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Who's the Best? A Relativistic View of Expertise
Applied Cognitive Psychology
Abstract
The dictionary and the expert performance approach view an expert as one who, after sufficient training and experience in a domain, can perform the requisite tasks above a threshold level. In contrast, we argue for a performance-based approach that implies expertise is a continuum; the experts are the best performers. Most tasks in which expertise can be demonstrated have an underlying core of judgment, including domains in which the tasks call for judgment to be overlain with performance, prediction, or instruction. To evaluate judgment, we employ the metaphor of the judge as a measuring instrument. Like an instrument, expert judgment according to the performance-based approach has three key properties: discrimination, consistency, and validity. Validity requires ground truth and is usually difficult to establish; but the other two properties are readily observable, and they are combined in the Cochran–Weiss–Shanteau index. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
... 18 Other surrogates, such as reputation (a reflection of "popularity"), education (minimally expected level of competence), or title (titles remain even if our skills deteriorate) are unreliable markers of expertise. 3,19 Theories of medical expertise indicate that both content and methodological expertise should be incorporated into guideline panels. Domain knowledge and experience are generally viewed as necessary components of expertise but not sufficient to attain the status of expert. ...
... 20 According to Weiss & Shanteau the cornerstone of expertise is judgmental competence. 1,2,3,4,5 This assumes that judgments of panelists with varying background expertise are expected to result in complementary perspectives. Paired with EBM principles, these perspectives should foster the development of robust guidelines. ...
... First, there is no universally accepted definition of expertise and no well-defined, validated approach for the selection of guideline panelists. 3,12 As a result, it is usual practice to let those in a domain define that domain's experts. 12 Narrow measures of physician experience (i.e., publications, tenure, career stage) may be used to identify panelists; however, this should be done with the recognition that it is an imperfect practice. ...
... The concept of expertise refers to characteristics, skills and knowledge separating experts from everyone else in clinical practice (Ericsson et al., 2006;Ericsson and Towne, 2010). The development of expertise requires three fundamental elements: 1) relevant experience, 2) dedicated, purposeful work and 3) time (Ericsson et al., 2006;Ericsson and Towne, 2010;Weiss and Shanteau, 2014;Bathish et al., 2018). Development of expert performance evolves over a period of 7-10 years (Ericsson and Towne, 2010;Weiss Shanteau, 2014;Bathish et al., 2018). ...
... The development of expertise requires three fundamental elements: 1) relevant experience, 2) dedicated, purposeful work and 3) time (Ericsson et al., 2006;Ericsson and Towne, 2010;Weiss and Shanteau, 2014;Bathish et al., 2018). Development of expert performance evolves over a period of 7-10 years (Ericsson and Towne, 2010;Weiss Shanteau, 2014;Bathish et al., 2018). ...
Objectives:
Explore critical care nurses' personal perceptions of expertise, expert performance and transition from novice to expert performer in clinical practice.
Design:
Following constructivist approach to grounded theory this investigation used qualitative open-ended interviews focused on the social construction of expertise in critical care nursing and the experiences of clinical practice that define that process.
Setting:
A multi-site urban area in the southeastern United States.
Participants:
10 certified critical care nurses, three males and seven females, with 10-30+ years of critical care experience.
Findings:
Experience and knowledge are the foundation of expertise and expert performance. The higher the acuity the more frequent the experience the greater the nurses' aptitude and opportunity for learning and professional growth. It was also noted that self-actualisation was a major determinant in the development of expertise in critical care.
Conclusion:
Key findings suggested that clinical experience and personal motivation combined with self-actualisation, the drive to maximise personal potential, determine critical care nurse's trajectory towards professional excellence. Expert performance evolves over time. Knowledge acquisition and experience have an interdependent reciprocal relationship inferring that you cannot have one without the other. Social expectations and experiences have a direct impact on professional aptitude and development if expertise.
... This notion that judgments may differ between professionals is supported by research in psychology, medicine, and neuroscience. These fields find that disagreement among experts is common even when the experts are provided with the same evidence (Burton 2010;Mumpower and Stewart 1996), and a difference in judgment does not necessarily imply difference in judgment quality (e.g., Ericsson 2014; Weiss and Shanteau 2014;Weiss et al. 2006). ...
... In these fields, disagreement among experts is common even when the experts are provided with the same evidence, particularly for illstructured tasks (Burton 2010;Mumpower and Stewart 1996). Moreover, studies document that professional judgment need not be identical to be of high quality (e.g., Ericsson 2014; Weiss and Shanteau 2014;Weiss et al. 2006). Peecher et al. (2013) similarly suggest conclusions may differ between auditors and inspectors and that such differences do not indicate that one judgment is reasonable and the other is not. ...
The current audit environment promotes auditors to conduct defensive auditing procedures in lieu of using new, innovative, and potentially more effective audit procedures, due to concerns these procedures may be second‐guessed in litigation or by audit inspectors such as the PCAOB. As a result, auditors may prefer traditional “generally accepted” procedures over innovative procedures that are potentially more effective. We test recent proposals (e.g., Peecher, Solomon and Trotman 2013) that an Audit Judgment Rule (AJR) encourages the use of innovative, and potentially more effective, audit procedures analogous to the similar Business Judgment Rule that affords legal protections to corporate directors. Under an AJR, litigators or audit inspectors could not second‐guess auditor judgments, even if they perceive that alternate judgments would have ordinarily been reached, provided the auditor's judgment was made in good faith and in a rigorous manner. However, the AJR's requirements that auditors must defend the rigor of their innovative judgments could potentially backfire and lead auditors to select more traditional procedures. Under the framework of goal activation theory, we conduct an experiment with audit managers and seniors and find that an AJR makes auditors less likely to select innovative audit procedures, particularly when audit risk is high. They do so despite believing the innovative procedures to be more effective than the traditional procedures. Findings from a supplementary experiment with experienced auditors further suggests that national office affirmation of the reasonableness of the procedures does not help overcome this effect. Overall, our findings suggest that an AJR may have the unintended consequence of further increasing auditors' focus on more traditional, and potentially less effective, audit procedures.
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... This is mainly due to the difficulty of finding agreement about the definition of what expertise is and the criteria for assessing it (Hill, Spiegel, Hoffman, Kivlighan, & Gelso, 2017). Nevertheless, some perspectives suggest that performance expertise (Weiss & Shanteau, 2014) is believed to be composed of two facets: relational expertise and technical expertise. ...
Empirical research has explored different dimensions of the therapy process and their associations, often showing bidirectional links: for example, metacognition may be favored by a positive alliance with the clinician; on the other hand, metacognitive difficulties may obstacle the alliance. However, little is still known about the overall relationship between different dimensions during the psychotherapy process. The aim of this study is to further explore the in‐session interaction of therapeutic process variables, focusing on patient metacognition, therapeutic alliance, technical intervention, therapist expertise and patient functioning.
