On problems with the cause–reason distinction in attribution theory.

A. R. Buss's (see record 1980-09652-001) statement on causal and reason explanations of behavior involves a contribution regarding a necessary distinction in attribution theory. In the present paper, it is argued that despite his reformulation of previous analyses of lay attribution, Buss fails to provide substantive guidance for empirically testing the major assumptions of his hypothesized cause–reason distinction. Most important, Buss's analysis does not yield unambiguous theoretical criteria for operationally distinguishing intentional actions and unintentional occurrences and for judging the content of actors' and observers' explanations as causal or reason in nature. Without such specifications, it is concluded that Buss's central ideas may be empirically untestable. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comments on my critics.

Allan R. Buss responds to Bavelas' and Macdonald's criticisms of Buss's article (see record 1976-26634-001) on the evaluation of Canadian psychology departments. Buss says that Bavelas' (see record 2007-04411-001) criticisms are, in the main, important, insightful, and fundamentally correct and that Macdonald's (see record 2007-04410-001) criticisms are, in contrast to Bavelas', highly original, unimportant, and fundamentally incorrect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluation of Canadian psychology departments based upon citation and publication counts.

Evaluated 32 Canadian psychology departments offering graduate programs in terms of productivity and impact upon the discipline. Publication and citation counts were tabulated for each individual staff member in each department and totaled within each department. The data source was the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) which lists for any individual all publications and all journal articles which cite his/her work. Some limitations of SSCI as a data source for the sociology of science are discussed. Because of the qualifications and reservations which must accompany the reported data, the study should probably be viewed more as exemplifying an interesting methodological approach than as offering definitive and clear-cut conclusions. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evolution and psychology.

Comments on the article by D. M. Buss et al (see record 1998-01669-001). The present author states his preference for the term previously used to cover the topic, "preadaptation," but concedes that the term "exaptation" and the exegesis on its utility presented by Buss et al are clearly sensible and understandable. The commenter states his purpose in writing as mainly being on the importance of evolutionary theory for psychology, on the evidence for various aspects of the theory as presented in publications for psychologists, and on how these affect the way the publications have to be documented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinguished Scientific Awards for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology: David M. Buss.

The Early Career Awards, given for the first time in 1974, recognize the large number of excellent young psychologists. Recipients of this award may not have held a PhD for more than nine years. For purposes of this award, psychology has been divided into nine areas: human learning and cognition, psychopathology, physiological animal learning and behavior, personality, developmental social sensation and perception, and applied research. Three areas are considered each year, with areas rotated in three-year cycles. The areas considered in 1988 were animal learning, behavior, and ethology; personality; and developmental. This year's winner in the area of personality is David M. Buss. Buss is cited for the theoretical breadth and empirical depth of his work, which are exemplars of the personological tradition in psychology and for his act-frequency approach to the analysis of personality dispositions, which, by combining a summary interpretation of traits with recent advances in cognitive psychology, has yielded a steadily developing agenda of research in personality and a fresh perspective on central issues of the field. Along with the citation, a biography and selected bibliography of Buss's published works are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Definitions and levels of analysis.

Presents concerns with the article by D. M. Buss et al (see record 1998-01669-001). The present author states his main concern as being the suggestion by Buss et al that S. J. Gould (see record 1992-11754-001) was inconsistent in his usage of the term "exaptation," and that his stated definitions seem to require these effects to be biological. Additionally, the author takes issue with the suggestion by Buss et al that Gould used the term to "cover novel but functionless uses or consequences of existing characteristics," and offers his own interpretation of Gould's research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"One imperfect application does not destroy the value of citation analysis."

Contends that E. Macdonald's comment (see record 2007-04410-001) on the article by Buss (see record 1976-26634-001), "Evaluation of Canadian Psychology Departments based on Citation and Publication Counts," criticizes the methodology of the study and its results. However, Macdonald also makes a blanket criticism of the use of citation and publication analysis for evaluation purposes. Perhaps both are unfamiliar not only with the work being done in this area, but also with the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and the Science Citation Index (SCI) as well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Noise, logic, and the span of time.

Comments on the article by D. M. Buss et al (see record 1998-01669-001) that studied adaptation and natural selection as central concepts in evolutionary psychology. The present author, however, states his disappointment that the research did not more fully address the issue. He mentions that Buss et al noted three major conceptual means through which evolutionary theory accounts for current psychology: adaptation, exaptation, and random noise (surviving mechanisms that neither aided nor inhibited gene survival). The possibility of random noise explanations inhibiting the potential acceptance of explanations based on adaptations or exaptations is questioned. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Once more, publication and citation rates.

Reexamines A. R. Buss's (1976) data on publication and citation rates at Canadian university psychology departments to indicate some further conclusions that can be drawn from the data. These generally relate to the factor of the geographical location of the universities in question and tend to support some fairly common subjective opinions in this issue. Viewed as an exercise in the "sociology of psychological knowledge," this approach suggests that even data as slender as those providing the base for these evaluations can lead to useful—if long intuitively suspected—findings, and may thus provide some further insights into the effect of "soft" factors on "hard" issues. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinguishing adaptations from by-products.

Comments on the article in which D. M. Buss et al (see record 1998-01669-001) outline the conceptual and evidentiary standards that apply to adaptations, exaptations, and spandrels and their relative use in accounts of human psychological and behavioral outcomes. The present author argues that research to date has almost exclusively used a black box approach that hypothesizes about and documents the output of putative mechanisms without any attempt to demonstrate the engineering characteristics of the psychological processes in question. As such, the conceptual argument for demonstrating specialized adaptations, while sound in logic, is largely unsupported in data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Science or metaphysics?

