Festschrift Abstracts

(305KB Microsoft Word Document)

 

Earl B. Hunt, Department of Psychology, University of Washington WITH PRIVILEGES (DOGGONE IT!) COME RESPONSIBILITIES: SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT FREE SPEECH, ACADEMIC FREEDOM, AND RESPONSIBLE EXPRESSIONS OF SCIENTIFIC RESULTS Wednesday, 17, June; 8:30-9:00

Free speech is axiomatic in American society. In the United States government suppression of anyone's speech is very strictly limited. Academics occupy a further-privileged position; they claim and often get protection of their speech against private suppression from their employers. Indeed, they expect their employers to protect them against attempted suppression by individuals and non-governmental organizations outside the University. However academic, and especially scientific, research can have major implications for the conduct of business in the rest of society. This inevitably creates a tension, for segments of society who see their interests as being hurt by statements that call upon the hubris of science have a legitimate right to seek redress. Scientists have answered such concerns by saying that internal constraints within science, such as peer review and replication of experiments, provide protections that should reduce the tension. How well are these mechanisms working? Hopefully well, for it would be far better for everyone if the policing of allegedly scientific statements is done from within science, rather than by academic administrators and the courts. But we don't know how well a mechanism works unless we look at it. I discuss these issues, with special emphasis on research on human intelligence.

 

 

Linda S. Gottfredson, School of Education, University of Delaware LESSONS IN ACADEMIC FREEDOM Wednesday, 17, June; 9:00-9:30

The First Amendment to the US Constitution, in 1791, forbids governmental action that abridges freedom of speech or freedom of the press. It derives from the 17th century Enlightenment belief that, to remain free and progressive, a nation must protect freedom of thought and the pursuit of truth. This ethos, together with the First Amendment's instantiation of it in American law, undergirds a species of free speech meant to protect the collective pursuit of truth in institutions of higher learning: academic freedom. Developing and disseminating knowledge is the job that society assigns scholars in those institutions, so if scholars are not free to pursue the truth, then who is? "Free speech is not simply an aspect of the educational enterprise to be weighed against other desirable ends. It is the very precondition of the academic enterprise itself" (AAUP, 1994, on speech codes).

 

 

Scott O. Lilienfeld, Department of Psychology, Emory University CAN PSYCHOLOGY BE A SCIENCE? Wednesday, 17, June; 9:30-10:00

Much of "soft psychology" is (a) marked by claims that are difficult to falsify and (b) seemingly intuitive to laypersons. Both (a) and (b) contribute to the risk of confirmation bias, which is arguably the central obstacle to scientific progress. As a consequence, the fields of clinical, counseling, school, educational, and personality psychology have consistently been vulnerable to fads and fallacies. In this talk, I address several major threats to scientific psychology, particularly political correctness, postmodernism and poststructuralism, radical environmentalism, radical cultural relativism, and most recently, a resurgence of the position that "common sense" and gut hunches are valid means of appraising scientific theories. These threats, among others, have eroded the scientific foundations of academic psychology and widened the gap between scientific and popular psychology. I present a set of constructive remedies for combating psychological pseudoscience, placing soft psychology on firmer scientific footing, and disseminating high quality psychological science to the general public and policy-makers. I also argue that the answer to the question comprising this talk's title is "Yes."

 

Steven W. Gangestad, Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY LOOKS AT BEHAVIOR GENETICS: LESSONS FROM RESEARCH ON DEVELOPMENTAL INSTABILITY Wednesday, 17, June; 10:30-11:00

Behavior genetics and evolutionary analyses of behavior might appear to be allied endeavors, each speaking to how behavioral phenotypes reflect influences of genes. In fact, however, behavior geneticists rarely speak to fundamental issues pertaining to evolutionary history, and evolution-minded psychologists only occasionally take special interest in genetic variation in behavioral traits. Tom Bouchard is exceptional. Truly renowned for his seminal work in behavior genetics, he, to a notable extent, has also sought to understand the implications of an evolutionary perspective for his work, and vice versa. One critical question in this regard follows from R. A. Fisher's insight that natural selection typically removes additive genetic variation from populations: What evolutionary phenomena have permitted, maintained, or generated genetic variation underlying behavioral phenotypes? One line of work that has been applied to this question concerns research on developmental instability and its associations with behavioral and neural features. This research provides some empirical support for a theoretically expected role for mutation-selection balance on fitness traits subject to directional selection as well as traits under stabilizing selection. Definitive answers await further work, but studies to date point in promising directions.

