The psychological causality implicit in verbs: A review.

The authors comprehensively review research and theory on the verb causality effect. The effect involves the finding that different types of verbs used to describe interpersonal events give rise to different assumptions about the causes of the respective event. The authors analyze and conceptualize the linguistic categories that serve as independent variables in the pertinent studies, describe the research methods used, conduct reanalyses on the published data, and summarize the results. They conclude that the verb causality effect constitutes a robust and strong finding that has been documented by several independent researchers across different verb samples, cultures, languages, and age groups. Furthermore, they present and discuss the theoretical explanations for the phenomenon and argue that it can be explained parsimoniously by basic attribution mechanisms (i.e., perceived covariation information). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discourse models, pronoun resolution, and the implicit causality of verbs.

Some interpersonal verbs (e.g., admire and amaze) describe an action or property of one person (the reactor) that is necessarily a response to an action or property of another (the initiator). It was hypothesized that these verbs make the initiator relatively more accessible in a comprehender's discourse model and that this change in relative accessibility aids identification of the referent of a pronoun in a subsequent because clause. It was predicted that, as a result, Ss would be faster to recognize a character's name after a because clause that uses a pronoun to refer to that character than after one that refers to some other character. Four experiments confirmed this prediction. Three further experiments demonstrated the importance of the verb's causal structure and of the presence of the connective because to this result. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal verbs and dispositional adjectives: The psychology of causality embodied in language.

A series of studies showed that the tendency to assign greater causal weight to one interactant than to the other in sentence-events such as A doted on B or A detested B is related to the attributive reference of the adjective derived from the sentence verb. Thus, the pattern of causal weights for doted on (which has the derived form doting to describe A but none to describe B) favors A more so than does the pattern for detested (which has the form detestable to describe B but none to describe A). The effect was shown to be completely general across the verb types studied and was also obtained in an experiment using nonsense verbs and adjectives. The findings are discussed as they bear on the Whorfian hypothesis of linguistic determinism and are interpreted as showing that the way in which people think about interpersonal causality is related to, and perhaps affected by, the content of the interpersonal lexicon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Incidental concept learning, feature frequency, and correlated properties": Correction to Wattenmaker.

Reports an error in "Incidental concept learning, feature frequency, and correlated properties" by William D. Wattenmaker (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 1993[Jan], Vol 19[1], 203-222). This article included three typographical errors in the statistics. The corrected statistics are provided in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1993-16363-001.) Four experiments examined sensitivity to feature frequencies and feature correlations as a function of intentional and incidental concept learning. Feature frequencies were encoded equally well across variations in learning strategies, and although classification decisions in both intentional and incidental conditions preserved correlated features, this sensitivity was achieved through different processes. With intentional learning, sensitivity to correlations resulted from explicit rules, whereas incidental encoding preserved correlations through a similarity-based analogical process. In incidental tasks that promoted exemplar storage, classification decisions were mediated by similarity to retrieval examples, and correlated features were indirectly preserved in this process. Results are discussed in terms of the diversity of encoding processes and representations that can occur with incidental category learning. [An erratum concerning this article appears in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 1993(Mar), Vol 19(2). The statistics on page 211 are corrected.] (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dispositional inference strikes back: Situational focus and dispositional suppression in causal attribution.

The authors propose that correction of dispositional inferences involves the examination of situational constraints and the suppression of dispositional inferences. They hypothesized that suppression would result in dispositional rebound. In Study 1, participants saw a video of either a free or a forced speaker. Participants shown a forced speaker later made stronger dispositional inferences about a 2nd, free speaker than control participants did. Study 2 provided evidence for higher rebound among participants who reported trying harder to suppress dispositional inferences during the 1st video. In Study 3, participants were asked to focus on situational constraints or to avoid thinking about the speaker's characteristics. Only the latter instructions led to a dispositional rebound. These data support the view that the correction of dispositional inferences involves 2 processes that lead to distinct consequences in subsequent attribution work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

More "touching" observations: New insights on men, women, and interpersonal touch.

