A group of 30 self-mutilating patients in a large state mental hospital, was compared with a group of 30 nonmutilating patients at the same facility. The participants of the comparison group were matched on the basis of gender, race, and diagnosis, but who had not been identified as self-mutilators. A Multivariate Analysis of Covariance and a two group chi-square analysis were employed to determine if a selected set of variables from the MMPI-2 (Anger, Anxiety, and Depression content scales, and Psychasthenia, Social Introversion, Psychopathic Deviance, Schizophrenia, and Hypomania) could effectively discriminate between the two groups. Neither procedure produced results of statistical significance. The results of the study are discussed in terms of individual differences and the difficulty of establishing a profile with the MMPI-2 predictive of self-mutilative behavior. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: B, page: 3761. / Major Professor: Harman Burck. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The psychometric characteristics of a phonological processing battery were examined using kindergarten (n = 95), first grade (n = 49), and second grade (n = 89) subjects enrolled in public schools. The phonological battery consisted of subtests measuring phonological awareness, phonological access, and phonological coding. The battery also included reading achievement, general intellectual ability, and letter naming/sound knowledge subtests as criterion measures. / The reliability of the battery was assessed by examining both internal consistency estimates and test-retest reliability across all three grades. The internal consistency coefficients for the battery across all ages were satisfactory, with coefficients in the general range of.72 to.95. Test-retest reliabilities over an average interval of 12 weeks were considerably lower (range of.59 to.79 across subtests and grades). / Evidence for the construct validity of the battery included significant correlations among measures of phonological awareness, phonological coding, and phonological access across all three grade levels. For the kindergarten and second grade samples, phonological awareness subtests were significantly correlated, even when the effects of IQ were removed from the matrices. Although the correlations between subtests measuring the three types of phonological processing abilities were minimally significant, factor analytic data supported the existence of separate factors, each of which included subtests representing the three types of phonological processing abilities. / Finally, concurrent validity evidence supported a moderate relationship between the phonological processing measures and reading achievement. Multiple regression analyses identified several subtests which accounted for significant proportions of the variance in reading achievement. Based on the reliability and validity data obtained using this data, a condensed battery was recommended for future research on phonological processing and reading. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-02, Section: B, page: 1015. / Major Professor: Joseph K. Torgesen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

Children who have been sexually victimized are disadvantaged individuals and members of an oppressed segment of society who clearly merit the assistance of social workers. Responsible practice entails the evaluation of social work practice. The goals of this project were the construction and initial validation of a rapid assessment self-report measurement tool to be used with child and adolescent sexual abuse victims to ascertain the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic intervention. One hundred and three 10 to 17 year old girls who had been the targets of intrafamilial child sexual abuse (incest) participated in the research. Child and adolescent participants completed the draft instrument, the Child Report of Treatment Issue Resolution, as well as the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children and the Children's Social Desirability Questionnaire. The research participants' caretakers completed the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist and a background questionnaire. Clinicians provided an opinion as to the progress toward treatment issue resolution for each youngster. Reliability of the study instrument is found to be.94. Content validity was quantified through a process of expert ratings of individual item relevance. Criterion and construct validity are supported by a substantial correlation between the study instrument and the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children ($-$.74) and a moderate correlation between the study instrument and the Child Behavior Checklist for Children ($-$.40). Evidence for construct validity with regard to the correlations between the CRTIR and Clinicians' Judgement is not provided by the sample data. The correlation between the study instrument and the Children's Social Desirability Questionnaire (.45) does not provide evidence of discriminate validity. Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of the results of this study has to do with the issue of social desirability and measurement issues when working with sexually abused youngsters. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: A, page: 4556. / Adviser: Dianne Harrison Montgomery. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

