Timing of peripubertal steroid exposure predicts visuospatial cognition in men: Evidence from three samples.

Experiments in male rodents demonstrate that sensitivity to the organizational effects of steroid hormones decreases across the pubertal window, with earlier androgen exposure leading to greater masculinization of the brain and behavior. Similarly, some research suggests the timing of peripubertal exposure to sex steroids influences aspects of human psychology, including visuospatial cognition. However, prior studies have been limited by small samples and/or imprecise measures of pubertal timing. We conducted 4 studies to clarify whether the timing of peripubertal hormone exposure predicts performance on male-typed tests of spatial cognition in adulthood. In Studies 1 (n = 1095) and 2 (n = 173), we investigated associations between recalled pubertal age and spatial cognition in typically developing men, controlling for current testosterone levels in Study 2. In Study 3 (n = 51), we examined the relationship between spatial performance and the age at which peripubertal hormone replacement therapy was initiated in a sample of men with Isolated GnRH Deficiency. Across Studies 1-3, effect size estimates for the relationship between spatial performance and pubertal timing ranged from. -0.04 and -0.27, and spatial performance was unrelated to salivary testosterone in Study 2. In Study 4, we conducted two meta-analyses of Studies 1-3 and four previously published studies. The first meta-analysis was conducted on correlations between spatial performance and measures of the absolute age of pubertal timing, and the second replaced those correlations with correlations between spatial performance and measures of relative pubertal timing where available. Point estimates for correlations between pubertal timing and spatial cognition were -0.15 and -0.12 (both p < 0.001) in the first and second meta-analyses, respectively. These associations were robust to the exclusion of any individual study. Our results suggest that, for some aspects of neural development, sensitivity to gonadal hormones declines across puberty, with earlier pubertal hormone exposure predicting greater sex-typicality in psychological phenotypes in adulthood. These results shed light on the processes of behavioral and brain organization and have implications for the treatment of IGD and other conditions wherein pubertal timing is pharmacologically manipulated.

Are there vocal cues to human developmental stability? Relationships between facial fluctuating asymmetry and voice attractiveness.

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), deviation from perfect bilateral symmetry, is thought to reflect an organism's relative inability to maintain stable morphological development in the face of environmental and genetic stressors. Previous research has documented negative relationships between FA and attractiveness judgments in humans, but scant research has explored relationships between the human voice and this putative marker of genetic quality in either sex. Only one study (and in women only) has explored relationships between vocal attractiveness and asymmetry of the face, a feature-rich trait space central in prior work on human genetic quality and mate choice. We therefore examined this relationship in three studies comprising 231 men and 240 women from two Western samples as well as Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania. Voice recordings were collected and rated for attractiveness, and FA was computed from two-dimensional facial images as well as, for a subset of men, three-dimensional facial scans. Through meta-analysis of our results and those of prior studies, we found a negative association between FA and vocal attractiveness that was highly robust and statistically significant whether we included effect sizes from previously published work, or only those from the present research, and regardless of the inclusion of any individual sample or method of assessing FA (e.g., facial or limb FA). Weighted mean correlations between FA and vocal attractiveness across studies were -.23 for men and -.29 for women. This research thus offers strong support for the hypothesis that voices provide cues to genetic quality in humans.

Meta-analytic evidence for effects of mindfulness training on dimensions of self-reported dispositional mindfulness.

Improvements in stable, or dispositional, mindfulness are often assumed to accrue from mindfulness training and to account for many of its beneficial effects. However, research examining these assumptions has produced mixed findings, and the relation between dispositional mindfulness and mindfulness training is actively debated. A comprehensive meta-analysis was conducted on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of mindfulness training published from 2003-2014 to investigate whether (a) different self-reported mindfulness scale dimensions change as a result of mindfulness training, (b) key aspects of study design (e.g., control condition type, population type, and intervention type) moderate training-related changes in dispositional mindfulness scale dimensions, and (c) changes in mindfulness scale dimensions are associated with beneficial changes in mental health outcomes. Scales from widely used dispositional mindfulness measures were combined into 5 categories for analysis: Attention, Description, Nonjudgment, Nonreactivity, and Observation. A total of 88 studies (n = 5,787) were included. Changes in scale dimensions of mindfulness from pre to post mindfulness training produced mean difference effect sizes ranging from small to moderate (g = 0.28-0.49). Consistent with the theorized role of improvements in mindfulness in training outcomes, changes in dispositional mindfulness scale dimensions were moderately correlated with beneficial intervention outcomes (r = .27-0.30), except for the Observation dimension (r = .16). Overall, moderation analyses revealed inconsistent results, and limitations of moderator analyses suggest important directions for future research. We discuss how the findings can inform the next generation of mindfulness assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Validity of Conscientiousness Is Overestimated in the Prediction of Job Performance.

INTRODUCTION: Sensitivity analyses refer to investigations of the degree to which the results of a meta-analysis remain stable when conditions of the data or the analysis change. To the extent that results remain stable, one can refer to them as robust. Sensitivity analyses are rarely conducted in the organizational science literature. Despite conscientiousness being a valued predictor in employment selection, sensitivity analyses have not been conducted with respect to meta-analytic estimates of the correlation (i.e., validity) between conscientiousness and job performance. METHODS: To address this deficiency, we reanalyzed the largest collection of conscientiousness validity data in the personnel selection literature and conducted a variety of sensitivity analyses. RESULTS: Publication bias analyses demonstrated that the validity of conscientiousness is moderately overestimated (by around 30%; a correlation difference of about .06). The misestimation of the validity appears to be due primarily to suppression of small effects sizes in the journal literature. These inflated validity estimates result in an overestimate of the dollar utility of personnel selection by millions of dollars and should be of considerable concern for organizations. CONCLUSION: The fields of management and applied psychology seldom conduct sensitivity analyses. Through the use of sensitivity analyses, this paper documents that the existing literature overestimates the validity of conscientiousness in the prediction of job performance. Our data show that effect sizes from journal articles are largely responsible for this overestimation.

