In addition, new services have been developed:
A worldwide E-network for IAAP members with which:

• Members are continually and instantly informed regarding IAAP activities, research projects and programs of members, significant international developments in psychology
• Position openings in psychology throughout the world
• The opportunity to circulate pre-publication drafts of manuscripts
  
• News and reports of regional conferences
• The opportunity to establish communications with members with similar interests throguout the world.

In addition, as you are aware, psychologists with low incomes from many countries throughout the world would like to become members of IAAP, but do not have the financial resources to pay $40. If you would like to aid in this effort, in addition to your annual dues of $40, you could contribute $20 to the fund for the support of new members from countries with low incomes. Thus, you and another colleague would support one new member.

We hope you will be successful in recruiting at least one new member of IAAP this year.

IAAP Electronic Communication Jose M. Prieto

The International Association of Applied Psychology has its own E-mail discussion list.

José M. Prieto (jmprieto@psi.ucm.es) is in charge of our E-mail communications, and he supplies the following instructions to log on IAAP communication network.

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Send mail to IAAP-L@UCM.ES using the typical sequence in your system. It is convenient to enter the subject.

6.How to read messages from the network:

Follow the sequence established in your system for examining your E-mailbox.

Boehnke, K. & Merkens, H. (1992): Social Change as a Methodological Problem: Exemplary Analysis of the Development of Individualism and Collectivism Among East and West Berlin Youth between 1990 and 1992, Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, 41 (5), 731-744.

From a methodological point of view, the problem of researching social change in psychology and sociology is especially critical when it is to be expected that the phenomenon of this change is dependent on both socio- historical and intra-individual aspects. This is the case in the field of value change: here, assumptions on age-correlated value change ("the older a person, the more conservative he/she is") as well as socio-historical assumptions ("in wealthy societies economic crises lead to a retreat to conservative safety values") can be substantiated plausibly. All studies aimed at researching both aspects necessarily have to be organized as longitudinal studies. If both aspects are to be distinguished systematically, several longitudinal studies of age-heterogeneous samples begun at different points in time are required. On the basis of data taken from a study on adolescents from East and West Berlin, the authors discuss problems resulting from the fact that, in general, only changes in mean values are considered and these are often to some extent artifacts, because content- related changes in meaning are not taken into account.

As part of a longitudinal study of secondary school students, 202 East Berliners and 154 West Berliners were given six items from Hui's (1988) and Hui and Villareal's (1989) instruments on individualism/collectivism, three items each for both orientations. In a first analysis, two scale scores were calculated per year by summing the three items pertaining to a value orientation. Repeated measure ANOVA showed that there was no East-West difference, that there was an interaction of the East-West main effect and the year of data gathering (individualism decreased in the East while it increased in the West) and a decrease over time in collectivism. In a second step, raw scores were adjusted for changes in item loadings on their respective factors over time. In this analysis, the main time effect for collectivism disappeared. No longer was a decrease in collectivism over time found. This finding is interpreted as an indication that the change in mean raw scores does not stand for a lower endorsement of collectivistic values over time, but for a change in the meaning of collectivism in a time of dramatic social and important intra-individual changes. The interaction of East-West and time, however, reappeared. In a final step, raw scores were adjusted in accordance with factor loadings per year of measurement separately in East and West Berlin. This was done in order to rule out that findings are due to a culture-specific (East-West-typical) understanding of the two constructs. ANOVA results for this third type of dependent variable, however, did not differ from the second analysis. It is concluded that especially in longitudinal studies conducted over sensitive life phases in quickly changing social environments, it is very important to consider changes in meaning along with changes in mean endorsement of certain values.

References:

Hui, H. (1988), Measurement of individualism-collectivism. Journal of Research in Personality, 22, 17-36.

Hui, H. & Villareal, M.J. (1989), Individualism-collectivism and psychological needs. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 20, 310-323.

War captivity has consistently been recognized as an extreme traumatic and pathogenic experience that entails numerous stressful factors which make POWs (Prisoners of War) in high risk for trauma residuals. The present study examines 1. The implication of war captivity, and 2. The implication of objective and subjective factors, as severity of imprisonment, personal experience, and coping during captivity, on the long-term adjustment of ex-POWs. 164 ex-POWs and 189 comparable controls were studied, 18 years after the Yom-Kippur War. The findings indicate that ex-POWs reported more long-term adjustment problems. Findings also showed differences in the severity of the post-trauma residuals within the subjects. Residuals tended to be most severe among subjects of Eastern origin and low educational level; among those exposed to combat prior to the Yom-Kippur War, to a particularly high dose of external stress in the combat prior to capture, and to a high degree of stress in the form of torture and isolation during captivity; as well as among those who manifested intense emotional reactions and passive ways of coping in the various stages of imprisonment and were subjected to negative reception at homecoming.

