Forensic mental health practitioners are comfortable assessing criminal defendants' competence to stand trial. They have a long history of making such assessments and a large body of research and scholarship to guide them. In recent years, however, the courts have drawn a distinction between general trial competence (i.e., competence while represented by counsel) and competence to proceed pro s...

This research investigated the strategic use of competence valuation in achievement settings and examined the consequences of implementing this self-enhancement strategy for intrinsic motivation. In two studies, participants reported higher competence valuation following positive feedback; in turn, competence valuation was positively related to intrinsic motivation. Competence valuation mediate...

Pragmatic competence includes illocutionary competence, and sociolinguistic competence. Illocutionary competence indicates a speaker's ability to combine grammatical interpretation of an utterance with its speech act, and the sociolinguistic competence indicates a speaker's ability to perform language functions in appropriate ways according to context. One must gain pragmatic knowledge before b...

This paper describes and evaluates the design of Competence Visualizer (CV), which is a competence system generating competence patterns of organizational groups. The system provides novel features that: (1) make it possible to survey competence status of teams in varying sizes at a specific moment; (2) handle information about both existing competencies and competence interests; (3) manage sna...

Rebecca Palmer Assessing the Relationship between SafeCare Fidelity and Competence Measures (Under the direction of Daniel Whitaker, Ph.D.) As more evidence-based programs are implemented in community settings, there is a strong need to ensure those models are implemented with integrity. Implementation of programs should be evaluated for fidelity, the degree of adherence to treatment protocols,...

In a 2-wave longitudinal study, 9th-grade students (N = 468) completed self-report measures of stressful life events, depressive symptoms, and 5 domains of self-perceived competence (i.e., academic competence, social acceptance, physical appearance, behavioral conduct, and athletic competence). Teachers and peers also reported about the participants' depressive symptoms. In longitudinal analyse...

Competence to consent to treatment has not previously been examined in a personality disorder cohort without comorbid mental disorder. We examined competence and coercion in 174 individuals diagnosed with severe personality disorder using two validated tools (the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment and the MacArthur Coercion Assessment Scale - Short Form). Competence was not cate...