Notes the implications for organizational behavior and ethics in the article by D. M. Buss et al (see record 1998-01669-001). The present authors state that the article goes further than making a strong case for examining the connections between biological science and psychology in presenting a philosophically committed view of the world, prompting an agenda that is not within the realm of scientific method. They state that the consequences of the presuppositions of Buss et al are reductionistic and call into question much of what the American Psychological Association (APA) advocates in its code of ethics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Paternity uncertainty and the complex repertoire of human mating strategies.

Replies to comments by P. S. Derry and L. B. Silverstein (see PA, Vols 26373 and 26388, respectively) regarding the comment by D. M. Buss (see record 1995-21138-001) on A. H. Eagly's (see record 1995-21141-001) discussion comparing the sexes in scientific research. The author agrees that Derry and Silverstein raised some important issues and showed overlap with some of his conclusions. However, the author states that the 2 commentaries show a lack of attention to the available scientific evidence (behavioral, physiological, and psychological clues) about sex differences and some conceptual problems concerning sexual strategies and dichotomies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a more inclusive integration of evolutionary biology and personality psychology.

Discusses D. M. Buss's (see record 1985-28068-001) failure to recognize the work of W. McDougall (1921) and his lack of consideration of the psychology of the self-concept in Buss's analysis of how contemporary work in sociobiology and behavior genetics might be useful in the effort to integrate the currently fragmented state of personality psychology. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Research productivity and scholarly impact of Canadian psychology departments.

Used the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) as a data source for citation counts, which reflect scholarly impact, and publication counts, which reflect productivity. Using the SSCI data, 35 Canadian psychology departments, with a total of 1,005 faculty, were compared and evaluated in terms of scholarship. Limitations of the SSCI as a data source for scholarly impact and productivity are discussed, and it is suggested that the SSCI is useful as a crude index of scholarship. It is concluded that a disproportionately small number of psychologists had major impact. An example is given: The top 26 psychologists representing 2.60% of the sample contributed 39% of the citations and over 10% of the publications. The top 26 psychologists were primarily from Ontario universities and from McGill. Full professors contributed a disporportionately large number of the citations, reflecting scholarly maturity. Although the University of Toronto was obviously the top psychology department in Canada (with respect to research), it was clearly surpassed by Stanford, the top psychology department in the US. Although the SSCI has certain limitations, it is a useful methodological tool that can contribute to the sociology of science. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychotherapy and Magic.

Discusses the extent to which the practice of psychotherapy places stress upon its practitioners similar to those experienced by the native fisherman of the Trobriand society, and the extent to which such stresses give rise to magical thinking. The observations in this article are based on a study of Trobriad society by Malinowski (in J. Needham's Science, Religion, and Reality). The author concludes that the ideal temperament for the psychotherapist if he is to behave rationally in his work involves the ability to reject the magic which the uncertainties of his task and the demands of his patients throw upon him; to be flexible enough to change his views when the need is clearly indicated, but not to be a weathervane; and to be happy enough in his personal, extratherapeutic life to accept failures as part of the day's work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The elusiveness of eminence.

Identifies sources of error in the analysis of the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) for 1975 conducted by N. S. Endler et al (see record 1979-26949-001). Problems include combining citations of authors with the same names or initials, incorrectly attributing citations, and attributing citations from such sources as research anthologies to the author who edited the compilation rather than the author who wrote the original article. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neural plasticity and exaptation.

Comments that S. J. Gould (see record 1992-11754-001) posed something of a problem for D. M. Buss et al (see record 1998-01669-001) in his argument that human psychology links not to past evolutionary adaptations but to the coopting of previously evolved functions to do new things, or exaptation. The present author states that Buss et al observed that Gould failed to document this exaptation for any of the examples he mentioned because he could not demonstrate any "special design for the hypothesized function." He suggests that neural plasticity strongly links the brain, exaptation and human psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reminiscences on a British Psychological Society Convention.

In this article the author comments upon being able to attend the 1963 spring convention of the British Psychological Society (BPS). He explains the location of the convention and briefly discusses some of the papers that were presented. He notes one of the largest audiences was drawn by a presentation by Neal Miller, reviewing, in the Midwestern "genre," some of the recent work done by himself and his students. At another interesting session, Eysenck lectured upon, and discussed, some of the theorizing and evidence presented in his Handbook of Abnormal Psychology. Overall, the author reports that the Reading BPS Convention was a most memorable event in his year's sojourn in Europe. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Conducting child custody evaluations: A comprehensive guide.

Reviews the book, Conducting child custody evaluations: A comprehensive guide by Philip Michael Stahl (see record 1994-98484-000). In this book, the author details how the courts benefit from custody evaluations, how the family benefits, when evaluations could actually be harmful, and offers some particularly unique and useful suggestions on evaluator biases. He brings up the interesting issue of who is the real client/consumer. He understands that the client really cannot be the child independent of his/her family, even though we all mourn the cliche, "best interests of the child," as if this phrase were some operationally clear "guideline." A main author bias is "the best parenting is achieved with two parents" (p. 25). There is at least some research evidence (and clinical experience) that would dispute this in more cases than the author might care to acknowledge. A second bias is that children must perceive that their parents can develop a post-divorce relationship free of hostility in which each parent is a champion for the other. Stahl displays a keen understanding of the dynamics of the post-divorce world. In his heart, he seems more a therapist than an "objective evaluator" and harbors a strong bias to help people move productively through the crises that are everywhere in evidence in post-divorce situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)