Depressive affect: A test of behavioral hypotheses. Reply to Buchwald.

In reply to Buchwald's (see record 1978-21210-001) critique of Wener and Rehm (see record 1975-25511-001), it is argued that the alternative hypotheses he offers are not compelling and the artifact he identifies is not of sufficient magnitude to have been solely responsible for the results of the reanalysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychiatric will: Odysseus at the mast.

Comments on T. S. Szasz's (see record 1983-05532-001) proposal for a psychiatric will, a mechanism that would allow individuals to plan how they wish their mental health needs dealt with in the future. While the author notes that he has previously endorsed the idea of such wills, he argues that Szasz overstates the case when he states that these wills will allow people to be protected from coercive psychiatry. Philosophical and practical problems with the psychiatric will are also noted. (2 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reply to Carman.

Comments on the article by Philip M. Carman (see record 1990-55857-001), in which he discussed the work of professional psychologists. The current author suggests that he was somewhat surprised to note that Carman overlooked diagnostic (or "psychodiagnostic") testing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"The psychology of life after death": Reply.

Responds to I. Stevenson's (1981) criticism of the author's (see record 1981-25195-001) discussion of life after death. The author argues that he does not consider himself an expert on survival of the human personality after death and he defends his choice of reference materials. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Clinical psychology in other lands": Correction and Thanks.

Reports two inaccuracies in the paper by Henry P. David, Clinical psychology in other lands. In D. Brower & L. E. Abt (Eds.), Progress in clinical psychology. Vol. III. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1958; (see record 1959-08255-000), which mentions the article by R. Zajonc (see record 1959-02442-001) concerning psychology in Poland. In this correction, Choynowski affirms that he is head, not of the Psychology Section of the Polish Academy of Sciences (which does not exist), but of the Psychometrical Laboratory of this academy to which belong many research institutes. Secondly, he states that the academy also does not envisage a subsection on clinical psychology. He notes that he is afraid that David got these facts from him, but then it is another example of unfortunate semantical misunderstanding in international communication. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validity and Meaning: Comment.

Comments on an article by Robert L. Ebel (see record 1962-05654-001). This article discusses basic problems in psychological testing and measurement, and as such the author touches upon basic problems of scientific psychology as well. According to the commentator the problems the author raises are very well taken. For a while it seems that he will come up with what points to a solution but some reflection shows that although he approached the "truth," he failed to reach it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anger, Frustration, and Aversiveness.

Comments on the literature review by Berkowitz and Harmon-Jones (see record 2004-15096-001) that evaluates leading theories of anger for which they offer their own theory of aggression as an integration. The current author suggests that their theory leads to a number of empirical questions, which he examines, and he suggests that individual differences should also be considered in formulating theories of aggression. (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)     

Casting stones: A reply to Humphreys.

Contends that the critique by L. G. Humphreys (see record 1982-24859-001) of the present author's (see record 1981-06882-001) article is vitiated by the facts that (a) the article he criticizes was an invited position paper and not an original presentation of data, so that detailed statistical testing would have been inappropriate to the purpose of the article; (b) Humphreys commits in his reply some of the "misdeeds" of which he accuses the present author; (c) contrary to Humphrey's assertion, the number of cases in the 3 nonentrenchment experiments (74) is more than adequate for drawing conclusions of the sort made; and (d) Humphreys misinterprets his own z tests. (2 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavior Therapy.

Comments on the article Payment or Repayment? The Problem of Private Practice written by O.H. Mowrer (see record 1964-03438-001.) The current author discusses Mowrer's methods of behavior therapy and states that he makes unsubstantiated claims regarding the effectiveness of behavioristic behavior therapy. The author argues that until Mowrer can produce something more specific he should retire his theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

McConnell and the media: Is publicity worth scaring the public?

Replies to W. J. McKeachie's (see record 84-24394) comments on M. Rilling's (see record 83-32142) statement on J. McConnell and agrees that McConnell was not malevolent. Rilling states that McConnell deserves to be remembered as a great psychologist because of the publicity he generated for the profession. However, he was willing to use scare tactics in the media to draw the attention of the public to his ideas. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cattell replies to Becker's "comments."

