Role of test motivation in intelligence testing Duckworth, Angela Lee; Quinn, Patrick D; Lynam, Donald R ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
05/2011, Letnik:
108, Številka:
19
Journal Article
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Intelligence tests are widely assumed to measure maximal intellectual performance, and predictive associations between intelligence quotient (IQ) scores and later-life outcomes are typically ...interpreted as unbiased estimates of the effect of intellectual ability on academic, professional, and social life outcomes. The current investigation critically examines these assumptions and finds evidence against both. First, we examined whether motivation is less than maximal on intelligence tests administered in the context of low-stakes research situations. Specifically, we completed a meta-analysis of random-assignment experiments testing the effects of material incentives on intelligence-test performance on a collective 2,008 participants. Incentives increased IQ scores by an average of 0.64 SD, with larger effects for individuals with lower baseline IQ scores. Second, we tested whether individual differences in motivation during IQ testing can spuriously inflate the predictive validity of intelligence for life outcomes. Trained observers rated test motivation among 251 adolescent boys completing intelligence tests using a 15-min "thin-slice" video sample. IQ score predicted life outcomes, including academic performance in adolescence and criminal convictions, employment, and years of education in early adulthood. After adjusting for the influence of test motivation, however, the predictive validity of intelligence for life outcomes was significantly diminished, particularly for nonacademic outcomes. Collectively, our findings suggest that, under low-stakes research conditions, some individuals try harder than others, and, in this context, test motivation can act as a third-variable confound that inflates estimates of the predictive validity of intelligence for life outcomes.
The media, the general public, and politicians often emphasize that mental illness is a precursor and a cause of violence, particularly emphasizing an assumed relationship between mental illness, ...including psychopathy and psychosis, and the use of guns to commit violence. We report which individuals with serious mental health problems have an increased risk to commit violence (including gun violence). Second, we answer the question to what extent serious mental health problems explain most violence and especially gun-related violence. And what is the opinion of experts on these questions? Third, we review which effective screening instrument can help to identify individuals with mental health problems who are at risk to carry a gun and commit violence. For policy makers and legislators, this article points out that most psychiatric disorders are not related to violence, with some exceptions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and often only in conjunction with substance use. We show that the attributable risk of mental illness to explain violence in general is low. We also emphasize that conduct disorder in late childhood or adolescence is a better predictor of violence than is mental illness at a later age. Empirically based screening methods to identify individuals with mental health problems who are prone to violence appear to have limited utility. Implications are discussed for clinicians and practitioners working in the justice system, researchers, and policy makers.
Objective: A callous-unemotional (CU) subtype of conduct disorder (CD) has been proposed as an addition to the fifth edition of the "Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)." This ...study tested the hypothesis that young girls with the CU subtype of CD would exhibit more severe antisocial behavior and less severe internalizing problems over time relative to girls with CD alone. Second, the developmental outcomes of girls with CU traits in the absence of CD was examined because these girls would be overlooked by the proposed CU subtyping scheme. Method: Theses issues were examined in a community sample of 1,862 girls 6 to 8 years of age at study onset. Outcomes included internalizing and externalizing problems, academic achievement, and global impairment assessed concurrently and at a 6-year follow-up. Results: Girls with the CU subtype of CD had higher levels of externalizing disorder symptoms, bullying, relational aggression, and global impairment than girls with CD alone. Girls with CD alone tended to have more anxiety problems than girls with the CU subtype of CD. Girls with high CU traits without CD exhibited higher ODD and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and lower academic achievement at the 6-year follow-up relative to girls without CU traits and CD. Group differences at the 6-year follow-up were primarily accounted for by baseline differences on the outcomes. Conclusions: The proposed DSM-5 CU subtype of CD identifies young girls who exhibit lower anxiety problems and more severe aggression, CD symptoms, academic problems and global impairment across time than girls with CD alone. (Contains 2 figures and 6 tables.)
Objective: To examine whether oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) rather than conduct disorder (CD) may explain the comorbidity between behavioral disorders and depression; to test whether distinct ...affective and behavioral dimensions can be discerned within the symptoms of ODD; and to determine whether an affective dimension of ODD symptoms is specifically predictive of later depression. Method: The dimensions of ODD and their prediction to later CD and depression were examined in a community sample of 2,451 girls between the ages of 5 and 8 years, followed up annually over a 5-year period, using parent, child, and teacher questionnaire ratings of the severity of symptoms of psychopathology. Results: Dimensions of negative affect, oppositional behavior, and antagonistic behavior were found within ODD symptoms. Negative affect predicted later depression. Oppositional and antagonistic behavior predicted CD overall, and for Caucasian girls, negative affect also predicted later CD. CD was not predictive of later depression, controlling for comorbid conditions. Conclusions: ODD plays a key role in the early development of psychopathology. It is central in the comorbidity between internalizing and externalizing psychopathology, which may be caused by a dimension of negative affective symptoms within ODD. How this dimension relates to later CD appears to vary by race. (Contains 2 figures and 3 tables.)
