Stephen G West
Biographic Data
| ID | 762430 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen G West |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen G |
| FAMILY NAME | West |
| SIGNATURE | WEST S G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Arizona State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 87 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 406 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 87 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1975 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Beyond Jacobson and Truax: Estimation of Clinical Significance Trajectories in the Coping Power Intervention Using Measurement Error-Corrected Multilevel Modeling
Parametric g-formula for Testing Time-Varying Causal Effects: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Implement It in Lavaan
Psychologists leverage longitudinal designs to examine the causal effects of a focal predictor (i.e., treatment or exposure) over time. But causal inference of naturally observed time-varying treatments is complicated by treatment-dependent confounding in which earlier treatments affect confounders of later treatments. In this tutorial article, we introduce psychologists to an established solution to this problem from the causal inference literat…
Uncovering Hidden Media Framings in Generic Communication Competence Assessments: Is the Face-To-Face Context the Default Framing
Dispositional communication competencies can be assessed in (a) a generic form that does not include any reference to a particular medium of interaction or in (b) a communication medium-specific version. To date, little is known about the specific media that individuals use as a reference and the weights they assign to them when responding to generic communication items – an important research gap because the use of diverse communication media ha…
Beyond Experiments
It is often claimed that only experiments can support strong causal inferences and therefore they should be privileged in the behavioral sciences. We disagree. Overvaluing experiments results in their overuse both by researchers and decision makers and in an underappreciation of their shortcomings. Neglect of other methods often follows. Experiments can suggest whether X causes Y in a specific experimental setting; however, they often fail to elu…
Forecasting Causal Effects of Interventions versus Predicting Future Outcomes
The present article provides a didactic presentation and extension of selected features of Pearl's DAG-based approach to causal inference for researchers familiar with structural equation modeling. We illustrate key concepts using a cross-lagged panel design. We distinguish between (a) forecasts of the value of an outcome variable after an intervention and (b) predictions of future values of an outcome variable. We consider the mean level and var…
A Tribute to the Mind, Methodology and Mentoring of Wayne Velicer
Wayne Velicer is remembered for a mind where mathematical concepts and calculations intrigued him, behavioral science beckoned him, and people fascinated him. Born in Green Bay, Wisconsin on March 4, 1944, he was raised on a farm, although early influences extended far beyond that beginning. His Mathematics BS and Psychology minor at Wisconsin State University in Oshkosh, and his PhD in Quantitative Psychology from Purdue led him to a fruitful an…
Hidden framings and hidden asymmetries in the measurement of personality––A combined lens‐model and frame‐of‐reference perspective
OBJECTIVE: The symmetry principle and the frame-of-reference perspective have each made contributions to improving the measurement of personality. Although each perspective is valuable in its own right, we argue that even greater improvement can be achieved through the combination of both. Therefore, the goal of the current article was to show the value of a combined lens-model and frame-of-reference perspective. METHOD: We conducted a literature…
Analysis of Interactions and Nonlinear Effects with Missing Data: A Factored Regression Modeling Approach Using Maximum Likelihood Estimation
When estimating multiple regression models with incomplete predictor variables, it is necessary to specify a joint distribution for the predictor variables. A convenient assumption is that this distribution is a multivariate normal distribution, which is also the default in many statistical software packages. This distribution will in general be misspecified if predictors with missing data have nonlinear effects (e.g., x2) or are included in inte…
Opportunities and Issues in Modeling Intensive Longitudinal Data: Learning from the Cogito Project
Technological developments increasingly permit the collection of longitudinal data sets in which the data structure contains a large number of participants N and a large number of measurement occasions T. Promising new dynamical systems approaches to the analysis of large N, large T data sets have been proposed that utilize both between-subjects and within-subjects information. The COGITO project, begun over a decade ago, is an early large N = 20…
Testing measurement invariance in longitudinal data with ordered-categorical measures.