 

 

Wendy Johnson, Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh EXTENDING TOM BOUCHARD'S EXPERIENCE PRODUCING DRIVE THEORY Wednesday, 17, June; 11:00-11:30

In several papers in the 1990's, Tom Bouchard outlined and developed his Experience Producing Drive Theory. This is the idea that complex organisms have evolved through natural selection to be agents actively seeking circumstances in which they can optimally survive. Thus genes exert their influences on the development of patterns of human and other animal behaviours known as traits through their control of motivations, preferences, and emotional responses. Over time, these motivations, preferences, and emotional responses drive the acquisition of experiences that result in the development, practice, and pursuance of skills, habits, patterns of response, and environmental circumstances, which in turn reinforce the underlying drivers through the creation of gene-environment interactions and correlations. In this talk I will describe how recently emerging understandings of gene-environment interplay and behavioural genetic methodology can be used to extend and test this important theory.

 

John C. Loehlin, Department of Psychology, University of Texas ENVIRONMENT AND THE BEHAVIOR GENETICS OF PERSONALITY: LET ME COUNT THE WAYS Wednesday, 17, June; 11:30-12:00

Eighteen ways in which behavior geneticists look at environments are summarized: three forms of genotype-environment correlation, eight variants of shared environments, two forms of unshared environments, three forms of genotype-environment interaction, temporal environmental fluctuation, and the environments of evolution. The implications of the typical empirical values of h², c², and e² for personality traits are discussed with respect to this classification, as well as the challenges presented to these by the NEAD study of unshared environments.

 

Nick Martin, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia CONTRIBUTIONS OF TWIN STUDIES TO UNDERSTANDING THE ETIOLOGY OF COMPLEX DISEASE Wednesday, 17, June; 1:15-1:45

Before starting the hunt for quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for a complex trait it is necessary to show that the trait is genetically influenced. This evidence is most likely to come from the classical twin study - the demonstration that monozygotic twins are more similar for the trait than dizygotic twins. The strengths and weaknesses of twin studies are discussed and it is suggested that far from becoming irrelevant with advances in molecular biology, they can improve the efficiency of QTL detection and play an important role in unravelling developmental genetic and epigenetic mechanisms. The genomics revolution offers the opportunity to isolate genes contributing to risk of complex diseases which are known to run in families but have no simple mode of inheritance. This search has recently been dramatically accelerated by development of microarrays for typing up to one million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) simultaneously which allow genome-wide association scans (GWAS). Methods will be illustrated from searches for genes influencing depression, alcoholism and other complex diseases.

 

Nancy Segal, Department of Psychology, California State University, Fullerton TWINS: THE FINEST NATURAL EXPERIMENT Wednesday, 17, June; 1:45-2:15

Twin studies have moved far beyond the classic twin design described by Sir Francis Galton in the late 1800s. Natural experiments involving twins are happening all the time, driven largely by advances in artificial reproductive technology and increased adoption rates. These events have produced some exotic twin-like sibships, e.g., virtual twins (same-age unrelated siblings), new sources of twins reared apart (twin girls abandoned due to China's One-Child Policy, who can be followed prospectively) and an increased frequency of higher order multiple births (triplets, quadruplets and more). The causes of monozygotic (MZ) twinning still remain to be worked out, but surprising new facts about MZ twins continue to emerge. Of greatest interest, perhaps, is the fact that MZ twins are neither genetically identical, nor phenotypically matched in all respects. These differences have been associated with copy number variations, epigenetic processes, differential X-inactivation and other events. DZ twins also include a range of intriguing pairs. They include superfecundated twins (twins who share mothers, but not fathers), twins who exchange cells in utero (chimeras) and "mixed-race" twins (twins who appear to come from different populations because of having interracial parents). Clever experiments with these unusual pairs can be informative. The bottom line is that MZ and DZ twins remain as behaviorally, socially and visually interesting as ever.

 

Irving I. Gottesman, Ph.D., Hon.FRCPsych, Daniel R. Hanson, Ph.D., M.D., Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Minnesota, Kevin Bolinskey, Department of Psychology, Indiana Sate University
PREDICTING ADULT PSYCHOPATHOLOGY FROM ADOLESCENT MMPIS: SOME VICTORIES
Wednesday, 17, June; 2:15-2:45

Hathaway and Monachesi (1953, 1961, 1963) undertook the collection of a large data set based on 3,971 Minneapolis ninth graders collected during the 1947-48 school year and 11,329 ninth graders in 86 Minnesota communities collected in the spring of 1954. In addition to MMPI data, extensive correlate and follow up data were collected with the primary intent of identifying MMPI characteristics among adolescents who would later go on to display delinquent or antisocial behaviors. The primary results suggested that when profiles were deviant on scales 4, 8, and 9, either singularly or in combination, delinquency rates were considerably larger than the overall rate.