Participants included 45 patients involved in a psychodynamic weekly treatment in two Clinical Centres. Therapists were both in‐training and experienced clinicians. Four instruments were applied on four sessions of the psychotherapy (178 transcripts verbatim): MAS‐R assessing metacognition (Carcione et al., 2010), CIS assessing therapeutic alliance (Colli & Lingiardi, 2009), PIRS assessing therapist technical interventions (Cooper & Bond, 1992) and SWAP‐200 assessing patient functioning (Westen & Shedler, 1999).
Sequential analysis revealed that different therapist interventions co‐occurred with three different levels of therapeutic alliance: a first one characterized by positive collaboration, the second one by neutral collaboration and the third one by ruptures. Moreover, and critically, the patient metacognition, patient functioning, and therapist expertise were found to exert different effects in the three alliance levels.
These findings suggest the existence of a specific interdependence between the variables involved in the research. These results further indicate that the therapist expertise is a key element in the therapeutic process, as it can drastically affect the in‐session interactive dynamic.
... By highlighting goal establishment as well as goal enactment, we emphasize previously understudied aspects of patient care consistent with the analysis of expertise in other domains (Ward et al., 2016). Context-based differences in decision-making processes during nominally similar cases soften a distinction between "routine" and "nonroutine" problems, complementing Weiss and Shanteau's (2014) claim that the treatment of similar problems is the defining characteristic of expertise. Rather than focus exclusively on the novel or rare event, we believe it is equally important to study decision making across varied instantiations of similar problems. ...
Research and practice in medical decision making value consistency with standardized intervention, potentially neglecting the impact of various environmental features such as workload or the constraints of local work practice. This study presents both qualitative and quantitative analyses of emergency physicians’ decision-making processes in their natural work setting to examine the impact of contextual features. We study contextual effects on two separable decision-making processes identified in quantified observational data: goal enactment and goal establishment. Whereas goal enactment responds to hospital differences and patient difficulty as main effects, goal establishment responds to their interaction. Our emphasis on goal establishment expands the scope of a medical decision-making literature focused on diagnosis, and extends to other professions and the more general conceptualization of expertise. From a theoretical perspective, we emphasize the importance of accounting for contextual variability within the bounds of expert behavior. Practically, we provide real-world examples of context effects that bear on the standardization of care, cost differences between hospitals, and the conceptualization of quality medical care.
... Durante os dez anos de experiência que são tidos como necessários para se alcançar a mestria de um especialista, o aluno necessita de uma enorme quantidade de prática para o seu desenvolvimento. É reportado que é preciso, independente da área do conhecimento, praticar durante aproximadamente dez mil horas [Gladwell 2008] [Weiss and Shanteau 2014], o que pode ser equivalente a três horas por dia, ou vinte horas por semana, ao longo destes dez anos [Yates and Hattie 2013]. Uma expectativa otimista é que ao fim de uma graduação com duração de quatro anos, o aluno de programação consiga tornar-se competente ou proficiente [Robins et al. 2003] [Winslow 1996]. ...
... Early studies on expertise relied on the identification of experts by reputation among colleagues. However, peer-nominated experts could not demonstrate a level of expertise that researchers felt was expected and recommended a redirection of research effort away from social recognition and towards superior performance as a unique element that distinguished experts (Ericsson and Smith, 1991;Weiss and Shanteau, 2014). ...
Purpose
The current healthcare environment provides several challenges to the existing roles of healthcare professionals. The value of the professional expert is also under scrutiny. The study aimed to generate a construction of professional expertise amongst practitioners in the current healthcare environment. It used the speech-language therapy community in New Zealand (NZ) as an example.
Design/methodology/approach
Speech-language therapists (SLTs) currently practicing in NZ completed an online survey including qualitative and quantitative components. The range of experience and work settings of participants (n = 119) was representative of the workforce.
Findings
Participants clearly identified being ‘highly experienced’ and ‘having in-depth knowledge’ as essential elements of professional expertise. Thematic analysis generated two interconnected themes of a professional expert being a personal leader and teacher, and a highly experienced, knowledgeable and skillful practitioner. Additionally, practitioners needed to be seen to contribute to the community in order to be known as experts. Clinical practice was valued differently from research generation.
Originality/value
This study is novel in exploring a construction of professional expertise amongst practitioners in a current healthcare community. Within that community, experts could be viewed as highly-effective practitioners that visibly contribute to the professional community. The study draws attention to the role of reputation and the impacts of being a clinical teacher or leader compared with pursuing a research role. This could be particularly relevant in the promotion of evidence-based practice.
... They provide a comprehensive review of empirical studies on factors that may explain the development of expertise in psychotherapy as well as highlight the dearth of adequate research on expertise. They accurately note that inadequate definitions of the construct have hampered this area of inquiry, take issue with definitions offered by others (e.g., Tracey, Wampold, Lichtenberg, & Goodyear, 2014;Weiss & Shanteau, 2014), and provide a new definition for the readers' consideration. The authors end their article with novel suggestions for future studies, including longitudinal designs, naturalistic studies, and qualitative research. ...
The field of psychology has struggled to define what it is that makes an expert therapist expert. Just as elusive has been the ability to know and articulate how one achieves expertise as a therapist. In their major contribution, Hill, Spiegel, Hoffman, Kivlighan, and Gelso identify a number of constructs that researchers interested in assessing expertise can consider and evaluate. In this reaction to their article, we share where we are in agreement with the authors and where our thoughts diverge. We conclude with what we deem to be missing from this discussion regarding therapist expertise—power and privilege as it relates to who decides what makes an expert.
... An expert judge makes both a qualitative and a quantitative evaluation. Weiss and Shanteau [22] stated that all type of expertise are influenced by the expert's judgment, then all type of expertise can't be separated from their judgment quality and in this study, an expert means someone with expert judgment. ...
The quality of a formal decision is influenced by the level of expertise of the decision makers (DMs). The composition of a team of DMs can change when new members join or old members leave, based on their ranking. In order to improve the quality of decisions, this ranking should be based on their demonstrated expertise. This paper proposes using the experts' expertise levels, in terms of ‘the ability to differentiate consistently’, to determine their ranking, according to the level at which they assess alternatives. The expertise level is expressed using the CWS-Index (Cochran–Weiss–Shanteau), a ratio between Discrimination and Inconsistency. The experts give their evaluations using pairwise comparisons of Fuzzy Preference Relations with an Additive Consistency property. This property can be used to generate estimators, and replaces the repetition needed to obtain the CWS-Index. Finally, a numerical example is discussed to illustrate the model for producing expertise-based ranking of experts.
