2012 Publications
A Canonical Correlation Analysis of the MMPI-2 and MCMI-III
Nick Wisdom1,2, Jennifer L. Callahan3, James W. Grice4, Dana R. Connor3, and Erica Nichols3
1Mental Health Care Line, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Houston, TX; 2Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX; 3University of North Texas; 4Oklahoma State University
The extant literature includes no canonical correlation analyses examining the relationship between the basic MMPI-2 scales and scales on the MCMI-III despite these measures representing two of the most commonly administered tests of personality. The following study was designed to remedy this gap in the literature for the purpose of fostering understanding of the underlying dimensions shared by these measures. Results revealed a statistically significant model based on ten pairs of discriminant functions. A very large effect size was observed in the present study, indicating that the MMPI-2 and MCMI-III shared 97.5% of their variance. Clinical and theoretical conceptualization of the discriminant functions was elaborated and future research suggested.
Nick Wisdom1,2, Jennifer L. Callahan3, James W. Grice4, Dana R. Connor3, and Erica Nichols3
1Mental Health Care Line, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Houston, TX; 2Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX; 3University of North Texas; 4Oklahoma State University
The extant literature includes no canonical correlation analyses examining the relationship between the basic MMPI-2 scales and scales on the MCMI-III despite these measures representing two of the most commonly administered tests of personality. The following study was designed to remedy this gap in the literature for the purpose of fostering understanding of the underlying dimensions shared by these measures. Results revealed a statistically significant model based on ten pairs of discriminant functions. A very large effect size was observed in the present study, indicating that the MMPI-2 and MCMI-III shared 97.5% of their variance. Clinical and theoretical conceptualization of the discriminant functions was elaborated and future research suggested.
| A Canonical Correlation Analysis of the MMPI-2 and MCMI-III |
Clinical Service Delivery: Reincarnations of Lightner Witmer's "Psychological Clinic"
Dillon Browne, Heather Prime, and Mark Wade
University of Toronto
Lightner Witmer is often credited as the founding father of "clinical psychology" largely due to his formation of the first psychological clinic in 1896, followed by the creation of the first periodical dedicated to psychological practice a decade later. An analysis of Witmer's approach to treatment will reveal that he envisioned an integrated discipline, one that was unified yet multidisciplinary and based upon a systemic understanding of the developing person. This approach was intended to blend aspects of psychology with medicine and pedagogy in order to provide comprehensive services and best ameliorate various psycho-physiological conditions. Three main occurrences contributed to the marginalization of Witmer's approach from clinical psychology: the rise of the psychotherapeutics and psychoanalysis movement, Witmer's alienation from the mainstream American psychological community, and the emergence of an independent school psychology. Today, new research, theory, and training models are pushing applied psychology towards a unified, multidisciplinary perspective. A historical comparison will reveal that these developments are not unlike Witmer's original vision.
Dillon Browne, Heather Prime, and Mark Wade
University of Toronto
Lightner Witmer is often credited as the founding father of "clinical psychology" largely due to his formation of the first psychological clinic in 1896, followed by the creation of the first periodical dedicated to psychological practice a decade later. An analysis of Witmer's approach to treatment will reveal that he envisioned an integrated discipline, one that was unified yet multidisciplinary and based upon a systemic understanding of the developing person. This approach was intended to blend aspects of psychology with medicine and pedagogy in order to provide comprehensive services and best ameliorate various psycho-physiological conditions. Three main occurrences contributed to the marginalization of Witmer's approach from clinical psychology: the rise of the psychotherapeutics and psychoanalysis movement, Witmer's alienation from the mainstream American psychological community, and the emergence of an independent school psychology. Today, new research, theory, and training models are pushing applied psychology towards a unified, multidisciplinary perspective. A historical comparison will reveal that these developments are not unlike Witmer's original vision.
| Clinical Service Delivery: Reincarnations of Lightner Witmer's "Psychological Clinic" |
Toward an Integrative Approach to Studying Consciousness: Encouraging Qualitative Methodology Training
Thomas W. Reiner
Troy University
Conducting research on human consciousness is problematic because it is done from a third-person perspective, whereas consciousness is a first-person experience. An integrative approach to studying consciousness that includes multiple modalities of measurement, combining experimental and correlational methods, combining quantitative and qualitative methods, and incorporates intersubjective validation is proposed. A survey of the required statistics and research methods courses in undergraduate psychology programs at the top national universities and colleges indicate that nearly all of the programs require at least one statistics course and a research methods course. However, very little course coverage is dedicated to qualitative methods. Students will need to pursue individual research with psychology department faculty to receive training in qualitative research methodology. Fostering an integrative methods approach to studying human consciousness will only be successful if qualitative research training is encouraged in undergraduate psychology programs.
