Using the good cop/bad cop profile with the MMPI-2

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) has been widely used in a variety of ways to screen candidates for law enforcement positions. This study extends the use of the MMPI Good Cop/Bad Cop (GC/BC) profile (Blau, Super, & Brady, 1993) to the MMPI-2. The MMPI-2 profiles of 39 veteran police officers were used to predict their performance (No Apparent Problems, Borderline, or Serious Problems Possible), and these predictions were compared with supervisors’ ratings of the officers’ actual performance. The MMPI-2 predictions were accurate for 46% of the officers, a rate that was significantly better than chance (p=.024). Based on the current data, the best selection outcome would be obtained by accepting officers whose MMPI-2 profiles place them in the No Apparent Problems or Borderline groups, and rejecting officers whose profiles suggest Serious Problems Possible. This could be accomplished simply by rejecting any officer who obtained a score above 65T on any of the clinical scales. This selection strategy would have resulted in the acceptance of 22 officers, 19 of whom were highly rated by their supervisors, and the rejection of 17 officers, 11 of whom were rated as borderline or poorer by their supervisors. It would also result in the erroneous rejection of 6 officers who were highly rated by supervisors. AUTHOR NOTE: An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1994 annual meeting of the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology, in Roswell, New Mexico. The authors wish to thank Jim Herndon, Ph.D., for this comments on this study.     

The Service Sector's Acquisition and Development of Information Technology: Infrastructure and Productivity

The paper explains why the productivity of information technology (IT) in the service sector of the U.S. economy is increased by the provision of infratechnology. The size and growth of the service sector and its investment in IT are discussed, and a key fact and a key inference are developed. The fact: The absorption costs of IT are the vast majority of the IT investment costs to the service sector. The inference: Infratechnology investments are an efficient way to increase both private and social benefits of incurring the cost of implementing IT.     

Mediators of the Relation Between Beliefs in a Just World and Emotional Responses to Negative Outcomes

Research shows that strong believers in a just world respond with less negative and more positive emotion to their own negative outcomes than do weak believers. The present study investigated mediators of this relation. We proposed that strong believers in a just world (versus weak believers) would make stronger internal and weaker external attributions for their negative outcomes, leading to reduced perceived unfairness, which, in turn, was expected to lead to less negative and more positive emotion. We assessed the just world beliefs of a sample of undergraduates as well as measuring their cognitive and emotional responses to an exam grade. Mediational analyses showed that our data were consistent with the processes proposed above. Various cognitive and motivational interpretations of the present findings are discussed     

Appealing (but not Necessarily Winning) to Improve Your Social Status

In this article, I argue that litigants identify the appellate courts as offering a powerful and public arena where litigants' claims are placed (at least temporarily) on an equal footing with the current state of the law. In this context, the initiation of appeals is treated as synonymous with receiving endorsements from the appellate courts that the litigants' original claims had sufficient merit to deserve better treatment than they had received previously from either the opposing parties or the trial courts. These actions work to raise appellants' social status, and I propose that such activity is one additional reason why some litigants might appeal.     

A comparative evaluation of a new generation jail

This study reports findings from an evaluation of a new generation jail in a large southwestern state. The jail is one component of a complex containing a traditional jail, an indirect supervision facility (barracks), and the new generation jail. Using survey and operational data, we compare the new generation jail to the other two facilities. The findings provide generally positive support for the effectiveness of the new generation jail. Inmates and staff were much more satisfied with the physical facilities. Staff perceived it as more secure, though they reported only limited advantages in safety and security. Violence and disciplinary problems were substantially lower. However, no savings in staffing levels were noted, nor were there differences in job satisfaction for staff in the new generation jail. We discuss the implications of the findings and suggest additional directions for jail evaluations.     

Review of Books on Private Law and EU Law

Books reviewed in this article:
H. Kötz, Europäisches Vertragsrecht, Band I: Abschluß, Gültigkeit und Inhalt des Vertrages
H. Kötz, A. Flessner, European Contract Law, vol. 1: Formation, Validity, and Content of Contract; Contract and Third Parties
U. Drobing, Private Law in the European Union     

Intimacy status: Relationship to interpersonal perception

Five modes of reacting to the intimacy-isolation crisis of young adulthood were described, measured, and validated. Criteria for inclusion in one of the five intimacy statuses were (1) presence or absence of peer friendships, (2) presence or absence of an enduring-committed-heterosexual relationship, and (3) depth vs. superficiality of peer relationships. Statuses were compared on a partner-perception task assessing subject's intimate knowledge of his partner (a close male or female friend who accompanied the subject to the experiment). In all, 66 male college students participated in the study, 50 with male partners and 16 with female partners. The results support the hypothesis that subjects high in intimacy status share a greater degree of mutual knowledge and understanding with their partners then medium-or low-level intimacy status subjects.The research was supported by SUNY/Buffalo Institutional Funds Grant No. 050-A081A.This article is based in part on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the State University of New York at Buffalo (Orlofsky, 1974).Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1974. Primary research interest is in personality development during late adolescence and young adulthood, particularly identity formation and the development of an intimate mode of interpersonal relationships. Also involved in research on sex roles and psychological androgyny.