. However, current functional analytic technology is often limited in its effectiveness in the clinical setting because the focus is on labelling and classifying behavioural outcomes rather than conducting a detailed analysis of the manner in which these outcomes assist the client to operate in the environment. The effectiveness of existing functional analytic techniques might be enhanced by moving the focus of the investigation from identifying the consequent variables that impact on behaviour to systematically exploring client–environment interactions as well as the manner in which the client experiences the …

Stress, Anxiety And Depression Among Parents Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Vicki Bitsika, Christopher Sharpley

Vicki Bitsika

In a replication of a previous study of the incidence and contributing factors in anxiety, depression and stress in Victorian parents of a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a sample of 107 Gold Coast parents completed a questionnaire that assessed their demographic backgrounds, anxiety and depression scores on standardised inventories, and also tapped several aspects of those factors that may have contributed to their wellbeing. Over 90% of parents reported that they were sometimes unable to deal effectively with their child's behaviour. Nearly half of the participants were severely anxious and nearly two thirds were clinically depressed. Factors that …

Treating The Client Rather Than The Symptoms: Moving Beyond Manualised Treatments In Psychotherapy, Vicki Bitsika, Christopher Sharpley

Vicki Bitsika

There have been some challenges to the reliance upon data from randomised controlled clinical trials when identifying ‘evidence-based’ psychotherapy treatments. Similarly, data show that use of treatment manuals does not result in uniform and beneficial outcomes, that some evidence-based treatments are little better than non-specific counselling and that the search for those therapies or components that are effective has been largely fruitless. In an attempt to extend the debate about evidence-based treatments and drawing upon those aspects of cognitive and behavioural therapies that have been shown to be effective in most settings, this article describes valued outcomes analysis and therapy …

"But I'M Not Really Bad": Using An Idiographic Versus A Nomothetic Approach To Understand The Reasons For Difficult Behaviour In Children, Vicki Bitsika

Vicki Bitsika

The number of students who are identified as experiencing behavioural difficulties in the mainstream school setting is growing. However, current efforts by teachers to address these behavioural difficulties are seriously limited because of lack of training in the procedures for assessing and working with difficult behaviour. This paper will argue that the apparent failure of traditional "behaviour modification" in producing positive changes in difficult behaviour lies in its prescriptive application of general strategies to specific student problems. This approach to behaviour change is ineffective because it is not based on an understanding of the reasons for difficult behaviour. The functional …

Assessment And Treatment Of Fire-Setters, Rebekah Doley, Katarina Fritzon

Rebekah Doley

Extract: I am malicious because I am miserable. -Frankenstein, Mary Shelley Within clinical literature there has been an assumption that the above quote typifies a large proportion of individuals who deliberately commit arson. In other words, that psychological disorders of some kind can be found in the majority of such persons (Geller, Fisher, & Moynihan, 1992). For example, early conceptualisations of the condition pyromania meant that any individual who set more than one fire was considered to suffer from an 'irresistible impulse'- merely for the fact that they did not resist the impulse to set a fire. Now, however, a …

Are Honors Students Losing Place In Cyberspace?, Steffen Wilson, Sarah Carty, Bruce Maclaren

Steffen Wilson

No abstract provided.

Concerns About Labiaplasty From A Sexual Health Perspective, Tiffani Kisler

Tiffani S. Kisler

No abstract provided.

Advancing Disciplinary Practice Through Critical Thinking: A Rejoinder To Bensley, Stephen Yanchar, Brent Slife, Russell Warne

Russell T Warne

The authors respond to Bensley’s (2009) comment on their alternative formulation of critical thinking in psychology (Yanchar, Slife, & Warne, 2008). They argue that Bensley’s defense of the traditional critical thinking approach—which they term scientific analytic reasoning (SAR)—fails to address their main objections to SAR and their reasons for presenting an alternative. In particular, the openness, fairness, and generativity that Bensley references as strengths of SAR are themselves informed by scientific analytic assumptions and values, which, they argue, illustrates their original contention—that SAR offers an insular and insufficiently critical approach to critical thinking. The authors conclude by calling for future …

Healthy Living: Perspectives On Women's Sexual Health And Wellness, Tiffani Kisler

Tiffani S. Kisler

No abstract provided.

