This book traces the theory and methodology of multivariate statistical analysis and shows how it can be conducted in practice using the LISREL computer program. It presents not only the typical uses of LISREL, such as confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models, but also several other multivariate analysis topics, including regression (univariate, multivariate, censored, logistic, and probit), generalized linear models, multilevel analysis, and principal component analysis. It provides numerous examples from several disciplines and discusses and interprets the results, illustrated with sections of output from the LISREL program, in the context of the example. The book is intended for masters and PhD students and researchers in the social, behavioral, economic and many other sciences who require a basic understanding of multivariate statistical theory and methods for their analysis of multivariate data. It can also be used as a textbook on various topics of multivariate statistical analysis.

This book describes mindfulness and meditation practices and programs for adolescents by situating the topic in a bio-psychosocial-cultural approach. Using this framework, the benefits of these practices and programs for adolescents- with an emphasis on evidence-based practices-are explored. In addition to programs based on mindfulness, meditation programs using Transcendental Meditation, Herbert Benson's Relaxation Response, and the Center for Mind Body Medicine's group programs are discussed. The book is targeted toward educators, mental health professionals, researchers, and graduate students interested in the application, development, and study of mindfulness and meditation practices and programs for adolescents.

This collection of essays by scholars from Europe, Asia, North America, and Latin America offers new perspectives of the phenomenological investigation of experiential life on the basis of Husserl's phenomenology. Not only well-known works of Husserl are interpreted from new angles, but also the latest volumes of the Husserliana are closely examined. In a variety of ways, the contributors explore the emergence of reason in experience that is disclosed in the very regions that are traditionally considered to be "irrational" or "pre-rational." The leading idea of such explorations is Husserl's view that perception, affectivity, and volition are regarded as the three aspects of reason. Without affectivity, which is supposedly irrational, no rationality can be established in the spheres of representation and volition, whereas volitional and representational acts consistently structure the process of affective experience. In such a framework, it is also shown that theoretical and practical reason are inseparably intertwined. Thus, the papers collected here can be regarded as a collaborative phenomenological investigation into the entanglement and mutual dependency of the supposedly "rational" and the "irrational" as well as that of the "practical" and the "theoretical."

This first monograph of its kind introduces the reader to fundamental definitions, key concepts and case studies addressing the following issues of rapidly growing relevance for online communities: What are emotions? How do they emerge, how are they transmitted? How can one measure emotional states? What are cyberemotions? When do emotions and cyberemotions become collective phenomena? How can one model emotions and their changes? What role do emotions play for on-line communities? Edited and authored by leading scientists in this field, this book is a comprehensive reference for anyone working on applications of complex systems methods in the social sciences, as well as for social scientists, psychologists, experts in on-line communities and computer scientists. This book provides an excellent overview of the current state-of-art in research on collective emotional interactions mediated by the Internet. It introduces a reader in social phenomena occurring in cyberspace, algorithms needed for automatic sentiment detection and data driven modeling of emotional patterns observed in on-line groups. Eugene Stanley, Professor, Boston UniversityWith the explosive hyper-exponential growth of the internet suddenly new ways of communication are emerging that give rise to a digital 'Homo empathicus', each of us suddenly being able to share thoughts and feelings with millions if not billions of others. This book is a true treat, a timely milestone that gives us insight in the co-evolution of the way we interact with each other and the communication technology provided through this new seemingly endless flexible digital world. Prof. Holyst did a great job bringing together real experts in the field of cyber emotions.Peter M.A. Sloot, Professor, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Nanyang University, Singapore The book Cyberemotions embraces the topic of emotion studies in cyberspace from a very rich spectrum of points of view and applications. It is particularly interesting reading the theoretical foundations underlying the concepts of cyberemotions and how these concepts can be captured, modeled and implemented in real-time applications. Catherine Pelachaud, Director of Research CNRS at LTCI, TELECOM ParisTechLogical machines give us a chance to analyze our often illogical behaviors, especially in the vast meadows of the cyberspace. In this important book, authors of different backgrounds present a wide and deep image, not only of methods of analyzing our emotional behavior online but also how the computers can help to break communicational walls the same technology had built. Rafal Rzepka, Professor, Hokkaido University

This book addresses challenges in the theoretically and empirically adequate assessment of competencies in educational settings. It presents the scientific projects of the priority program "Competence Models for Assessing Individual Learning Outcomes and Evaluating Educational Processes," which focused on competence assessment across disciplines in Germany. The six-year program coordinated 30 research projects involving experts from the fields of psychology, educational science, and subject-specific didactics. The main reference point for all projects is the concept of "competencies," which are defined as "context-specific cognitive dispositions that are acquired and needed to successfully cope with certain situations or tasks in specific domains" (Koeppen et al., 2008, p. 62). The projects investigate different aspects of competence assessment: The primary focus lies on the development of cognitive models of competencies, complemented by the construction of psychometric models based on these theoretical models. In turn, the psychometric models constitute the basis for the construction of instruments for effectively measuring competencies. The assessment of competencies plays a key role in optimizing educational processes and improving the effectiveness of educational systems. This book contributes to this challenging endeavor by meeting the need for more integrative, interdisciplinary research on the structure, levels, and development of competencies.

