Spontaneous trait transference to familiar communications: Is a little knowledge a dangerous thing?

In most social cognition research participants are presented with unattributed information about unfamiliar stimulus persons. However, in the real world it is more common for people to learn about others through social communication and to know something about those with whom they communicate. Such issues are explored in relation to spontaneous trait transference, a phenomenon in which communicators are perceived as having traits that they merely describe in others. Three studies show that even familiar communicators became associated with, and attributed, the traits implied by their remarks. Surprisingly, these effects occurred even when the implied traits were incongruent with participants' prior knowledge about these communicators. The results are discussed in terms of (a) the generalizability of social cognition research, (b) the automaticity of simple associative phenomena, and (c) the interplay of simple associative and higher level processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overattribution and unit formation: When behavior engulfs the person.

Conducted 2 experiments with 112 undergraduates to investigate whether there may be circumstances in which observers overattribute behavior to situational causes while adjusting insufficiently for information about an actor's dispositions. Although Ss were clearly informed of the prior attitude of a target person who wrote an attitude-congruent essay under free-choice instructions, they nevertheless attributed the essay in part to essay-congruent features of the target's situation. This did not depend on whether essays were composed by experimenters or by actual undergraduate target persons, although only essay readers, not essay writers, drew such essay-congruent situational inferences. Results are consistent with an anchoring/adjustment model of sequential attributional processes. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On cognitive busyness: When person perceivers meet persons perceived.

Person perception includes three sequential processes: categorization (what is the actor doing?), characterization (what trait does the action imply?), and correction (what situational constraints may have caused the action?). We argue that correction is less automatic (i.e., more easily disrupted) than either categorization or characterization. In Experiment 1, subjects observed a target behave anxiously in an anxiety-provoking situation. In Experiment 2, subjects listened to a target read a political speech that he had been constrained to write. In both experiments, control subjects used information about situational constraints when drawing inferences about the target, but cognitively busy subjects (who performed an additional cognitive task during encoding) did not. The results (a) suggest that person perception is a combination of lower and higher order processes that differ in their susceptibility to disruption and (b) highlight the fundamental differences between active and passive perceivers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and transference: Conversations with female analysts.

The possible influence of analysts' gender on the transference has received attention in recent psychoanalytic writing. Interviews with 17 senior female analysts about their views on this question are summarized. Most felt that analysts' gender does affect the transference, especially in the sequence of material's emergence, and should be taken into consideration in referrals. Possible influences on the "maternal" and "paternal" transferences, the erotic and "eroticized" transferences, and the oedipal transference were also discussed. Gender-related biases or countertransferences were suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Living with a depressed person.

This study explored the burdens experienced by 42 adults who lived with a depressed patient and related these burdens to their degree of psychological distress. The comparison group consisted of 23 adults who were living with someone who had been an in- or outpatient but who was not currently in a depressive episode. Respondents who were living with a patient in a depressive episode were quite distressed themselves, and over 40% met a standardized criterion for referral for therapeutic intervention. For these respondents, living with a patient currently in a depressive episode produced numerous burdens in response to the patients' symptoms, particularly patients' lack of interest in social life, fatigue, feelings of hopelessness, and worrying. Multiple regression analyses showed that these burdens accounted almost entirely for respondents' greater psychological distress. It is suggested that clinical depression is often indicative of a more generally distressed interpersonal context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Repetition priming for familiar and unfamiliar faces in a sex-judgment task: Evidence for a common route for the processing of sex and identity.

Repetition priming for faces was examined in a sex-judgment task given at test. Priming was found for edited, hair-removed photos of unfamiliar and familiar faces after a single presentation at study. Priming was also observed for the edited photos when study and test faces were different exemplars. Priming was not observed, however, when sex judgments were made at test to photos of complete, hair-included faces. These findings were interpreted by assuming that, for edited faces, internal features are attended, thereby activating face-recognition units that support performance. With complete faces, however, participants provided speeded judgments based primarily on the hairstyle. It is suggested that, for both familiar and unfamiliar faces, a common locus exists for the processing of the identity of a face and its sex. A single face-recognition model for the processing of familiar and unfamiliar faces is advocated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eliciting cryptomnesia: Unconscious plagiarism in a puzzle task.