To describe sex differences in interpersonal touch, observation was made of 4,500 dyads in their teens and older in public places. The principal analyses addressed the issue of asymmetry in the initiation of touch in mixed sex dyads. Over all ages and initiating body parts, males touched females (MF touch) with the same frequency that females touched males (FM touch). However, among younger dyads, MF touch prevailed, whereas the reverse was true for older dyads. Though there was a tendency for MF touch with the hand to exceed FM touch with the hand, significant sex differences appeared only for "arm around," in which MF touch prevailed, and "arms linked," in which FM touch was more common. Analyses also addressed main effects of toucher sex and recipient sex, male–male vs female–female touch, and same- vs opposite-sex touch. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Internalization of interpersonal process in time-limited dynamic psychotherapy": Erratum.

Reports an error in "Internalization of interpersonal process in time-limited dynamic psychotherapy" by R. Steven Harrist, Stephen M. Quintana, Hans H. Strupp and William P. Henry (Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 1994[Spr], Vol 31[1], 49-57). This article contained, as Figure 1, an SASB model. The authorship and copyrights for the model were not acknowledged. The following acknowledgement should have been included: "Adapted from Benjamin (1984). Principles of Prediction using Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB). In R. A. Zucker, J. Aronoff, and A. J. Rabin (Eds.), Personality and the Prediction of Behavior (pp. 121- 174). New York: Academic." An apology is offered to the author, Dr. Lorna Smith Benjamin. The particular version used in the article was developed in collaboration with Clinton W. McLemore. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1994-46214-001.) Investigated the internalization of positive aspects of therapist–patient (TP) interactions among 70 patients and their 16 therapists who participated in a 5-yr study (H. H. Strupp et al, unpublished) of time-limited dynamic psychotherapy. Patients sought help for anxiety, depression, or other problems with a clear interpersonal component and qualified for an Axis I or Axis II diagnosis on the DSM-III. Instruments included the Structural Analysis of Social Behavior and outcome measures of depression, anxiety, and psychological functioning. Patients' intrapsychic functioning became more similar to interpersonal activity in the TP relationship over the course of psychotherapy. Intrapsychic movement toward interpersonal activity in the TP relationship was associated with positive outcome on measures of depression, anxiety, and on independent clinician ratings of patient psychological functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The interpersonal structure of "good" versus "bad" group counseling sessions: A multiple-case study.

Selected "good" and "bad" sessions from 3 short-term personal growth groups with 20 clients on the basis of group members' ratings of session depth and engagement. Multidimensional scaling provided a map of the latent structure of the speaking turns within these sessions. A two-dimensional solution provided the best fit for the data for each of the 6 sessions examined (i.e., a good and a bad session for each of the 3 groups). These 2 dimensions were interpreted as control (dominant vs submissive) and affiliation (friendly vs hostile). As hypothesized, the leader's position in the good sessions was less extreme on the identified dimensions, which suggested greater leader flexibility. Contrary to the hypothesis, the content of the dimensions was similar in the good and bad sessions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"The Rorschach Human Experience Variable, interpersonal relatedness, and object representations in nonpatients": Correction.

Reports an error in the original article by B. Burns and D. J. Viglione, Jr. (Psychological Assessment, 1996 [Mar], 8[1], 92–99). On pages 94–97, for the regression analysis in Tables 4–9, the Human Experience Variable was calculated slightly differently than described, the actual formula is given. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1996-00429-013). W. Perry and D. J. Viglione (1991) combined human representational variables from J. E. Exner's (1993) Comprehensive System in their Ego Impairment Index to create the Human Experience Variable (HEV). To validate the HEV, 105 nonpatient women completed the Bell Object Relations Inventory (M. Bell, 1991) and the Rorschach. Their spouses also rated the quality of these women's interpersonal relatedness by completing a modified Bell Object Relations Inventory and the Emotional Maturity Rating Form (H. Bessell, 1984). The HEV was significantly related to the quality of interpersonal relatedness, after considering Rorschach measures of psychopathology and "nonhuman' Rorschach images.… (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"She," "He," Coexistence, and Bastardy.

