RESEARCH and TRAINING in QUANTITATIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Psychologists view human behavior as a complex phenomenon, stemming from multiple causes. Although constructs such as intelligence, delinquent behavior, and may seem straightforward, they can be challenging to measure and study. In response, psychologists develop advanced methodology and statistics to better understand complex human behaviors. This area, quantitative psychology, involves research into methodology, measurement, and statistics as applied to the study of human behavior.

Research and training in quantitative psychology is a focus in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. Quantitative psychologists in the department develop and apply methodology and statistics. The collaboration between quantitative research and other areas in psychology builds synergy in the department. For example, statistical research in the area of neuro-imaging benefits from relationships with cognitive neuroscientists utilizing neuroimaging techniques, and vice versa. Quantitative faculty teach undergraduate and graduate level courses in methodology and statistics as well as in substantive areas of interest. These faculty also work with students who are interested in methodological research in both the Clinical/Community and Experimental PhD programs.

Quantitative faculty include:

Amanda J. Fairchild, Assistant Professor
Patrick S. Malone, Associate Professor
Svetlana V. Shinkareva, Assistant Professor
M. Lee Van Horn, Assistant Professor

Affiliated faculty include:

John Richards, Professor
Douglas H. Wedell, Professor
Brian Habing (Statistics), Associate Professor

top

AMANDA J. FAIRCHILD, Assistant Professor of Quantitative Psychology

Dr. Fairchild earned her Ph.D. in Quantitative Psychology from Arizona State University and joined the USC faculty in 2008. Her work centers on the development of quantitative methods for the study of physical and psychological health-related behaviors. Much of this work has centered on mediation analysis, or the investigation of third variables that elucidate the relation between predictors and dependent variables, and moderation analysis, or the investigation of third variables that characterize contextual effects. Dr. Fairchild also has interest in the validity and reliability of measurements, as well as effect size measures. She has co-authored general review articles on mediation (e.g., MacKinnon, Fairchild, & Fritz, 2007; MacKinnon & Fairchild, in press), as well as published more technical pieces on various aspects of the mediation model for use in substantive research (e.g., Fairchild & MacKinnon, in press; Fairchild, MacKinnon, Taborga, & Taylor, in press). The substantive outlet of her research focuses on prevention and intervention work, where the mechanisms through which programs achieve behavior change and the identification of what program elements are successful in achieving change can be investigated.

Please click the Research Showcase link to view a video of Dr. Fairchild's presentation Simultaneously Testing Mediation and Moderation Effects.

Selected Publications


MacKinnon, D.P., & Fairchild, A.J. (in press). Current directions in mediation analysis. Current Directions in Psychology.
Fairchild, A.J., & MacKinnon, D.P. (in press). A general model for testing mediation and moderation effects. Prevention Science.
Fairchild, A.J., MacKinnon, D.P., Taborga, M.P., & Taylor, A.B. (in press). R2 effect size measures for mediation analysis. Behavioral Research Methods.
MacKinnon, D.P., Fairchild, A.J., & Fritz, M.S. (2007). Mediation analysis. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 593-614.
Fairchild, A.J. & Finney, S.J. (2006). Investigating validity evidence for the experiences in Close Relationships-Revised Questionnaire. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66, 1-20.
Fairchild, A.J., Horst, S.J., Finney, S.J., & Barron, K.E. (2005). Evaluating existing and new validity evidence for the Academic Motivation Scale. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30, 331-358.

top

PATRICK S. MALONE, Associate Professor of Quantitative Psychology

Dr. Malone earned his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1993. At that time, his work focused primarily on cognitive processes involved in processing social information. He also completed a strong doctoral minor in methodology and statistics. From 1996 to 2007, Dr. Malone conducted primarily quantitative work (both data analysis to meet project needs and original quantitative research) with various federally-funded research projects at Duke University. He joined the USC Psychology faculty in Fall, 2007.

Dr. Malone's current focus is on data analytic methods for use in the study of origins and prevention of youth substance use and abuse (alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other drugs). This work involves a number of areas of statistical methods: principally longitudinal methods for studying development over time, but also methods for analyses in the context of missing data and latent variable methods. He has also published research on the effects of divorce on children's behavior, the antecedents of youth behavioral problems, and the effects of reading tutoring for children with attention problems.

Dr. Malone's work is funded by a K01 Mentored Research Scientist Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to pursue advanced training in statistical methods for the study of youth substance use and abuse. He is a member of the Prevention Science & Methodology Group and the Parenting Across Cultures Working Group.