A goal of developmental research is to examine individual changes in constructs over time. The accuracy of the models answering such research questions hinges on the assumption of longitudinal measurement invariance: The repeatedly measured variables need to represent the same construct in the same metric over time. Measurement invariance can be studied through factor models examining the relations between the observed indicators and the latent c…
Tests of Simple Slopes in Multiple Regression Models with an Interaction: Comparison of Four Approaches
In multiple regression researchers often follow up significant tests of the interaction between continuous predictors X and Z with tests of the simple slope of Y on X at different sample-estimated values of the moderator Z (e.g., ±1 SD from the mean of Z). We show analytically that when X and Z are randomly sampled from the population, the variance expression of the simple slope at sample-estimated values of Z differs from the traditional varianc…
Analyzing Complex Treatment Effects in Nonrandomized Observational Studies: The Case of Retention of Students in Grade
Should low-achieving students be promoted to the next grade or be retained (held back) in the prior grade? This special section presents a discussion of the application of marginal structural models to the challenging problem of estimating the effect of promotion versus retention in grade on math scores in elementary school. Vandecandelaere, De Fraine, Van Damme, and Vansteelandt provide a didactic presentation of the marginal structural modeling…
Nesselroade and Molenaar's Measurement Concerns and Proposals: An Introduction
In this special section Nesselroade and Molenaar (N & M) propose a provocative new approach to measurement invariance. When measures are collected repeatedly over time (e.g., daily diary studies), a potentially unique measurement model relating the items to the underlying construct can be created for each individual. If hypothesized causal paths specified between constructs (e.g., frustration → aggression) can be constrained to be equal across th…
Weekly Cycles in Daily Report Data: An Overlooked Issue
Daily diaries and other everyday experience methods are increasingly used to study relationships between two time‐varying variables X and Y . Although daily data potentially often have weekly cyclical patterns (e.g., stress may be higher on weekdays and lower on weekends), the majority of daily diary studies have ignored this possibility. In this study, we investigated the effect of ignoring existing weekly cycles. We reanalyzed an empirical data…
An experimental test of the Bridges to High School intervention on harsh parenting and early age intercourse among Mexican American adolescents
Results suggest that the Bridges to High School intervention successfully decreased early-age intercourse among Mexican American adolescents through reduced harsh parenting among mothers. This finding is consistent with positive youth development programs that have been found to have broad, and sometimes nontargeted, effects on adolescent sexual behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record
Effect of Trajectories of Friends' and Parents' School Involvement on Adolescents' Engagement and Achievement
In a sample of 527 academically at-risk youth, we investigated trajectories of friends' and parents' school involvement across ages 12-14 and the joint contributions of these trajectories to adolescents' age 15 school engagement and academic achievement. Girls reported higher levels of friends' and parents' school involvement than boys. Both parents' and friends' school involvement declined across ages 12-14. Combined latent growth models and str…
Analyzing count variables in individuals and groups: Single level and multilevel models
We address two challenges in data analysis of group research. First, data may be clustered (i.e., responses of individual group members are correlated). Second, some dependent variables may consist of integer counts of number of occurrences of an event. Familiar ANOVA and regression models provide nonoptimal analyses in both cases. Standard multilevel (mixed) models yield accurate inference for clustered normally distributed data. Generalized lin…
Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences
This classic text on multiple regression is noted for its nonmathematical, applied, and data-analytic approach. Readers profit from its verbal-conceptual exposition and frequent use of examples. The applied emphasis provides clear illustrations of the principles and provides worked examples of the types of applications that are possible. Researchers learn how to specify regression models that directly address their research questions. An overview…
Improving the Dependability of Research in Personality and Social Psychology: Recommendations for Research and Educational Practice
In this article, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Task Force on Publication and Research Practices offers a brief statistical primer and recommendations for improving the dependability of research. Recommendations for research practice include (a) describing and addressing the choice of N (sample size) and consequent issues of statistical power, (b) reporting effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), (c) avoiding “q…
Theory and Analysis of Total, Direct, and Indirect Causal Effects