Thomas W. Reiner
Troy University
Conducting research on human consciousness is problematic because it is done from a third-person perspective, whereas consciousness is a first-person experience. An integrative approach to studying consciousness that includes multiple modalities of measurement, combining experimental and correlational methods, combining quantitative and qualitative methods, and incorporates intersubjective validation is proposed. A survey of the required statistics and research methods courses in undergraduate psychology programs at the top national universities and colleges indicate that nearly all of the programs require at least one statistics course and a research methods course. However, very little course coverage is dedicated to qualitative methods. Students will need to pursue individual research with psychology department faculty to receive training in qualitative research methodology. Fostering an integrative methods approach to studying human consciousness will only be successful if qualitative research training is encouraged in undergraduate psychology programs.
| Toward an Integrative Approach to Studying Consciousness: Encouraging Qualitative Methodology Training |
Death-Primed Memory Suppression
Kristin R. Woods
Oklahoma State University
Motivated forgetting can be unconscious, as in the controversial and contentious repressed memory literature—or conscious, as in the suppression of undesirable thoughts, like cravings or impulses. The current work aimed at developing an experimental analogue of suppressed memories by converging death word priming and thought suppression research. Participants (17 males, 37 females) performed a computer-based, five-phase, study-recall-suppress-test-recognition task. Left-hand primes consisted of 22 nonwords (BLAY). Right-hand targets included 6 death (SLAY), 6 neutral (CLAY), and 6 nonword prime matches (BLAY). Participants significantly suppressed death-related prime-target pairs at a lesser rate and with less suppression confidence than nonword prime-target pairs. The discussion focuses on implications, contradictions and parallels to previous research findings, and future directions for research on thought suppression.
Kristin R. Woods
Oklahoma State University
Motivated forgetting can be unconscious, as in the controversial and contentious repressed memory literature—or conscious, as in the suppression of undesirable thoughts, like cravings or impulses. The current work aimed at developing an experimental analogue of suppressed memories by converging death word priming and thought suppression research. Participants (17 males, 37 females) performed a computer-based, five-phase, study-recall-suppress-test-recognition task. Left-hand primes consisted of 22 nonwords (BLAY). Right-hand targets included 6 death (SLAY), 6 neutral (CLAY), and 6 nonword prime matches (BLAY). Participants significantly suppressed death-related prime-target pairs at a lesser rate and with less suppression confidence than nonword prime-target pairs. The discussion focuses on implications, contradictions and parallels to previous research findings, and future directions for research on thought suppression.
| Death-Primed Memory Suppression |
Special Issue
Foundations for Experimental Social Psychology: Requiem for Classic Social Psychology
Robert D. Mather and Savannah Brand, Special Issue Editors
University of Central Oklahoma
The field of social psychology is relatively young, and has been touched by many different areas, including experimental psychology, sociology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. During the course of the field's development, many perspectives have contributed to the work of individual researchers in exciting ways. However, most introductory social psychology textbooks give very little coverage to the stories behind the classic social psychologists. This is not an indictment of introductory social psychology textbooks. They serve their purpose and do so very well--to survey the research and theories in the field and to place it in a broader context of application. This issue is dedicated to providing a readable digest of information that may be of interest to our readers.
Foundations for Experimental Social Psychology: Requiem for Classic Social Psychology
Robert D. Mather and Savannah Brand, Special Issue Editors
University of Central Oklahoma
The field of social psychology is relatively young, and has been touched by many different areas, including experimental psychology, sociology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. During the course of the field's development, many perspectives have contributed to the work of individual researchers in exciting ways. However, most introductory social psychology textbooks give very little coverage to the stories behind the classic social psychologists. This is not an indictment of introductory social psychology textbooks. They serve their purpose and do so very well--to survey the research and theories in the field and to place it in a broader context of application. This issue is dedicated to providing a readable digest of information that may be of interest to our readers.
| Foundations for Experimental Social Psychology: Requiem for Classic Social Psychology |
Motherhood in Toni Morrison's Beloved: A Psychological Reading
Sandra Mayfield
University of Central Oklahoma
Toni Morrison's Beloved is a novel about motherhood and mothering. Specifically, it is a book about the slave woman as mother. The events of the novel, set in the first half of the nineteenth century when the slave population in the United States had increased significantly, narrate the fortunes and misfortunes of Sethe, an African slave confined to a plantation in Kentucky named Sweet Home. The owners of the plantation were a childless couple named the Garners. Sethe, unlike most African slave women, had a measure of control over her future on this plantation. She had the option of selecting one of the five slave men on this plantation as her husband and the good fortune of bearing his four children and planning the future for herself and her family, options that few other slaves possessed. Because of her owners and their relatively compassionate views toward their slaves, Sethe, a courageous and daring woman, dared to imagine a future in which her children could escape the bondage of slavery.
Sandra Mayfield
University of Central Oklahoma
Toni Morrison's Beloved is a novel about motherhood and mothering. Specifically, it is a book about the slave woman as mother. The events of the novel, set in the first half of the nineteenth century when the slave population in the United States had increased significantly, narrate the fortunes and misfortunes of Sethe, an African slave confined to a plantation in Kentucky named Sweet Home. The owners of the plantation were a childless couple named the Garners. Sethe, unlike most African slave women, had a measure of control over her future on this plantation. She had the option of selecting one of the five slave men on this plantation as her husband and the good fortune of bearing his four children and planning the future for herself and her family, options that few other slaves possessed. Because of her owners and their relatively compassionate views toward their slaves, Sethe, a courageous and daring woman, dared to imagine a future in which her children could escape the bondage of slavery.
| Motherhood in Toni Morrison's Beloved: A Psychological Reading |