UNCONSCIOUS SELF-EVALUATION IN A NORMAL AND A SCHIZOPHRENIC GROUP.

"Unconscious self-judgments in 30 delusional schizophrenics and 30 matched normals were investigated by having them evaluate their unrecognized expressive movements and those of others… The results were interpreted as indicating that unconscious overevaluation of self to a certain extent is normal, but beyond that is associated with schizophrenia." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Theoretical Support for Transgenerationality: The Theory of the Protomental.

Many authors, particularly in the field of psychoanalysis, have demonstrated the intergenerational transmission of fundamental characteristics of personality structure. It has been found that unconscious modes of mental functioning, rather than contents, are transmitted. The structure of the unconscious has been stated to be transgenerational. Present-day research seeks to describe how not only contents but also functional modalities--that is, mental structures--can be transmitted in parent-child relationships and, in particular, in the caregiver-neonate relationship. Current studies describe these events in clinical terms. The author illustrates how his theory of the protomental, on which he has worked for many years and is still working, can not only describe but also explain in psychophysiological terms what is transmitted, and how it is transmitted, from the mother to the fetus and to the neonate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automaticity and two-digit numbers.

Automatic processing of 2-digit numbers was demonstrated using the size congruency effect (SiCE). The SiCE indicates the processing of the irrelevant (numerical) dimension when 2 digits differing both numerically and physically are compared on the relevant (physical) dimension. The SiCE was affected by the compatibility between unit and decade digits but was unaffected by the global magnitude of the numbers. Together these results suggest automatic processing of the magnitudes of the components of the 2-digit numbers but not of whole numbers. Finally, the SiCE was affected more by the magnitude of the decade digits compared with the unit digits, indicating that the syntactic roles of the digits were represented. The implications of these results for understanding the numerical representations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Special Section on Theoretical Models and Conceptual Analyses: Second Installment.

The Journal of Applied Psychology's call for theoretical models and conceptual analyses brought a terrific response. The first set of articles accepted in response to the call appeared in the December 2004 issue. This installment contains the second set of articles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Employee Commitment and Motivation: A Conceptual Analysis and Integrative Model.

Theorists and researchers interested in employee commitment and motivation have not made optimal use of each other's work. Commitment researchers seldom address the motivational processes through which commitment affects behavior, and motivation researchers have not recognized important distinctions in the forms, foci, and bases of commitment. To encourage greater cross-fertilization, the authors present an integrative framework in which commitment is presented as one of several energizing forces for motivated behavior. E. A. Locke's (1997) model of the work motivation process and J. P. Meyer and L. Herscovitch's (2001) model of workplace commitments serve as the foundation for the development of this new framework. To facilitate the merger, a new concept, goal regulation, is derived from self-determination theory (E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan, 1985) and regulatory focus theory (E. I. Higgins, 1997). By including goal regulation, it is acknowledged that motivated behavior can be accompanied by different mindsets that have particularly important implications for the explanation and prediction of discretionary work behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional sensitization of unconscious cognition: Task sets modulate subsequent masked semantic priming.

According to classical theories, automatic processes are autonomous and independent of higher level cognitive influence. In contrast, the authors propose that automatic processing depends on attentional sensitization of task-congruent processing pathways. In 3 experiments, the authors tested this hypothesis with a modified masked semantic priming paradigm during a lexical decision task by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs): Before masked prime presentation, participants attended an induction task either to semantic or perceptual stimulus features designed to activate a semantic or perceptual task set, respectively. Semantic priming effects on the N400 ERP component, an electrophysiological index of semantic processing, were obtained when a semantic task set was induced immediately before subliminal prime presentation, whereas a previously induced perceptual task set attenuated N400 priming. Across experiments, comparable results were obtained regardless of the difficulty level and the verbal or nonverbal nature of the induction tasks. In line with the proposed attentional sensitization model, unconscious semantic processing is enhanced by a semantic and attenuated by a perceptual task set. Hence, automatic processing of unconscious stimuli is susceptible to top-down control for optimizing goal-related information processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automaticity in conversations: A reexamination of the mindlessness hypothesis.

The automatic processing of an ordinary conversation, or what has been called mindlessness (Langer, Blank, & Chanowitz, 1978), implies that comprehension of conversation is based almost entirely on generic knowledge. As a consequence, memory of what was said will contain typical events but virtually no idiosyncratic information. To test this prediction, we conducted a field experiment in which college students were individually approached and asked to perform a small favor. Attention was either induced or allowed to operate naturally. Specifically, half of the students were warned beforehand of the forthcoming request and told to pay close attention and half were not forewarned. As expected, regardless of the condition, the generic features of the request were well remembered. On the other hand, memory for idiosyncratic information, namely, specific words used in the request, decreased when the structure of the conversation conformed to cultural conventions and when attention to the request was not induced. Findings cast doubt on the perfect automaticity suggested by the mindlessness hypothesis (Langer et al., 1978). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thoughts on Ahmed Fayek's article: "The centrality of the system Ucs in the theory of psychoanalysis": Setting the record straight.

