Intelligenz und subjektives Wohlbefinden - der Beitrag differentieller Psychologie in gesellschaftlichen Umbruchsphasen

Die vorliegende Dissertation umfasst differentialpsychologische Forschung zu zwei gesellschaftskritischen Themen der letzten fünf Jahre. Als Reaktion auf das Bundesverfassungsgerichtsurteil von Dezember 2017 zur Neugestaltung von Hochschulauswahlverfahren, wird zunächst das Thema Intelligenzdiagnostik im Rahmen von Studierendenauswahl in den Fokus gesetzt. Eingangs wird daher der aktuelle Stand der Studierendenauswahlverfahren in Deutschland eingeführt, Anforderungen an einen Studierendenauswahltest definiert und verschiedene Skalen der beiden etablierten Auswahltests des Fachs Medizin vorgestellt. Im Anschluss wird eine Übersicht über die Konstruktvalidität der beiden etablierten Testverfahren gegeben (Levacher, Koch et al., 2023) und der Einfluss von Testvorbereitung auf die psychometrische Güte von Auswahlverfahren am Beispiel eines figuralen Matrizentests erläutert (Levacher et al., 2021). Überdies findet zusätzlich eine Betrachtung der Time on Task-Effekte bei einem der beiden etablierten Studierendeneignungstests statt (Krämer et al., 2023). Basierend auf diesen drei Studien sollen erste Erkenntnisse zur Neugestaltung von diagnostischen Hochschulauswahlverfahren geliefert werden. Die daraus resultierende Verbesserung der Selektion soll als Grundlage für eine langfristig hohe fachliche Fähigkeit der praktizierenden Ärzte in Deutschland dienen. Dabei wurde die Wichtigkeit von fähigem medizinischem Personal im Gesundheitssystem im Rahmen der COVID-19 Pandemie besonders salient. Diese nie dagewesenen Situation, welche weitreichende Einschränkungen im Alltag und unter anderem den Ausfall von Studierendenauswahltestungen mit sich brachte, steht im Fokus des zweiten Teils dieser Dissertation. Nach einer kurzen Hinführung wird die Auswirkung des ersten COVID-19 Lockdowns in Deutschland auf das Wohlbefinden anhand erläutert (Levacher, Spinath et al., 2023). Zudem wird der Verlauf des Wohlbefindens während des ersten Lockdowns in Deutschland in Abhängigkeit der Big Five unter Kontrolle des Alters und weiterer individueller Unterschiede (Systemrelevanz, Zugehörigkeit zur Risikogruppe, Geschlecht) analysiert. Die Dissertationsarbeit schließt mit einer Zusammenfassung aller vier Studien und einer Diskussion zu den praktischen Implikationen für zukünftige Studierendenauswahlverfahren.This dissertation comprises differential psychological research on two socially critical topics of the last five years. In response to the Federal Constitutional Court ruling of December 2017 on the redesign of university selection procedures, the focus is first placed on the topic of intelligence diagnostics in the context of student selection. Therefore, the current status of student selection procedures in Germany is introduced, requirements for a student selection test are defined and various scales of the two established selection tests for the subject of medicine are presented. Subsequently, an overview of the construct validity of the two established test procedures is given (Levacher, Koch et al., 2023) and the influence of test preparation on the psychometric quality of selection procedures is explained using the example of a figural matrix test (Levacher et al., 2021). In addition, the time-on-task effects of one of the two established student aptitude tests are examined (Krämer et al., 2023). Based on these three studies, initial insights into the redesign of diagnostic university selection procedures will be provided. The resulting improvement in selection is intended to serve as a basis for a high level of professional ability among practising physicians in Germany in the long term. The importance of capable medical staff in the health system became particularly salient in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This unprecedented situation, which brought with it far-reaching restrictions in everyday life and, among other things, the cancellation of student selection tests, is the focus of the second part of this dissertation. After a brief introduction, the impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown in Germany on well-being is explained (Levacher, Spinath et al., 2023). In addition, the course of well-being during the first lockdown in Germany is analysed as a function of the Big Five, controlling for age and other individual differences (system relevance, membership of a risk group, gender). The dissertation concludes with a summary of all four studies and a discussion of the practical implications for future student selection procedures

Testing Replicability and Generalizability of the Time on Task Effect

The time on task (ToT) effect describes the relationship of the time spent on a cognitive task and the probability of successful task completion. The effect has been shown to vary in size and direction across tests and even within tests, depending on the test taker and item characteristics. Specifically, investing more time has a positive effect on response accuracy for difficult items and low ability test-takers, but a negative effect for easy items and high ability test-takers. The present study sought to test the replicability of this result pattern of the ToT effect across samples independently drawn from the same populations of persons and items. Furthermore, its generalizability was tested in terms of differential correlations across ability tests. To this end, ToT effects were estimated for three different reasoning tests and one test measuring natural sciences knowledge in 10 comparable subsamples with a total N = 2640. Results for the subsamples were highly similar, demonstrating that ToT effects are estimated with sufficient reliability. Generally, faster answers tended to be more accurate, suggesting a relatively effortless processing style. However, with increasing item difficulty and decreasing person ability, the effect flipped to the opposite direction, i.e., higher accuracy with longer processing times. The within-task moderation of the ToT effect can be reconciled with an account on effortful processing or cognitive load. By contrast, the generalizability of the ToT effect across different tests was only moderate. Cross-test relations were stronger in relative terms if performance in the respective tasks was more strongly related. This suggests that individual differences in the ToT effect depend on test characteristics such as their reliabilities but also similarities and differences of their processing requirements

How did the beginnings of the global COVID-19 pandemic affect mental well-being?