Investigated cryptomnesia (unconscious plagiarism) and source memory using a word-search puzzle task in 3 experiments. Ss first alternated with a "computer partner" in locating words from 4 puzzles. They then attempted to recall their previously generated items as well as to locate additional new words. Substantially more plagiarism was committed in these tasks than was observed in a study by A. S. Brown and D. R. Murphy (1989), in which Ss generated category exemplars. Manipulations of retention interval (Exp 1) and degree of encoding (Exps 2a and 2b) reliably influenced plagiarism rates. Source confusions from a modified recognition memory task (Exp 3) were used as the basis for a unitary relative strength model to explain both source and occurrence (item) forgetting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Competing for a Desired Reward in the Stroop Task: When Attentional Control is Unconscious but Effective Versus Conscious but Ineffective.

Recent studies using Stroop's paradigm have shown that word recognition processes can be controlled when the local context of the task is manipulated. In the present study, factors related to the participants' broader context (i.e., presence vs. absence of a competitor and of a desired reward) were manipulated. The results (1) support the conclusion that control of semantic-level activation can be unconscious but effective versus conscious but ineffective, (2) suggest that unconscious control alone operates on line (i.e., when the participant is responding), and (3)clarify the impact of socio-contextual factors that have been confounded in past research. Taken together, these findings strengthen the view that word recognition processes are controllable and offer new reasons to pay constant attention to the social environment of cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shape of the communicated transference in difficult and not-so-difficult patients: Symbolized and desymbolized transference.

Describes differences between difficult and not-so-difficult patients based on the shape of their communicated transference, using 4 case examples. Transference originates in the communicative function of the dream, as a wish to impart the introjects into the consciousness of the listening analyst as object. Five variables or indices of symbolization are discussed. There appears to be an entity of difficult and not-so-difficult patient regardless of diagnostic category that exists not only in the subjective realm of a therapist experiencing the patient, but in the objective realm of coded text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Therapeutic engagement with a dying person: Stimulus for therapist training and growth.

The senior author's personal experience with a 57-yr-old woman dying of cancer is presented. It is submitted that the intimate experience of working with and relating to a dying person in psychotherapy is a potent and significant factor in forming and influencing the therapist's understanding and experience of psychotherapy. Flowing from the strength and openness of the patient, the therapist gains a new awareness of the meaning of life, growth, pain, being, and becoming. Therapy comes to be viewed as a cooperative relationship, and the young therapist in particular is faced with many basic theoretical issues—self-disclosure, control, professionalism, and termination. Through this experience the therapist learns about life's most basic forces—living, dying, growing, and changing. Stereotypic preconceptions and ways of perceiving the patient, the therapeutic process, and herself/himself are altered and expanded, revised and abandoned, making room for a new kind and quality of gentleness and sensitivity. (2 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Father-daughter incest: Unconscious fantasy and social fact.

This article examines the etiological role of incest as unconscious fantasy and incest as social fact in producing psychopathology. It reevaluates the importance of the Freudian theory of fantasy for an understanding of father-daughter incest, with particular attention to the relationship between fantasy and memory and between conscious and unconscious fantasy. Although the importance of acknowledging the social fact of incest is affirmed, I maintain that an analysis of the mental representation of the incest experience in fantasy is as crucial to the treatment of incest victims as is an acknowledgment of the primary etiological role of real victimization in producing pathological states. Case material is presented to illustrate the ways in which the reality of incest may combine with stage-specific fantasies to determine the nature and extent of the incest victim's pathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Featuring familiarity: How a familiar feature instantiation influences categorization.

We demonstrate that a familiar looking feature can influence categorization through 2 different routes, depending on whether a person is reliant on abstract feature representations or on concrete feature representations. In 2 experiments, trained participants categorized new category members in a 3-step procedure: Participants made an initial categorization, described the rule-consistent features indicated by the experimenter, and then recategorized the item. Critical was what happened on the second categorization after participants initially categorized an item based on a familiar, but misleading, feature. Participants who were reliant on abstract features most commonly reversed themselves after the rule-consistent features were pointed out, suggesting that the familiar feature had biased attention. Participants who were reliant on concrete feature representations, however, most commonly persisted with the initial response as if the familiar feature were more important than its rivals—the familiar feature biased decision making. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unconscious perception: Attention, awareness, and control.