... The literature does, however, indicate substantial barriers to the adoption of such decision support systems in practice, primarily because of issues related to usability and managers' reluctance to concede that they need such tools (Eisenstein and Lodish 2002;Weiss and Shanteau 2014). With more evidence of the inaccuracy of many advertising decisions, such as this study, advertisers and their advertising agencies should become more realistic about the flaws of intuition and open to exploring decision support systems to facilitate more effective advertising. ...
Marketers' intuitions about the sales effectiveness of advertisements Advertisements vary enormously in their sales effectiveness, so choosing the more effective creative executions to air is an important marketing task. Such decisions are often made intuitively. This study assesses the intuitive predictions of a global sample of marketers regarding which television ads are more or less sales effective. The findings show that marketers' predictions were correct no more often than random chance. Multivariate analysis suggests that those with category experience and those in marketing or consumer insights roles make slightly better predictions. Aside from who makes better predictions, further research is needed on how to improve advertising decisions, including use of evidence-based decision support systems and team decision-making.
... The paradigmatic example is the choice-of-move task from de Groot's (1946/1978) chess research. However, Hoffman et al. (2014 have argued that restriction of expertise research to laboratory tasks removes many important professions from consideration, including those in which it is not possible or practical to devise laboratory tasks to capture the essence of expertise in the domain (e.g., astronaut; see also Weiss & Shanteau, 2014). More generally, Wai (2014) noted that "Ericsson appears unable to go beyond his own framework and definitions to incorporate the approaches of others as well as the full network of evidence surrounding the development of expertise" (p. ...
Why are some people so much more successful than other people in music, sports, games, business, and other complex domains? This question is the subject of one of psychology's oldest debates. Over 20 years ago, Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer (1993) proposed that individual differences in performance in domains such as these largely reflect accumulated amount of “deliberate practice.” More controversially, making exceptions only for height and body size, Ericsson et al. explicitly rejected any direct role for innate factors (“talent”) in the attainment of expert performance. This view has since become the dominant theoretical account of expertise and has filtered into the popular imagination through books such as Malcolm Gladwell's (2008) Outliers. Nevertheless, as we discuss in this chapter, evidence from recent research converges on the conclusion that this view is not defensible. Recent meta-analyses have demonstrated that although deliberate practice accounts for a sizeable proportion of the variance in performance in complex domains, it consistently leaves an even larger proportion of the variance unexplained and potentially explainable by other factors. In light of this evidence, we offer a “new look” at expertise that takes into account a wide range of factors.
... Attempts have been done to fit a mathematical model on observed data of individuals. For instance, Weiss et al. (2003Weiss et al. ( , 2014 developed the Cochran-Weiss-Shanteau (CWS) index to distinguish between experts and non-experts where consistency, validity, and discrimination are the underlying characteristics of expertise. While validity requires ground truth and is usually difficult to establish, the other two properties are readily observable, and are combined in the CWS index. ...
In recent years the rising popularity of outsourcing work to crowds has led to increasing importance to find an effective assignment of suitable workers with tasks. Even though attempts have been made in related areas such as expertise identification most crowdsocuring jobs today are assigned without any predefined policy. Whilst some have investigated assigning jobs based on availability or experience no dominant method has been identified so far. We propose an assignment of tasks to crowd-workers based on their cognitive capability, by conducting a set of cognitive tests and comparing them with performance on typical crowdtasks. Moreover, we examine different setups to predict task performance where a) cognitive abilities, b) performance on previous crowdtasks, or c) both of them, are partially known. Preliminary results show that cognition-based task assignment leads to an improvement in task performance prediction and may pave the way to more intelligent crowd-worker recruitment.
... The current modeling approach assumes that a person's expertise can be represented by a single scalar (the s j parameter), and that these are independent for each question. Theories of individual differences in expertise [25], and more general psychometric theories-including classic test theory and item-response theory models [26], and factor measurement models [27]-provide a basis for extending this simple assumption. Future work should also examine how structured measures of individual differences and expertise derived from these theories relate to observed co-variates, including measures like age, gender, self-rated expertise, and so on. ...
We develop a cognitive modeling approach, motivated by classic theories of knowledge representation and judgment from psychology, for combining people's rankings of items. The model makes simple assumptions about how individual differences in knowledge lead to observed ranking data in behavioral tasks. We implement the cognitive model as a Bayesian graphical model, and use computational sampling to infer an aggregate ranking and measures of the individual expertise. Applications of the model to 23 data sets, dealing with general knowledge and prediction tasks, show that the model performs well in producing an aggregate ranking that is often close to the ground truth and, as in the "wisdom of the crowd" effect, usually performs better than most of individuals. We also present some evidence that the model outperforms the traditional statistical Borda count method, and that the model is able to infer people's relative expertise surprisingly well without knowing the ground truth. We discuss the advantages of the cognitive modeling approach to combining ranking data, and in wisdom of the crowd research generally, as well as highlighting a number of potential directions for future model development.
Objective
To explore the clinical judgements of therapists in prescribing the intensity of hand strengthening exercise in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Methods
Phase I: Eleven therapists knowledgeable in treating patients with RA subjectively identified seven clinical cues. These were incorporated into 54 hypothetical patient case scenarios. Phase II: Therapists with ≥2 years post‐registration experience and current or recent experience in treating patients with RA were asked to assess 69 case scenarios in total (54 + 15 repeats) and judge what intensity of hand strengthening exercise they would prescribe using the OMNI‐Resistance Exercise Scale of perceived exertion. Using responses to the repeated cases, the Cochran‐Weiss‐Shanteau index of expertise was used to identify therapists who prescribed more consistently. Multiple regression was used to determine which clinical cues were most strongly associated with the intensity of exercise prescribed. A sub‐group analysis explored differences between consistent and inconsistent prescribers.
Results
Fifty‐three therapists took part. Thirty completed all 69 case scenarios. Across all therapists, the three most important clinical cues associated with lower intensity of exercise prescribed were (1) Patient's reported pain intensity whilst practising the exercise ( β = −1.150, p < 0.001), (2) Disease activity ( β = −0.425, p < 0.001) and (3) average hand pain over the last week ( β = −0.353 p < 0.001). Twelve therapists were categorised as consistent prescribers. This group relied on fewer clinical cues (three vs. seven) when judging what intensity of exercise to prescribe.
Conclusion
This study provides insights into how therapists prescribe hand exercises. Intensity of hand strengthening exercise was influenced by three key clinical cues, including pain intensity and disease activity.
