The fan effect: A tale of two theories.

This article addresses J. R. Anderson and L. M. Reder's (see record 1999-05245-004) account of the differential fan effect reported by G. A. Radvansky, D. H. Spieler, and R. T. Zacks (see record 1993-16287-001). The differential fan effect is the finding of greater interference with an increased number of associations under some conditions, but not others, in a within-subjects mixed-list recognition test. Anderson and Reder concluded that the differential fan effects can be adequately explained by assuming differences in the weights given to concepts in long-term memory. When a broader range of data is considered, this account is less well supported. Instead, it is better to assume that the organization of information into referential representations, such as situation models, has a meaningful influence on long-term memory retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The generation effect: A test between single- and multifactor theories.

Single- and multifactor accounts of the generation effect (better memory for internally generated items than for externally presented items) were tested. Single-factor theories suggest that generation induces either stimulus–response relational processing or response-oriented processing. Multifactor theories suggest that generation induces both types of processing. In the first 3 experiments Ss either read or generated responses, and the degree of categorical structure within the list was manipulated. When categorical structure was minimal, large generation effects were observed for free recall and recognition, but not for cued recall. When categorical structure was high, however, a generation effect was observed for cued recall but not for recognition or free recall. A 4th experiment was performed to eliminate an uninteresting interpretation of the results. It is argued that a multifactor account is needed to explain these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cause and effect theories of attention: The role of conceptual metaphors.

Scientific concepts are defined by metaphors. These metaphors determine what attention is and what count as adequate explanations of the phenomenon. The authors analyze these metaphors within 3 types of attention theories: (a) "cause" theories, in which attention is presumed to modulate information processing (e.g., attention as a spotlight; attention as a limited resource); (b) "effect" theories, in which attention is considered to be a by-product of information processing (e.g., the competition metaphor); and (c) hybrid theories that combine cause and effect aspects (e.g., biased-competition models). The present analysis reveals the crucial role of metaphors in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the efforts of scientists to find a resolution to the classic problem of cause versus effect interpretations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Employment testing: Old theories and new research findings.

Claims that cognitive ability tests of the kind generally used in personnel selection are valid predictors of successful performance for jobs in all settings. This controversial stance is supported by analyses that recast findings of invalid tests as instances of Type I error. Ideally, if an employer has large enough samples, perfectly reliable tests, and an unrestricted range of ability in the applicant pool, the most widely used types of standardized tests should be valid in all job situations, and the notion of job-specific validity would no longer hold. The authors argue against previous reservations about the suitability of cognitive ability tests for employee selection that were made on the basis of their supposed limited applicability, their bias, and their ultimate contribution to workforce productivity. (56 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The analytic environment in times of bodily dysfunction: The effect of psychoanalytic psychosomatic theories.

This article examines the analytic environment in which psychoanalytic work occurs when patients struggle with complex somatic experiences, such as disease or physiological dysfunction. Patients express fantasies and beliefs about the etiology of their somatic experiences; they elaborate theories about why infertility, irritable bowel disease, or some other disease, syndrome, or crisis is happening to them. I consider these to be patients’ multiply determined, fantasy-saturated psychosomatic theories, and suggest that the analyst’s understanding of patients’ ideas about their somatic experiences is organized by the analyst’s both articulated and not articulated psychosomatic theories. Using brief clinical vignettes, I highlight the potentially constricting effect of clinicians’ theories on their analyses of patients’ psychosomatic theories. I examine psychoanalytic theories of psychosomatics, suggesting that adherence to the theories we have, which often posit linear psychogenesis of somatic phenomena, can result in collusion with, rather than analysis of, the psychic stances reflected by patients’ theories. To address the problematic adherence to our theories, and characterize a less constricting clinical and theoretical stance, I critique aspects of the theories and suggest directions for replenishing them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

New theories. Causes of dilated cardiomyopathy

Dilated cardiomyopathy is a heterogeneous disease, both clinically and genetically. Two genes responsible for X-linked DCM have been identified. Five genetic loci responsible for X-linked DCM have been identified. Five genetic loci responsible for autosomal dominant DCM have also been mapped but no genes identified so far. New paradigms may be necessary in order to elucidate the etiology of primary dilated cardiomyopathy.     