Link to personal webpage and full CV

Selected Publications


Dodge, K. A., Greenberg, M. T., Malone, P. S., & The Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. (in press). Testing an idealized dynamic cascade model of the development of serious violence in adolescence. Child Development..
Costanzo, P. R., Malone, P. S., Belsky, D., Kertesz, S., Pletcher, M., & Sloan, F. A. (2007). Longitudinal trajectories of heavy alcohol use from early to mid adulthood. Journal of Alcohol and Drug Studies, 68, 727-737.
Muschkin, C. G., Malone, P. S., & The Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. (2007). Multiple teacher ratings: An evaluation of measurement strategies. Educational Research and Evaluation, 13, 71-86.
Lansford, J. E., Malone, P. S., Castellino, D. R., Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., & Bates, J. E. (2006). Trajectories of internalizing, externalizing, and grades for children who have and have not experienced their parents' divorce or separation. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 292-301.
Lansford, J. E., Malone, P. S., Dodge, K. A., Crozier, J. C., Pettit, G. S., & Bates, J. E. (2006). A 12-year prospective study of patterns of social information processing problems and externalizing behaviors. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 34, 709-718.
Lansford, J. E., Malone, P. S., Stevens, K. I., Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E, & Pettit, G. S. (2006). Developmental trajectories of externalizing and internalizing behaviors: Factors underlying resilience in physically abused children. Development and Psychopathology, 18, 35-55.
Lansford, J. E., Chang, L., Dodge, K. A., Malone, P. S., Oburu, P., Palmérus, K., Bacchini, D., Pastorelli, C., Bombi, A. S., Zelli, A., Tapanya, S., Chaudhary, N., Deater-Deckard, K., Manke, B., & Quinn, N. (2005). Physical discipline and children's adjustment: Cultural normativeness as a moderator. Child Development, 76, 1234-1246.
Schulting, A. B., Malone, P. S., & Dodge, K. A. (2005). The effect of school-based kindergarten transition policies and practices on child academic outcomes. Developmental Psychology, 41, 860-871.
Malone, P. S., Lansford, J. E., Castellino, D. R., Berlin, L. J., Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (2004). Divorce and child behavior problems: Applying latent change score models to life event data. Structural Equation Modeling, 11, 401-423.
Rabiner, D. L., Malone, P. S., & The Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. (2004). The impact of tutoring on early reading achievement for children with and without attention problems. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 32, 273-284.
Gilbert, D. T., & Malone, P. S. (1995). The correspondence bias. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 21-38.
Malone, P. S., Brounstein, P. J., von Brock, A., & Shaywitz, S. S. (1991). Components of IQ scores across levels of measured ability. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 21, 15-28.

top

SVETLANA SHINKAREVA, Assistant Professor of Quantitative Psychology

Dr. Shinkareva has received her Ph.D. in quantitative psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She completed her post-doctoral training at Carnegie Mellon University working with Marcel Just and Tom Mitchell.

Dr. Shinkareva’s research focuses on the development and application of quantitative methods to neuroimaging data. Her current interests include applying machine learning methods to fMRI data to study the neural basis of semantic knowledge representation.

Please click the Research Showcase link to view a video of Dr. Shinkareva's presentation Search for meaning: conceptual knowledge representation in the brain.

Representative Publications


Shinkareva, S.V., Mason, R.A., Malave, V.L., Wang, W., Mitchell, T.M., et al (2008). Using fMRI brain activation to identify cognitive states associated with perception of tools and dwellings. PLoS ONE 3(1): e1394. doi10.1371/journal.pone.0001394.

Shinkareva, S.V., Ombao, H.C., Sutton, B.P., Mohanty, A., & Miller, G.A. (2006). Classification of functional brain images with a spatio-temporal dissimilarity map. NeuroImage, 33, 63-71.

top

M. LEE VAN HORN, Assistant Professor of Quantitative Psychology

Dr. Van Horn was trained as a Developmental Psychologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and worked for over 3 years as a Research Scientist at the University of Washington before joining the USC faculty in 2004. Dr. Van Horn’s methodological research interests involve methodology for understanding the effects family, school, and community contexts on development. He has published papers on the measurement of family resources, community risk factors, developmentally appropriate practices, and children’s social skills. His current research emphasis is on understanding how contextual effects differ between individuals. Funded by an R01 research grant from the National Institute of Child Heath and Human Development he is investigating the use of regression mixture models for examining differences in the effects of contexts on development.

A second related area of Dr. Van Horn’s research concerns methodology for assessing the impacts of group randomized trials (GRTs), intervention trials in which groups (such as schools or communities) rather than individuals are randomized into treatment and control communities. He is currently a co-investigator on a large GRT being conducted at USC, and has co-authored papers comparing the power of different statistical models for assessing intervention effects in GRTs. Dr. Van Horn also has a research proposal currently under review that would focus on developing methodology for assessing differential effects in GRTs.

Please click the Research Showcase link to view a video of Dr. Van Horn's presentation For whom context matters.