This volume is devoted to descriptions of non medical as well as medical uses for some drugs that have typically, or not so typically, been associated with drug abuse. One major objective of this book is to identify costs and benefits of drug abuse. The book highlights drugs including 3,4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), cannabinoids, opioids and methylphenidate because of their well-documented potential for abuse and provides new and emerging evidence of their potential to treat some chronic disease states alongside the potential consequences of exposure.

This proceedings volume compiles and expands on selected and peer reviewed presentations given at the 81st Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society (IMPS), organized by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and held in Asheville, North Carolina, July 11th to 17th, 2016. IMPS is one of the largest international meetings focusing on quantitative measurement in psychology, education, and the social sciences, both in terms of participants and number of presentations. The meeting built on the Psychometric Society's mission to share quantitative methods relevant to psychology, addressing a diverse set of psychometric topics including item response theory, factor analysis, structural equation modeling, time series analysis, mediation analysis, cognitive diagnostic models, and multi-level models. Selected presenters were invited to revise and expand their contributions and to have them peer reviewed and published in this proceedings volume. Previous volumes to showcase work from the Psychometric Society's meetings are New Developments in Quantitative Psychology: Presentations from the 77th Annual Psychometric Society Meeting (Springer, 2013), Quantitative Psychology Research: The 78th Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society (Springer, 2015), Quantitative Psychology Research: The 79th Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society, Madison, Wisconsin, 2014 (Springer, 2015), and Quantitative Psychology Research: The 80th Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society, Beijing, 2015 (Springer, 2016).

This book reflects the current thinking and research on how consumers' perception of product risks and benefits affects their behavior. It provides the scientific, regulatory and industrial research community with a conceptual and methodological reference point for studies on consumer behavior and marketing. The contributions address various aspects of consumer psychology and behavior, risk perception and communication, marketing research strategies, as well as consumer product regulation. The book is divided into 4 parts: Product risks; Perception of product risks and benefits; Consumer behavior; Regulation and responsibility.

This book examines and explores Jacques Lacan's controversial topologisation of psychoanalysis, and seeks to persuade the reader that this enterprise was necessary and important. In providing both an introduction to a fundamental component of Lacan's theories, as well as readings of texts that have been largely ignored, it provides a thorough critical interpretation of his work. Will Greenshields argues that Lacan achieved his most pedagogically clear and successful presentations of his most essential and notoriously complex concepts - such as structure, the subject and the real - through the deployment of topology. The book will help readers to better understand Lacan, and also those concepts that have become prevalent in various intellectual discourses such as contemporary continental philosophy, politics and the study of ideology, and literary or cultural criticism.

This book addresses problems and challenges that face educational measurement at a time when multipurpose usage of observational data from educational assessments, tests and international surveys has become a growing global trend. While the construction of educational measures and use of educational data offer many opportunities, they also require awareness of the numerous threats to validity and methods of reducing such threats. Written by leading international scholars, the book demonstrates the complexity of educational measurement by addressing three broad and interrelated topics. The first part discusses cognitive abilities, including studies on fluid intelligence, its improvement and its links to aptitude tests for admission to higher education. The second part focuses on the effects of school and teacher-related factors on school outcomes at individual and group levels, and uses international studies to analyze causes. The third part presents analytical techniques and measurement methods to improve reliability, for example factor analysis using Bayesian estimators, bi-factor analysis, model misfit and solutions, and discusses balance issues in reporting test results. The book provides examples of state-of-the-art analytical techniques for pursuing fundamental research problems, and the latest advances in measurement methods, with a focus on validity improvement. Eminent researchers discuss and provide insights into questions such as: Is it possible to train individuals to think at a higher level than normal for their age? What determines prospective preschool teachers' skill to perceive mathematics-related preschool situations? Can international indicator design and instruments be improved to use trends and national context variables more efficiently? Can indicator data at national, school and class levels be compared easier? Are value-added measures of teacher effectiveness valid when it comes to hiring and promoting teachers? Is money better spent on teacher training than on smaller class-size? How do theory and empirical statistical data intertwine in building structures of understanding? This book is inspired by the career and personal influence of the Swedish scholar Professor Jan-Eric Gustafsson, renowned for his research on individual differences, especially the structure of cognitive abilities, and on the effects of education on knowledge and skills.

