Measuring implicit attractiveness bias in the context of innocence and guilt evaluations

Previous research on mock-jury trials has shown an explicit attractiveness bias in participant attributes of innocence. This study used the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) to measure attractiveness-bias in implicit evaluations of innocence or guilt with a sample of 46 college students. Alternate IRAP trial-blocks required participants to affirm relations consistent and inconsistent with attractiveness bias (attractive-innocent/unattractive guilty versus unattractive-innocent/ attractive-guilty). Faster responding across consistent trial-blocks was interpreted in terms of implicit stereotype. Participants' beliefs about the importance of their own appearances were examined using the Beliefs about Appearances Scale (BAAS) and explicit attractiveness ratings for the IRAP photographic stimuli were measured using Likert scales; analysis examined relationships between these beliefs and IRAP scores. Results revealed statistically significant attractiveness bias for both male and female participants; specifically, both a pro-attractiveness and anti-unattractive bias. Findings are discussed regarding research in implicit evaluations of innocence or guilt and effects of attractiveness bias

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Impact of managerial overconfidence on abnormal audit fee: From the perspective of balance mechanism of shareholders.

Overconfidence, as a psychological feature that is difficult to measure, means that managers are overconfident in their management ability, investment judgment ability and knowledge richness, thus overestimating their ability and making irrational behavior. Based on the sample of Chinese listed firms from 2014 to 2018, we measure managerial overconfidence in terms of age, gender, education, position and salary, and analyzed the relationship between overconfidence, abnormal audit fees, and the balance mechanism of shareholders. The research results show that there is a significant positive correlation between managerial overconfidence and abnormal audit fees, and the balance mechanism of shareholders can significantly inhibit the positive correlation between managerial overconfidence and abnormal audit fees. The research results of this paper are conducive to the supervision department to further improve the relevant supervision measures, improve the audit quality, and provide theoretical support for the more specific requirements of audit fee information disclosure.

Development of a Clinical Judgment Measurement Model-Based Simulation Module for Ileus: A Mixed-Methods Study.

BACKGROUND: Despite the increasing prevalence of simulation education, a specific clinical judgment measurement model-based simulation module for ileus has yet to be developed. METHOD: Using a mixed-methods research design, quantitative data were collected through a survey, and qualitative data were collected through reflective journals. Collected data were used to develop a simulation module, which subsequently was implemented with 88 nursing students from Korea. RESULTS: Quantitative analyses confirmed the module effectively improved participants' knowledge of ileus, clinical skill, and performance ability. Qualitative analysis of the journals identified five themes and 11 subthemes in three domains. CONCLUSION: The developed scenario effectively enhanced nursing students' learning, implying that similar modules for various diseases may help students to acquire necessary nursing skills. However, current results cannot be generalized; a more accurate analysis of its effects requires further and repeated studies to compare clinical decision-based simulation modules with modules that apply different learning methods. [J Nurs Educ. 2020;59(7):382-387.].

Reasoning from connectives and relations between entities.

This article reports investigations of inferences that depend both on connectives between clauses, such as or else, and on relations between entities, such as in the same place as. Participants made more valid inferences from biconditionals--for instance, Ann is taller than Beth if and only if Beth is taller than Cath--than from exclusive disjunctions (Exp. 1). They made more valid transitive inferences from a biconditional when a categorical premise affirmed rather than denied one of its clauses, but they made more valid transitive inferences from an exclusive disjunction when a categorical premise denied rather than affirmed one of its clauses (Exp. 2). From exclusive disjunctions, such as either Ann is not in the same place as Beth or else Beth is not in the same place as Cath, individuals tended to infer that all three individuals could be in different places, whereas in fact this was impossible (Exps. 3a and 3b). The theory of mental models predicts all of these results.

If only I had taken my usual route : age-related differences in counter-factual thinking.

Previous research suggests that young adults can shift between rational and experiential modes of thinking when forming social judgments. The present study examines whether older adults demonstrate this flexibility in thinking. Young and older adults completed an If-only task adapted from Epstein, Lipson, and Huh's (1992 , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 328) examination of individuals' ability to adopt rational or experiential modes of thought while making a judgment about characters who experience a negative event that could have been avoided. Consistent with our expectations for their judgments of the characters, young adults shifted between experiential and rational modes of thought when instructed to do so. Conversely, regardless of the mode of thought being used or the order with which they adopted the different modes of thought (i.e., shifting from experiential to rational in Study 1 and from rational to experiential in Study 2), older adults consistently offered judgments and justifications that reflected a preference for experiential-based thought.

