Thomas F. Cash: A multidimensional innovator in the measurement of body image; Some lessons learned and some lessons for the future of the field.

Accurate measurement of constructs under investigation is an often-overlooked ingredient of research. However, sound use of strategies to ensure valid and reliable assessment is the building block for any research design, data analysis, and outcome interpretation. In this paper, we note how Thomas F. Cash has pioneered and steered this process in the field of body image for over 30 years-in fact, in the inaugural issue of Body Image, the first article after the editorial introduction focused on measurement (see Thompson, 2004). In the current paper, we detail some of the seminal measures developed by Thomas Cash as well as update the common errors in the (mis)measurement of body image noted in Thompson (2004). The future of body image assessment is bright if we focus on the illumination of past work by Thomas Cash.

Picturing ethnopsychology: A colonial psychiatrist's struggles to examine Javanese minds, 1910-1925.

This article explores C. F. Engelhard's struggles to construct psychometric devices for the Netherlands Indies between 1910 and 1925. A young Dutch psychiatrist, Engelhard moved to the Netherlands Indies in 1916, where he applied his clinical experience to subject Javanese individuals to mental assessment devices. He imagined that basic picture tests and one's orientation in time provided apt solutions to the cross-cultural challenges facing him. To turn his prototypes into actual tests, Engelhard had to leave his daily work environment and move into the surrounding villages. Aided by local chiefs and his assistant, Soekirman, he managed to set up temporary testing sites, where he examined hundreds of Javanese individuals. Yet despite his attempts to transform Javanese farmers into subjects capable of taking a psychological test, the Javanese remained free to make-or fail to make-meaning out of Engelhard's images. Even though the psychiatrist went to great lengths in taking into account the particular social and cultural features of psychological practice in a colonial context, a vast chasm remained to exist between him and his test takers. This article examines Engelhard's practices against the backdrop of his training as a Western psychiatrist, colonial ideology in the Netherlands Indies, and the reception of his research by other colonial scientists with a wide range of attitudes about "the native mind." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

An Academic Genealogy of Psychometric Society Presidents.

In this paper, we present the academic genealogy of presidents of the Psychometric Society by constructing a genealogical tree, in which Ph.D. students are encoded as descendants of their advisors. Results show that most of the presidents belong to five distinct lineages that can be traced to Wilhelm Wundt, James Angell, William James, Albert Michotte or Carl Friedrich Gauss. Important psychometricians Lee Cronbach and Charles Spearman play only a marginal role. The genealogy systematizes important historical knowledge that can be used to inform studies on the history of psychometrics and exposes the rich and multidisciplinary background of the Psychometric Society.

A Creation Narrative for the Psychometric Society and Psychometrika: In the Beginning There Was Paul Horst.

A review is provided for the creation of the Psychometric Society in 1935, and the establishment of its journal, Psychometrika, in 1936. This document is part of the 80th anniversary celebration for Psychometrika's founding, held during the annual meeting of the Psychometric Society in July of 2016 in Asheville, NC.

The wartegg drawing completion test: inter-rater agreement and criterion validity of three new scoring categories

Three new scoring categories for the Wartegg Drawing Completion Test (WDCT) were introduced. Each of them permits to assess specific personality characteristics: the Evocative Character (EC) that is related to social adjustment; Form Quality (FQ) that is connected to reality testing ability and Affective Quality, (AQ) that is linked to general mood state. Inter-rater agreement and criterion validity of the new categories were investigated on a sample composed by healthy, anxious and psychotic individuals. For EC, FQ and AQ, results showed an adequate level of inter-rater agreement and a satisfactory capacity to discriminate among subjects, supporting their reliability and criterion validity. In particular, as expected, significant differences were found for each category among all groups, with higher mean scores for healthy subjects, medium for anxious and lower for psychotics (except for AQ category that showed significant differences only in the comparison between healthy and pathological subjects but not between anxious and psychotic ones). Possible approches to assess WDCT validity in future researches were discussed (AU)

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Psychometrics and its discontents: an historical perspective on the discourse of the measurement tradition.