“This book provides insights into the hidden role of intuitive expertise in financial decision-making. The authors show and discuss how expertise combined with intuitive judgments positively affect decision-making outcomes. The book builds on the latest academic studies in this emergent field. In combination with the academic perspective, the authors provide a field study that they conducted in the context of mergers and acquisitions (M&As), a common and critical strategic investment for companies. The interviews were carried out with experts and decision-makers in large and successful international companies (i.e., M&A experts, CEOs, CFOs, and board members). The book provides a solid theoretical and empirically based grounding of the topic. In addition, it offers suggestions to practitioners on how they can develop and nurture intuitive expertise in strategic investment decision-making. The report of the field study provides examples and quotes from interviews to visualize findings, thus helping practitioners gain understanding and insights from the text. The authors also discuss the downsides of intuitive expertise, such as biases and flawed decision-making. For scholars, students, and professionals, the book offers a concise and up-to-date summary of an emergent stream of research, exploring how cognition and judgment affect financial decision-making.” Source: Routledge webpage (2022-09-19)
We have each spent more than 50 years doing research that has had little impact. Even more lamentable is that our field, judgment and decision making (JDM), has on the whole had little impact during that span. We attribute that failure to the use of methodologies that emphasize testing models rather than looking for differences in behavior. The “cognitive revolution” led the field astray, toward the goal of studying model fit rather than comparing observable results. With modeling as the goal, experimentation was stultified. Simple tasks became dominant. Although a poor metaphor for real decision making, the gambling paradigm has lasted forever because the inputs to the decision are known to the researcher and thus easily modeled.
The development of a scoring key for the situational judgment test often requires subject matter experts (SMEs) to identify the best responses for a hypothetical situation. And yet, there is no gold standard for identifying the SMEs. This paper describes an empirical and context-free approach: the Cochran–Weiss–Shanteau (CWS) method, which does not rely on external criteria such as tenure or credential. We first describe the theory behind the empirical approach of expertise. We also outline the CWS method and provide an R script for calculating the CWS index. Next, we demonstrate how the CWS index can be used for improving interrater agreement and the efficiency of SME selection. Finally, we examined the nomological network of the CWS index. We found that the CWS index was associated with reflective thinking and intuition avoidance.
Cue utilization processes may enable learners to acquire technical skills more readily even during the very early stages of learning a task but there is a paucity of applied experimental evidence as to when cue utilization becomes operative during the initial stages of technical skill acquisition. Civil and military remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) occurrence analyses have indicated that an operator's ability to utilize and integrate a more constrained range of sensory cues compared to conventional aviation has been operative in a significant proportion of accidents. It is important to understand when cue utilization processes emerge to ensure the most effective application of cue-based processing approaches to training and systems design in order to improve operational safety. The objective of the research was to examine the sensitivity of a domain-specific measure of cue utilization during the initial stages of learning to fly a small visual line of sight RPA. A two-phase, six-stage, three-week quasi-longitudinal study was conducted using participants with no prior conventional aviation or RPA operations experience. A series of multiple linear regressions indicated that technical cue utilization became sensitive to performance after 4.1 h exposure to the domain. The findings suggested a relationship between cue utilization and the capacity to acquire complex technical skills during a very early stage of learning. The evaluation of RPA operator cue utilization may assist in developing cue-based training interventions and the design of more intuitive RPA interfaces to help ensure the efficient and effective acquisition of the requisite technical skills for safe operations.
Wisdom, long a topic of interest to moral philosophers, is increasingly the focus of social science research. Philosophers have historically been concerned to develop a rationally defensible account of the nature of wisdom and its role in the moral life, often inspired in various ways by virtue theoretical accounts of practical wisdom (phronesis). Wisdom scientists seek to, among other things, define wisdom and its components so that we can measure them. Are the measures used by wisdom scientists actually measuring what philosophers have in mind when they discuss practical wisdom? I argue that they are not. Contemporary measures of wisdom and its components may pick out some necessary prerequisites of practical wisdom, but they do not measure a philosophically plausible practical wisdom or its components. After explaining the argument and defending it against objections, I consider its implications. Should wisdom scientists ignore the philosophical conception of practical wisdom in favor of other conceptions, revise their methods to try to measure it, or continue the interdisciplinary study of practical wisdom without expecting to measure it? I make a preliminary argument for the third option.
Podium Presentation discuss dissertation research findings related to the development of expertise and the experiential impact of context and our experience on the evolution of expert nursing practice.
View online: http://www.publicatie-online.nl/uploaded/flipbook/14797-c-westin/ This thesis set out to obtain a fundamental understanding of how controllers' acceptance of ATC conflict resolution advisories were affected, depending on how well the decision aid's conflict-solving strategy matches that of the individual controller. A novel approach was developed that repeated and curtailed controllers' own solutions as automated advisories. Strategic conformance was varied by providing the same controller with either her/his own solution to the same conflict (conformal), or a colleague's contrasting solution to the same conflict (nonconformal).
Taken together, this thesis has contributed to the knowledge of what drives controllers' acceptance of resolution advisories in particular, and human-automation collaboration and automation acceptance in general. Empirical results showed that conformal resolution advisories benefited acceptance and agreement of that system's advisories, as well as reducing response time. These benefits were observed across varying expertise levels, particularly in relation to expert operators. Results also revealed that controllers were consistent, but disagreed on how to solve conflicts. In conclusion, findings support the feasibility of developing more individual-sensitive automation. However, designers need to carefully consider the specific contextual goals and objectives, particularly in safety-critical domains, for which a personalized conformal system is considered. Many work domains may be more suitable for facilitating homogeneity that restricts individual differences in interaction and problem-solving.
The aim of this research was to examine the relationship between cue utilization, spatial aptitude and skill acquisition in learning to fly a simulated small Visual Line-Of-Sight (VLOS) rotary-wing Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The participants were 95 university students with no prior RPA or conventional aviation experience. Participants completed the EXPERT Intensive Skills Evaluation (EXPERTise) 2.0 web-delivered cue-based Situational Judgement Test (SJT) to ascertain their level of cue utilization and a series of spatial aptitude batteries. The participants then completed two 15 min simulated small VLOS rotary-wing RPA piloting tasks. A performance score, based on the proportion of successful trials, comprised the dependent variable for task one and a composite performance score, based on the proportion of successful trials, progression through the obstacle course, and time to complete a course, comprised the dependent variable for task two. The results indicated that, during the initial task, performance was explained by total video game experience and levels of spatial visualisation, while performance during the second task was explained by levels of cue utilization. This outcome suggests the involvement of different cognitive constructs at different stages in the initial and immediately subsequent stages of unstructured learning to operate a simulated VLOS rotary-wing RPA. The results suggest that the small VLOS remote pilot training industry might benefit from the development of cue-based training packages that assist trainees acquire interpret, integrate, calibrate and adapt the right sorts of cues that facilitate or accelerate the acquisition of competence and ultimately the progression to expertise.
In this rejoinder, we respond to comments raised by Goodyear, Wampold, Tracey, and Lichtenberg; Norcross and Karpiak; Reese; and O’Shaughnessy, Du, and Davis about the definition of expertise and methods for increasing expertise. The most consensus among these authors was found for client outcomes as a criterion of expertise and practice as a mechanism for increasing expertise. Until we have better empirical evidence, however, we suggest keeping the eight criteria that we originally proposed to measure expertise (performance, cognitive processing, client outcomes, experience, personal qualities, self-assessment, reputation, credentials), as well as the four mechanisms for increasing expertise (training, practice, feedback, and personal therapy). We challenge future researchers to hone the list and determine how to weight the various criteria and mechanisms based on empirical evidence.