Representative Methodolgical Publication


Van Horn, M. L. & Bellis, J. M., & Snyder, S. W. (2001). Family Resource Scale Revised: Psychometrics and validation of a measure of family resources in a sample of low-income families. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 19, 54-68.
Van Horn, M. L. (2003). Elementary school climate: Assessing the unit of theory of school climate with the School Climate Survey. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1002-1019.
Hawkins, D. J., Van Horn, M. L., & Arthur, M. W. (2004). Community Variation in Risk and Protective Factors and Substance Use Outcomes. Prevention Science, 5(4), 213-219.
Van Horn, M. L. & Ramey, S. L. (2004). A new measure for assessing developmentally appropriate practices, A Developmentally Appropriate Practice Template. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 19, 569-587.
Murray, D. M., Van Horn, M. L., Hawkins, J. D., Arthur, M. W. (2006). Analysis Strategies for a Community Trial to Reduce Adolescent ATOD Use: A Comparison of Random Coefficient and ANOVA/ANCOVA Models. Contemporary Clinical Trials, 27, 188-206.
Van Horn, M. L., Atkins-Burnett, S., Ramey, S. L, Snyder, S. W., & Karlin, E. D. (2007). Parents' ratings of their children’s social skills: A longitudinal psychometric analyses of the Social Skills Rating System. School Psychology Quarterly, 22, 162-199.
Van Horn, M. L., Fagan, A. A., Jaki, T., Brown, E., Hawkins, J. D., & Arthur, M. W., Abbot, R. D., Catalano, R. F. (2008). Using multilevel mixture models to evaluate intervention effects in group randomized trials. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 43(2), 289-326.
Van Horn, M. L., Jaki, T., Masyn, K., & Lemanski, A. (Under Review). Assessing individual differences in the effects of family resources: An application of regression mixture models.

Grant Funding


08/07-07/10	Principal Investigator, Risk in Context: New Methodology for Modeling Risk by Context Interactions. Funding expected from NICHD, grant #1R01HD054736-01A1. (Direct: $255,000).
05/07-04/11	Co-Investigator (Dawn Wilson, PI), Improving Safety and Access of Physical Activity. NIDDK funded grant # 1R01DK067615-01A2 (Direct: $1,618,568).
05/06-04/07	Principal Investigator, Assessing Differential Effects of the Community Youth Development Study. Subcontract for NIDA funded grant through the Social Development Research Group, University of Washington (Direct: $11,073).
04/06-03/07	Principal Investigator, New Methodology for Assessing Individual Differences in the Effects of Developmental Contexts. Pilot Grant funded through the Research Consortium on Children and Families, University of South Carolina ($22,000).
07/05-06/09	Co-Investigator (Dawn Wilson, PI), Self-Determination of Increased Physical Activity, NICHD funded grant # R01 HD045693 (Direct: $2,000,000).
05/05-04/06	Principal Investigator, Assessing Students Problem Behaviors in Community Contexts. Subcontract for NIDA funded grant through the Social Development Research Group, University of Washington (Direct: $14,824).
07/03-07/06	Principal Investigator, Effects of Classroom Practices and School Context. NICHD funded grant # R01 HD043400-01A1 (Direct: $100,000).

top

JOHN E. RICHARDS, Professor

Dr. Richards is a developmental psychologist interested in the study of infant attention. He uses psychophysiological and neuroimaging tools to examine the role that changes in the infant brain play in changes in attention behavior. The newly emerging field of developmental cognitive neuroscience uses such techniques for the study of psychological functions in infants and children.

Dr. Richards has several areas of methodological / quantitative expertise that are closely integrated with his research on infant attention. He has developed an interesting model of infants looking behavior toward multimedia stimuli (e.g., children's TV viewing). This model borrows its theoretical background from biological models and uses quantitative examination of statistical distributions compared to infants viewing behaviors. A second area of work is the use of quantitative cortical source methods to infer areas of the brain involved in psychological behavior. He uses high-density EEG recording for precise localization of electrical activity on the scalp. He is now working on methods for using structural MRI to localize cortical sources of ERP using realistic models of head material.