Development of a FACS-verified set of basic and self-conscious emotion expressions.

In 2 studies, the authors developed and validated of a new set of standardized emotion expressions, which they referred to as the University of California, Davis, Set of Emotion Expressions (UCDSEE). The precise components of each expression were verified using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). The UCDSEE is the first FACS-verified set to include the three "self-conscious" emotions known to have recognizable expressions (embarrassment, pride, and shame), as well as the 6 previously established "basic" emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise), all posed by the same 4 expressers (African and White males and females). This new set has numerous potential applications in future research on emotion and related topics.

Injection Drug User Quality of Life Scale (IDUQOL): findings from a content validation study.

BACKGROUND: Quality of life studies among injection drug users have primarily focused on health-related measures. The chaotic life-style of many injection drug users (IDUs), however, extends far beyond their health, and impacts upon social relationships, employment opportunities, housing, and day to day survival. Most current quality of life instruments do not capture the realities of people living with addictions. The Injection Drug Users' Quality of Life Scale (IDUQOL) was developed to reflect the life areas of relevance to IDUs. The present study examined the content validity of the IDUQOL using judgmental methods based on subject matter experts' (SMEs) ratings of various elements of this measure (e.g., appropriateness of life areas or items, names and descriptions of life areas, instructions for administration and scoring). METHODS: Six SMEs were provided with a copy of the IDUQOL and its administration and scoring manual and a detailed content validation questionnaire. Two commonly used judgmental measures of inter-rater agreement, the Content Validity Index (CVI) and the Average Deviation Mean Index (ADM), were used to evaluate SMEs' agreement on ratings of IDUQOL elements. RESULTS: A total of 75 elements of the IDUQOL were examined. The CVI results showed that all elements were endorsed by the required number of SMEs or more. The ADM results showed that acceptable agreement (i.e., practical significance) was obtained for all elements but statistically significant agreement was missed for nine elements. For these elements, SMEs' feedback was examined for ways to improve the elements. Open-ended feedback also provided suggestions for other revisions to the IDUQOL. CONCLUSION: The results of the study provided strong evidence in support of the content validity of the IDUQOL and direction for the revision of some IDUQOL elements.

Assessment of examiner leniency and stringency ('hawk-dove effect') in the MRCP(UK) clinical examination (PACES) using multi-facet Rasch modelling.

BACKGROUND: A potential problem of clinical examinations is known as the hawk-dove problem, some examiners being more stringent and requiring a higher performance than other examiners who are more lenient. Although the problem has been known qualitatively for at least a century, we know of no previous statistical estimation of the size of the effect in a large-scale, high-stakes examination. Here we use FACETS to carry out a multi-facet Rasch modelling of the paired judgements made by examiners in the clinical examination (PACES) of MRCP(UK), where identical candidates were assessed in identical situations, allowing calculation of examiner stringency. METHODS: Data were analysed from the first nine diets of PACES, which were taken between June 2001 and March 2004 by 10,145 candidates. Each candidate was assessed by two examiners on each of seven separate tasks. with the candidates assessed by a total of 1,259 examiners, resulting in a total of 142,030 marks. Examiner demographics were described in terms of age, sex, ethnicity, and total number of candidates examined. RESULTS: FACETS suggested that about 87% of main effect variance was due to candidate differences, 1% due to station differences, and 12% due to differences between examiners in leniency-stringency. Multiple regression suggested that greater examiner stringency was associated with greater examiner experience and being from an ethnic minority. Male and female examiners showed no overall difference in stringency. Examination scores were adjusted for examiner stringency and it was shown that for the present pass mark, the outcome for 95.9% of candidates would be unchanged using adjusted marks, whereas 2.6% of candidates would have passed, even though they had failed on the basis of raw marks, and 1.5% of candidates would have failed, despite passing on the basis of raw marks. CONCLUSION: Examiners do differ in their leniency or stringency, and the effect can be estimated using Rasch modelling. The reasons for differences are not clear, but there are some demographic correlates, and the effects appear to be reliable across time. Account can be taken of differences, either by adjusting marks or, perhaps more effectively and more justifiably, by pairing high and low stringency examiners, so that raw marks can be used in the determination of pass and fail.