This book offers original knowledge, debate, and understanding from frontline fieldwork data and the relations between mental health difficulties, mental healthcare provision, and social theory. Dominant discourse of the last half century has followed a medical perspective. This has marginalised contributions from social science. Furthermore purely medical approaches to mental healthcare have profound shortcomings. Thus, this book draws upon innovative research findings to rejuvenate the relationship between psychiatry and social science. It frames this by reference to certain inevitable and uncertain elements of mental health which characterise this field. Over nine chapters the volume is a unique contribution to several intersecting areas of intellectual enterprise, research, and learning - as well as a source of insight into how mental health practice and policy might be modified and improved. As a result, it appeals to a wide range of audiences including social scientists, mental health practitioners, mental health researchers, social theorists, mental health service users, and policy-makers.

Making Research Relevant is the ideal core textbook for master's-level introduction to research methods courses in mental health. Accessible and user friendly, it is designed to help trainees and practitioners understand, connect, and apply research to clinical practice and day-to-day work with students and clients. The text covers foundational concepts like research ethics and how to best consume research, as well as 11 applied, evaluative, and outcome-based research methods. Easy-to-read chapters are infused with case examples from diverse settings and paired with brief video lectures, which provide vignettes to guide application and visual components that demonstrate how research methods can benefit mental health practitioners in real-world scenarios.

This second edition of the authoritative resource summarizes the state of consumer finance research across disciplines for expert findings on-and strategies for enhancing-consumers' economic health. New and revised chapters offer current research insights into familiar concepts (retirement saving, bankruptcy, marriage and finance) as well as the latest findings in emerging areas, including healthcare costs, online shopping, financial therapy, and the neuroscience behind buyer behavior. The expanded coverage also reviews economic challenges of diverse populations such as ethnic groups, youth, older adults, and entrepreneurs, reflecting the ubiquity of monetary issues and concerns. Underlying all chapters is the increasing importance of financial literacy training and other large-scale interventions in an era of economic transition. Among the topics covered: Consumer financial capability and well-being. Advancing financial literacy education using a framework for evaluation. Financial coaching: defining an emerging field. Consumer finance of low-income families. Financial parenting: promoting financial self-reliance of young consumers. Financial sustainability and personal finance education. Accessibly written for researchers and practitioners, this Second Edition of the Handbook of Consumer Finance Research will interest professionals involved in improving consumers' fiscal competence. It also makes a worthwhile text for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in economics, family and consumer studies, and related fields.

Quickly acquire the knowledge and skills you need to confidently administer, score, and interpret behavioral assessment tests

Behavioral assessment tests analyze and assess a broad range of behavioral problems found among children and adolescents, including hyperactivity, impulsivity, and ADHD. To use these tests properly, professionals need an authoritative source of advice and guidance on how to administer, score, and interpret them. Cowritten by leading experts in the behavioral assessment field and the creators of the BASC (Behavioral Assessment System for Children), Essentials of Behavioral Assessment is that source.

Like all the volumes in the Essentials of Psychological Assessment series, this book is designed to help busy mental health professionals quickly acquire the knowledge and skills they need to make optimal use of major psychological assessment instruments. Each concise chapter features numerous callout boxes highlighting key concepts, bulleted points, and extensive illustrative material, as well as test questions that help you gauge and reinforce your grasp of the information covered.

Essentials of Behavioral Assessment is the first book to provide state-of-the-art interpretive and administrative guidelines to using the BASC, CRS-R (Conners’ Rating Scales-Revised), and CBCL (Achenbach Child Behavior Checklists), the leading and most highly recognized behavioral assessment tests used in the field. The authors also offer expert assessment of the tests’ merits and include classroom observations.

