Adolphe Quetelet and the legacy of the "average man" in psychology.

Adolphe Quetelet was a Belgian polymath who aimed to advance aggregate-level statistical tools as a unifying framework for all scientific disciplines. In doing so, Quetelet adopted the astronomer's Law of Error (i.e., the normal distribution curve) and applied it to the study of moral and social phenomena in developing his notion of physique sociale (social physics). Quetelet further focused his attention on l'homme moyen (the average man) and, as such, argued that the average value of a distribution should be of primary concern in the study of human attributes. In the present article, I examine the influences that these ideas had on the methodological practices of late 19th- and early 20th- century psychologists. I illustrate how the dominant methodological approach implemented by psychologists in the early 20th century was deeply rooted in the demography of Quetelet's social statistics. In particular, I argue that psychologists' adoption of the Neo-Galtonian model of research was successful because it embraced Quetelet's determinism, emphasis on average values, and grouping of distributions based on type. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Primary Study Quality in Psychological Meta-Analyses: An Empirical Assessment of Recent Practice.

As meta-analytic research has come to occupy a sizeable contingent of published work in the psychological sciences, clarity in the reporting of such work is crucial to its interpretability and reproducibility. This is especially true regarding the assessment of primary study quality, as notions of study quality can vary across research domains. The present study examines the general state of reporting practices related to primary study quality in a sample of 382 published psychological meta-analyses, as well as the reporting decisions and motivations of the authors that published them. Our findings suggest adherence to reporting standards has remained poor for assessments of primary study quality and that the discipline remains inconsistent in its reporting practices generally. We discuss several potential reasons for the poor adherence to reporting standards in our sample, including whether quality assessments are being conducted in the first place, whether standards are well-known within the discipline, and the potential conflation of assessing primary study quality with other facets of conducting a meta-analysis. The implications of suboptimal reporting practices related to primary study quality are discussed.

A psychometric evaluation of the Multidimensional Social Competence Scale (MSCS) for young adults.

The current study contributes to previous work on measuring the social phenotype in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) by validating a multidimensional test of social competence developed for use with individuals with and without ASD. The "Multidimensional Social Competence Scale" (MSCS) was previously validated as a parent-rating scale with youth 11-18 years with ASD without intellectual disability and typically developing adolescents of comparable age. The current study presents a validation of a self-report version of the MSCS in a non-clinical young adult population (N = 1178, males = 360, females = 817, age range = 17-25 years). The MSCS consists of seven domains that represent social competence: social motivation, social inferencing, demonstrating empathic concern, social knowledge, verbal conversation skills, nonverbal sending skills, and emotion regulation. These domains are theorized to be indicative of the higher-order construct of social competence. A second higher-order theorization of the MSCS structure posits that 3 of these factors are indicative of social responsiveness, and the remaining 4 factors are indicative of social understanding and emotion regulation. Our findings indicated support for each of the theorized multidimensional factor structures. Reliability, optimal scoring, convergent and discriminant validity of the measure, as well as implications for future research are discussed.

Does reassessment of risk improve predictions? A framework and examination of the SAVRY and YLS/CMI.

Although experts recommend regularly reassessing adolescents' risk for violence, it is unclear whether reassessment improves predictions. Thus, in this prospective study, the authors tested 3 hypotheses as to why reassessment might improve predictions, namely the shelf-life, dynamic change, and familiarity hypotheses. Research assistants (RAs) rated youth on the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) and the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) every 3 months over a 1-year period, conducting 624 risk assessments with 156 youth on probation. The authors then examined charges for violence and any offense over a 2-year follow-up period, and youths' self-reports of reoffending. Contrary to the shelf-life hypothesis, predictions did not decline or expire over time. Instead, time-dependent area under the curve scores remained consistent across the follow-up period. Contrary to the dynamic change hypothesis, changes in youth's risk total scores, compared to what is average for that youth, did not predict changes in reoffending. Finally, contrary to the familiarity hypothesis, reassessments were no more predictive than initial assessments, despite RAs' increased familiarity with youth. Before drawing conclusions, researchers should evaluate the extent to which youth receiving the usual probation services show meaningful short-term changes in risk and, if so, whether risk assessment tools are sensitive to these changes. (PsycINFO Database Record