Biomedical subjects

Stuart J McKelvie

Publications and source records attributed to Stuart J McKelvie.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Personality traits and university program.

Participants were 147 undergraduates majoring in programs classified as more professional (education, n = 28; business, n = 33) or less professional (natural sciences, n = 36; social science, n = 50) and more people-oriented (education, social sciences) or less people-oriented (business, natural sciences). They completed self-report tests for 13 personality constructs (five from Goldberg's version of the Five Factor Model, three from Eysenck and Eysenck's theory, and five others). Students in less professional disciplines scored higher on openness to experience (intellect/imagination) than those in more professional disciplines. Students in more people-oriented disciplines scored higher on empathy than those in less people-oriented disciplines. Women scored higher than men on conscientiousness, industriousness, and empathy, but lower than men on independence. Critical comments are offered and suggestions for research are made.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Impressions of people with gender-ambiguous male or female first names.

Undergraduates (12 men, 12 women) read a scenario in which they formed an impression of nine people who had left their first name on an answering machine. Participants rated the extent to which seven characteristics (Ethical, Caring, Popular, Cheerful, Successful, Masculine, Feminine) applied to people whose first names were gender-ambiguous (e.g., Chris), male (e.g., Ken) or female (e.g., Pam). People with gender-ambiguous names were rated less Ethical than those with female names, and people with gender-ambiguous names and male names were rated less Caring, less Cheerful, and less Feminine than those with female names. These results are consistent with the idea that there is a bias towards assuming that a person of unspecified sex is a male.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

False recognition with the Deese-Roediger-McDermott-Reid-Solso procedure: a quantitative summary.

In the Deese-Roediger-McDermott-Read-Solso (DRMRS) procedure, participants study lists of words associated with central concepts (critical themes) that are not on the lists, then their memory is tested. Based on 224 estimates, the rate of False Recognition of the nonstudied critical themes was .59 (95% confidence interval of .56 to .61), which is smaller than the Hit rate of .75 for correct recognition of studied items (95% confidence interval of .73 to .77) but greater than various rates of False Alarms for other nonstudied items (ranging from .13 to .19). Ratings of subjective confidence were similar on Hits and on False Recognitions but higher than on False Alarms, confirming that false recognition was more like correct recognition than like other errors. The results from judgments of feeling of remembering or knowing, from the effects of intervening activities (particularly recall) between study and test, and from the effects of age suggest that False Recognition occurs because the critical theme is activated along with studied items during list presentation and perhaps also during recall. Invoking fuzzy trace theory, it is argued Hits are based on verbatim traces whereas False Recognition is based on gist traces and a failure of source memory. Proposals are made for research.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Effects of defendant age on severity of punishment for different crimes.

After reading a murder or theft vignette in which the perpetrator was a 20-, 40-, or 60-year-old man, 95 undergraduates gave sentence and parole recommendations. Punishment was harsher for the murder than for the theft. For murder, participants treated the 20- and 60-year-old men less harshly than the 40-year-old man, which confirms previous archival findings. However, this inverted U-shaped function occurred for murder only. The authors discussed the results in the context of the just-desert and utilitarian rationales that guide sentencing and gave suggestions for future research.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Defendants' age and severity of punishment for two crimes in a mock scenario: further data.

95 undergraduates read a simulated crime vignette about either murder or theft in which the perpetrator was a 20-, 40-, or 60-yr.-old man, then gave recommendations about sentence and parole. Subsequently, they made a second set of recommendations for the other crime and another age. For combined sets of judgments, punishment was harsher for the murder than for the theft. For murder, the 60-yr.-old and the 20-yr.-old were both treated more leniently than the 40-yr.-old, but the difference was greater for the older than for the younger offender. Researchers should examine age in relation to judgments for different crimes with participants exposed to all experimental conditions.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

False recall with the drmrs ("drummers") procedure: a quantitative summary and review.

In the Deese-Roediger-McDermott-Read-Solso (DRMRS) procedure, which has recently enjoyed widespread use, participants try to remember lists of items constructed around critical themes that are not presented. The purpose of this quantitative review was to estimate the extent to which these themes are falsely recalled (Critical Intrusions) and to compare this error rate with Correct Recall and with false recall of other words that were not presented (Noncritical Intrusions). Based on 111 estimates, the mean rate of Critical Intrusions was .374 (95% confidence interval of .344 to .403), which was a very large effect (d=2.40). Critical Intrusions were less frequent than Correct Recall (.572) but more frequent than Noncritical Intrusions (.078). Critical Intrusions were lower (.318) for people told to be confident (not to guess) than for people not so cautioned (.428), a medium to large effect size (d=0.69). Effects of other variables are summarized, and the theoretical and applied implications of these results are discussed.

Humans↗

PubMed2002

Effects of sex of judge and sex of victim on recommended punishment of a male murderer in a mock scenario.

Two samples of undergraduates (36 women, 7 men; 44 women, 45 men) read a mock transcript in which a murderer's victim was a man or a woman, after which they made prison sentence and death penalty judgments. Female judges gave longer sentences for the female victim than for the male victim, whereas male judges gave longer sentences for the male victim than for the female victim. This same-sex bias suggests that extralegal factors can affect judgments about sentencing.

Adult↗