The thesis of this article is that the lack of evidence related to the identification and development of therapist expertise is due to the inadequate definition and operationalization of the concept. We propose a definition of expertise that is restricted to performance in the conduct of psychotherapy: the manifestation of the highest levels of ability, skill, professional competence, and effectiveness. In addition, we offer several criteria that may be used to assess expertise: performance (including relational and technical expertise), cognitive processing, client outcomes, experience, personal and relational qualities, credentials, reputation, and self-assessment. We then review research related to the development of expertise, highlighting the role of experience with clients, personal therapy, supervision, deliberate practice, and feedback. Finally, we conclude with recommendations for conducting research on therapist expertise.
We demonstrate the usefulness of cognitive models for combining human estimates of probabilities in two experiments. The first experiment involves people's estimates of probabilities for general knowledge questions such as "What percentage of the world's population speaks English as a first language?" The second experiment involves people's estimates of probabilities in football (soccer) games, such as "What is the probability a team leading 1-0 at half time will win the game?", with ground truths based on analysis of large corpus of games played in the past decade. In both experiments, we collect people's probability estimates, and develop a cognitive model of the estimation process, including assumptions about the calibration of probabilities and individual differences. We show that the cognitive model approach outperforms standard statistical aggregation methods like the mean and the median for both experiments and, unlike most previous related work, is able to make good predictions in a fully unsupervised setting. We also show that the parameters inferred as part of the cognitive modeling, involving calibration and expertise, provide useful measures of the cognitive characteristics of individuals. We argue that the cognitive approach has the advantage of aggregating over latent human knowledge rather than observed estimates, and emphasize that it can be applied in predictive settings where answers are not yet available.
Comments on the article by T. J. G. Tracey et al. (see record 2013-45602-001), which addressed the question of whether "psychotherapy is a profession without any expertise." In the past two decades, new insights have emerged on expertise in various domains, including psychotherapy. In particular, the present authors have developed a general, relativistic perspective on expertise that invokes performance-based criteria (Weiss & Shanteau, 2003, 2014). In this commentary, they highlight three distinctions that have emerged from recent research on expertise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Weiss and Shanteau criticize the expert-performance approach and argue that this approach has not, and most importantly, cannot be applied to the study of ‘experts’ in domains that lack readily available objective measures of performance, such as accuracy of judgments. In this response, I demonstrate that it is not necessary to use fictitious stimuli for the judgments, for which no correct responses can be identified, and where only their Cochrane, Weiss, and Shanteau index can be calculated. Instead, the expert performance approach regenerates the judgment situation for actual cases and tracks down their subsequent observed real-world outcomes. Participants' judgments of the stimuli can then be directly scored against the actual outcomes. Opportunities for training and deliberate practice are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The theoretical framework presented in this article explains expert performance as the end result of individuals' prolonged efforts to improve performance while negotiating motivational and external constraints. In most domains of expertise, individuals begin in their childhood a regimen of effortful activities (deliberate practice) designed to optimize improvement. Individual differences, even among elite performers, are closely related to assessed amounts of deliberate practice. Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years. Analysis of expert performance provides unique evidence on the potential and limits of extreme environmental adaptation and learning.
Humans and animals make inferences about the world under limited time and knowledge. In contrast, many models of rational inference treat the mind as a Laplacean Demon, equipped with unlimited time, knowledge, and computational might. Following Herbert Simon's notion of satisficing, this chapter proposes a family of algorithms based on a simple psychological mechanism: one-reason decision making. These fast-and-frugal algorithms violate fundamental tenets of classical rationality: It neither looks up nor integrates all information. By computer simulation, a competition was held between the satisficing "take-the-best" algorithm and various "rational" inference procedures (e.g., multiple regression). The take-the-best algorithm matched or outperformed all competitors in inferential speed and accuracy. This result is an existence proof that cognitive mechanisms capable of successful performance in the real world do not need to satisfy the classical norms of rational inference.
Agreement among professionals is often considered as evidence that a decision is correct.
The reasoning behind this principle is that it is unlikely that independent experts would
all choose a wrong alternative. Concurring opinions in medicine, consensus on faculty committees, and unanimous appeals court decisions exemplify how the principle makes us confident. The expertise of someone who disagrees with the consensual answer is deemed questionable. We challenge this view, arguing that agreement with other experts is neither necessary nor sufficient for expertise.
The expert performance framework distinguishes between deliberate practice and less effective practice activities. The current longitudinal study is the first to use this framework to understand how children improve in an academic skill. Specifically, the authors examined the effectiveness and subjective experience of three preparation activities widely recommended to improve spelling skill. Deliberate practice, operationally defined as studying and memorizing words while alone, better predicted performance in the National Spelling Bee than being quizzed by others or reading for pleasure. Rated as the most effortful and least enjoyable type of preparation activity, deliberate practice was increasingly favored over being quizzed as spellers accumulated competition experience. Deliberate practice mediated the prediction of final performance by the personality trait of grit, suggesting that perseverance and passion for long-term goals enable spellers to persist with practice activities that are less intrinsically rewarding—but more effective—than other types of preparation.
The investigations described in this series are concerned with the conditions of independence and lack of independence in the face of group pressure. The abstract temper of present-day theory and investigation in this region rests to a considerable degree on a neglect of the cognitive and emotional experiences that are part of the individual's psychological field. The understanding of social influences will require the study of a wide range of conditions and of the interrelated operations of different psychological functions. A group of seven to nine individuals was gathered in a classroom to take part in what appeared to be a simple experiment in visual discrimination. The subjects were all male, white college students, ranging in age from 17 to 25; the mean age was 20. For certain purposes a large number of critical subjects was required for the present experiment. The present report is based on a total of 123 subjects. The task consisted of the comparison of a standard line with three other lines, one of which was equal in length to the standard. We investigated some of the conditions responsible for independence and lack of independence in the face of arbitrary group pressure. To this end we produced a disagreement between a group and one individual member about a clear and simple issue of fact. The interview, which followed the experimental session, provided qualitative evidence concerning the effects produced by the majority, The particular properties of the experimental situation and their relation to more usual social contradictions were described.
When seeking help or advice, one naturally wishes to get that aid from someone who does the task well, from an expert. Determining whether someone merits that label is not trivial, and the judgment can have important consequences. Experts in most domains, from athletes to plumbers, need to exhibit a high level of performance to maintain their status. But there is another group of professionals that is never examined. The expert status of such experts is conferred via criteria such as education or experience. While their credentials may be challenged, their work itself is not seen to bear upon their status. We refer to this group as privileged experts. These experts make assessments or predictions whose correctness is rarely evaluated. Even if prophecy fails, errors are forgiven. We account for this non-evidentiary perspective by positing a widely-held misconception that expertise generalizes. We outline a task-specific, performance-based, limited-term certification scheme that can supplant privilege.