Mediation analysis, or more generally models with direct and indirect effects, are commonly used in the behavioral sciences. As we show in our illustrative example, traditional methods of mediation analysis that omit confounding variables can lead to systematically biased direct and indirect effects, even in the context of a randomized experiment. Therefore, several definitions of causal effects in mediation models have been presented in the lite…
Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences
This classic text on multiple regression is noted for its nonmathematical, applied, and data-analytic approach. Readers profit from its verbal-conceptual exposition and frequent use of examples. The applied emphasis provides clear illustrations of the principles and provides worked examples of the types of applications that are possible. Researchers learn how to specify regression models that directly address their research questions. An overview…
Determinants of Change in Maternal Sensitivity: Contributions of Context, Temperament, and Developmental Risk
Early developmental risk and child gender contribute to the nature of maternal sensitivity over time, but their contributions depend on the situational demands of the interaction. This contextualized view of sensitivity provides further evidence in support of parenting as a dynamic developmental process
Multiple Linear Regression
This chapter provides a comprehensive introduction to multiple regression analysis (MR), a highly flexible system for examining the relationship of a collection of independent variables (predictors) to a single dependent variable (criterion). The independent variables may be quantitative (e.g., personality traits, family income) or categorical (e.g., ethnic group, treatment conditions in an experiment). The present chapter explores ordinary least…
A Comparison of Item-Level and Scale-Level Multiple Imputation for Questionnaire Batteries
Behavioral science researchers routinely use scale scores that sum or average a set of questionnaire items to address their substantive questions. A researcher applying multiple imputation to incomplete questionnaire data can either impute the incomplete items prior to computing scale scores or impute the scale scores directly from other scale scores. This study used a Monte Carlo simulation to assess the impact of imputation method on the bias a…
Estimating Latent Variable Interactions With Nonnormal Observed Data: A Comparison of Four Approaches
A Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to investigate the robustness of 4 latent variable interaction modeling approaches (Constrained Product Indicator [CPI], Generalized Appended Product Indicator [GAPI], Unconstrained Product Indicator [UPI], and Latent Moderated Structural Equations [LMS]) under high degrees of nonnormality of the observed exogenous variables. Results showed that the CPI and LMS approaches yielded biased estimates of the inte…
The science of prevention: A conceptual framework and some directions for a national research program
Dominance, prosocial orientation, and female preferences: Do nice guys really finish last
Three multimethod studies (total N = 348) probed the hypothesis that women's attraction to men would be influenced by male prosocial orientation. In Study 1, prosocial men were rated as more physically and sexually attractive, socially desirable, and desirable as dates than were nonprosocial men. Dominant men were no more attractive than low-dominance men, and male dominance did not interact with male prosocial orientation in eliciting attraction…
What the Need for Closure Scale measures and what it does not: Toward differentiating among related epistemic motives
The Need for Closure Scale (NFCS; D. M. Webster & A. W. Kruglanski, 1994) was introduced to assess the extent to which a person, faced with a decision o r judgment, desires any answer, as compared with confusion and ambiguity. The NFCS was presented as being unidimensional and as having adequate discriminant validity. Our data contradict these conceptual and psychometric claims. As a unidimensional scale, the NFCS is redundant with the Personal N…
What do you learn about someone over time? The relationship between length of acquaintance and consensus and self-other agreement in judgments of personality
Theory and research examining length of acquaintance and consensus among personality judgments have predominantly examined each dimension of personality separately. In L. J. Cronbach's (1955) terminology, this trait-centered approach combines consensus on elevation, differential elevation, and differential accuracy in personality judgments. The current article extends D. A. Kenny's (1991, 1994) weighted average model (WAM)--a theoretical model of…
Alternatives to the Randomized Controlled Trial
Public health researchers are addressing new research questions (e.g., effects of environmental tobacco smoke, Hurricane Katrina) for which the randomized controlled trial (RCT) may not be a feasible option. Drawing on the potential outcomes framework (Rubin Causal Model) and Campbellian perspectives, we consider alternative research designs that permit relatively strong causal inferences. In randomized encouragement designs, participants are ran…
Lynchings and the economy: A time-series reanalysis of Hovland and Sears (1940)
Occupational stress, social support, and burnout among correctional officers
