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When cognitive and educational tests are administered under time limits, tests may become speeded and this may affect the reliability and validity of the resulting test scores. Prior research has shown that time limits may create or enlarge gender gaps in cognitive and academic testing. On average, women complete fewer items than men when a test is administered with a strict time limit, whereas gender gaps are frequently reduced when time limits are relaxed. In this study, we propose that gender differences in test strategy might inflate gender gaps favoring men, and relate test strategy to stereotype threat effects under which women underperform due to the pressure of negative stereotypes about their performance. First, we applied a Bayesian two-dimensional item response theory (IRT) model to data obtained from two registered reports that investigated stereotype threat in mathematics, and estimated the latent correlation between underlying test strategy (here, completion factor, a proxy for working speed) and mathematics ability. Second, we tested the gender gap and assessed potential effects of stereotype threat on female test performance. We found a positive correlation between the completion factor and mathematics ability, such that more able participants dropped out later in the test. We did not observe a stereotype threat effect but found larger gender differences on the latent completion factor than on latent mathematical ability, suggesting that test strategies affect the gender gap in timed mathematics performance. We argue that if the effect of time limits on tests is not taken into account, this may lead to test unfairness and biased group comparisons, and urge researchers to consider these effects in either their analyses or study planning.

Smoking behavior has been well-established to be more prevalent in individuals with psychosis and bipolar disorder compared to the general population. However, reports about higher suicide attempt prevalence of smoking compared to non-smoking patients suggest that smoking behavior may contribute to identifying at-risk groups of patients in a comparatively easy manner. In the present systematic quantitative review, we provide meta-analytical evidence on the smoking and suicide attempt link in 22 studies (k = 27 independent samples; N = 11,452) of patients with psychosis and bipolar disorder. We observed a small meaningful effect of smoking on suicide attempts (OR = 1.70; 95% CI [1.48; 1.95]), indicating that smokers have 1.70 the odds of having reported a suicide attempt compared to non-smokers. This effect generalized across diagnosis type (i.e., schizophrenia vs. bipolar spectrum disorder), sample type (i.e., invs. outpatients), and participant sex. However, the observed summary effect appeared somewhat inflated due to publication process-related mechanisms, showing some evidence for effect-inflating publication bias and a decline effect. In all, the presently observed smoking and suicide attempt link appears to be small but meaningful and robust, thus suggesting smoking status represents a useful variable for the identification of at-risk populations for suicide attempts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years, more attention has been paid to jingle and jangle fallacies in psychological science. Jingle fallacies arise when two or more distinct psychological phenomena are erroneously labeled with the same term, while jangle fallacies occur when different terms are used to describe the same phenomenon. Jingle and jangle fallacies emerge due to the vague linkage between psychological theories and their practical implementation in empirical studies, compounded by variations in study designs, methodologies, and applying different statistical procedures' algorithms. Despite progress in organizing scientific findings via systematic reviews and meta-analyses, effective strategies to prevent these fallacies are still lacking. This paper explores the integration of several approaches with the potential to identify and mitigate jingle and jangle fallacies within psychological science. Essentially, organizing studies according to their specifications, which include theoretical background, methods, study designs, and results, alongside a combinatorial algorithm and flexible inclusion criteria, may indeed represent a feasible approach. A jinglefallacy detector arises when identical specifications lead to disparate outcomes, whereas jangle-fallacy indicators could operate on the premise that varying specifications consistently yield overrandomly similar results. We discuss the role of advanced computational technologies, such as Natural Language Processing (NLP), in identifying these fallacies. In conclusion, addressing jingle and jangle fallacies requires a comprehensive approach that considers all levels and phases of psychological science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the relationship between self-assessed intelligence (SAI) and psychometric intelligence (IQ) is essential for understanding how people's self-evaluations reflect their actual intelligence. Various factors, such as SAI measurement methods, participant characteristics, and testing conditions have been hypothesized to moderate the SAI–IQ link, yet the generality of this association remains unclear. Here, we provide evidence for SAI and IQ associations based on 278 effect sizes from 115 independent samples (N = 36,833) using a multi-level meta-analysis, revealing a moderate positive correlation (r = 0.30; 95% CI [0.27, 0.33]). Multiverse analyses demonstrated remarkable stability of this effect, with most summary effect specifications yielding significant positive correlations (96%), averaging r = 0.32. Notably, ability domain and sample type emerged as significant moderators, with numerical ability showing stronger correlations compared to general cognitive, verbal, and spatial abilities. Importantly, our study found that correlations in student samples were significantly higher than those in general samples. Our findings show a moderate positive association of SAI with IQ, unaffected by participant sex, publication year, administration order, neuroticism, and self-assessment method, yet significantly moderated by ability domain and sample type. Our results illustrate the importance of feedback in educational settings to help students accurately assess their cognitive abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative associations of religiosity and intelligence are well established in psychological research. However, past studies have shown a substantial heterogeneity in reported effect strengths. Causes that may be able to explain the identified inconsistencies pertain to differing religiosity measurement modalities, participant ages, or possibly cohort effects due to changing societal values in terms of being religious. Moreover, little is known about intelligence associations with the religiosity-related yet distinct construct of spirituality. Here, we provide evidence for religiosity and crystallized intelligence, as well as spirituality and crystallized intelligence associations, in 14 cohorts from 1988 to 2022 (N = 35,093) in the General Social Survey data by means of primary data analyses and meta-analytical approaches. As expected, religiosity was non-trivially negatively associated (r = −0.13, p <.001), but spirituality showed no meaningful association with crystallized intelligence (r = 0.03, p <.001). Our results broadly generalized across age groups, cohorts, and analytical approaches, thus suggesting that religiosity and intelligence may possibly be functionally equivalent to a certain extent whilst spirituality represents a distinct construct that is not functionally equivalent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the Terror Management theory, the management of existential insecurity critically influences human behavior. In philosophical schools, spirituality is viewed as a contrast to the acquisition of materialistic possessions. We investigated whether experimentally priming participants with spirituality-related, mortality-related, and neutral texts, affects materialistic attitudes among UAE residents. We did not find any significant differences in mean self-reported materialism scores between conditions (mortality salience vs. spirituality vs. neutral prime) using a repeated-measures analysis of variance (F (2, 58) = 1.143, p = .326, [[eta].sub.p.sup.2] = .04). In view of these surprising results, reflections on the nature of materialism in a diversified domain of cultural and economic viewpoints are offered, along with implications for the conceptual foundations of TMT. Specific area of psychology: mortality and materialism Keywords: Materialism, mortality salience, spirituality, terror management theory, As is prevalent in many societies, the sheer concept of death and dying instigates insurmountable fear, and individuals seek various methods of coping. The theory of terror management (TMT), as [...]