This data set has also been used to examine predictors of adult psychopathology. A pilot study by Hanson, Gottesman, and Heston (1990) identified 26 individuals with schizophrenia who had an MMPI at age 15. Hanson et al. attempted to delineate MMPI scales that may be associated with future schizophrenia onset, but were frustrated in their efforts.

More recent studies, however, have had more promising results. For example, Archer, Bolinskey, Morton, and Farris (2004) were able to discriminate delinquent adolescents from those with a psychiatric disorder on the basis of MMPI-A scale scores. Other researchers (e.g. Bolinskey et al, 2001; Carter, Parnas, Cannon, Schulsinger, and Mednick, 1999) have been able to use MMPI scale scores to discriminate individuals who developed schizophrenia from those who did not within a high risk population. Likewise, Bolinskey and Gottesman (in press) have demonstrated reliable MMPI-2 scale score differences between hypothetically psychosis prone individuals and a matched comparison sample.

The current study seeks to find MMPI scale scores to distinguish three groups: A) delinquent/criminal individuals, B) individuals who developed a non-schizophrenia-related psychiatric disorder requiring hospitalization, and C) individuals who later developed schizophrenia.

 

Nathan Kuncel, Deniz Ones and Paul Sackett, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AS PREDICTORS OF WORK, EDUCATIONAL, AND BROAD LIFE OUTCOMES
Wednesday, 17, June; 2:30-3:00

The role of individual differences as predictor of important outcomes in the work, educational, and broad life outcome domains is commonly misunderstood due to attention-getting, but misleading, findings from small sample studies and to underestimation of their predictive power due to the use of range-restricted samples and unreliable and otherwise flawed criterion measures. Individually and collectively the three authors have addressed the role of individual differences focusing on large, representative samples and on comprehensive meta-analytic syntheses of existing work in each domain. These large-scale efforts reveal an impressive and consistent body of findings on the importance of individual differences across all of these domains.

 

Ian Deary, Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh COGNITIVE EPIDEMIOLOGY: INTELLIGENCE AS A PREDICTOR OF HEALTH AND DEATH Wednesday, 17, June; 3:00-3:30

Cognitive epidemiology is a relatively new field that studies associations between cognitive ability and health outcomes. Typically, the mental test scores are obtained in early life and the health outcomes studied over many decades thereafter. An overview is given of the associations between intelligence test scores and mortality (from all causes and from specific causes), illnesses, health behaviours, and some other health-related outcomes. Possible confounding and mediating factors are discussed. The additional role of personality traits alongside cognitive ability in health outcomes is shown. Intelligence has emerged as an important predictor of mortality and morbidity, alongside traditional medical and social-demographic risk factors. The mechanisms of the associations are not yet understood. A framework for further investigations is presented.

David Lubinski, Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University SPATIAL ABILITY: A SLEEPING GIANT FOR TALENT IDENTIFICATION AND DEVELOPMENT Wednesday, 17, June; 3:30-4:00

The importance of spatial ability in educational pursuits and the world of work are examined with particular attention devoted to STEM (science, technology, engineering & mathematics) domains. For decades, spatial ability assessed during early adolescence has surfaced as a salient psychological attribute among those adolescents who subsequently go on to achieve advanced educational credentials and occupations in STEM. D. G. Paterson et al. (1930) spoke to the issue as did a special NSF Task Force Report (Super & Bachrach, 1957). Recent longitudinal analyses from the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) and Project Talent solidify the generalization that spatial ability plays a critical role in developing expertise in STEM and suggests, among other things, that including spatial ability in modern talent searches - procedures aimed at identifying intellectually talented youth for advanced learning opportunities - would identify many adolescents with potential for STEM careers who are currently being missed. Human capital initiatives also could profit from taking this important source of human individuality into account.

Meeting Highlights

Tuesday, 16 June
7:00 - 10:00 pm
Dinner in Honor of Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr. at Radisson Plaza Hotel

Wednesday, 17 June
8:00 - 5:00 pm
Festschrift at the Radisson Plaza Hotel

5:00 - 7:30 pm
Opening Conference Reception at the Weismann Art Museum

Thursday, 18 June
Paper and Poster Sessions

Friday, 19 June
Paper and Poster Sessions

Saturday, 20 June
Plenary Sessions

7:00 pm
Closing Banquet at the Radisson Plaza Hotel