Representative Methodolgical Publications


Pannenton, R., & Richards, J.E. (submitted). Developmental differences in infants’ visually-defined and heart rate-defined attention to unimodal and multimodal displays. Developmental Science.
Richards, J.E.(submitted). Cortical sources of ERP in the prosaccade and antisaccade task using realistic source models based on individual MRIs. Psychophysiology.
Mallin, B.M., & Richards, J.E. (submitted). Peripheral stimulus localization by infants of moving stimuli on complex backgrounds.
Hunter, S.K., & Richards, J.E. (submitted). Effects of testing position and stimulus characteristics on reflexive saccades.
Courage, M.L., Reynolds, G.D., & Richards, J.E. (2006). Infants' visual attention to patterned stimuli: Developmental change and individual differences from 3- to 12-months of age. Child Development, 77, 680-695.
Reynolds, G.D., & Richards, J.E.(2005). Familiarization, attention, and recognition memory in infancy: An ERP and cortical source localization study. Developmental Psychology, 41, 598-615.
Richards, J.E.(2005). Localizing cortical sources of event-related potentials in infants' covert orienting. Developmental Science 8, 255–278.
Richards, J.E.(2004). Recovering dipole sources from scalp-recorded event-related-potentials using component analysis: Principal component analysis and independent component analysis. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 54, 201-220.
Hunter, S.K., & Richards, J.E. (2003). Peripheral stimulus localization by 5- to 14-week-old infants during phases of attention. Infancy, 4, 1-25.
Richards, J.E. (2003). Attention affects the recognition of briefly presented visual stimuli in infants: An ERP study. Developmental Science, 6, 312-328.
Richards, J.E. (2003). Cortical sources of event-related-potentials in the prosaccade and antisaccade task. Psychophysiology, 40, 878-894.
Richards, J.E., & Hunter, S.K. (2002). Testing neural models of the development of infant visual attention. Developmental Psychobiology, 40, 226-236.

top

DOUGLAS H. WEDELL, Professor of Cognitive Psychology

Dr. Wedell’s quantitative interests revolve around measurement issues related to contextual bias and mathematical models of contextual processes. Within measurement he has investigated reliability and validity issues related to contextual effects on dominance and proximity based measures. His mathematical models are primarily focused on understanding biases in responding, especially related to judgment and choice.

Representative Publications Related to Quantitative Psychology


Wedell, D. H. (2008). A similarity-based range-frequency model for two category rating data. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 15, 638-643.
Fitting, S., Wedell, D. H., & Allen, G.L. (2008). External cue effects on memory for spatial location within a rotated task field. Spatial Cognition and Computing, 8, 219-251.
Fitting, S., Wedell, D. H., & Allen, G. L. (2007). Memory for Spatial Location: Cue Effects as a Function of Field Rotation. Memory and Cognition, 35, 1641-1658.

Haun, D. B. M., Allen, G. L., Wedell, D. H. (2005). Bias in spatial memory: a categorical endorsement, Acta Psychologica, 118, 149-170.

Roberts, J. S., Laughlin, J. E.., & Wedell, D. H. (1999). Validity issues in the Likert and Thurstone approaches to attitude measurement. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 59, 211-233.

Wedell, D. H., & Pettibone, J. C. (1999). Preference and the contextual basis of ideals in judgment and choice. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 128, 346–361.

Wedell, D. H. (1996). A constructive-associative model of the contextual dependence of unidimensional similarity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 22, 634-661.

Wedell, D. H. (1995). Contrast effects in paired comparisons: Evidence for both stimulus and response based processes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21, 1158-1173.

Roberts, J. S. & Wedell, D. H. (1994) Context effects on similarity judgments of multidimensional stimuli: Inferring the structure of the emotion space. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 30, 1-38.

Wedell, D. H., Parducci, A., & Lane, M. (1990). Reducing the dependence of clinical judgment on the immediate context: Effects of number of categories and type of anchors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 319-329.

top

BRIAN HABING, Associate Professor of Statistics

Dr. Habing received his Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with a specialization in Educational Measurement. His psychometric research focuses on theoretical, computational, and applied issues in item response theory, scale construction, and multivariate statistics. His publications include a number of papers on multivariate and nonparametric item response theory, with his research in that area being supported by the National Science Foundation. He is currently co-investigator on an NSF grant studying the simultaneous modeling of dominance/monotone and unfolding/Thurstone items. In addition to his research, he co-created the courses STAT 778/EDRM 828 Item Response Theory and STAT 530 Exploring Multivariate Data courses at USC. Dr. Habing is an active member in the American Educational Research Association, National Council on Measurement in Education, and Psychometric Society, and served has served as the Division D Program Co-Chair for the AERA annual meeting.

Selected Publications


Alterman, A., Cacciola, J., Habing, B., and Lynch, K. (2007). ASI recent and lifetime summary indices based on nonparametric IRT models. Psychological Assessment, 19, 119-132.

Habing, B., Finch, H. & Roberts, J.S. (2005). A Q3 statistic for unfolding item response theory models. Applied Psychological Measurement, 29, 457-471.

Habing, B., & Roussos, L.A. (2003). On the need for negative local item dependence. Psychometrika, 68, 435-452.

Habing, B. (2001). Nonparametric regression and the parametric bootstrap for local dependence assessment. Applied Psychological Measurement, 25, 221-233.

Stout, W., Habing, B., Douglas, J., Kim, H.R., Roussos, L., & Zhang, J. (1996). Conditional covariance based nonparametric multidimensionality assessment. Applied Psychological Measurement, 20, 331- 354

.

top