Examination Of The Mmpi-2 Restructured Form (Mmpi-2-Rf) Validity Scales In Civil Forensic Settings: Findings From Simulation And Known Group Samples, Dustin Wygant, Yossef Ben-Porath, Paul Arbisi, David Berry, David Freeman, Robert Heilbronner

Dustin B. Wygant

The current study examined the effectiveness of the MMPI-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF; Ben-Porath and Tellegen, 2008) over-reporting indicators in civil forensic settings. The MMPI-2-RF includes three revised MMPI-2 over-reporting validity scales and a new scale to detect over-reported somatic complaints. Participants dissimulated medical and neuropsychological complaints in two simulation samples, and a known-groups sample used symptom validity tests as a response bias criterion. Results indicated large effect sizes for the MMPI-2-RF validity scales, including a Cohen's d of .90 for Fs in a head injury simulation sample, 2.31 for FBS-r, 2.01 for F-r, and 1.97 for Fs in a medical …

An Exploratory Analysis Of The Use Of Cognitive,Adaptive And Behavioural Indices For Cluster Analysis Of Asd Subgroups, Vicki Bitsika, Christopher Sharpley, Sharon Orapeleng

Vicki Bitsika

Background Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) includes symptoms that vary in severity and frequency between children. Consequently, multiple psychometric assessment procedures are recommended to detect an ASD, including scales which asses the presence and nature of ASD-related behaviour. However, to date, few studies have examined the relative and specific contribution which such behaviourally oriented scales can make to the diagnosis of individual children with ASD. Method Cluster analysis was used to explore the common characteristics of a group of 53 preschool and elementary school children with an ASD, based upon scores on tests of cognitive ability, adaptive behaviour and behavioural checklists …

Item Formats And Social Desirability In Personality Assessment: A Review Of The Place Of Forced-Choice Items, Richard Hicks

Richard Hicks

Impression management is an issue in recruitment and selection and in other areas in the workplace. Often we teach people how to present themselves to best advantage of self or the company. However, problems related to impression management might well be seen when personality questionnaires are used as part of the process of selection. Falsification or distortion of responses to items in personality questionnaires is part of impression management (or social desirability responding) and test-users often wish to take into account the extent of any such distortion. Attention has been given to item formats in personality questionnaires over many years. …

Low Emotional Intelligence And Maladaptive Perfectionism, Mark Jackson, Richard Hicks

Richard Hicks

Emotional intelligence (EI) and maladaptive perfectionism have direct links to the development of psychopathology, but the exact relations are unclear (Mikolajczak, Luminet, Leroy & Roy, 2007). The current study examined the relationship between EI and perfectionism, especially low EI and high maladaptive perfectionism, and their affect on psychopathology. Fifty one males and 92 females (N= 143) completed the brief Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (Petrides & Furnham, 2006), the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Frost, Marten, Lahart & Rosenblate, 1990), and the short version of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). Subjects were placed in a low or high …

Perfectionism, Occupational Stress And Depression Among Australian University Students, Margaret Christopoulos, Richard Hicks

Richard Hicks

The present study examined the role perfectionism plays in University students by investigating its relationship with occupational stress and depression in the context of an Australian university student population. 116 students were recruited through convenience and snow-balling sampling method. Students completed the General & Biodata Questionnaire, the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Frost et al., 1990), the Occupational Stress Inventory-Revised (Osipow, 1998), and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). As expected maladaptive perfectionism significantly correlated with occupational stress and depression; however, unexpectedly adaptive perfectionism did not correlate significantly with occupational stress and depression. Also, as expected the Ethnic minority …

The Big Five In Predicting Leadership Styles Of University Students, Justine Ebenreuter, Richard Hicks

Richard Hicks

The purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which the Five-Factor model of personality was useful for the assessment of leadership styles of university students. To do this, three specific leadership styles were assessed: Transformational, Transactional and Laissez-faire Leadership. Due to an increase in the understanding of the elements which constitute leadership, researchers have asked, given the contingencies and employment demands leaders typically face, whether different personality attributes are related to these styles (Bass et al., 1994). This query has resulted in a significant amount of research into the fundamental impact of leadership on institutional performance (Guastello, …

The Role Of Resources In Social Exchange, Grace Lemmon

Grace Lemmon

No abstract provided.

