Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

W A Stock

Publications and source records attributed to W A Stock.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

Research synthesis. Coding and conjectures.

In meta-analyses the extraction and coding of information from primary research reports has to be completed in a competent way because these tasks implicate most of the decisions that determine the usefulness of the final product. The authors offer guidelines that make it more likely that high-quality information is reliably extracted and coded from primary research reports. These guidelines address issues ranging from the selection of items and construction of coding materials to sustaining reliability and vigilance across extended periods of coding. Thereafter, the authors note how the methodology of meta-analysis results in pressure to change the type of information that appears in primary research reports, and close by offering a few conjectures about the future of meta-analysis.

Data Interpretation, Statistical↗
PubMed1994

Subjective well-being measures: reliability and validity among Spanish elders.

The Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale, Life Satisfaction Index, and Affect Balance Scale were translated into Castilian Spanish and Catalan. Responses to these scales were obtained by interviews with 151 elderly persons living in Spain. Reliability estimates for the Life Satisfaction Index and the Affect Balance subscales were comparable to those for English-speaking samples, while reliability estimates for the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale were somewhat lower. Validity estimates among these scales were consistent with previous research and previously reported factor structures were found to fit the present data reasonably well, although factor loadings were lower than those previously reported. English and translated versions of the scales are provided in Appendix A.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1990

Response feedback, certitude and learning from text.

Based upon the premise that persons modify their study behaviours in order to maintain their certainty of responding correctly, a study was conducted with 40 undergraduate volunteers examining the effects of different presentation rates and feedback context on response confidence and correct responding. Significant effects in the anticipated direction were found for presentation rate but not for the context of feedback.

Achievement↗
PubMed1988

The concept of happiness: a multidimensional scaling investigation.

This study investigated the concept of happiness using multidimensional scaling analyses. Two samples were studied. The first contained 100 adult males and females, aged nineteen to ninety (M = 39.5). The second contained 126 female adults, aged twenty-six to eighty-nine (M = 61.3), all Catholic nuns. Respondents provided word associates to the words happiness and unhappiness during separate one-minute intervals. Subsequently, the twelve most frequent associates and the word happiness were used in a written paired comparison task of dissimilarities between all possible pairs. In both samples, a two-dimensional space was judged to optimally fit the data. The first dimension was interpreted as a bipolar affective dimension. The second dimension was one-fifth and one-third as salient as the first dimension in the respective samples, and was interpreted as representing personal independence. Two-dimensional spaces of young, middle-aged, and old subsamples of sample one were, in large part, similar to the total space. Three age trends were noted.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Structure of subjective well-being among the elderly.

This article interprets subjective well-being within the framework of cognitive theories of emotion. A model consisting of three recurrent components of expressions of well-being--positive affect, negative affect, and cognition--was compared with two variations of models proposed by Liang. Drawing two random samples of persons with minimum age equal to 65 from the Myth and Reality of Aging in America Survey, lisrel analyses were undertaken on 17 items from the Affect Balance Scale and the Life Satisfaction Index Form A. All models provided an acceptable fit as indicated by ratios of chi-square to degrees of freedom. Implications are noted for the conceptualization and study of subjective well-being.

Affect↗
PubMed1984

Quality of research on correlates of subjective well-being in adulthood.

Social scientists in general and social gerontologists in particular have investigated extensively the correlates of subjective well-being in adulthood. This paper examined whether ratings of study quality for 280 research reports on the correlates of subjective well-being in adulthood vary with year of report, type of report, journal focus, and study quality dimension. Multivariate analyses of variance indicated that Year of Report and Journal Focus were related to quality of study ratings. There were differences by Year of Report on ratings of significance of the problem, adequacy of sampling, appropriateness of statistical analyses, and adequacy of research report. Studies published in journals with an "aging" focus relative to those in journals with a "non aging" focus were rated higher on adequacy of the measuring instrument and reasonableness of the conclusions. The mean rating across all items was 2.67, indicating that the average study was judged to meet less than "some requirements." Concerns are noted for definition of the problem, relevance of the population, adequacy of sampling, and adequacy of control for errors.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Health and subjective well-being: a meta-analysis.

A meta-analysis was conducted of the health/subjective well-being relationship, based upon studies of United States adults published prior to 1980. Dependent variables were zero-order and first-order correlations. A total of 231 zero-order effect size estimates were extracted from 104 different sources, while a total of 189 first-order effect sizes were extracted from thirty-three different sources. The majority of effect sizes were derived from samples where the midpoint of the age range was sixty-five and over. The 95 percent confidence interval estimates, generated using Tukey's jackknife procedure, were .29 to .35 and .29 to .38 for the zero-order and first-order correlations, respectively. Using weighted regression procedures, univariate analyses indicated that all but one study and sample characteristics were significant (p less than .05) predictors of zero-order and first-order correlations, though none of the predictors adequately specified variation in effect sizes. The mean value of the first-order correlations varied with the type of control variable, ranging from .42 (age) to .27 (SES composite). Health and subjective well-being were found to be positively and significantly related. Limitations of the meta-analysis were noted and suggestions were made for strengthening research on this topic.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1982

The construct validity of life satisfaction among the elderly.

A construct validation study of life satisfaction was completed with a modified random area probability sample of 325 older persons (M = 73.0, SD = 8.2) residing in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Internal consistency reliability estimates for the Life Satisfaction Index Form Z and both subscales of the Affect Balance Scale were consistent with previous reports. Within self-ascribed handicapped and nonhandicapped groups, six life satisfaction measures generally correlated more highly with each other than with an alcohol use measure, suggesting adequate convergent-discriminant validity. Finally, the handicapped group had lower life satisfaction than the nonhandicapped group, and stepdown F tests indicated some redundancy among the life satisfaction measures.

Affect↗
PubMed1980

Risk taking through the adult life span.

Research on aging in general and on cautiousness in adulthood in particular has been plagued by several problems including (a) drawing of samples from the extremes of the adult age range; (b) relying on single criterion variables; and (c) paucity of data on the psychometric properties of scales. In the present study, three measures of risk taking were administered to a sample ranging from 18-78 years old. Reliability estimates indicated that the Choice Dilemmas Questionnaire had low reliability, both absolutely and in comparison to the vocabulary Risk Test and the Risk Taking Questionnaire. Convergent validity analyses indicated that the Choice Dilemma Questionnaire was substantially correlated with the Risk Taking Questionnaire but not with the Vocabulary Risk Test. Age differences were found only on the Choice Dilemmas Questionnaire using dichotomous scoring. Results suggest that properties of the scale may, in part, account for observed age differences in risk taking scores on the Choice Dilemma Questionnaire. The currently popular notion that people become more cautious as they grow older was challenged and directions were provided for future research.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The influence of self-ascribed handicapped status on the positive and negative affect of the elderly.

Recently, Stock and Okun found that self-ascribed handicapped elders, relative to self-ascribed nonhandicapped elders, had significantly lower mean scores on six measures of subjective well-being. Using the same data base, in the present study, we examined whether self-ascribed handicapped status accounted for variance in positive and negative affect, net of intra- and interpersonal resources, and social status. On the bivariate level, self-ascribed handicapped status was related significantly to positive and negative affect. However, it did not account for more than 2 percent of the variance in either. As anticipated, self-ascribed handicapped status was not a significant predictor of positive and negative affect when social status and intra- and interpersonal resources were statistically controlled. Contrary to expectations, social status was a unique predictor of positive and negative affect.

Activities of Daily Living↗