New Books

Giancarlo Trentini (ed.), 1995, Manuale del Colloquio e dell l'Intervista, Torino: UTET Libreria by B. Wilpert

While space limitations prohibit to report conclusions of the wide scope of the Handbook's individual contributions, it is safe to claim that it presents a monumental achievement in bringing together salient bodies of knowledge and know-how for professional practice as well as academic research.

Division of Psychological Assessment & Evaluation:
Esther Diamond

Professor Miriam Erez, IAAP Newsletter editor, reports the successful receipt of two new features--a column on "critical issues in the field of..." and another, just begun in the last issue: "In translation: Selections from non- English language journals". Professor Erez would appreciate receiving more articles for these columns, in abstract form ranging up to 600 words each. She would also like to receive D2Letters to the EditorD3 in response to any published articles or on any appropriate topics of concern. Submission deadlines are end of July and end of January. Prof. Erez's address appears under "Useful Addresses" at the end of each issue.

MORE ABOUT STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE TESTING

There was a time, long ago, when the results of a study or an experiment was considered a failure if they were not statistically significant--if they missed being so by a minute fraction. Increasingly, however, the literature on psychological research has pointed out the deficiencies of the virtual worship of statistically significance.

In Statistical Significance Testing and Cumulative Knowledge in Psychology: Implications for Training of Researchers, in the June 1996 issue of Psychological Methods, Frank L. Schmidt of the University of Iowa points out that traditional reliance on significance testing retards the development of cumulative knowledge. Teaching and practice should emphasize point estimates and confidence intervals and meta-analyses in the integration of multiple studies. Reluctance of researchers to give up their reliance on statistical significance, Schmidt points out, is due to the illusion it affords of objectivity, and the feeling that there is no satisfactory alternative.

TESTING IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The June 1996 International Test Commission Newsletter reports that Thomas Oakland, University of Florida, spent a part of the winter months working in Egypt, Lebanon, and Saudia Arabia. His purpose was to evaluate the Portages Program, in which teachers visit homes once a week to instruct mothers in the skills they need to teach their children with disabilities during the next week. The program, developed in Wisconsin, is now used in more than 20 countries and has been particularly successful in Gaza. The Arab Council on Childhood and Development is Supporting its development in Egypt, Lebanon, and Saudia Arabia. Oakland will also continue plans to promote test development and use within Arab countries.

INTERFACE BETWEEN SOCIAL AND COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY

Social psychology and counseling psychology share many interests and concerns, and the interface between them has been a fertile intellectual exchange. A special issue of the Counseling Psychologist (October 1995) stressed that their shared commonalties of interest provide an ideal scholarly arena in which theoretical ideas can be developed and refined. Carl D. Stoltenberg, Brian McNeil, and Timothy Elliott, of the University of Oklahoma, Washington State University, and the University of Alabama- Birmingham, respectively, lead off with Selected Translations of Social Psychology to Counseling Psychology.

The authors explain that their intent was to focus on promising areas of research and practice in counseling psychology that can be enhanced by translating social psychological research and theory into terms, constructs, and paradigms relevant to counseling psychology. Students need to be exposed, they assert, to the many areas of diversity. Lack of research into issues of diversity and modification of models in both social and counseling psychology, they contend, indicate that these issues are "all too often an afterthought in researchers' hands".

Counselors, the authors suggest, can operationalize factors important to practice by "working backward from the clinic to the laboratory", thus helping to shed light on processes that practicing clinicians have already perceived to be effective, but for which they lacked empirical support.

The case described here--Soroka v. Dayton-Hudson--was described in an earlier article in this Newsletter. Author Peter Merenda feels it is important to acquaint test users, both in the USA and in other countries, who are not familiar with the case, with some of the basic psychometric issues involved, as well as the need to comply with standards based on sound psychometric principles. While litigation relating to issues involving claims of misuse of assessment instruments outside the USA may not closely resemble the case reported here, the fundamental principles of responsible test use are universal.

A lawsuit initiated in 1989 in California--Soroka v. Dayton-Hudson Corporation, H-14379-3--has broad universal implications for the professionally sound and legal use of psychological assessment. The case had been filed as a class-action suit in the superior court of Alameda County in September 1989. A highly publicized case, it was followed closely by the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). It was one of the first major cases to challenge a private employer's use of psychological assessment instruments for job selection.