Objective: This article first summarizes key research findings from the Pittsburgh Youth Study from 1987 to the present, and focuses on delinquency in 1,517 young men who have been followed up from ...late childhood into their 20s. Second, the article addresses how indicators of self-control prospectively predict later offending, and whether the prediction shows individual difference in the age-crime curve, particularly the up-slope, peak, and down-slope of that curve. Method: Longitudinal analyses were conducted on a sample of boys in the middle sample of the Pittsburgh Youth Study (n = 422), whose cognitive impulsivity and intelligence were assessed at about age 12 years. Criminal records on the sample were until age 28. Results: The results show that cognitive impulsivity and intelligence, measured between ages 12 and 13 by means of psychometric tests, predicted the age-crime curve. The age-arrest curve was substantially higher in boys with high cognitive impulsivity and in boys with low IQ. However, there was a significant interaction between cognitive impulsivity and intelligence. For boys with high IQ, cognitive impulsivity was associated with a greater escalation in the prevalence of offending during early adolescence, followed by a more rapid decline in offending as boys entered early adulthood with a slight subsequent increase in criminal offending then occurring late 20. In contrast, there was no evidence that cognitive impulsivity independently influenced criminal offending at any developmental period for boys with low IQ. Conclusions: The results are discussed in terms of interventions to reduce individuals' delinquency from childhood through early adulthood and lower the age-crime curve for populations. However, the association was complex because it was moderated by both age and intelligence. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)
Identifying Direct Protective Factors for Nonviolence Pardini, Dustin A., PhD; Loeber, Rolf, PhD; Farrington, David P., PhD ...
American journal of preventive medicine,
08/2012, Letnik:
43, Številka:
2
Journal Article
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Background The CDC recently organized a panel to examine whether a series of constructs consistently acted as risk and/or direct protective factors for youth violence across four longitudinal ...studies. Analyses first examined constructs commonly assessed across all four studies and then included constructs unique to each study. Purpose This paper describes findings from the Pittsburgh Youth Study (PYS) as part of this supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine documenting the findings from the project. Methods Participants were boys in the youngest cohort of the PYS (N=503), which was initiated in 1987–1988. Constructs measured at age 12 years were trichotomized to test whether they acted as risk and/or direct protective factors in predicting violence (i.e., assault, rape, robbery) across ages 13–14 years and 15–18 years. Results Multivariate logistic regressions with predictors present across studies indicated that depressed mood (OR=1.96) and low religious observance (OR=1.88) were risk factors for violence at ages 13–14 years, whereas peer delinquency acted as both a risk (OR=2.34) and direct protective factor (OR=0.44). Low peer delinquency was also a direct protective factor (OR=0.41) for violence at ages 15–18 years. Analyses including predictors specific to the PYS indicated that negative attitude toward delinquency (OR=0.50) was protective against violence at ages 13–14 years, whereas the risk factors of low perceived likelihood of being caught (OR=1.81) and high neighborhood disorder/crime (OR=1.77) predicted violence at ages 15–18 years. Conclusions Some factors may be best conceptualized as direct protective factors for nonviolence, whereas other constructs act primarily as risk factors that increase the probability of adolescent violence.
Why do many juveniles stop offending when they grow up? Why are juvenile delinquents dealt with differently in the courts than adult criminals, and should young adults be dealt with differently than ...older adults? And what is special about the 18th birthday when the jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system in most states and most European countries, offering protection and rehabilitation, ends and the more punitive and less rehabilitative criminal justice system for adults starts? Since most juveniles take longer than age 18 to mature and become less impulsive, what is a more realistic distinction between adolescence and adulthood and justice response to adolescents and young adults? These and many other questions pertaining to the transition between adolescence and adulthood are addressed in this volume. The volume is based on hundreds of scientific studies, which are summarized in 11 chapters. The chapters deal with criminal careers, particularly desistance from and persistence in offending, explanatory factors of persistence and desistance, such as, for example, early individual differences in self-control, brain maturation, social risk and protective factors, mental illnesses, changes in life circumstances, neighborhood factors, and juvenile justice response. The volume also highlights the best evaluated and cost-effective programs that prevent juveniles from becoming persistent offenders in adulthood, and reduce recidivism among known delinquents. Finally, the volume addresses the advantages and disadvantages of legislators increasing or decreasing the age of adulthood with an eye on improving public safety.
A family's SES can be changeable over time. This study was the first to investigate if such within-individual changes in family SES are associated with parallel fluctuations in boys' delinquent ...behavior from childhood to adolescence. Participants were a community sample of boys and their caregivers (N = 503) who were assessed annually for ten consecutive years spanning ages 7-18. Fixed effects models revealed that changes in familial SES were related to changes in delinquency: Youths were more likely to offend during years in which their parents' SES was lower than during years in which their parents' SES was higher. Contrary to expectations, we found no evidence that this association was accounted for by families moving to different neighborhoods or by changes in parenting. Since within-individual models provide a stricter test of causality than between-individual models, these findings support claims that impacting familial SES may have a direct effect on youths' delinquency.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The current diagnostic system suggests that personality disorder categories be applied to children and adolescents in rare circumstances because of expected changes in personality pathology across ...development. The present study examined the stability in personality pathology, specifically psychopathy, across childhood and adolescence. Using a short form of the CPS and mixed models incorporating fixed and random effects, we examined the reliability, individual stability, mean-level stability, and predictive utility of juvenile psychopathy as a function of age (i.e., from 7 to 17 years old) in over 1,500 boys from the three cohorts of the Pittsburgh Youth Study. If adolescent development contributes to instability in personality pathology, large age-related fluctuations in reliability, stability, and predictive utility should be observed, particularly in the latter part of adolescence when normative changes are hypothesized to influence levels of psychopathy. Such fluctuations were not observed. In general, juvenile psychopathy could be reliably assessed beginning in childhood, was fairly stable across short and long intervals, showed little mean-level fluctuation, and predicted delinquency across adolescence. These results suggest that concerns about large changes in personality pathology across childhood and adolescence may be overstated. Implications and future directions are discussed.
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