Other titles in the Essentials of Psychological Assessment series:

Essentials of WJ IIITM Tests of Achievement Assessment
Essentials of WJ IIITM Cognitive Abilities Assessment
Essentials of WMS®-III Assessment
Essentials of Individual Achievement Assessment
Essentials of Nepsy® Assessment
Essentials of Cross-Battery Assessment
Essentials of Cognitive Assessment with KAIT and Other Kaufman Measures
Essentials of Nonverbal Assessment
Essentials of WISC-III® and WPPSI-R® Assessment

This accessible, highly interactive book presents a transformative approach to communication in leadership to meet workplace challenges at both local and global levels. Informed by neuroscience, psychology, as well as leadership science, it explains how integrating and properly balancing two key focal points of management-the tasks at hand and the concerns of others and self-can facilitate decision-making, partnering with diverse colleagues, and handling of crises and conflicts. Case examples, a self-test, friendly calls for reflection, and practical exercises provide readers with varied opportunities to assess, support, and evoke their readiness to apply these real-world concepts to their own style and preferences. Together, these chapters demonstrate the best outcomes of collaborative communication: greater effectiveness, deeper empathy with improved emotional fulfillment, and lasting positive change. Included in the coverage: * As a manager, can I be human? Using the two-agenda approach for more effective-and humane-management. * Being and becoming a person-centered leader and manager in a crisis environment. * Methods for transforming communication: dialogue. * Open Case: A new setting for problem-solving in teams. * Integrating the two agendas in agile management. * Tasks and people: what neuroscience reveals about managing both more effectively. * Transforming communication in multicultural contexts for better understanding across cultures. As a skill-building resource, Transforming Communication in Leadership and Teamwork offers particular value: * to diverse business professionals, including managers, leaders, and team members seeking to become more effective * business consultants and coaches working with people in executive positions and/or teams * leaders and members of multi-national teams * executives, decision makers and organizational developers * instructors and students of courses on effective communication, social and professional skills, human resources, communication and digital media, leadership, teamwork, and related subjects.

This textbook considers statistical learning applications when interest centers on the conditional distribution of the response variable, given a set of predictors, and when it is important to characterize how the predictors are related to the response. This fully revised new edition includes important developments over the past 8 years. Consistent with modern data analytics, it emphasizes that a proper statistical learning data analysis derives from sound data collection, intelligent data management, appropriate statistical procedures, and an accessible interpretation of results. As in the first edition, a unifying theme is supervised learning that can be treated as a form of regression analysis. Key concepts and procedures are illustrated with real applications, especially those with practical implications. The material is written for upper undergraduate level and graduate students in the social and life sciences and for researchers who want to apply statistical learning procedures to scientific and policy problems. The author uses this book in a course on modern regression for the social, behavioral, and biological sciences. All of the analyses included are done in R with code routinely provided.

This volume explores interdependencies between knowledge, action, and space from different interdisciplinary perspectives. Some of the contributors discuss knowledge as a social construct based on collective action, while others look at knowledge as an individual capacity for action. The chapters contain theoretical frameworks as well as experimental outcomes. Readers will gain insight into key questions such as: How does knowledge function as a prerequisite for action? Why are knowledge gaps growing and not diminishing in a knowledge society? How much knowledge is necessary for action? How do various types of knowledge influence the steps from cognition to action? How do different representations of knowledge shape action? What impact have spatial conditions for the formation of knowledge? What is the relationship between social and geographical space? The contributors consider rationality in social and economic theories as well as in everyday life. Attention is also given to action theoretic approaches and rationality from the viewpoints of psychology, post-structuralism, and human geography, making this an attractive book for students, researchers and academics of various backgrounds. This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.

Science, Pseudo-science, Non-sense, and Critical Thinking shines an unforgiving light on popular and lucrative 'miraculous' practices that promise to offer answers during times of trouble. Throughout the book, the authors unfold the fallacies underlying these practices, as well as consumers' need and desire to believe in them. Adopting a scientific approach, the book critically evaluates research into cold-reading practices, such as those that claim to be able to communicate with the afterlife or posess supernatural powers, before considering a range of pseudo-sciences including graphology and polygraph interrogation, exposing the pretensions of these practices in a clear and logical fashion. The book seeks to encourage critical thinking throughout, asking whether there is any scientific evidence to support these practitioners' abilities to supply us with reliable answers, and discussing the various factors that comprise the psychological mechanism of belief. Written in a fluent and accessible style, Science, Pseudo-science, Non-sense, and Critical Thinking is aimed at interested professionals and the public at large.

This book examines the theoretical foundations of order ethics and discusses business ethics problems from an order ethics perspective. Order ethics focuses on the social order and the institutional environment in which individuals interact. It is a well-established paradigm in European business ethics. The book contains articles written by leading experts in the field and provides both a concise introduction to order ethics and short summary articles homing in on specific aspects of the order-ethical paradigm. It presents contributions describing fundamental concepts, historical roots, and the economic, social, and philosophical background of the theory. The second part of the handbook focuses on the theory's application in business, society, and politics, casting new light on an array of topics that loom large in contemporary ethical discourse.