Conscious perception is substantially overestimated when standard measurement techniques are used. That overestimation has contributed to the controversial nature of studies of unconscious perception. A process-dissociation procedure (L. L. Jacoby; see record 1992-07943-001) was used for separately estimating the contribution of conscious and unconscious perception to performance of a stem-completion task. Unambiguous evidence for unconscious perception was obtained in 4 experiments. In Exp 1, decreasing the duration of a briefly presented word diminished the contribution of both conscious and unconscious perception. In Exps 2–4, dividing attention reduced the contribution of conscious perception while leaving that of unconscious perception unchanged. Discussion focuses on the measurement of awareness and the relation between perception and memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The therapist's pregnancy: Children's transference and countertransference reactions.

Discusses ways in which the child therapist's pregnancy influences the transference, based on clinical material from 6 patients (aged 3.5–16 yrs). The children presented with issues of unmet infancy needs, exhibiting symptoms of sibling rivalry and abandonment, and they struggled to work through their mother–child transferences. For most of the children, the therapist's pregnancy caused them to identify with the unborn child and presented them with a sibling transference. Recommendations are made for how therapists might cope with changes due a pregnancy and how to bring up the issue of the pregnancy with clients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pregnancy in a Jehovah's witness with cervical cancer and anemia

A 34-year-old Jehovah's Witness presented with vaginal bleeding and anemia at 23 weeks gestation. She was diagnosed with a FIGO Stage IB2 squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix. The patient refused transfusion of blood products and strongly desired to continue the pregnancy. She was hospitalized and at 33 weeks gestation underwent a Cesarean-radical hysterectomy with measures that minimized blood loss.     

Short-term fluctuations in identity: Introducing a micro-level approach to identity formation.

The present study was aimed at examining one relatively neglected part of the identity formation process: the short-term dynamics of identity formation. The short-term dynamics were assessed by examining (a) the day-to-day course of 2 key dimensions of identity formation (i.e., commitment and reconsideration) and (b) the impact of fluctuations in commitment and reconsideration on subsequent levels of these 2 dimensions. Longitudinal data on 580 early adolescents (54.8% boys, 45.2% girls) were used to test these assertions. The authors found evidence for a commitment-reconsideration dynamic that operated on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, the findings confirmed E. H. Erikson's (1950) assertion that identity reflects a sense of sameness and continuity as a more stable identity (reflected by little day-to-day fluctuations) was predictive of higher levels of commitment and lower levels of reconsideration. Taken together, the present study underscores the importance of the short-term dynamics of identity formation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disability and identity: A study of identity patterns in adolescents with hearing impairments.

Some children with physical disabilities are encouraged to identify exclusively with nondisabled persons, relinquishing any identity with others who have disabilities. The implications of such a personal identification on adjustment were examined by measuring identity choice in 111 students (aged 15–19 yrs) at a state school for persons with hearing impairments. Ss were classified into 3 groups: those with a predominant hearing identity (able-bodied identity), those with a primary deaf identity (disabled identity), and those who identified with both groups (dual identity). Analyses focused on the relationship between the Ss' identity and indicators of the Ss' social relations, self-evaluations, academic achievement, and perceived family acceptance of their disability. Data indicate that an able-bodied identity was consistently associated with poorer outcomes and a dual identity with better outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group pressure and action against a person.

A distinction is made between action conformity and signal conformity; the former refers to group-induced behavior that has more than an informational impact on the environment. A study of action conformity is described in which the effects of group pressure are measured by comparing the amount of electric shock administered by a naive S to a person, under experimental and control conditions. In the experimental condition the S performs in the midst of 2 confederates who call for increasingly more powerful shocks against a victim. The naive S has control over the level of shock and can hold down the punishment or yield to group influence. In the course of 30 critical trials the mean shock levels rise in response to the confederates' pressure. The structure of the experimental situation is examined by a comparison with Asch's study of verbal compliance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Song recognition without identification: When people cannot "name that tune" but can recognize it as familiar.

Recognition without identification (RWI) is a common day-to-day experience (as when recognizing a face or a tune as familiar without being able to identify the person or the song). It is also a well-established laboratory-based empirical phenomenon: When identification of recognition test items is prevented, participants can discriminate between studied and unstudied test items. The present study demonstrates this finding in the realm of music. A song RWI effect is reported across 4 experiments, despite very low identification rates in each. The effect was found with unidentifiable song fragments (Experiment 1), with song notes removed from their original rhythms (Experiment 2), and with songs unidentifiable from their tapped out rhythms (Experiments 3 and 4). Theoretical implications of these results are relevant to both the study of familiarity-based recognition and the study of music cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)