Three alternative models of the role of workplace social support in ameliorating the effect of occupational stress on burnout symptoms were tested. Correctional officers (N = 166) completed a variety of questionnaire measures of job stress, the Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviors, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Analyses showed no support for either the direct or buffering models of social support. Rather, the data were consistent with …
Physical attractiveness, the severity of the emergency and helping: A field experiment and interpersonal simulation
The children of divorce parenting intervention: Outcome evaluation of an empirically based program
Examined efficacy of an empirically based intervention using 70 divorced mothers who participated in a 12-session program or a wait-list condition. The program targeted five putative mediators: quality of the mother-child relationship, discipline, negative divorce events, contact with fathers, and support from nonparental adults. Posttest comparisons showed higher quality mother-child relationships and discipline, fewer negative divorce events, a…
Measuring individualism and collectivism: The importance of considering differential components, reference groups, and measurement invariance
The Investigation of Personality Structure: Statistical Models
The use of structural equation modeling in generative research: Toward the design of a preventive intervention for bereaved children
Describes a generative study of processes which may lead to symptomatology in children who have experienced the death of a parent. Based on existing literature, four putative mediating variables were identified: parental demoralization, family warmth, negative family events, and positive stable family events. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to compare several potential causal models involving these variables. The results were mo…
Personality coherence: Moderating self–other profile agreement and profile consensus
Traditional research on moderator variables in personality has focused on measures of relative consistency. In contrast, using Goldberg's (1992) adjectives representing the Big Five personality traits, the authors examined the applicability of moderator variables to measures of personality coherence. The authors considered 3 traditional moderator variables (interitem variability, construct similarity, and scalability) and one new moderator variab…
Linking empirically based theory and evaluation: The family bereavement program
Conclusion We have illustrated how our “small theory” (Lipsey, 1990) of bereavement guided the development and evaluation of a preventive intervention for bereaved children. Our small theory, based on prior empirical research, enabled us to identify family processes that appeared to mediate the effects of parental death on child mental health. Our intervention was designed to attempt to change these processes. The evaluation of our experimental t…
An examination of tax reporting recommendations of professional tax preparers
Ubiquitous Watergate: An attributional analysis
Moderators of self–other agreement: Reconsidering temporal stability in personality
On dimensionality, discriminant validity, and the role of psychometric analyses in personality theory and measurement: Reply to Kruglanski et al.'s (1997) defense of the Need for Closure Scale
D. M. Webster and A. W. Kruglanski's (1994) Need for Closure Scale (NFCS) confounds multiple dimensions and is redundant with existing instruments (S. L. Neuberg, T.N. Judice, & S. G. West, 1997). A. W. Kruglanski and his colleagues (1997) dismissed these findings as psychometric nay-saying, although they presented no data that refute them. Moreover, Kruglanski et al. (1997) suggested that researchers (a) be unconcerned with the NFCS's lack of di…
Analyzing count variables in individuals and groups: Single level and multilevel models
We address two challenges in data analysis of group research. First, data may be clustered (i.e., responses of individual group members are correlated). Second, some dependent variables may consist of integer counts of number of occurrences of an event. Familiar ANOVA and regression models provide nonoptimal analyses in both cases. Standard multilevel (mixed) models yield accurate inference for clustered normally distributed data. Generalized lin…
Effect of Trajectories of Friends' and Parents' School Involvement on Adolescents' Engagement and Achievement
In a sample of 527 academically at-risk youth, we investigated trajectories of friends' and parents' school involvement across ages 12-14 and the joint contributions of these trajectories to adolescents' age 15 school engagement and academic achievement. Girls reported higher levels of friends' and parents' school involvement than boys. Both parents' and friends' school involvement declined across ages 12-14. Combined latent growth models and str…
Determinants of Change in Maternal Sensitivity: Contributions of Context, Temperament, and Developmental Risk
Early developmental risk and child gender contribute to the nature of maternal sensitivity over time, but their contributions depend on the situational demands of the interaction. This contextualized view of sensitivity provides further evidence in support of parenting as a dynamic developmental process
Social support in the workplace: Tests of six theoretical models