This edited volume presents a structured approach to a new lean education curriculum, implemented for the education of engineers, managers, administrators as well as human resources developers. The authorship comprises professors and lecturers, trainers and practitioners who educate future professionals in Lean Thinking principles and tools. This edited book provides a platform for authors to share their efforts in building a Body of Knowledge (BoK) for Lean Education. The topical spectrum is state-of-the-art in this field, but the book also includes a glimpse into future developments. This is a highly informative and carefully presented book, providing valuable insight for scholars with an interest in Lean Education.

The research articles in this volume cover timely quantitative psychology topics, including new methods in item response theory, computerized adaptive testing, cognitive diagnostic modeling, and psychological scaling. Topics within general quantitative methodology include structural equation modeling, factor analysis, causal modeling, mediation, missing data methods, and longitudinal data analysis. These methods will appeal, in particular, to researchers in the social sciences. The 80th annual meeting took place in Beijing, China, between the 12th and 16th of July, 2015. Previous volumes to showcase work from the Psychometric Society's Meeting are New Developments in Quantitative Psychology: Presentations from the 77th Annual Psychometric Society Meeting (Springer, 2013), Quantitative Psychology Research: The 78th Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society (Springer, 2015), and Quantitative Psychology Research: The 79th Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society, Wisconsin, USA, 2014 (Springer, 2015).

This open access book details tools and procedures for data collections of hard-to-reach, hard-to-survey populations. Inside, readers will discover first-hand insights from experts who share their successes as well as their failures in their attempts to identify and measure human vulnerabilities across the life course. Coverage first provides an introduction on studying vulnerabilities based on the Total Error Survey framework. Next, the authors present concrete examples on how to survey such populations as the elderly, migrants, widows and widowers, couples facing breast cancer, employees and job seekers, displaced workers, and teenagers during their transition to adulthood. In addition, one essay discusses the rationale for the use of life history calendars in studying social and psychological vulnerability while another records the difficulty the authors faced when trying to set-up an online social network to collect relevant data. Overall, this book demonstrates the importance to have, from the very beginning, a dialogue between specialists of survey methods and the researchers working on social dynamics across the life span. It will serve as an indispensable resource for social scientists interested in gathering and analyzing data on vulnerable individuals and populations in order to construct longitudinal data bases and properly target social policies.

The goal of this guide and manual is to provide a practical and brief overview of the theory on computerized adaptive testing (CAT) and multistage testing (MST) and to illustrate the methodologies and applications using R open source language and several data examples. Implementation relies on the R packages catR and mstR that have been already or are being developed by the first author (with the team) and that include some of the newest research algorithms on the topic. The book covers many topics along with the R-code: the basics of R, theoretical overview of CAT and MST, CAT designs, CAT assembly methodologies, CAT simulations, catR package, CAT applications, MST designs, IRT-based MST methodologies, tree-based MST methodologies, mstR package, and MST applications. CAT has been used in many large-scale assessments over recent decades, and MST has become very popular in recent years. R open source language also has become one of the most useful tools for applications in almost all fields, including business and education. Though very useful and popular, R is a difficult language to learn, with a steep learning curve. Given the obvious need for but with the complex implementation of CAT and MST, it is very difficult for users to simulate or implement CAT and MST. Until this manual, there has been no book for users to design and use CAT and MST easily and without expense; i.e., by using the free R software. All examples and illustrations are generated using predefined scripts in R language, available for free download from the book's website.

This book explains, with case examples, a variety of social science research methods suitable for studying the unconscious components of irrational social and political actions in world affairs, which can be defined as those that are intensely destructive, self-destructive, or extremely bizarre. The book argues that they are driven in part by feelings and fantasies that are outside of conscious awareness. Meyers explores the role of empathy in clinical understanding, as well as the value of exposing assertions to empirical disconfirmation. With a variety of research methods such as survey research, content analysis, and narrative analysis, and case examples such as studies of 'irreal' statements by authoritarian leaders, fabricated newspaper articles and climate change denial, this book sheds light on how to conduct research on psychodynamic matters in a scientifically valid and credible way.

This book offers a phenomenologically-inspired approach to sharing stories via 'poetic inquiry', a research approach that is rapidly gaining popularity within psychology and the wider social sciences. Owton begins by framing how poetry can appeal to all of the senses, how it can offer readers a shared experience of the world and why poetry should be used as a research approach. Chapters explore various aspects of poetic inquiry including poetry as data, turning data into poetry, poetry as literature review and poetry as reflective writing. The final chapters consider how one might draw on characterising traits to judge poetic inquiry, and how poetry might resonate with audiences to effect wider dissemination of research. This interdisciplinary exploration will be of interest to scholars in psychology, sociology, social work, and literature, as well as to medical and sports practitioners.