Self- and interpersonal evaluations: Esteem theories versus consistency theories.

Contrasts and derives different predictions from 2 social psychological theories on the relation between self- and interpersonal evaluation. Self-esteem theory predicts that the higher an individual's self-evaluation, the less his tendency to reciprocate evaluations from others, whereas self-consistency theory predicts that the higher the individual's self-evaluation the greater his tendency to reciprocate evaluations from others. Studies bearing on these predictions are reviewed, and the evidence tends to support self-esteem theory. 2 extensions of the assumptions of self-esteem theory are presented and discussed in terms of accounting for results which apparently support self-consistency theory. Esteem-theory results appear to be distinguished from consistency-theory results by whether or not the experimental S is the direct target of another person's actions. The implications of this distinction for other problems of person perception and social evaluation are discussed. It is concluded that cognitive consistency theories may be somewhat overworked as explanatory frameworks for the study of social evaluations. (59 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An inhibition-based fan effect: Evidence for an active suppression mechanism in selective attention.

Tested an inhibition-based fan effect hypothesis, using a negative priming paradigm in Exps 1 and 2 and a short-term memory scanning paradigm in Exp 3. In Exp 1 (24 undergraduates) and Exp 2 (48 undergraduates), the time to name a letter (surrounded by 1–3 distractor letters) was longer when it had been a distractor on the previous display than in a control condition where the target letter had not been one of the distractors in the previous display. This negative priming effect attenuated as the number of distractors in the previous display increased. The juxtaposition of an irrelevancy with a relevancy heuristic supports the possible existence of a spreading inhibition counterpart of spreading activation. Several predictions based on this framework were confirmed among 3 undergraduates in a modified short-term memory scanning task in Exp 3. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype formation and endorsement: The role of implicit theories.

Five experiments supported the hypothesis that peoples' implicit theories about the fixedness versus malleability of human attributes (entity versus incremental theories) predict differences in degree of social stereotyping. Relative to those holding an incremental theory, people holding an entity theory made more stereotypical trait judgments of ethnic and occupational groups (Experiments 1, 2, and 5 ) and formed more extreme trait judgments of novel groups ( Experiment 3 ). Implicit theories also predicted the degree to which people attributed stereotyped traits to inborn group qualities versus environmental forces (Experiment 2). Manipulating implicit theories affected level of stereotyping (Experiment 4), suggesting that implicit theories can play a causal role. Finally, implicit theories predicted unique and substantial variance in stereotype endorsement after controlling for the contributions of other stereotype-relevant individual difference variables (Experiment 5). These results highlight the importance of people's basic assumptions about personality in stereotyping. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Wanted: New answers and new questions.

Although some promising new developments have emerged in recent years, school psychology research and practice has a remarkably ancient cast to it. With this issue, SPQ changes editorship and a primary agenda for this editorial group (S. Christenson, B. Erchul, R. Good, R. Kamphaus, B. Martens, D. Reschly, and myself) will be to publish not only articles which provide solutions to old questions but those which ask new questions. Certainly we will continue to publish reports of high quality empirical research which address important issues. However an equally crucial priority will be the publication of resourceful research reviews and "think" pieces which offer inventive and practical ideas about where research and practice should depart from the old ways. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The major mental disorders: New evidence requires new policy and practice.

