Diagnostic Tests

In many fields people try to predict group membership. One example includes making diagnostic predictions (e.g., does this person have a disease or diagnosis?). Another example is predicting who will attempt a terrorist act. Malcolm Gladwell, in the New Yorker, has an...

Risk-Seeking and Framing of the Question

In the August 4, 2006 issue of Science, research discuss a study describing how framing a question can effect how people decide to act. In this study, researchers told participants they would receive a sum of money and then the researchers repeatedly posed them one of...

Training in Latent Growth Curve Modeling

There is a great summer institute sponsored by the American Psychological Association at the University of Virginia. Here is the description from the website:”This ATI is designed to highlight recent methodological advances in the analysis of longitudinal...

More Six Word Stories

I wrote an earlier post on a six word story contest held by Wired magazine in honor of Ernest Hemingway’s six word story (“For sale: baby shoes never worn”).A six word story is right up my alley for my writing capabilities. Thus, I have written a few more:Missed...

Are Positive Events More Likely?

Many studies have found an effect in which people predict that positive items are more likely to occur to them than negative items. A classic study by Rosenhan and Messick (1966) provided people with drawings of people with smiling faces or frowning faces. In one...