The question of how to detect multivariate outliers has presented both philosophical and statistical problems. The method most widely used for the detection of multivariate outliers is Mahalanobis' D-Squared statistic (D$\sp2$), commonly viewed as analogous to a univariate standard score. D$\sp2$ is simple to calculate, and its asymptotic distribution is known to be the Chi-square distribution (Barnett, 1976, 1978a, 1978b, 1979; Beckman & Cook, 1983; Hawkins, 1974, 1980). Additionally, D$\sp2$ or D$\sp2$/df is available from major statistical packages such as BMDP and SPSSX. The distribution of D$\sp2$s calculated using the sample centroid and variance-covariance matrix is thought to be mathematically intractable (Barnett, 1984; Wilks, 1963). Some researchers have suggested the use of ordered Chi-square (Barnett, 1984; Beckman & Cook, 1983; Hawkins, 1980) or ordinary Chi-square (Comrey, 1984; Rasmussen, 1988; Tabachnick & Fidell, 1983) critical values for evalaution of D$\sp2$ in the detection of outliers. Tables of ordered Chi-square critical values are not available, thus, it was necessary to compute these values for the present study. This study examined the fit of D$\sp2$ with the Chi-square and ordered Chi-square distributions, via Monte Carlo Methods, and determined that neither provided accurate critical values. Consequently, critical values were generated empirically. The resulting tables of critical values cover the largest 25% of ordered D$\sp2$ for the conditions resulting from a full factorial cross of numbers of subjects (20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 200, 300, 500, 1000), and numbers of variables (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 50) / acase@tulane.edu

Sphericity is one of the assumptions underlying repeated measures analysis of variance. Box discovered a parameter called epsilon that reduces the degrees of freedom to adjust for violation of sphericity. Because the routine use of the epsilon-adjusted F-test does not guarantee the most efficient test for repeated-measures treatment effects, a preliminary test of the sphericity assumption appears to be prudent. After addressing the problems with the existing sphericity tests, the use of empirical critical values of Box's epsilon as criteria for testing sphericity is proposed. First, tables of empirical critical values of Box's epsilon were generated. Then, the Type I error rate of the proposed empirical epsilon test was examined. Finally, the relative power of the empirical epsilon test was compared with Mauchly's test, the most widely applied sphericity test, under normal population conditions with repeated measures designs / acase@tulane.edu

A covariance structure model consists of a measurement model, which is a collection of variables and their associated constructs or factors, and a structural model, which is a set of predictions about the causal relationships among the constructs. Data are collected on the variables and a covariance or correlation matrix is computed. The covariance structure modeling (CSM) procedure estimates the parameter values in the model that has been specified and assesses how well the model fits the data. Models failing to provide a good fit to the data are often modified. This process is known as a specification search The current Monte Carlo study investigated the effectiveness of the choice of one of five initial structural models, the method used to address the measurement model, and the search statistics used (Lagrange multiplier and expected parameter change) on the success rate of specification searches. 700 specification searches were conducted on 40 sample matrices (N = 300) generated from 4 population models. The effectiveness of the search statistics differed by the method used to address the measurement model with the expected parameter change having a higher success rate when the measurement model was assessed independently of the structural model and the Lagrange multiplier having a higher success rate when the measurement and structural models were assessed simultaneously. Successful model recovery did not differ significantly by the initial structural model used but the full initial model always performed equal to or superior to the other initial models. Successful model recovery differed markedly by population model with success rates ranging from 16% to 73%. The research concludes with a call for future research and a list of suggested research topics / acase@tulane.edu

There is a recent rekindled interest concerning the stability, reliability, and predictive validity of skilled performance across repeated measurements. One common phenomenon resulting from the repeated measures of subjects' performance across trials during skills acquisition is the superdiagonal correlation matrix, also known as the simplex matrix, in which correlations of performance decrease as a function of the separation of trials (or as a function of time). The present study collected fifty such correlation matrices from both published and unpublished sources. Next, the standardized item coefficient alphas were calculated from correlations for all possible combinations of adjacent trials to identify rules for which trials should be used to maximize reliability. When early or late adjacent trials showing low correlations were dropped from the computation of the standardized item coefficient alpha, reliability sometimes increased, although not dramatically. The rows of correlations above the diagonal of a superdiagonal matrix were plotted across trials and it was found that the resulting graphs could be used in deciding which adjacent early and/or late trials to drop to maximize the reliability. Seven figures, representative of the different sorts of published matrices, provide graphical decision rules for determining which trials to average to maximize reliability. The standardized coefficient alpha for the entire matrix should also be computed as a benchmark reliability / acase@tulane.edu

