How few countries will do? Comparative survey analysis from a Bayesian perspective
Meuleman and Billiet (2009) have carried out a simulation study aimed at the question how many countries are needed for accurate multilevel SEM estimation in comparative studies. The authors concluded that a sample of 50 to 100 countries is needed...
The Effect of Offenders’ Sex on Reporting Crimes to the Police
This article examines the difference in victims’ reporting behavior regarding crimes committed by males and by females. The authors expect that victims of female offenders are less likely to report to the police than victims of male offenders because of...
Do Delinquent Young Adults have a High or a Low Level of Self-concept?
This study explored the levels of self-concept of delinquent young adults (n = 873). This question is of theoretical and practical importance, as therapeutic programs addressing the self-concept must be based on clear evidence.
Family Cohesion and Romantic and Sexual Initiation: A Three Wave Longitudinal Study
Although the relation between family relationships and the timing of sexual debut has been the focus of many studies, research on mediating factors is scarce. This study examines whether low levels of family cohesion result in an earlier onset of...
Measurement invariance of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). A cross-national validity study
The goal of this research was to examine the measurement invariance of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003) across two European nations. Participants were Italian and German undergraduate students.
Lifelong Learning as a goal – Do autonomy and self-regulation in school result in well prepared pupils?
Fostering lifelong learning (LLL) is a topic of high relevance for current educational policy. School lays the cornerstone for the key components of LLL, specifically persistent motivation to learn and self-regulated learning behavior. The present study investigated the impact of...
A prior predictive loss function for the evaluation of inequality constrained hypotheses
In many types of statistical modeling, inequality constraints are imposed between the parameters of interest. As we will show in this paper, the DIC (i.e., posterior Deviance Information Criterium as proposed as a Bayesian model selection tool by Spiegelhalter, Best,...
Health-related quality of life after burns: A prospective multicenter cohort study with 18 months follow-up
Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is an important parameter after medical treatments. Knowledge of (predictors of) diminished quality of life can help improve medical outcome.
Measurement invariance of the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) across Bulgarian, Dutch and Greek samples
The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM; Phinney, 1992) is a widely used instrument to quantify the way people think, feel, and behave regarding their ethnic origin. This instrument is commonly used to compare groups of people from different ethnic and/or...
Illustrating Bayesian evaluation of informative hypotheses for regression models
In the present article we illustrate a Bayesian method of evaluating informative hypotheses for regression models. Our main aim is to make this method accessible to psychological researchers without a mathematical or Bayesian background.
Impact of pediatric burn camps on participants’ self esteem and body image: An empirical study
Quantitative as well as qualitative measures was used. To study possible effects, a pretest–posttest comparison group design with a follow-up was employed. Self-report questionnaires were used to measure self esteem and body image in a burn camp group (n = 83, 8–18...
Cytokine Production by Leukocytes of Military Personnel with Depressive Symptoms after Deployment to a Combat-Zone: A Prospective, Longitudinal Study
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is frequently diagnosed in military personnel returning from deployment. Literature suggests that MDD is associated with a pro-inflammatory state. To the best of our knowledge, no prospective, longitudinal studies on the association between development of depressive...