Psychometrics has recently undergone extensive criticism within the medical education literature. The use of quantitative measurement using psychometric instruments such as response scales is thought to emphasize a narrow range of relevant learner skills and competencies. Recent reviews and commentaries suggest that a paradigm shift might be presently underway. We argue for caution, in that the psychometrics approach and the quantitative account of competencies that it reflects is based on a rich discussion regarding measurement and scaling that led to the establishment of this paradigm. Rather than reflecting a homogeneous discipline focused on core competencies devoid of consideration of context, the psychometric community has a history of discourse and debate within the field, with an acknowledgement that the techniques and instruments developed within psychometrics are heuristics that must be used pragmatically.

Of psychometric means: Starke R. Hathaway and the popularization of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.

ARGUMENT: The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was developed at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in the 1930s and 1940s. It became a highly successful and highly controversial psychometric tool. In professional terms, psychometric tools such as the MMPI transformed psychology and psychiatry. Psychometric instruments thus readily fit into the developmental history of psychology, psychiatry, and neurology; they were a significant part of the narrative of those fields' advances in understanding, intervening, and treating people with mental illnesses. At the same time, the advent of such tools also fits into a history of those disciplines that records the rise of obsessional observational and evaluative techniques and technologies in order to facilitate patterns of social control that became typical during the Progressive Era in the United States and after. It was those patterns that also nurtured the resistance to psychometrics that emerged during the Vietnam War and after.

Propiedades psicométricas de la versión española de la Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale / Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale

Introducción. La Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale (PHLMS) es un cuestionario breve que evalúa 2 componentes clave de la atención plena: la conciencia en el momento presente y la aceptación. El presente estudio evalúa las propiedades psicométricas de la versión española de la PHLMS tanto en una muestra control de estudiantes universitarios como en población con patología psiquiátrica. Material y métodos. Se administró la versión española de la PHLMS a 395 voluntarios (256 con patología psiquiátrica y 139 estudiantes). Resultados. El análisis factorial exploratorio de la versión española de la PHLMS apoya la solución bifactorial de la versión original con una varianza explicada del 44,02%. La escala presentó una adecuada fiabilidad (α de Cronbach de 0,81 a 0,86). La PHLMS mostró una adecuada validez convergente con los otros cuestionarios de atención plena y aceptación y una validez divergente de la clínica depresiva y ansiosa comparable a la de la versión original. Conclusiones. La versión española de la PHLMS presenta adecuadas propiedades psicométricas y puede ser utilizada para medir 2 componentes constituyentes de la atención plena -i.e. conciencia y aceptación- tanto en el ámbito clínico como en investigación (AU)

Introduction. The Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale (PHLMS) is a brief questionnaire for assessing 2 key components of mindfulness: present moment awareness, and acceptance. This study was aimed at evaluating the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of PHLMS in a sample of participants with and without psychiatric conditions. Material and methods. The Spanish version of the PHLMS was administered to a sample of 395 volunteers (256 of them with a psychiatric condition, and 130 from a student sample). Results. Exploratory factor analysis found a two factor solution, which was also observed in the original version of the scale, with an explained variance of 44.02%. The scale showed good reliability (Cronbach α between 0.81 and 0.86), and an adequate convergent validity with other questionnaires of mindfulness and acceptance. The results also showed a similar discriminant validity to that in the original instrument validation between PHLMS and the clinical symptomatology reported. Conclusions. The Spanish version of the PHLMS is a psychometrically sound measure for assessing two core components of mindfulness (i.e. awareness and acceptance) in clinical and research settings (AU)

Searching for South Asian intelligence: psychometry in British India, 1919-1940.

This paper describes the introduction and development of intelligence testing in British India. Between 1919 and 1940 experimenters such as C. Herbert Rice, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, and Venkatrao Vithal Kamat imported a number of intelligence tests, adapting them to suit a variety of South Asian languages and contexts. Charting South Asian psychometry's gradual move from American missionary efforts toward the state, this paper argues that political reforms in the 1920s and 1930s affected how psychometry was "indigenized" in South Asia. Describing how approaches to race and caste shifted across instruments and over time, this paper charts the gradual recession, within South Asian psychometry, of a "race" theory of caste. Describing some of the ways in which this "late colonial" period affected the postcolonial landscape, the paper concludes by suggesting potential lines for further inquiry into the later career of intelligence testing in India and Pakistan.