Freud's first formulation about the structure of the mind was a tripartite theory of awareness--conscious, preconscious and unconscious--referred to as "the system unconscious." Fayek (see record 2006-00627-005) addresses the fate of this construct, pointing out that it is no longer used as Freud construed it. Fayek gives reasons for this eventuality: assertions I question. I offer an alternative explanation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The centrality of the system Ucs in the theory of psychoanalysis: The nonrepressed unconscious.

After Freud discovered an unconscious system (Ucs) between 1894 and 1896, a window opened for him to formulate a comprehensive theory of the human psyche, which he called psychoanalysis. The Ucs was its foundation. The object relations theories, ego psychology, self-psychology, and their offshoots managed to erode that concept from the theory in different ways and tried to replace psychoanalysis. The reason is that Freud, for a long time, associated the unconscious with the repressed. It was possible by reviewing his work in the field of repression, defense, and the unconscious to uncover the nature of the system Ucs. It is not possible for a school of psychology within psychoanalysis to ignore the systemic unconscious and replace it with a dynamic unconscious and still claim that it is psychoanalytic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Save angels perhaps": A critical examination of unconscious thought theory and the deliberation-without-attention effect.

Based on Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT) and a series of experimental and correlational studies, Dijksterhuis and his colleagues conclude that when making complex choices/decisions, conscious thought--deliberation while attention is directed at the problem--leads to poorer choices/decisions than "unconscious thought"--deliberation in the absence of conscious attention directed at the problem. UTT comprises six principles said to apply to decision making, impression formation, attitude formation and change, problem solving, and creativity. Because the implications of UTT for psychological research and theory are considerable, the authors critically examined these six principles (and the studies used to support them) in light of the extant scholarship on unconscious processes, memory, attention, and social cognition. Our examination reveals that UTT is a theory of the unconscious that fails to take into account important work in cognitive psychology, particularly in the judgment and decision making area. Moreover, established literatures in social psychology that contradict fundamental tenets of UTT and its empirical basis are ignored. The authors conclude that theoretical and experimental deficiencies undermine the claims of the superiority of unconscious thinking as portrayed by UTT. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The work of culture: Symbolic transformation in psychoanalysis and anthropology.

Reviews the book, The work of culture: Symbolic transformation in psychoanalysis and anthropology by Gananath Obeyesekere (1990). The reviewer states that the book offers the most sophisticated demonstration yet of the relevance of Freudian psychoanalysis to cultural interpretation by a scholar whose sensitivity to cultural differences should reassure the reader that this will be no mere "reduction" of variable symbols and meanings to the invariant properties of the dynamic unconscious. The four parts of the book are expanded versions of the Lewis Henry Morgan lectures, which Obeyesekere delivered at the University of Rochester. Throughout the book, Obeyesekere explores what he calls "symbolic remove"--the process through which symbolic forms existing at the cultural level. are created and recreated through the minds of individuals. Symbols thus created are regressive because of their ontogenesis in individual development and unconscious processes, while also being progressive, in that the unconscious thought transforms the archaic motivations of early experience and looks forward to their realization in experience of the sacred. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automaticity and word perception: Evidence from Stroop and Stroop dilution effects.

The Stroop effect is cut in half by adding a neutral word to the display. D. Kahneman and D. Chajczyk's (see record 1984-05774-001) "attention capture" account of "Stroop dilution" holds word recognition to be involuntary but strictly serial. The authors compared attention capture to 3 alternatives involving parallel rather than serial processing: In the lexicon, activation is divided among multiple words; postlexically, multiple words race for access to response processes; or prelexically, feature processing is degraded by multiple patterns whether or not they are words. Results support the latter. Multiple patterns are processed in parallel. If any are color words, Stroop effects occur but are reduced because any color word's input to lexical memory is lower in quality than if a single color word were the only pattern. Thus, lexical encoding is involuntary but can operate on several input representations in parallel, with effectiveness determined by input quality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Indicators of perception: I. Subliminal perception, subception, unconscious perception: An analysis in terms of psychophysical indicator methodology.

"A review of the literature pertaining to unconscious processes in perception was undertaken since preceding reviews had not taken into account current developments in psychophysical indicator methodology, which, it was felt, might clarify issues in this area, especially since they concern the two types of indicators most widely used. It is concluded that most of the substantive contributions of the experiments reviewed cannot be demonstrated to be related to perceptual variables, and this is probably where their importance lies." 198 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical Practice in Corrections: A Conceptual Framework.