Six theoretical models of social support in relation to perceived job stress, burnout, and health were tested both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Participants at Time 1 were state correctional officers (N = 262) who completed questionnaires in which multiple indicators of each construct were assessed. Time 2 participants (N = 177) were those officers from the Time 1 sample who completed the questionnaire again three months later. Structura…
Probing the effects of individual components in multiple component prevention programs
Assessing the contributions of individual components in multi‐component interventions poses complex challenges for prevention researchers. We review the strengths and weaknesses of designs and analyses that may be useful in answering three questions: (1) Is each of the individual components contributing to the outcome? (2) Is the program optimal? and (3), Through what processes are the components of the program achieving their effects? Factorial …
An experimental test of the Bridges to High School intervention on harsh parenting and early age intercourse among Mexican American adolescents
Results suggest that the Bridges to High School intervention successfully decreased early-age intercourse among Mexican American adolescents through reduced harsh parenting among mothers. This finding is consistent with positive youth development programs that have been found to have broad, and sometimes nontargeted, effects on adolescent sexual behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record
Moderators of self-other agreement: Reconsidering temporal stability in personality
Accurate prediction requires information not only about central tendencies but also about variability. In personality prediction, however, most research has focused on trait-level central tendencies. Previously proposed moderators of personality prediction are all conceptually similar in comparing an individual's central tendency in response patterns with that of the normative person. This article proposes an alternative: Trait-level prediction i…
Physical attractiveness, the severity of the emergency and helping: A field experiment and interpersonal simulation
Ubiquitous Watergate: An attributional analysis
Helping a motorist in distress: The effects of sex, race, and neighborhood
2 experiments investigated the effects of the sex and race of the victim and the racial composition of the neighborhood in which the incident was staged on helping a motorist whose car was apparently disabled. In Exp I, a significant sex of victim effect was obtained: The female victims were helped faster than male victims. A significant Race × Neighborhood interaction was also obtained, with the Black victims being helped faster in Black neighbo…
Film Violence and Verbal Aggression: A Naturalistic Study
Findings suggest that some results obtained in laboratory experiments can be generalized to apply to the viewing experience in real-life settings
Some issues of ethics and social psychology
Validity of self-evaluation of ability: A review and meta-analysis.
Personality and prediction: An introduction
Depression and evaluative schemata
The evaluative tendencies of nondepressed, mildly depressed, and severely depressed individuals are examined in the areas of judgments of contingency, attributions of causality, expectancy estimates, and self‐schemata/self‐reference The available empirical literature in these four areas indicates that nondepressed people tend to exhibit positivistic evaluative responses, whereas mildly depressed persons tend to display unbiased (neither positivis…
Methodological developments in personality research: An introduction
This article first provides a brief overview of some of the empirical and conceptual work in personality following Mischel's (1968) critique Strengths and weaknesses of traditional personality research designs including laboratory experiments, experimental personality designs, and preexperimental correlational studies are presented Some more recent approaches to designing laboratory research that attempt to address issues of external validity and…
Occupational stress, social support, and burnout among correctional officers
Three alternative models of the role of workplace social support in ameliorating the effect of occupational stress on burnout symptoms were tested. Correctional officers (N = 166) completed a variety of questionnaire measures of job stress, the Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviors, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Analyses showed no support for either the direct or buffering models of social support. Rather, the data were consistent with …
An examination of tax reporting recommendations of professional tax preparers
Social support in the workplace: Tests of six theoretical models
Six theoretical models of social support in relation to perceived job stress, burnout, and health were tested both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Participants at Time 1 were state correctional officers (N = 262) who completed questionnaires in which multiple indicators of each construct were assessed. Time 2 participants (N = 177) were those officers from the Time 1 sample who completed the questionnaire again three months later. Structura…
Lynchings and the economy: A time-series reanalysis of Hovland and Sears (1940)
Person Perception of Type As and Type Bs: A Round Robin Analysis