Aims of teachers' psychometry: intelligence testing in Barcelona (1920).

After World War I, members of the teaching profession in Spain were interested in appropriating psychological measurement and bringing it within the expertise of their occupational field, with the intention of upgrading their profession. As professionals devoted to the child, educators attempted to explore the infantile psyche using intelligence tests, with the intention of making scientific contributions to the field of psychology. In the present article we take as a key event one particular application enacted by a Catalan teacher, and insert that case study into the complex local scientific and educational context. It was a context in which the professional interests of teachers competed with those of school physicians, psychologists, and pedologists, at a time when important changes in pedagogical methods and school systems were under way. In the hand of teachers, intelligence testing was mainly seen as a malleable method on which to base daily educational practice on a more individualized and scientific basis. The historical analysis of the case turned out to be instrumental in the identification of common features and particularities attributable to specific local needs. In a society where public schooling competed with private schools, the results of mental testing were used to demonstrate publicly the excellent intellectual level of children attending a public graded primary school in Barcelona. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

The Prolo Scale: history, evolution and psychometric properties.

BACKGROUND: The Prolo Scale (PS) is a widely accepted assessment tool for lumbar spinal surgery results. Nevertheless, in the literature there is a dearth of consensus about its application, interpretation and accuracy. The purpose of this review is to investigate the evolution of the PS from its introduction in 1986 to the present, including an analysis of different versions of the scale and research on the existing studies investigating its psychometric properties. MATERIALS AND METHODS: PubMed, Cochrane Library and PEDro databases were searched. Studies in English, Italian, French, Spanish and German published from 1986 to December 2012 were analyzed. RESULTS: The original lumbar surgery outcome scale consisted of two Likert-type scales (economic and functional). There are three more versions of the scale: Schnee proposed one consisting of 10 items, Brantigan made one with 20 items and introduced 2 more subscales (pain and medication), and Davis adapted the scale for the cervical spine. PS is often mentioned without any specific reference to the version used; therefore, a homogeneous comparison of studies is difficult to achieve. Several authors agree on the need to embrace a multidimensional measuring system to evaluate low back pain (LBP), but there is still no consensus regarding the most reliable tool. To date, PS has been mostly used as secondary outcome measure in association with validated primary measures for LBP. CONCLUSIONS: The Prolo Scale has been adopted for clinical examination for 20 years because it is easy to administer and useful to compare significant amounts of data from surgical studies carried out at different times. Although several authors demonstrated the scale sensitivity among a battery of tests, no thorough validation study was found in the current literature.

A systematic review of instruments that measure attitudes toward homosexual men.

Scientific interest in the measurement of homophobia and internalized homophobia has grown over the past 30 years, and new instruments and terms have emerged. To help researchers with the challenging task of identifying appropriate measures for studies in sexual-minority health, we reviewed measures of homophobia published in the academic literature from 1970 to 2012. Instruments that measured attitudes toward male homosexuals/homosexuality or measured homosexuals' internalized attitudes toward homosexuality were identified using measurement manuals and a systematic review. A total of 23 instruments met criteria for inclusion, and their features were summarized and compared. All 23 instruments met minimal criteria for adequate scale construction, including scale development, sampling, reliability, and evidence of validity. Validity evidence was diverse and was categorized as interaction with gay men, HIV/AIDS variables, mental health, and conservative religious or political beliefs. Homophobia was additionally correlated with authoritarianism and bias, gender ideology, gender differences, and reactions to homosexual stimuli. Internalized homophobia was validated by examining relationships with disclosing one's homosexuality and level of homosexual identity development. We hope this review will make the process of instrument selection more efficient by allowing researchers to easily locate, evaluate, and choose the proper measure based on their research question and population of interest.