Given the rich complexities of clinical practice in corrections, it is surprising that professional psychology lacks a conceptual framework for organizing the knowledge that guides such work. To accommodate the sources of information contributing to this knowledge base, a conceptual framework that informs clinical practice is presented. The framework posits several psychology services, each of which differs in core knowledge and treatment parameters. Implications for training are offered to guide psychologists who contemplate or begin careers in correctional facilities as well as educators and supervisors in training and internship programs who attempt to prepare students for roles as correctional psychologists. (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)     

Review of Conscious and unconscious: Freud's dynamic distinction reconsidered.

Reviews the book, Conscious and unconscious: Freud's dynamic distinction reconsidered by Patricia S. Herzog (see record 1991-97475-000). Patricia Herzog's book is a critical examination of the way in which Freud presented the conscious/unconscious distinction. Herzog is a philosopher, and she provides the careful, analysis of Freudian concepts that good philosophers can, but which is unfortunately often missing from psychoanalysis. Her concerns are not empirical or therapeutic bur conceptual: the consistencies, inconsistencies, and interrelations in the family of Freud's theoretical concepts which has conscious and unconscious as key members. Herzog has provided a scholarly, close-to-the-text treatment of Freud's conscious/unconscious distinction, most surely a central aspect of the theory of psychopathology. But her presentation makes it hard work to grasp and integrate the points, and the reader is left to struggle alone to discover the links between her critique of Freud and themes in modern psychoanalytic or other psychological theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automaticity of cognitive control: Goal priming in response-inhibition paradigms.

Response inhibition is a hallmark of cognitive control. An executive system inhibits responses by activating a stop goal when a stop signal is presented. The authors asked whether the stop goal could be primed by task-irrelevant information in stop-signal and go/no-go paradigms. In Experiment 1, the task-irrelevant primes GO, ###, or STOP were presented in the go stimulus. Go performance was slower for STOP than for ### or GO. This suggests that the stop goal was primed by task-irrelevant information. In Experiment 2, STOP primed the stop goal only in conditions in which the goal was relevant to the task context. In Experiment 3, GO, ###, or STOP were presented as stop signals. Stop performance was slower for GO than for ### or STOP. These findings suggest that task goals can be primed and that response inhibition and executive control can be influenced by automatic processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The death of desire. A study in psychopathology.

Reviews the book, The death of desire. A study in psychopathology by M. Guy Thompson (1985). Thompson has written an amiable book, filled with the spirit of ecumenism. A practising clinical psychologist, his thesis is that desire is the "foundation of the human subject," that it is "located in the heart of the unconscious," that, if once "situated in phenomenology," this unconscious can reveal "the nature of intersubjective relations." Accordingly, pathological phenomena would be attributable to the deadening of this desire—hence, the book's title. Thompson clearly intends a dialogue between phenomenology and psychoanalysis. The result is an attempt at synthesis that takes R. D. Laing on the one hand and Jacques Lacan on the other—two rather strange bedfellows—as his chief sources of inspiration. Taken as a whole, this book's reach outstretches its grasp. It really does not offer a cogent, coherent synthesis of phenomenology and psychoanalysis but seems rather to offer a congenial amalgam of the many insights experienced by a highly intelligent, versatile and sensitive man during the long, fecund years of his training. As such it is endlessly stimulating, if never quite convincing, and offers singular promise for the future work of its author. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Folk Psychology and Folk Morality: Response to Critics.

The author's studies of the distinction people draw between intentional and unintentional behavior indicate that people's intuitions as to whether or not a behavior was performed intentionally can be influenced by their beliefs about the moral status of the behavior itself. Criticisms of the author's work raise a number of important questions, and, in this paper, the author hopes to show that the technical insights of his critics actually bear on issues of quite broad importance that go beyond the concept of intentional action specifically. Along the way, the author points to a number of unsolved problems. He presents some preliminary ideas about how to address a few of these problems, but others are more elusive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reuniting the psychic couple in analytic training and practice: A candidate's experience.

In the course of training at a comparative psychoanalytic institute, the author fixed upon a technical question: how to find optimal psychological distance from her patients. She struggled to integrate the diverse perspectives that the literature provided on this question. She also became aware of a conflictual phantasy of a polarizing internal mother and father that underlay her interest in the question. A dream about her work with a control patient eventually allowed her, with the aid of both supervisor and personal analyst, to work through the phantasy, and to bring her internal "psychic couple" into creative contact with one another. As a result, her capacity to analyze her patient increased. The author concludes that when supervisors and seminar leaders (in addition to the candidate's analyst) make themselves available to unconscious aspects of a candidate's learning process, institutes provide a more spacious container for psychoanalytic development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)