Identification of interaction effects is of increasing importance to the social sciences; however, interaction (or moderator) effects have often been difficult to detect with continuous data. Structural equation modeling (SEM) methods have been touted as a solution to the problem of detecting moderators with continuous data because they are thought to account for the presence of measurement error. Also some of the optional fitting algorithms are thought to be less sensitive to non-normality, a common characteristic of the cross-product terms used in evaluation of interaction effects. Although much of the literature to date describes SEM methods to detect interactions among latent variables, the current study contrasts well known moderated multiple regression (MMR) as compared to various analogous SEM models for estimating moderation among manifest variables. While some SEM estimation methods were found inferior, no clear advantage of any SEM method over MMR was observed in the detection of interaction effects. Furthermore, SEM models, with stable Type I error rates, either failed to converge or reported errors about 10% of the time while MMR always yielded a solution / acase@tulane.edu

Effects of a computer assessor were compared to those of human assessors on two types of social desirability scales: Impression Management and Self-Deception. Effects of the independent variable on reactions to the assessment and assessor and on reactions to computers in general were also examined. One hundred and twenty undergraduate psychology students were assessed for social desirability response bias by either a computer or human assessor, following which their reactions were assessed by paper-pencil. / No differences were found as a function of Type of Assessor on either social desirability scale. No differences between groups were found in reactions to the assessment and assessor, although respondents in both groups were generally positive. / Examining reactions to computers in general demonstrated that respondents assessed by computer evidenced less computer aversion (p =.015) and preferred a computer assessor in the future more often (p $<$.0001) than did those in the human assessor group. This is consistent with previous research which indicated that subjects who had physically touched a computer had more positive attitudes towards computers. It suggests that when using a computer assessor, aversion to computers by respondents may be diminished by actual exposure to the assessor. / Exploratory analyses suggest that both human and computer assessors have aspects which may be important to respondents' comfort and should be considered in any assessment procedure. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-08, Section: B, page: 4481. / Major Professor: Mark H. Licht. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

Zoo chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are restricted in their choice of social and physical environments. This allows for a strong test of environmental predictors of happiness including the chimpanzee-environment fit and the degree of relatedness between a chimpanzee and its enclosure mates. The interrelatedness of zoo chimpanzees permit the study of genetic and environmental contributions to Dominance and subjective well-being (SWB) and their common genetic or environmental causes. Demographic predictors such as age and sex and environmental predictors such as density of males and females, density of male and female kin, and how similar in personality a chimpanzee was to other chimpanzees in its enclosure were tested first. A series of two-, three-, and four-way interactions was also tested. First, the effects of these predictors on Dominance were tested. Next, these effects were tested on SWB after the variance SWB shared with Dominance was removed. Eight behavioral genetic models were then tested. These models incorporated genetic and environmental variance and covariance components and any significant predictors that were discovered in the previous environmental analysis. The relationship between age and Dominance was positive and stronger for males than females. The relationship between age and SWB was negative. The genetic model that had the best fit and most parsimony included additive genetic effects and non-shared environmental effects for Dominance and SWB. Zoo effects were negligible. Finally, the genetic correlation between Dominance and SWB was almost entirely due to shared genes. These findings are consistent with a model positing that Dominance and SWB arise from a common temperament and are differentiated by nonshared environmental influences. They suggest that happiness in apes and humans may be a sexually selected fitness indicator.