Reviews research and argues that new mental health policy and programs are needed to deal with the major mental disorders (schizophrenia, major depression, and bipolar disorder). Data show that many of the persons who are afflicted with these disorders continue to suffer throughout their adult lives, despite treatment. Not only do these individuals present all of the symptoms and social impairments usually associated with the major disorders, they are also at increased risk for premature death, substance abuse/dependence, criminality, violence, homelessness, and infectious disease. Two findings suggest that prevention may be possible: (1) many of the children at risk for the major mental disorders can be identified by their family history of mental disorder; and (2) non-genetic factors, biological and/or psychosocial, can limit the expression of the hereditary factors associated with each of these disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retrieving information from memory: Spreading-activation theories versus compound-cue theories.

T. P. McNamara (1992) attacked compound-cue theories on a number of grounds. Using free association as a measure of distance between concepts in memory, he argued that compound-cue theories cannot explain mediated priming effects. The authors show that free-association production probabilities do not accurately predict priming effects, either directly or in the context of current spreading-activation models, and so remove the basis for McNamara's criticism. McNamara also claimed that compound-cue theories cannot account for the sequential effects of items that precede a target on responses to the target, but the authors show that sequential effects are consistent with compound-cue models if the target item is weighted more heavily than preceding items in the calculation of familiarity that determines response time and accuracy for the target. It is concluded that, although compound-cue and spreading-activation theories are both consistent with available data, the compound-cue theory, having less freedom, has passed more stringent tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The origins of specific phobias: Influential theories and current perspectives.

Fears are quick and adaptive responses that permit powerful reply to imminent threats. Less adaptive, phobias are extreme manifestations of fear to objects or situations in the absence of a proportional danger. Although the utility of fear is accepted, the nature of phobias is controversial. Initial theories favored a fear conditioning-based explanation, with vicarious and information learning pathways subsequently included as additional routes to the development of specific phobias. More recently, an important group of investigations strengthened the case for a nonassociative account of fear acquisition proposing that evolutionarily relevant fears can occur without any need of critical learning experiences. In parallel, there is some evidence for a dedicated fear module in the detection of threats, involving the amygdala, which is relatively independent from conscious cognitive control. Nonetheless, cognitive models stress learning and developmental factors and their role in the etiology and maintenance of phobic behavior. This article critically reviews each of these views and theories stressing their recent developments, weaknesses, and controversies with an aim to provide the groundwork for the construction of a more integrated position. Finally, the authors suggest encouraging trends in recent research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

New measure of daily coping: Development and preliminary results.

Developed a new measure of coping with daily problems for use in longitudinal studies with repeated assessments. Development began with a checklist of specific coping behaviors and cognitions taken from existing questionnaires, but adequate levels of internal consistency could not be achieved for items grouped into rationally derived coping categories. A study in which the checklist items were sorted into the categories showed that particular behaviors or cognitions could represent different types of coping. This led to the development of a questionnaire with an open-ended response format. This brief questionnaire was used by 60 married couples (mean age of husbands 43 yrs; mean age of wives 40 yrs) for 21 consecutive days. Sex of respondent and problem appraisal were associated with amount and type of coping. A moderate amount of within-S consistency in coping with the same problem over time was also observed. Implications of the developmental studies and attributes of the new assessment are discussed. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Philosophical foundations of psychological theories: The issue of synthesis.

Examines 3 prototypical psychological perspectives represented by psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology, and behaviorism in light of their parallel philosophical world views (idealism, interactionism, and empiricism). It is suggested that both strengths and limitations are inherent in these philosophical bases. At present, incompatibility in these methodological commitments prevents true synthesis in either philosophy or psychology. The strength of psychological pluralism is stressed: Endorsing pluralism permits retention of all major content areas commonly viewed as part of psychology and appears to be the most intellectually responsible course. Four essential characteristics of pluralistic psychology are outlined. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivational factors in decision theories: The role of self-protection.

Reviews the standard economic and cognitive models of decision making under risk and describes the psychological assumptions that underlie these models. Important motivational factors that are typically underemphasized by the standard theories are then reviewed, including the motivation to protect one's self-image from failure and regret. An integrated view of decision making is offered on the basis of a more comprehensive set of psychological assumptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)