The plaintiffs' challenge was based on claims of misuse of the instruments and violation by the defendant of plaintiffs' right to privacy because of alleged intrusive questions in certain items in a personality inventory. Details of the substantive issues involved are published elsewhere (Merenda, 1995). Details of the out-of-court settlement have already been published (Merenda, 1993, 1994).

The plaintiffs filed ten broad complaints alleging misuse of the psychological assessment by the defendant, a chain of discount department stores that required testing of applicants for low-level jobs. The complaints involved intrusion into applicants' personal privacy by subjecting them to offensive and non-job-related items in a personality inventory; forcing them to divulge private and personal information; disclosing assessment results to nonprofessionals without authorization by the applicants; being misled by statements included in an agreement signed by applicants prior to the assessments; the defendant knowingly or unwittingly having violated federal and state laws; and embarrassment and emotional distress suffered by the plaintiffs as a result of defendant's conduct. Settlement of the case rested primarily on the inclusion of the offensive and non-job-related items in the personal inventory plaintiffs were required to take.

The unanimous ruling of three appellate judges in favor of the plaintiffs on an appeal of denial of a preliminary injunction by the trial court is largely credited to the testimony of expert witnesses for the plaintiffs, who testified on matters of sound psychometric principles, with specific reference to the 1985 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, now being revised by a joint committee of the three organizations that originally authored it

The psychometric issues cited in the decision included the fact that no validity studies had been conducted; no empirical data had been offered as evidence to support the interpretation that the constructs the instrument was purported to measure were in fact measured. No formal job analysis had been performed on the job in question, so that the functions of other apparently similar jobs could be compared, facilitating validity generalization; reliability estimates and standard errors of measurement were not reported. There was no internal consistency analysis of items or of the scale scores. No norms were gathered and reported for either of the two instruments used; no technical manual accompanied either instrument; the personality inventory had been developed by merging two separate instruments, resulting in substantial changes, such as increased length, deletion of items, altered administration instructions, and rearrangement of the order of item presentation.

The defendant has relied almost solely on intuition and supposition rather than psychometric evidence. Merenda stresses the importance of using the Standards, which provide technical standards reflecting the current level of consensus of recognized experts on sound professional practice that determine the technical adequacy of a test.

References

American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, National Council on Measurement in Education (1985). Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Merenda, P.F. (1993). An anticipated landmark decision involving issues related to psychological assessment of applicants for positions in business and industry. Psychological Reports, 72, 102.

Merenda, P.F. (1995). Substantive issues in Soroka v. Dayton-Hudson. Psychological Reports, 77, 595-606.

Obituary

Yehuda Amir made notable contributions in increasing the communication of psychological science and practice internationally. He served on the IAAP Executive Committee for 16 years. His most important achievement during this period was the organization of IAAP's International Congress of Applied Psychology held in Jerusalem in July of 1986. I was IAAP's President when Yehuda developed the proposal to hold the Congress in Israel. I recall the enthusiasm, organization, and dedication that he brought to this effort. The proposal developed was, perhaps, the most detailed, thought-out and convincing proposal ever received by the Association.

Professor Amir mobilized the Israeli psychological community in organizing the Congress and brought together colleagues in Israel who were leaders in each area of applied psychology. He worked with the professional organizer, Kenes, with the officers of IAAP, and with representatives of each psychological discipline from around the world. He obtained the support of all the major educational institutions in Israel and of governmental agencies, including ministries involved in education, science, and tourism and involved high level political leaders in Israel to participate in the Congress. It will be recalled that the President of Israel opened the Congress and the Mayor of Jerusalem hosted the reception at the Israel Museum. The educational and industrial institutions of Israel were opened to participants and integrated into the total learning experience.

The Congress was a testimony to Yehuda's creativity. A harmonious collegiality pervaded the Congress atmosphere. The opening session was designed to break down barriers and create a climate of openness, of informational exchanges, and friendliness.

Yehuda Amir is internationally known for his cross-cultural research and his work on conflict-reduction and resolution. His sudden illness and death was noted by a standing moment of silence at the opening of the recent IAAP Executive Committee held in Montreal in August, 1996. His absence was keenly felt, but his spirit and accomplishments survive and will have a lasting impact on international cooperation in our field.

Edwin A. Fleishman, Ph.D.
Past President of IAAP

Forthcoming Conferences

Oct. 29-Nov. 2, 1996, Cairo, Egypt.