Before proposing a solution for the sex bias problems inherent in the generic use of the pronoun he, Spencer (see record 1990-58427-001) reviews some efforts to solve the problem. The attempted solutions are evaluated as "not an improvement ... awkward... jarring ... disturbing" (p. 782), In one case, Spencer notes that coauthors of a book "slip up" twice. To avoid the difficulties and the accompanying unpleasant experiences, Spencer suggests the use of co: "The form is derived from an old Indo-European common form for both male and female English pronouns" (p. 783). While arguing for the "goodness of fit" (p. 783) of co. Spencer acknowledges that "there is currently one exception in our language to this meaning of co-coed, in which the form has been bastardized and debased from its source" (p. 783). A clinical psychologist is assuredly not an expert in psycholinguistics, but one could reasonably argue the following: The concept of bastardy with all of its connotative meaning, including debased, derives from patriarchal, patrilineal, male primary societies and history. In short, it is a sexist concept. Ours is a difficult language to use and avoid the expression of bias. Perhaps we ought to be gentler with those who are trying. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does social exclusion motivate interpersonal reconnection? Resolving the "porcupine problem."

Evidence from 6 experiments supports the social reconnection hypothesis, which posits that the experience of social exclusion increases the motivation to forge social bonds with new sources of potential affiliation. Threat of social exclusion led participants to express greater interest in making new friends, to increase their desire to work with others, to form more positive impressions of novel social targets, and to assign greater rewards to new interaction partners. Findings also suggest potential boundary conditions to the social reconnection hypothesis. Excluded individuals did not seem to seek reconnection with the specific perpetrators of exclusion or with novel partners with whom no face-to-face interaction was anticipated. Furthermore, fear of negative evaluation moderated responses to exclusion such that participants low in fear of negative evaluation responded to new interaction partners in an affiliative fashion, whereas participants high in fear of negative evaluation did not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The "I," the "we," and the "when": A meta-analysis of motivational primacy in self-definition.

What is the primary motivational basis of self-definition? The authors meta-analytically assessed 3 hypotheses: (a) The individual self is motivationally primary, (b) the collective self is motivationally primary, and (c) neither self is inherently primary; instead, motivational primacy depends on which self becomes accessible through contextual features. Results identified the individual self as the primary motivational basis of self definition. People react more strongly to threat and enhancement of the individual than the collective self. Additionally, people more readily deny threatening information and more readily accept enhancing information when it pertains to the individual rather than the collective self, regardless of contextual influences. The individual self is the psychological home base, a stable system that can react flexibly to contextual influences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Explanation of interpersonal events: on the significance of balance and causality

According to Brown and VanKleeck (1989), the perceived causes of interpersonal events are mediated by two kinds of factors: First, the interpersonal verbs used to describe these events carry implicit information with regard to the question of which one of the potential interaction partners has caused the event. Second, explanations of interpersonal events are governed by the principle of balance. For example, positive events are predominantly explained by positive causes, and negative events by negative causes. In addition, the interaction of the two mechanisms also has important consequences concerning the explanation of social events: (1) In balanced triads, an event is ascribed to the interaction partner who is seen as the causally dominant one (according to the implicit causality of the verb that is used to describe the interaction). (2) However, this pattern of data is reversed for unbalanced triads: here, the event is ascribed to the interaction partner who is seen as the causally less dominant one, according to the implicit causality of the verb. The present study addresses the question of whether this attributional shift can be explained in terms of corresponding changes in perceived covariation information. Results indicate that the perception of consensus and distinctiveness indeed correspond to the causal attributions as they are obtained for different kinds of triads. Thus, classical attribution variables are regarded as promising candidates in order to explain these attributional shifts for balanced versus unbalanced events.     

"Exploitation and inference: Mapping the damage from therapist-patient sexual involvement": Correction to Williams.