Empirical assessment of expertise.

The assessment of expertise is vital both in practical situations that call for expert judgment and in theoretical research on the psychology of experts. It can be difficult, however, to determine whether a judge is in fact performing expertly. Our goal was to develop an empirical measure of expert judgment. We argue that two necessary characteristics of expertise are discrimination of the various stimuli in the domain and consistent treatment of similar stimuli. We combine measures of these characteristics to form a ratio we call the Cochran-Weiss-Shanteau (CWS) index of expertise. The proposed index was demonstrated using two studies that distinguished experts from nonexperts based on their judgmental performance. The index provides new insights into expertise and offers a partial definition of expertise that may be useful in a variety of theoretical and applied settings. Potential applications of this research include selection, training, and evaluation of experts and of expert-machine systems.

How accurate are subjective judgements of a continuum?

AIMS: To assess the accuracy of subjective judgements of a uni-dimensional continuum. METHODS AND RESULTS: Twenty-four observers were asked to estimate the position of a dot placed between two lines using a 100-point scale. Each observer judged 20 different positions. Ninety-five percent of observations were between -7 and +9 of the true value. The median and the mean value of the estimates for each position were within one or two points of the true value in most cases with a maximum deviation of five. There was perfect correlation between the ranks of the median and the mean and the true value (correlation coefficient +1, P < 0.00001). The kappa values for interobserver agreement varied from 0.98 for two categories to 0.55 for 10 categories and 0.39 for 20 categories. Information transmitted increased from 0.98 bits with two categories to 2.83 bits with 20 categories. CONCLUSIONS: The experiment indicates that subjective judgements can be accurate but it is necessary to use a large number of categories. One hundred-point scales allow confidence intervals to be calculated and the intervals are reduced if the results from several observers are pooled. The mean and the median of the judgements of a large number of observers are close to objective reality and this approach could be used to define a gold standard of rankings of pathological continua such as cervical dyskaryosis or tumour differentiation. There is a reciprocal relationship between kappa values and information transmitted which demonstrates the fallacy of using kappa statistics in studies of continua.

When standards are wide of the mark: nonselective superiority and inferiority biases in comparative judgments of objects and concepts.

People are frequently required to judge how particular group members measure up against others in their group. According to the local-comparisons-general-standards (LOGE) approach, in these member-to-group comparisons, people fail to use the normatively appropriate local (group) standard and are infelicitously affected by a more general standard (involving instances from outside the judged group). Within positive groups, target group members are judged superior to the other members of the group, and within negative groups, inferior. To date, these nonselective superiority and inferiority biases have been demonstrated solely in judgments about human beings. In 6 experiments, nonselective biases were found in perceptual, affective, and cognitive judgments of nonhuman targets, objects, and concepts, thus supporting a cognitive rather than a social account.

Direct magnitude estimation and interval scaling of pleasantness and severity in dysphonic and normal speakers.

The purpose of this study was to determine the validity of voice pleasantness and overall voice severity ratings of dysphonic and normal speakers using direct magnitude estimation (DME) and equal-appearing interval (EAI) auditory-perceptual scaling procedures. Twelve naive listeners perceptually evaluated voice pleasantness and severity from connected speech samples produced by 24 adult dysphonic speakers and 6 normal adult speakers. A statistical comparison of the two auditory-perceptual scales yielded a linear relationship representative of a metathetic continuum for voice pleasantness. A statistical relationship that is consistent with a prothetic continuum was revealed for ratings of voice severity. These data provide support for the use of either DME or EAI scales when making auditory-perceptual judgments of pleasantness, but only DME scales when judging overall voice severity for dysphonic speakers. These results suggest further psychophysical study of perceptual dimensions of voice and speech must be undertaken in order to avoid the inappropriate and invalid use of EAI scales used in the auditory-perceptual evaluation of the normal and dysphonic voice.