Contextual Diversity And The Associative Structure Of Adult Language In Early Word Learning, Thomas Hills, Josita Maouene, Brian Riordan, Linda Smith

Josita C Maouene

No abstract provided.

The Contribution Of Anxiety And Depression To Fatigue Among A Sample Of Australian University Students: Suggestions For University Counsellors, Vicki Bitsika, Christopher Sharpley, Ryan Bell

Vicki Bitsika

Responses to the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS: Zung, W. (1971). A rating instrument for anxiety disorders. Psychosomatics, 12, 371-379), the Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS: Zung, W. (1973). From art to science: The diagnosis and treatment of depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 29, 328-337) and the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) developed by Krupp and colleagues (Krupp, L.B., LaRocca, N.G., Muir-Nash, J., & Steinberg, A.D. (1989). The fatigue severity scale: Application to patients with multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus erythematosus. Archives of Neurology, 46, 1121-1123) were collected from 200 Australian university students to explore the links between these three disorders. Reliability …

Table For Four, Fenelon And Balthasar, Megan Levy

Megan Levy

No abstract provided.

Culture Matters: Forensic Issues For Australian Indigenous Peoples, Robyn Lincoln

Robyn Lincoln

Extract:

There has clearly been an extensive amount of scientific focus on Indigenous peoples in the 200 plus years since colonisation. There were many early scientific expeditions, work done by linguists and anthropologists, followed by the involvement of legal practitioners in land rights claims or those working in the health and mental health fields. More recently too, criminological attention has been paid to the interactions of Indigenous Australians and the processes of the criminal justice system largely because of the disproportionate number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples being dealt with by justice agencies. And, of course, in addition …

Internationalizing A Psychology Curriculum (Poster), A. Gharib, W. Phillips, L Bartolini

LeeAnn Bartolini

Do Smoking Cues Make You Want To Smoke? And Is It Your Parents’ Fault?, S. Thorpe, Richard Hicks

Richard Hicks

No abstract provided.

Correlations Between Body Parts And Types Of Argument Structure, Josita Maouene, Nitya Sethuraman, Mounir Maouene, Linda Smith

Josita C Maouene

No abstract provided.

Empirical Correlates And Interpretation Of The Mmpi-2-Rf Cognitive Complaints (Cog) Scale, Roger Gervais, Yossef Ben-Porath, Dustin Wygant

Dustin B. Wygant

The MMPI-2-RF Cognitive Complaints (COG) scale (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008) was developed to assess self-reported memory and other cognitive difficulties. The present study explores cognitive and self-report correlates of the COG scale and provides recommendations for its interpretation. We examined archival demographic, cognitive test, and self-report symptom data from 1741 consecutive, non-head injury disability claimants seen in a private-practice setting. Insufficient cognitive effort and cognitive symptom exaggeration were controlled by excluding cases that scored in the biased responding range on cognitive symptom validity tests and the Response Bias Scale (RBS). Results of the study found that performance on COG was …

Neural Correlates Of Verb Processing In The Developing Brain, Karin Harman James, Josita Maouene

Josita C Maouene

No abstract provided.

Homologies Between Relational Language And Bodily Action: First Steps Into An Embodiment Account Of Meaning, Asifa Majid, Daniel Casasanto, Karin Harman James, Josita Maouene

Josita C Maouene

No abstract provided.

Incorporating International Research Into Psychology Classes: Three Case Studies (Poster), L. Bartolini, W. Phillips, A. Gharib

LeeAnn Bartolini

Marriage And Sex, Tiffani Kisler

Tiffani S. Kisler

No abstract provided.