Choosing the right person for a given position is a highly complex task, J. Scott Armstrong yet experts believe that their experience allows them to do this well. Michael Lewis’s 2003 book Moneyball and the recent film based on the book provide a counterpoint, showing that the statistical procedures used by Billy Beane, general manager of professional baseball’s Oakland Athletics, are more effective in predicting job performance than are experts’ judgments. In this article, Scott Armstrong traces the emergence of the argument in favor of statistical procedures to writings in the 1950s by Paul Meehl and shows how Meehl’s principles, carried forward by Billy Beane, can be applied to improve business performance today. Copyright International Institute of Forecasters, 2012
This paper presents and tests a formal mathematical model for the analysis of informant responses to systematic interview questions. We assume a situation in which the ethnographer does not know how much each informant knows about the cultural domain under consideration nor the answers to the questions. The model simultaneously provides an estimate of the cultural competence or knowledge of each informant and an estimate of the correct answer to each question asked of the informant. The model currently handles true-false, multiple-choice, andfill-in-the-blank type question formats. In familiar cultural domains the model produces good results from as few as four informants. The paper includes a table showing the number of informants needed to provide stated levels of confidence given the mean level of knowledge among the informants. Implications are discussed.
Humans and animals make inferences about the world under limited time and knowledge. In con-
trast, many models of rational inference treat the mind as a Laplacean Demon, equipped with un-
limited time, knowledge, and computational might. Following H. Simon's notion of satisficing, the
authors have proposed a family of algorithms based on a simple psychological mechanism: one-
reason decision making. These fast and frugal algorithms violate fundamental tenets of classical
rationality: They neither look up nor integrate all information. By computer simulation, the authors
held a competition between the satisficing "Take The Best" algorithm and various "rational" infer-
ence procedures (e.g., multiple regression). The Take The Best algorithm matched or outperformed
all competitors in inferential speed and accuracy. This result is an existence proof that cognitive
mechanisms capable of successful performance in the real world do not need to satisfy the classical
norms of rational inference.
Studied characteristics of expertise in situations where judges deal with multidimensional information. Psychometric criteria were advocated as being indicative of expert judgment: (a) Experts should tend to cluster variables in the same way when identifying and organizing cues; (b) expert judgment should be highly reliable (intrajudge reliability), show both convergent and discriminant validity, and be relatively free of judgmental bias when measuring cues; and (c) experts should weight and combine information in similar ways. These criteria were applied to data obtained when 3 medical pathologists rated the amount of histological signs in biopsy slides. Results show that these experts generally met the criteria, although they did not seem to weigh information similarly. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
F. Heider's (1958) suggestion that Performance = Motivation × Ability has been empirically confirmed by N. H. Anderson and C. A. Butzin (1974) and by A. Kum et al (1974), using American students as Ss. This multiplying process failed to appear in the present 3 experiments performed with 56 male Indian college students. Contrary to the predicted linear fan pattern, the plot of Motivation × Ability effect displayed clear parallelism. An equal-weight averaging rule was able to account for the results obtained in both group and single-S analyses. Perhaps the integration rules underlying achievement judgments are culture-specific, and Indian college students average motivation and ability information in attribution of future scholastic performance. Results illustrate the potential power that information integration theory provides for the cross-cultural study of social perception and cognition. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
20 student Ss judged stimulus persons on 3 dimensions: performance, motivation, and ability. Each pair of dimensions was combined in a 4 * 4 design as cue information for judgments of the 3rd dimension. In accord with prediction, judgments of performance showed the bilinear form that characterizes the multiplying model: Performance = Motivation * Ability. Judgments of motivation and ability also exhibited a simple algebraic form, but this form was not mathematically consistent with the form of the performance equation. These data exhibit the parallelism property that characterizes an adding-type model and add further support to the concept of a general cognitive algebra of judgment, although this cognitive algebra is not a simple mirror of mathematical algebra. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
21 professional auditors and 11 accounting students (novices) made judgments for 32 hypothetical auditing cases that were based on 8 dimensions of accounting-related information. Analyses indicated that the experts did not differ significantly from the novices in the number of significant dimensions. When evaluating the information, however, the experts' judgments primarily reflected one source of information, with other cues having secondary impact. In comparison, no single cue was dominant for the students' judgments. It is suggested that the nonuse of information by experts does not necessarily indicate a cognitive limitation. Instead, experts may have better abilities to focus on relevant information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Methods for measuring rater agreement and making inferences about the accuracy of dichotomous ratings from agreement data are described. The first section presents a probability model related to latent class analysis that is applicable when ratings are based on a discrete trait. The second section extends these methods to situations in which ratings are based on a continuous trait, using a model related to signal detection theory and item response theory. The values obtained by these methods provide either direct or upper-bounds estimates of rating accuracy, depending upon the nature of the rating process. Formulas are shown for combining the opinions of multiple raters to classify cases with greater accuracy than simple majority or unanimous opinion decision rules allow. Additional technical refinements of the probabilty modeling approach are possible, and it promises to lead to many improvements in the ways that ratings by multiple raters are analyzed and used. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This book was the first handbook where the world's foremost 'experts on expertise' reviewed our scientific knowledge on expertise and expert performance and how experts may differ from non-experts in terms of their development, training, reasoning, knowledge, social support, and innate talent. Methods are described for the study of experts' knowledge and their performance of representative tasks from their domain of expertise. The development of expertise is also studied by retrospective interviews and the daily lives of experts are studied with diaries. In 15 major domains of expertise, the leading researchers summarize our knowledge on the structure and acquisition of expert skill and knowledge and discuss future prospects. General issues that cut across most domains are reviewed in chapters on various aspects of expertise such as general and practical intelligence, differences in brain activity, self-regulated learning, deliberate practice, aging, knowledge management, and creativity.
The 'Emerging Perspectives' offers answers by a top group of experts to the question, 'Where is judgment and decision research heading as we forge into the 21st century?' The chapters represent perspectives developed by some of the most innovative thinkers in the field. The book is organized around five themes: Fortifying traditional models of decision making - looking at traditional topics in new ways; Elaborating cognitive processes in decision making - exploring the interplay between decision research and cognitive psychology; Integrating affect and motivation in decision making - relating how affect/motivation interact with decision making; Understanding social and cultural influences on decision making - recognizing the importance of social and cultural context on decisions; Facing the challenge of real-world complexity in decision research - seeing the challenges, and rewards, of research outside the laboratory. The book concludes with a Commentary based on an analysis and synthesis of the new ideas presented here.