A meta-analysis of the Dark Triad and work behavior: a social exchange perspective.

We reviewed studies of the Dark Triad (DT) personality traits--Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy-and meta-analytically examined their implications for job performance and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Relations among the DT traits and behaviors were extracted from original reports published between 1951 and 2011 of 245 independent samples (N = 43,907). We found that reductions in the quality of job performance were consistently associated with increases in Machiavellianism and psychopathy and that CWB was associated with increases in all 3 components of the DT, but that these associations were moderated by such contextual factors as authority and culture. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that the DT explains moderate amounts of the variance in counterproductivity, but not job performance. The results showed that the 3 traits are positively related to one another but are sufficiently distinctive to warrant theoretical and empirical partitioning.

Toward an understanding of situational judgment item validity and group differences.

This paper evaluates 2 adjustments to common scoring approaches for situational judgment tests (SJTs). These adjustments can result in substantial improvements to item validity, reductions in mean racial differences, and resistance to coaching designed to improve scores. The first adjustment, applicable to SJTs that use Likert scales, controls for elevation and scatter (Cronbach & Gleser, 1953). This adjustment improves item validity. Also, because there is a White-Black mean difference in the preference for extreme responses on Likert scales (Bachman & O'Malley, 1984), these adjustments substantially reduce White-Black mean score differences. Furthermore, this adjustment often eliminates the score elevation associated with the coaching strategy of avoiding extreme responses (Cullen, Sackett, & Lievens, 2006). Item validity is shown to have a U-shaped relationship with item means. This holds both for SJTs with Likert score response formats and for SJTs where respondents identify the best and worst response option. Given the U-shaped relationship, the second adjustment is to drop items with midrange item means. This permits the SJT to be shortened, sometimes dramatically, without necessarily harming validity.

Religion and spirituality.

Many clients highly value religious and spiritual (R/S) commitments, and many psychotherapists have accommodated secular treatments to R/S perspectives. We meta-analyzed 51 samples from 46 studies (N = 3,290) that examined the outcomes of religious accommodative therapies and nonreligious spirituality therapies. Comparisons on psychological and spiritual outcomes were made to a control condition, an alternate treatment, or a subset of those studies that used a dismantling design (similar in theory and duration of treatment, but including religious contents). Patients in R/S psychotherapies showed greater improvement than those in alternate secular psychotherapies both on psychological (d =.26) and on spiritual (d = .41) outcomes. Religiously accommodated treatments outperformed dismantling-design alternative treatments on spiritual (d = .33) but not on psychological outcomes. Clinical examples are provided and therapeutic practices are recommended.

Spatial ability and prenatal androgens: meta-analyses of congenital adrenal hyperplasia and digit ratio (2D:4D) studies.

Hormonal manipulations indicate that early androgens organize sex differences in spatial ability in laboratory rats. In humans, spatial ability is also sexually dimorphic, and information about the effects of prenatal androgens on spatial ability can be obtained from studies of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) and the ratio of the second and fourth finger lengths (2D:4D). CAH is characterized by prenatal overproduction of adrenal androgens and several lines of evidence suggest that 2D:4D reflects prenatal androgen exposure. Some studies have found that these proxy measures of prenatal androgens predict spatial ability, others have found no significant relationship, and yet others have obtained results in the opposite direction. In light of these mixed findings, we conducted meta-analyses of published literature and unpublished results to determine if, across studies, either of these indicators of prenatal androgens predicts performance on spatial tasks that show a male advantage. In addition, we applied a trim and fill analysis to the data in search of asymmetry that might be an indication of publication bias. Results indicated that females with CAH perform better on these spatial tasks, and CAH males perform worse, than do controls. Little or no relationship exists between 2D:4D and spatial ability. Implications for possible hormonal contributions and the developmental timing of sex differences in spatial cognition are discussed.

The generation effect: a meta-analytic review.

The generation effect refers to the finding that subjects who generate information (e.g., produce synonyms) remember the information better than they do material that they simply read. Meta-analytic techniques were used to summarize 445 effect sizes over 86 studies, thereby assessing the magnitude and 11 potential moderators of the generation effect. The size of the generation effect across the 86 studies was .40--a benefit of almost half a standard deviation of generation over reading. The variability of the effect size due to moderator type was substantial, and we attempted to use this information to clarify several theories that have been proposed to explain the generation effect.

A reexamination of black-white mean differences in work performance: more data, more moderators.

This study is the largest meta-analysis to date of Black-White mean differences in work performance. The authors examined several moderators not addressed in previous research. Findings indicate that mean racial differences in performance favor Whites (d = 0.27). Effect sizes were most strongly moderated by criterion type and the cognitive loading of criteria, whereas data source and measurement level were influential moderators to a lesser extent. Greater mean differences were found for highly cognitively loaded criteria, data reported in unpublished sources, and for performance measures consisting of multiple item scales. On the basis of these findings, the authors hypothesize several potential determinants of mean racial differences in job performance.

A meta-analysis of the antecedents and consequences of pay level satisfaction.

This study reports results from a meta-analysis of 28 correlates of pay level satisfaction involving 240 samples from 203 studies conducted over the past 35 years. Results are presented in 4 categories: primary determinants, antecedents, correlates, and outcomes of pay satisfaction. The authors controlled for pay in examining relations between correlates and pay level satisfaction, as suggested by theory and when primary studies were available to do so. The authors found support for many of the relations suggested by a theoretical model and also note some limitations in the research that has tested this model. The authors recommend changes and additions to the model and suggest additional primary research in specific areas.