Reports an error in "Exploitation and inference: Mapping the damage from therapist-patient sexual involvement" by Martin H. Williams (American Psychologist, 1992[Mar], Vol 47[3], 412-421). On page 419, the sentence "In this case, the odds that a patient will become sexually involved with his or her psychoanalyst are 1 in 1,129 or a likelihood of 0.9%" should read "In this case, the odds that a patient will become sexually involved with his or her psychoanalyst are 1 in 1,129 or a likelihood of 0.09%." (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1992-25076-001.) A growing body of evidence documents a clinical pattern of harmful effects of therapist–patient sexual involvement. In addition, surveys suggest that 1 to 12% of all therapists may have engaged in this behavior at least once in their careers. In order to develop a more comprehensive research agenda, several of these studies are reviewed in terms of inferences that may or may not be drawn. Case studies and surveys may provide for inference of clinical harm and syndrome, but they are limited in terms of generalizations about incidence in the overall population. A population approach coupled with case sampling may provide a useful tool by which to approximate a minimum level of incidence and of effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Artificial grammar learning depends on implicit acquisition of both abstract and exemplar-specific information": Correction.

Reports an error in the original article by B. J. Knowlton and L. R. Squire (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Vol 22[1], 169–181). The Appendix on page 181 contains several errors. The corrected Appendix is provided. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1996-02680-010). The contributions of exemplar-specific and abstract knowledge to artificial grammar learning were examined in amnesic patients and controls. In Experiment 1, grammatical rule adherence and chunk strength exerted separate effects in grammaticality judgments. Amnesic patients exhibited intact classification performance, demonstrating the same pattern of results as controls. In Experiment 2, amnesic patients exhibited impaired declarative memory for chunks. In Experiment 3, both amnesic patients and controls exhibited transfer when tested with a letter set different than the one used for training, although performance was better when the same letter sets were used at the training and test. The results suggest that individuals learn both abstract information about training items and exemplar-specific information about chunk strength and that both types of learning occur independently of declarative memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond "competing," beyond "compatible." Commentary on J. Archer.

Comments on J. Archer's 1996 article in which he considers whether observed patterns of sex differences in human social behavior are best explained by social role theory or by the evolutionary principles of Darwinian theory. The author believes that Archer's conclusion that the 2 theories are actually compatible is important and is concerned that such a valuable conclusion may be lost to discussions over the rest of the article. The author argues several points made in the original article and then concludes that Darwinian and cultural perspectives on human sex differences are not opposing theories, nor are they merely compatible but instead are necessarily interdependent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Primate research, family politics, and social policy: Transforming "cads" into "dads."

The ideology of fatherhood, as it is defined in Western, industrialized culture, assumes that fathers are biologically predisposed to be relatively uninvolved in infant care. This article summarizes recent revisions of both primate research and sociobiological theory. These new perspectives on male parenting behavior shift the focus from a narrow emphasis on the genetic relationship between male primates and their offspring to a broader focus that includes multiple social, demographic, and ecological variables. This paradigm underlines the behavioral flexibility, rather than the behavioral fixity, of male parenting behaviors. The relevance of this new theoretical consensus for social policy that could strengthen fathers' relationships with their children is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comment on "Recall, retention, and Ritalin."

E. D. Rie and H. E. Rie (see record 1978-27952-001) concluded that Ritalin enhances story recall after a 2-hr retention interval but not after 2 days and that the lack of difference in later recall argues against a facilitation of scholastic achievement due to Ritalin. The present author argues that the former conclusion is questionable because of inappropriate statistical analyses and because of the effects of confoundings contained in the experimental design. The latter conclusion, it is stated, appears to arise from the misconception of equating achievement with long-term memory independently of amount learned. Achievement is a function of both learning and memory, and the distinction should be maintained in examining Ritalin's effects. (2 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The mindlessness of ostensibly thoughtful action: The role of "placebic" information in interpersonal interaction.

Conducted 3 field experiments to test the hypothesis that complex social behavior that appears to be enacted mindfully instead may be performed without conscious attention to relevant semantics. 200 Ss in compliance paradigms received communications that either were or were not semantically sensible, were or were not structurally consistent with their previous experience, and did or did not request an effortful response. It was hypothesized that unless the communication occasioned an effortful response or was structurally (rather than semantically) novel, responding that suggests ignorance of relevant information would occur. The predictions were confirmed for both oral (Exp I) and written communications (Exps II and III). Social psychological theories that rely on humans actively processing incoming information are questioned. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)