When seeking help or advice, one naturally wishes to get that aid from someone who does the task well, from an expert. Determining whether someone merits that label is not trivial, and the judgment can have important consequences. Experts in most domains, from athletes to plumbers, need to exhibit a high level of performance to maintain their status. But there is another group of professionals that is never examined. The expert status of such experts is conferred via criteria such as education or experience. While their credentials may be challenged, their work itself is not seen to bear upon their status. We refer to this group as privileged experts . These experts make assessments or predictions whose correctness is rarely evaluated. Even if prophecy fails, errors are forgiven. We account for this non-evidentiary perspective by positing a widely-held misconception that expertise generalizes. We outline a task-specific, performance-based, limited-term certification scheme that can supplant privilege.
Psychological studies involving experts date back to the earliest days of experimental psychology. Research on domain experts has also been a fundamental part of the history of judgment and decision making (JDM). The purpose of this chapter is to look at how domain experts have been viewed in the decision making literature. The focus will be on an unappreciated historical bias derived from a misinterpretation of the foundations of experimental psychology.
Ward Edwards is well known as the father of behavioral decision making. In his 1954 Psychological Bulletin paper on decision making, he brought psychological ideas into what had been the province of economists. His influence in this realm is so pervasive that the Nobel committee was able to trace a direct path from Edwards's work to Daniel Kahneman's 2002 Prize for prospect theory. In a 1963 Psychological Review paper, Edwards brought Bayesian statistics to the attention of psychologists, who have continued to proliferate Bayesian ideas, underscoring the importance of the perspective. In a 1962 IEEE paper, Edwards foresaw how the world of intelligence gathering and analysis could by transformed by systems in which humans provided (subjective) probabilities and machines provided computational power. He also showed, in a 1986 book written with Detlof von Winterfeldt, how multiattribute utility analysis could help real-world decision makers generate satisfactory solutions to complex problems. In this book, twenty-nine of Ward Edwards's most important published papers are reprinted, a selection that spans six decades, showing how this strikingly creative thinker generated many of the ideas that are now core beliefs among current researchers. It is perhaps less well known that Edwards continued to make substantial contributions during the years after his retirement. Illness reduced his public appearances, but he continued his incisive thinking behind the scenes. At the time of his passing, he was involved in several projects, and seven new papers from these projects were completed for this book by his last set of collaborators. © 2009 by Jie W. Weiss and David J. Weiss. All rights reserved.
Methods for measuring rater agreement and making inferences about the accuracy of dichotomous ratings from agreement data are described. The first section presents a probability model related to latent class analysis that is applicable when ratings are based on a discrete trait. The second section extends these methods to situations in which ratings are based on a continuous trait, using a model related to signal detection theory and item response theory. The values obtained by these methods provide either direct or upper-bounds estimates of rating accuracy, depending upon the nature of the rating process. Formulas are shown for combining the opinions of multiple raters to classify cases with greater accuracy than simple majority or unanimous opinion decision rules allow. Additional technical refinements of the probability modeling approach are possible, and it promises to lead to many improvements in the ways that ratings by multiple raters are analyzed and used.
In Cognitive Psychology, the experimental study of expertise involves applying concepts and methods from a number of areas: problem-solving, learning, and ergonomics, to name just a few. The study of expertise provides a focus for basic research on many phenomena of cognition, such as memory limitations and reasoning biases. It also provides a focus for discussion of issues in cognitive theory, such as those involving knowledge representation. The psychological study of expertise has been invigorated in recent years by the advent of expert systems, but studies of expertise can be found even in the earliest psychological research. Furthermore, a great deal of the research in the tradition of judgment and decisionmaking can be regarded, in hindsight, as studies of expertise (e.g., linear decision models of the reasoning of economists). Clearly, the literature of psychological studies of expertise is vast.
Counseling studies have shown that increasing experience is not always associated with better judgments. However, in such studies performance is assessed against external criteria, which may lack validity. The authors applied the Cochran–Weiss–Shanteau (CWS) index, which assesses the ability to consistently discriminate. Results showed that novice counselors performed almost on the same level as very experienced counselors. The authors thus replicated earlier findings with a novel approach: applying an internal coherence criterion.
A very important and yet widely misunderstood concept or problem in science and technology is that of precision and accuracy of measurement. It is therefore necessary to define the terms precision and accuracy (or imprecision and inaccuracy) clearly and analytically if possible. Also, we need to establish and develop appropriate statistical tests of significance for these measures, since generally a relatively small number of measurements will be made or taken in most investigations.In this paper a discussion is given of some of the pertinent literature for estimating variances in errors of measurement, or the “imprecisions” of measurement, when two or three instruments are used to take the same observations on a series of items or characteristics. Also, present techniques for comparing the imprecision of measurement of one instrument with that of a second instrument through the use of statistical tests of significance are reviewed, as well as procedures for detecting the significance of the difference in biases or levels of measurement of two instruments. Finally, we indicate methods of extending present theory to the case of three measuring instruments, for which rather sensitive statistical test of significance are developed for dealing with the precision and accuracy problem.An example for the three instrument case is given to illustrate the suggested methodology of analysis.
This paper develops a technique for isolating and studying the per- ceptual structures that chess players perceive. Three chess players of varying strength - from master to novice - were confronted with two tasks: ( 1) A perception task, where the player reproduces a chess position in plain view, and (2) de Groot's ( 1965) short-term recall task, where the player reproduces a chess position after viewing it for 5 sec. The successive glances at the position in the perceptual task and long pauses in tbe memory task were used to segment the structures in the reconstruction protocol. The size and nature of these structures were then analyzed as a function of chess skill. What does an experienced chess player "see" when he looks at a chess position? By analyzing an expert player's eye movements, it has been shown that, among other things, he is looking at how pieces attack and defend each other (Simon & Barenfeld, 1969). But we know from other considerations that he is seeing much more. Our work is concerned with just what ahe expert chess pIayer perceives.