A reply to comments made by Becker (see record 1962-03097-001) regarding R. B. Cattel's original article (see record 1962-03095-001). The positive conceptual and experimental contributions of my paper appearing since his comments, he either misses or ignores, since they show: (a) that it was impossible for him to reach any intelligible conclusion on the theory without recognizing and developing the necessary corrections for attenuation and perturbation, and (b) that the facts which he says I must and do recognize are those chosen by Becker from experiments with older techniques. Science moves on, and the new facts which I present from technically more advanced designs show that the same factor simultaneously loads on the hypothesized markers for both the rating and the questionnaire factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Self and object in the postmodern world": Response to Gene Bocknek’s letter.

Responds to Gene Bocknek's comments (see record 2009-17405-001) on the author's original article "Self and object in the postmodern world" (see record 1997-04589-001). While acknowledging Bocknek's comments in regard to his original article, the author maintains the position that he cannot find any disagreement between their viewpoints on the features of ego and the self. However, he does acknowledge that there is real disagreement between them on the subject of the intrapsychic versus interpersonal school or the ongoing discussion as to whether psychotherapy concerns a one-person or a two-person psychology. After restating his position on this matter, the author concludes by extending his appreciation to Bocknek for his comments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing in State Hospitals: Reply.

Replies to a comment made by James E. Woods (see record 2005-11050-002) regarding an original comment made by the author on the issue of testing in state hospitals. The author states that he agrees with Woods on many of the issues he presented in his comment and feels that he did not make his position clear or that Woods failed to detect his views. In summary, Hauck believes the evidence against the use of tests is not so convincing that testing should be foregone; and, until something better comes along, it is foolish to discard it, imperfections and all. He realizes his survey took for granted that such evidence does not exist and because tests remain there must be a firmer policy regarding their assumptions and how these assumptions are handled administratively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stages in human mental growth.

R. B. McCall's (see record 1988-32308-001) article in this journal criticizing some of H. T. Epstein's (e.g., 1978) studies of brain and mind growth is shown to suffer from 2 main flaws. First, he was not aware of the need for analysis in terms of concurrences among studies rather than standard statistical analyses of individual studies. Second, he did not use increment spans appropriate for the data. He also wrongly claimed that Epstein advocated changes in educational policies and practices without caveats that carefully labeled these as suggestions for working hypotheses to be tested in the schools. Finally, his criticisms of the brain growth stages had already been invalidated in a 1986 article by Epstein which he did not cite. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Objectivity revisited.

Contends that G. M. Alliger and P. J. Hanges's (see record 1985-02739-001) assertion that Paradigm I scientists acknowledge their personal inability to make completely value-free observations has no bearing on the present author's (see record 1983-20002-001) argument. Their attempt to characterize the objectivity of science fails to distinguish it from numerous other social enterprises, such as theology and baseball. G. Nettler (see record 1985-02742-001) misses the structure of the present author's argument and supposes that he subscribes to views that he has cited only to refute. The author's basic claim is misrepresented in both these critiques. It is not suggested that one should prefer subjectivity to objectivity but that the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is incoherent. Contrary to Nettler's suggestion, the abandonment of the subject–object distinction does not commit one to the view that experience is chaotic. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

More on the identity-equivalence sequence: An update and some replies to Miller.

Responds to S. A. Miller's criticism of the present authors' study on identity and equivalence conservation (see record 1975-31383-001). It is suggested that Miller's criticism is in error as he attempts to propose theoretical explanations for the task, criterion–task, and age–task effects he attacks, thereby implying their existence. It is concluded that analysis has shown, in most studies, these effects to be in the medium-to-large range. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comments on Henry Friedman's (2002) review of Arnold Goldberg's Being of Two Minds.

This commentary is a response to a review by H. Friedman (see record 2002-08457-006) of Arnold Goldberg's (2000) book Being of Two Minds: The Vertical Split in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (see record 1999-02973-000). The writer argues against Friedman's contention that Goldberg is judgmental and not empathic toward his misbehaving patients, that he does not appreciate the importance of his own subjectivity as context for the patient's splitting, and that he is authoritarian regarding both the need and direction of change in requiring the patient give up the misbehavior. Last, Friedman erroneously criticizes Goldberg for assuming all marital infidelity is misbehavior, whereas Goldberg clearly makes the distinction between the larger category of bad behavior and actions specified as behavior disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do our psychological laws apply only to Americans?

Comments on an article by J. J. Arnett (see record 2008-14338-003) regarding the assertion that American psychology focuses too narrowly on Americans while neglecting the other 95% of the world’s population. The authors challenge Arnett's methodology in his research and question the ways in which he drew his conclusions. They claim that a major weakness of Arnett’s argumentation is that he failed to distinguish between research that tests general laws of behavior and research aimed at describing the impact of societal factors on behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)