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A number of studies have examined factors that influence an individual being accepted into a predoctoral internship position such as practicum experience, the interview, the type of doctoral program attended, and letters of recommendation. Rodolfa et al. (1999), for example, detailed 36 inclusion and exclusion criteria used in the internship selection process. The current study revisits this research in order to identify changes in these criteria from the time of the original study. While a number of traditional factors remained influential to the selection process, such as the fit between applicant goals and site opportunities and supervised clinical experience, a greater emphasis on personality characteristics of the applicant was found in the current study. The top three inclusion criteria found in the present study were fit between applicant goals and site opportunities, the interview, and professional demeanor of applicant. Interview, fit, and letters of recommendation were the top exclusion criteria.

Young people with CHR demonstrate active avoidance, heightened sensitivity, reduced seeking, and reduced registration of sensations in everyday life compared to typical peers. This pattern of differences may be a valuable marker for identifying individuals who are at high risk for developing a psychotic illness, and may also inform interventions designed to prevent or minimize the illness process and accompanying dysfunction.

Graduate training in psychology emphasizes a student's ability to understand research design and methodology, as well as to generate research that contributes to the profession. The Attitudes Toward Research (ATR) scale was developed in 2005 to measure attitudes among student populations. Past research suggests the scale contains five factors: usefulness of research, research anxiety, positive feelings about research, relevancy of research to the students' daily lives, and difficulty of research. The current study utilized data collected from first year graduate students ( N = 128) to examine the psychometric properties of the ATR. While the internal consistency and the construct validity of the scale were adequate, the scale did not appear to be a predictor of student grades in this sample. Exploratory factor analyses revealed a three-, four-, and seven-factor solution. Confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the five-factor model was a poor fit for the ATR. While the ATR assesses an important construct, the inferences made from this measure may be less useful when studying graduate students' attitudes and how they may impact learning and training.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of acquaintance on performance rating accuracy and halo.Design/methodology/approachAfter expert ratings were obtained, US Air Force Officers (n=104) with an average of six years experience rated the performance of four officers who delivered 6‐7 minute briefings on their research projects; 26 raters reported being acquainted with one or more of the briefers. Raters were randomly assigned to use a rating format designed to encourage between‐ratee comparisons on each dimension or a format in which each ratee was separately rated on all dimensions.FindingsRatings made by acquainted raters were more accurate than ratings by unacquainted raters. Accuracy was positively correlated with halo for both sets of ratings. Rating format had no discernible effect on accuracy or halo.Research limitations/implicationsOne limitation of this study is that the measure of acquaintance was not designed as a surrogate for familiarity. Development of a multi‐item, psychometrically‐valid measure of acquaintance should be the first step in pursuing this research. The use of a laboratory design where only a small percentage of the sample was acquainted with those being rated also limits the study's generalizability.Practical implicationsThe results show that prior acquaintance with the ratee results in more accurate ratings. Ratings were also more positive when raters had prior contact with the person they rated.Originality/valueThe hypothesis is that the cognitive processes used to produce ratings are different for raters who have had no prior contact with a ratee and raters who are in some manner acquainted with a ratee. In the past, a positive halo effect from acquaintance between raters and ratees has been a concern. However, this limited study indicates that acquaintance may actually result in more accurate ratings.

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ABSTRACT. Objective: A family history of alcoholism is a significant risk factor for the development of alcohol use disorders (AUDs). Because common structural abnormalities are present in reward and affective brain regions in alcoholics and those with familial alcoholism, the current study examined the relationship between familial loading of AUDs and volumes of the amygdala and nucleus accumbens (NAcc) in largely alcohol-naive adolescents, ages 12-16 years (N = 140). Method: The amygdala and NAcc were delineated on each participant's T1-weighted anatomical scan, using FMRIB Software Library's FMRIB Integrated Registration & Segmentation Tool, and visually inspected for accuracy and volume outliers. In the 140 participants with accurate segmentation (75 male/65 female), subcortical volumes were represented as a ratio to intracranial volume (ICV). A family history density (FHD) score was calculated for each adolescent based on the presence of AUDs in fi rst-and second-degree relatives (range: 0.03-1.50; higher scores represent a greater prevalence of familial AUDs). Multiple regressions, with age and sex controlled for, examined the association between FHD and left and right amygdala and NAcc volume/ICV. Results: There was a signifi cant positive relationship between FHD and left NAcc volume/ ICV (ǵR 2 = .04, p = .02). Post hoc regressions indicated that this effect was only signifi cant in females (ǵR 2 = .11, p = .006). Conclusions: This fi nding suggests that the degree of familial alcoholism, genetic or otherwise, is associated with alterations in reward-related brain structure. Further work will be necessary to examine whether FHD is related to future alcohol-related problems and reward-related behaviors. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 76, 47-56, 2015)