The present study aims to investigate longitudinal changes in mental well-being as well as the role of individual differences in personality traits (Big Five) and the level of Personality Organisation during the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Overall, 272 adults (Mage= 36.94, SDage= 16.46; 68.62% female, 23.45% male, 0.69% non-binary) took part in our study with four weekly surveys during the lockdown as well as a follow-up one month after restrictions were lifted. To analyse the development of mental well-being during and shortly after the first lockdown in Germany latent growth curve models (LGCM) were calculated. The considered facets of well-being differ by their trajectory. Additionally, results suggest that the lockdown did not affect all facets to the same extent. While Life Satisfaction decreases in the short term as a reaction to the lockdown, Stress and Psychological Strain were reduced after the second week of contact restrictions. When adding personality characteristics, our results showed that Neuroticism and Conscientiousness were the two dimensions associated most strongly with SWB during the first month of the pandemic. Thus, our research suggests that personality traits should be considered when analysing mental well-being

Analysis of Twitter data for postmarketing surveillance in pharmacovigilance

Postmarketing surveillance (PMS) has the vital aim to monitor effects of drugs af- ter release for use by the general pop- ulation, but suffers from under-reporting and limited coverage. Automatic meth- ods for detecting drug effect reports, es- pecially for social media, could vastly in- crease the scope of PMS. Very few auto- matic PMS methods are currently avail- able, in particular for the messy text types encountered on Twitter. In this paper we describe first results for developing PMS methods specifically for tweets. We de- scribe the corpus of 125,669 tweets we have created and annotated to train and test the tools. We find that generic tools per- form well for tweet-level language iden- tification and tweet-level sentiment anal- ysis (both 0.94 F1-Score). For detection of effect mentions we are able to achieve 0.87 F1-Score, while effect-level adverse- vs.-beneficial analysis proves harder with an F1-Score of 0.64. Among other things, our results indicate that MetaMap seman- tic types provide a very promising ba- sis for identifying drug effect mentions in tweets

The construct validity of the main student selection tests for medical studies in Germany

Standardized ability tests that are associated with intelligence are often used for student selection. In Germany two different admission procedures to select students for medical studies are used simultaneously; the TMS and the HAM-Nat. Due to this simultaneous use of both a detailed analysis of the construct validity is mandatory. Therefore, the aim of the study is the construct validation of both selection procedures by using data of 4,528 participants (Mage = 20.42, SD = 2.74) who took part in a preparation study under low stakes conditions. This study compares different model specifications within the correlational structure of intelligence factors as well as analysis the g-factor consistency of the admission tests. Results reveal that all subtests are correlated substantially. Furthermore, confirmatory factor analyses demonstrate that both admission tests (and their subtests) are related to g as well as to a further test-specific-factor. Therefore, from a psychometric point of view, the simultaneous use of both student selection procedures appears to be legitimate

Development and Initial Validation of an Admission Test for Bachelor Psychology Studies

Extensive evidence clearly endorses the use of standardized reasoning ability tests and subject-specific knowledge tests as valid and useful tools for admission-restricted study programs. Yet, tests are still rarely applied for university admission in Germany. Instead, current admission practices are predominantly based on grade point average (GPA) achieved in high school. In the present study, we report the development and validation of a test battery for admission into bachelor’s degree programs in psychology for German universities. Its compilation is driven by evidence from international validity generalization, consensual models of cognitive abilities, and a taxonomy of the B.Sc. psychology degree in Germany. It consists of three subtests for reasoning ability, two tests that tap relevant declarative knowledge, and two psychology-specific text comprehension tests. N = 371 freshmen from five German universities completed the tests and university GPA was retrieved 2.5 years later. We use confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling to investigate the construct and criterion validity of the test battery. The results indicate that individual tests, as well as the test battery, meet psychometric requirements. As expected, the test battery predicts university GPA substantially and incrementally beyond high school GPA. The results illustrate the substantial added value that standardized achievement tests provide in university admissions

Is it enough to be willing to win or do you have to be smart? The relationship between competitive worldviews, cognitive abilities, and applicant faking in personality tests

Recent research has highlighted competitive worldviews as a key predictor of faking—the intentional distortion of answers by candidates in the selection context. According to theoretical assumptions, applicants’ abilities, and especially their cognitive abilities, should influence whether faking motivation, triggered by competitive worldviews, can be turned into successful faking behavior. Therefore, we examined the influence of competitive worldviews on faking in personality tests and investigated a possible moderation of this relationship by cognitive abilities in three independent high school and university student samples (N1 = 133, N2 = 137, N3 = 268). Our data showed neither an influence of the two variables nor of their interaction on faking behavior. We discuss possible reasons for these findings and give suggestions for further research

How does the global COVID-19 pandemic affect mental well-being? – A longitudinal study on individual differences in coping and resilience related to basic personality functioning

In the first months of 2020, an unexpected pandemic has shocked the world: the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) the led to the COVID-19 pandemic in only a few months. The subsequent ‘corona crisis’ and the restrictive measures that many countries – including Germany, the country under study – are taking to prevent an outbreak which would overburden the health system has led to a complex pattern of consequences not only for those infected by the virus, but also for ‘healthy’ individuals and the society as a whole (Bao et al., 2020; Duan& Zhu, 2020). In addition to a variety of health problems caused directly by the COVID-19 infection or indirectly by current shortages in health care or associated difficulties, many will also have to deal with social and economic challenges. Isolation, social distancing, the closure of schools and workplaces are challenges that affect all individuals and likely increase the experience of stress, anxiety, fear and loneliness in such a difficult time. Therefore, our study focusses on these ‘indirect’ mental health consequences of the pandemic as well as individual differences within the society in their reaction, experience and ability to cope with this stressful life-event