Although careless respondents have wreaked havoc on research for decades, the prevalence and implications of these participants has likely increased due to many new methodological techniques currently in use. Across three studies, we examined the prevalence of careless responding in participants, several means of predicting careless respondents,…

I used a subscriber identity module card reader to copy the lists of saved contacts from 170 mobile phones in Fiji. This approach has both advantages and disadvantages compared to other techniques for collecting telephone network data. Copying phone contacts avoids recall biases associated with survey-based name generators. It also obviates the…

Results on human performance on the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) from different laboratories show high consistency. However, one exception is in the area of individual differences. While one research group has consistently failed to find systematic individual differences across instances of TSPs (Chronicle, MacGregor and Ormerod), another…

A total of 114 infants at three age levels (11, 18, and 28 weeks) were rated by their mothers on a termperament questionnaire and subjected to a habituation procedure. Results suggest that subject loss in habituation studies may be the result of nonrandom individual difference factors and not just the result of temporary fluctuations in state.…

An analysis of four foundational issues in the study of moral development is provided. The four issues involve: (1) the definition of morality; (2) individual or cultural moral variation; (3) moral ontogeny; and (4) moral epistemology. The first section of the paper describes each issue. The second section is based on the argument that the four…

Discusses implications of a study of middle-class infants seen in the Ainsworth strange situation at 12.5 and 19.5 months; the investigation produced results inconsistent with the corpus of previous findings. (Author/RH)

Sixteen listeners (10 expert, 6 naive) judged the dissimilarity of pairs of voices drawn from pathological and normal populations. Only parameters that showed substantial variability were perceptually salient across listeners. Results suggest that traditional means of assessing listener reliability in voice perception tasks may not be appropriate.…

Asserts (1) that contrary to Waters, findings affirm the importance of viewing mother-infant attachment as a dynamic relationship, responsive to family conditions, and (2) that these findings are consistent with those of other researchers. (Author/RH)

This five-part document presents three approaches to research on instructional improvement, with the final two sections concentrating on problems and implications for diagnostic prescriptive instruction. Part 1 reviews comparative instructional effectiveness studies. Part 2 discusses the Trait-Treatment Interaction Approach (TTI) which is…

Discussed are limitations of studies focused on group data and some alternative conventions that might be used in reporting data so that it accurately represents individual subjects' patterns of language development. Evidence is presented from (1) a study of mothers' attempts to elicit verbal behavior from their normally developing or moderately…

Explored methodological limitations confronted by researchers who test theoretical statements using suicide data generated by public officials. Data pertaining to socioeconomic characteristics, religious preference, and factors influencing behavior are reported. The social worth criterion of the victim may influence the recording of suicide data.…

Presents three mini-essays reviewing progress made on three problems in text comprehension (two traditional and one newer problem): their relationship between sentence processes and text processes; individual differences in discourse comprehension; and the representation of multiple-text information, which exposes fresh views of problems of…

Traditionally the unit of analysis in marital research has been the individual spouse. More recently the marital relationship has often been defined as a process of interaction and dynamic exchanges such that spouses have autonomous needs as well as corporate needs for interdependence. Thus modern systems theory heightens the importance of both…

Discusses methodological problems in the use of ecological analysis and pancultural analysis in cross-cultural analysis. Uses a case study to compare the use of cross-cultural analysis and a new procedure based on a within-culture standardization procedure. (FMW)

The data analysis problem posed by a repeated measures design that includes a single observation on a covariate for each subject is considered. The current paper discusses how best to capture a possible dependence of the effect of the within-subject factor on the level of the covariate. Procedures originally explicated by Rogosa (1980) for dealing…