16th Organizational Development World Congress on "Organization Development Technology: Adding Value".
Contact : The O.D. Institute, 11234 Walnut Ridge Road, Chestland, Ohio 44026,USA.

April 2-5, 1997, Verona, Italy.
8th European Congress on Work and Organizational Psychology. Contact: EAWOP, Coosemansstraat 100, B-3010 Leuven, Belgium. Tel.-Fax.: +32-16-25 78 15,
E-mail: karel.dewitte@psy.kuleuven.ac.be.

June 28-29, 1997, Melbourne, Australia.
Australia's second Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference.
Contact: Prof. Phyllis Tharenou, Conference Chair, Dept. of Business Management, Monash University, PO Box 197, Caulfield East Victoria 3145, Australia. Ph: 03 9903 2933; Fax: 03 9903 2718;
E-mail: phyllis.tharenou@BusEco.monash.edu.au.

July 6-11, 1997, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
XXVI Interamerican Congress of Psychology.
The Interamerican Society of Psychology announces the organization of the XXVI Interamerican Congress of Psychology, to take place at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
We invite psychologists from the various countries in the Americas and beyond to send us their suggestions regarding goals and objectives for the program, themes to be emphasized, invited speakers, program formats, and so on.
For information, please contact: Eduardo Nicenboim, SIP Secretary-General Fax (541) 784-3563.
email: nuno@pccp.com.ar.

July 6-12, 1997, Dublin.
V European Congress of Psychology.
Congress theme: "Dancing on the Edge". For information, please contact: Secretariat, Fifth European Congress of Psychology, 96, Haddington Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, Ireland. Tel: +353 1 6685442; Fax: +353 1 6685226;
Email: psi@iol.ie

July 27-August 2, 1997, Mexico City.
First Regional Congress of Psychology.
First Regional Congress of Psychology, toward the development and strengthening of specific skills in the practice of psychology. Psychologists doing work in any area of applied psychology are invited to submit papers.
For example in organizational psychology, health psychology, psychological assessment, environmental psychology, educational, instructional and school psychology, clinical and community psychology, applied gerontology, psychology and national development, economic psychology, psychology and law, psychology and politics, sport psychology, traffic, evaluation research, professional psychology issues. There will be invited state of the art addresses, symposia and workshops. A series of touristic and professional visits will be an important complement of the Congress.
Workshops can be offered for 10, 15, or 25 hours long on developing skills for specific areas of work. Congress Languages are Spanish, English, and Portuguese. For the workshops the preferred language is Spanish.
Contact Dr. Susan Pick, Ph.D. at Congreso@datasys.com.mx
or Apdo. Postal 41/756 Mexico, D.F. 11001, Mexico, or by fax: 525/598-2342.

September 7-10, 1997, Lisbon.
The Fourth European Congress on Psychological Assessment.
The gamut of assessment topics in a variety of applied fields will be covered. To propose a symposium or paper: Send a title; an abstract (200-word maximum); name(s) and institutional affiliation(s) of authors; topic keywords; special materials needed for presentation; and a contact address such as a fax number or electronic mail address. Diskettes, if sent, should preferably be IBM PC compatible. Deadline for receipt of proposals is March 15, 1997. Send to Danilo Rodrigues Silva, 4th ECPA, Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciencias da Educacao, Universsidade de Lisboa, 1699 Lisboa, PORTUGAL. Phone: +351 1 79334554; Fax: +351 1 7933408;
E-mail: capa.conf@lpce.ul.pt

August, 9-14, 1998, San Francisco.
24th International Congress of Applied Psychology.
Congress theme: "The Challenge for Applied Psychology - Bridging the Millenia".
CALL FOR PAPERS.
The Scientific Program Committee for the 24th International Congress of Psychology, taking place August 9-14, 1998 in San Francisco, has issued the call for papers. Hosted by the American Psychological Association (APA) on behalf of the International Association of Applied Psychology, the Congress will feature an array of individual and group presentations on:

• organizational psychology;
• psychological evaluation and assessment;
• psychology and national development;
• educational, instructional, and school psychology;
• clinical and community psychology;
• applied gerontology;
• health psychology;
• economic psychology;
• psychology and law;
• political psychology;
• sport psychology;
• traffic and transportation psychology;
• and other areas such as applied social, applied developmental, human factors and ergonomics, social issues.

To request a copy of the call, contact: Congress Secretariat, APA Office of International Affairs, 750 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002-2442; fax 202-336-5956;
e-mail: icap@apa.org.

Announcements

The Executive Committee of IAAP has agreed that the International School Psychology Association will become an Affiliate International Organization Member of IAAP.

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