• As the title suggests, this book examines the psychology of interpersonal relations. In the context of this book, the term "interpersonal relations" denotes relations between a few, usually between two, people. How one person thinks and feels about another person, how he perceives him and what he does to him, what he expects him to do or think, how he reacts to the actions of the other--these are some of the phenomena that will be treated. Our concern will be with "surface" matters, the events that occur in everyday life on a conscious level, rather than with the unconscious processes studied by psychoanalysis in "depth" psychology. These intuitively understood and "obvious" human relations can, as we shall see, be just as challenging and psychologically significant as the deeper and stranger phenomena. The discussion will center on the person as the basic unit to be investigated. That is to say, the two-person group and its properties as a superindividual unit will not be the focus of attention. Of course, in dealing with the person as a member of a dyad, he cannot be described as a lone subject in an impersonal environment, but must be represented as standing in relation to and interacting with another person. The chapter topics included in this book include: Perceiving the Other Person; The Other Person as Perceiver; The Naive Analysis of Action; Desire and Pleasure; Environmental Effects; Sentiment; Ought and Value; Request and Command; Benefit and Harm; and Reaction to the Lot of the Other Person. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
• As the title suggests, this book examines the psychology of interpersonal relations. In the context of this book, the term "interpersonal relations" denotes relations between a few, usually between two, people. How one person thinks and feels about another person, how he perceives him and what he does to him, what he expects him to do or think, how he reacts to the actions of the other--these are some of the phenomena that will be treated. Our concern will be with "surface" matters, the events that occur in everyday life on a conscious level, rather than with the unconscious processes studied by psychoanalysis in "depth" psychology. These intuitively understood and "obvious" human relations can, as we shall see, be just as challenging and psychologically significant as the deeper and stranger phenomena. The discussion will center on the person as the basic unit to be investigated. That is to say, the two-person group and its properties as a superindividual unit will not be the focus of attention. Of course, in dealing with the person as a member of a dyad, he cannot be described as a lone subject in an impersonal environment, but must be represented as standing in relation to and interacting with another person. The chapter topics included in this book include: Perceiving the Other Person; The Other Person as Perceiver; The Naive Analysis of Action; Desire and Pleasure; Environmental Effects; Sentiment; Ought and Value; Request and Command; Benefit and Harm; and Reaction to the Lot of the Other Person. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper evaluates the performance of a portfolio formed on professional advice (also called pros picks) with another portfolio picked at random (also called random or dart picks). We study public announcements of professionals ' recommendation s and random picks from the "Investment Dartboard" column in the Wall Street Journal. Our findings indicate that significant abnormal returns accrue to the investors' of pros picks, on the day of publication and on one day after the publication. The results also indicate that there is no significant stock price behavior pattern prior to the pros recommendation. The holding period is arranged on a continuum ranging from roughly one week to six months and a comparison of the mean excess returns of the two portfolios is made over this range. Results suggest that the pros selection statistically outperforms the random selection only in the one-week period. Over a six-month holding period, the random stocks perform better than the pros recommendations. A publicity effect is discerned from the pros recommendation, which gives support to a moral hazard problem encountered by investment professionals. The results are also consistent with the literature on noise and overreaction.
The disorders called mental illnesses afflict many persons with distress and disability and, in aggregate, constitute substantial social, personal, and economic problems in our culture. Psychotherapists assert the skills to provide alleviation and solutions, and often do. Professor Dawes' book is not a derisory exposé, as the title might suggest, but a thoughtful scrutiny of the present state of scientific thinking and the lack of it in clinical practice.Up to about 1950 most professional therapists were physicians. Since then, attracted by status and salaries, professing therapists without medical training have increased exponentially in number. The clinical practice of psychology has increasingly divorced itself from its research base, while the rigor of training in scientific method has diminished. There are now more clinical psychologists than psychiatrists and more psychiatric social workers than clinical psychologists. Treatment is provided in the main by nonphysicians. Almost anyone can open an office and solicit
Can the time, location, and magnitude of future earthquakes be predicted reliably and accurately? In their Perspective, Geller
et al.'s answer is “no.” Citing recent results from the physics of nonlinear systems “chaos theory,” they argue that any small
earthquake has some chance of cascading into a large event. According to research cited by the authors, whether or not this
happens depends on unmeasurably fine details of conditions in Earth's interior. Earthquakes are therefore inherently unpredictable.
Geller et al. suggest that controversy over prediction lingers because prediction claims are not stated as objectively testable scientific
hypotheses, and due to overly optimistic reports in the mass media.
With the recent advances in genome-wide mapping studies and the emerging findings on the relation between athletes’ training histories and their performance, this should be a time for integrating these two bodies of knowledge for a more complete understanding of the complex development of elite performance.1 In their recent article, Tucker and Collins2 criticised a popularised but simplistic view of our work circulated on the internet, which suggests that anyone who has accumulated sufficient number of hours of practice in a given domain will automatically become an expert and a champion. Unfortunately they incorrectly attributed this view to me and my colleagues and criticised our research on deliberate practice.
I agree with Tucker's and Collins’ claim about the current failure ‘to discover a candidate gene that can be conclusively linked to performance’.2 However, they incorrectly state that I described this failure ‘as evidence that genetics play only a minimal, or even no role, in the attainment of elite performance’.2 There is a fundamental difference between claiming that there is evidence for the complete absence of genetic influences on elite performance in sport and claiming that no current evidence exists for such genetic influences. From the beginning of my research on expert performance I have made a point of distinguishing between empirical evidence collected on expert performers from beliefs or inferences from research on the general population. In one of my first publications3 on expert performance I reviewed the compelling evidence for the absence of training effects on height and body size. I concluded that in many sports elite athletes are either systematically taller or shorter than the general population and these differences in height were virtually completely determined by genetic factors. In most of my subsequent publications I have simply referred to this review, and …
This monograph is an expansion of lectures given in the years 1947-1950 to graduate colloquia at the universities of Chicago, Iowa, and Wisconsin, and of a lecture series delivered to staff and trainees at the Veterans Administration Mental Hygiene Clinic at Ft. Snelling, Minnesota. Perhaps a general remark in clarification of my own position is in order. Students in my class in clinical psychology have often reacted to the lectures on this topic as to a protective technique, complaining that I was biased either for or against statistics (or the clinician), depending mainly on where the student himself stood! This I have, of course, found very reassuring. One clinical student suggested that I tally the pro-con ratio for the list of honorific and derogatory adjectives in Chapter 1 (page 4), and the reader will discover that this unedited sample of my verbal behavior puts my bias squarely at the midline. The style and sequence of the paper reflect my own ambivalence and real puzzlement, and I have deliberately left the document in this discursive form to retain the flavor of the mental conflict that besets most of us who do clinical work but try to be scientists. I have read and heard too many rapid-fire, once-over-lightly "resolutions" of this controversy to aim at contributing another such. The thing is just not that simple. I was therefore not surprised to discover that the same sections which one reader finds obvious and over-elaborated, another singles out as especially useful for his particular difficulties. My thesis in a nutshell: "There is no convincing reason to assume that explicitly formalized mathematical rules and the clinician's creativity are equally suited for any given kind of task, or that their comparative effectiveness is the same for different tasks. Current clinical practice should be much more critically examined with this in mind than it has been." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The highest levels of performance and achievement in sports, games, arts, and sciences have always been an object of fascination, but only within the last couple of decades have scientists been studying these empirical phenomena within a general theoretical framework.
[This book] brings together [research] on specific domains of expertise and related theoretical issues, such as the importance of individual differences in ability and innate talent for attaining expert levels of performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The author argues that it is what children experience outside the home, in the company of their peers, that matters most. Parents don't socialize children: children socialize children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)