The present study examined the perceptions that others have of the interpersonal style and behaviors of Type As and Type Bs. Fifteen groups of six college males (three of each type) who were acquainted with each other were asked to rate themselves and the other members of the group on six Type A-related adjectives and other exploratory personality dimensions. The round robin design used in this study permitted a full analysis of the factors which…
Long‐Term Stability and Change in Personality: An Introduction
The purpose of this special issue is to foster an examination of recent work on long‐term stability and change in personality Classic and recent research on long‐term stability of personality is presented Personal transitions are examined as an opportunity for studying continuity and change Some recent metatheoretical and theoretical perspectives on stability and change are presented Finally, several Innovative methodological and statistical appr…
Graduate training in statistics, methodology, and measurement in psychology: A survey of PhD programs in North America
Graduate training in statistics, methodology, and measurement in psychology: A survey of PhD programs in North America
A survey of all PhD programs in psychology in the United States and Canada assessed the extent to which advances in statistics, measurement, and method- ology have been incorporated into doctoral training. In all, 84% of the 222 departments responded. The statistical and methodological curriculum has advanced little in 20 years; measurement has experienced a substantial decline. Typical first-year courses serve well only those students who undert…
Statistical Issues in the Study of Temporal Data: Daily Experiences
This article reviews statistical issues that arise in temporal data, particularly with respect to daily experience data. Issues related to nonindependence of observations, the nature of data structures, and claims of causality are considered. Through the analysis of data from a single subject, we illustrate concomitant time‐series analysis, a general method of examining relationships between two or more series having 50 or more observations. We a…
Attributional style in relation to self-esteem and depression: Mediational and interactive models
The use of structural equation modeling in generative research: Toward the design of a preventive intervention for bereaved children
Describes a generative study of processes which may lead to symptomatology in children who have experienced the death of a parent. Based on existing literature, four putative mediating variables were identified: parental demoralization, family warmth, negative family events, and positive stable family events. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to compare several potential causal models involving these variables. The results were mo…
Linking empirically based theory and evaluation: The family bereavement program
Conclusion We have illustrated how our “small theory” (Lipsey, 1990) of bereavement guided the development and evaluation of a preventive intervention for bereaved children. Our small theory, based on prior empirical research, enabled us to identify family processes that appeared to mediate the effects of parental death on child mental health. Our intervention was designed to attempt to change these processes. The evaluation of our experimental t…
Consensus, Self‐Other Agreement, and Accuracy in Personality Judgment: An Introduction
Consensus in personality judgment refers to the agreement with which two people (or more) can describe the personality of another; self‐other agreement refers to the similarity between personality descriptions by the self and by others; and accuracy refers to the degree to which personality descriptions capture real attributes of the persons described. After years of focusing on other subjects, researchers recently have renewed their interest in …
The children of divorce parenting intervention: Outcome evaluation of an empirically based program
Examined efficacy of an empirically based intervention using 70 divorced mothers who participated in a 12-session program or a wait-list condition. The program targeted five putative mediators: quality of the mother-child relationship, discipline, negative divorce events, contact with fathers, and support from nonparental adults. Posttest comparisons showed higher quality mother-child relationships and discipline, fewer negative divorce events, a…
Probing the effects of individual components in multiple component prevention programs
Assessing the contributions of individual components in multi‐component interventions poses complex challenges for prevention researchers. We review the strengths and weaknesses of designs and analyses that may be useful in answering three questions: (1) Is each of the individual components contributing to the outcome? (2) Is the program optimal? and (3), Through what processes are the components of the program achieving their effects? Factorial …
The science of prevention: A conceptual framework and some directions for a national research program
Psychology (70 works) · Social Psychology (47 works) · Statistics (38 works) · Computer Science (37 works) · Mathematics (35 works) · Econometrics (25 works) · Personality (24 works) · Developmental psychology (21 works) · Psychometric Methodologies and Testing (20 works) · Mental Health Research Topics (18 works)