Some glimpses of Soviet psychology.

"Our major purpose was to see psychology at work in a variety of experimental laboratories at institutes, universities, and hospitals and, through conferences with Soviet psychologists, to learn as much as possible about their spheres of scientific interest, their aims, problems, theories, instruments, and techniques." Major subtopics are: How Psychological Research is Organized; Basic Tenets of Soviet Psychologists; Some Examples of Current Investigations (Experimental Studies of Higher Nervous Processes; Studies of Voluntary Activity, Work Operations, Productivity; Studies of Higher Mental Processes). "Wherever we went we found dedicated Soviet psychologists fully set to tell us about what they had last done, were then doing, and were planning to do next. They were more intent on reporting their performances in research than in debating their theories and hypotheses." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Of models and men.

"Although already too complicated for the average psychologist to handle… [theories of learning] are not yet adequate to account for the behavior of a rodent on a runway." A mathematical model is proposed and considered in terms of certain empirical data. Game theory is also considered. A mathematical model emerges which then has a guiding role in the planning and interpretation of further experiments. Correspondences between properties of the model and properties of human behavior are sought as both model and man are "confronted with a series of increasingly novel and complex learning situations." The writer has "found that the steepest obstacle to theory construction in psychology is not the complexity of behavior." Rather it is a combination of centuries of prescientific stereotypes and "the pronouncements of the academicians who have always known in advance, apparently by divine inspiration, exactly what kind of theory is possible and proper for psychology." Experimental subjects will indicate through their behavior to what kind of theory psychology is entitled. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-psychology as psychology: The revision of Heinz Kohut.

Our contemporary period is marked by what Wallerstein (1982, p. 9) has called "the great metapsychological debate." That is, many of the changes shown today strike at the very heart of psychoanalysis, through a questioning and reformulation of many of its basic assumptions,through creative re-readings, or in some cases transformations in what was thought to be the very essence of analytic work. However diverse these new directions may be from one another, they appear united in one respect: to unhinge psychoanalysis from its classical approach, and provide alternative metapsychological visions more faithful to human psychological life, as that transpires in the theatre of psychoanalytic practice. All this brings us to the new "Self Psychology" of Heinz Kohut. Perhaps more than any other contemporary development, Self Psychology has had the most powerful impact on the previously institutionalized orientations within the psychoanalytic community. Kuhn (1962) has taught us that following a revolution in scientific paradigms, old data are seen in a new light and new discoveries, are included within that vision. In short, the world changes for the scientist after major revolutions in a given discipline. Accordingly, in what follows, I want to take you into Kohut's altered vision of psychoanalysis, with a particular emphasis on his novel discoveries, and the role these played in his revisioning of the clinical relationship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907-1988).

Obituary for Nikolaas Tinbergen, 1907-1988. Niko Tinbergen, a masterful student of conflict in animals, was himself in conflict between a life spent following his hobby of watching animals and a genuine concern that what he did should be for the betterment of humanity. He managed both. His natural inclinations to observe and study animals in the field led to Tinbergen's co-founding, with Konrad Lorenz, of the discipline of ethology. This science of the naturally occurring behavior of animals, developed by zoologists, has important implications for understanding of human behavior in general and in psychology in particular. Nikolaas Tinbergen altered the course of biology and psychology through his insistence that the animal and its behavior be viewed in their natural context. He emphasized careful observation and the clear formulation of questions. He refined experimental methods and applied them under conditions in which laboratory control was impossible. A true sense of aesthetics led him to love the beauty of animals and nature in general. Tinbergen was a masterful photographer. He believed that among the highest activities of the human organism was the use of the human brain in analyzing and understanding the nature of the world around us. To that enterprise he dedicated his life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

[Review of Who shall survive? Foundations of sociometry, group psychotherapy and sociodrama and Group dynamics: Research and theory].

Reviews the books, Who shall survive? Foundations of sociometry, group psychotherapy and sociodrama (Rev. Ed.) by J. L. Moreno (1953); and Group dynamics: Research and theory Edited by Dorwin Cartwright and Alvin Zander (1953). In the Foreword to his book, Personality: a Biosocial Approach to Origins and Structure, Gardner Murphy described the volume as somewhat like "an explorer's kit, containing, to be sure, some standard tools, and also some maps. Some of the maps are sober, some eccentric, no doubt; but all are drawn in the belief that any map of a far country encourages more travel than an architect's finished representation of the doorway as it is here and now" (p. x). Imbued with this philosophy, the present reviewer welcomes the appearance of the revised edition of Who Shall Survive? and of Group Dynamics. Each is an important volume which has much to contribute to improving our understanding of the social nature of man and the nature of man's social behavior. To those of us searching for a "world" view in the field of social psychology, the special projections of the cartography of these volumes must be properly identified before the maps can be redrawn and integrated. Moreno offers us a complete theoretical globe. "Sociometry cuts through all social sciences as it deals with social phenomena at a deep level where they merge or more precisely before they 'e'merge into 'psychological', 'sociological', 'anthropological', or 'economic' phenomena" (p. 54). Cartwright and Zander, on the other hand, offer us half a dozen illustrations of the cartographer's art without too clear an indication of how they are interrelated, what the contiguous areas may be like, on what basis they were chosen--but each does depict a large and rich terrain, and the maps are beautiful. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is behavior analysis contextualistic?

Comments on an article by Crabb (1988) found in a recent issue of this journal, which discussed the "curious case" of behavior analysis as a contextualistic system. His informed and thoughtful article considered three central issues: units of analysis, methods, and theories of knowledge. For each, Crabb noted similarities, but also raised what appeared to be inconsistencies between behavior analysis and contextualism. Crabb demonstrated an unusual degree of understanding of behavior analysis. Nevertheless, we will argue that most of the inconsistencies identified by Crabb were resolvable and when resolved reveal behavior analysis to be a contextualistic system in Pepper's sense of the term (1942). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Niko Tinbergen.

Niko Tinbergen is recognized for his achievements in psychology. This article provides a citation explaining his accomplishments, a biography and a selected bibliography. The citation is as follows: "For pioneering research on the behavior of animals, with profound implications for understanding the roots of human behavior and its development. His studies of social behavior led to fundamental insights concerning the evolutionary relationships between behavior and the ecology of animals. The orderly regularities discovered in the complex behavior of animals as occurring in natural environments, rather than the laboratory, led to the launching of the new discipline of ethology, for which, with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology of Medicine in 1973." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depending on Character: ASCE Shapes Its First Code of Ethics

From the founding of the ASCE in 1852 through today, engineers have relied not only on their individual reputations, but also on the character of the entire discipline. The value of ethical behavior to individual engineers and to the profession leads us to assume that codes of ethics should exist, that they should shape engineers’ behavior, and that they should be enforced. Yet for the first 60 years of their society’s existence, ASCE members repeatedly rejected proposals that the society adopt a formal code of ethics to define appropriate behavior for ASCE members. Furthermore, the code the society eventually did adopt in 1914 was accepted reluctantly, amid strong concern that it would unduly restrict an engineer’s behavior and practice. The first ASCE code was intended, in effect, not so much as a collection of rules, but as a declaration of engineers’ independence from such rules. This paper explores the origins of the ASCE’s first code of ethics to provide a historical backdrop for contemporary discussions about what it means to be an ethical engineer and what role professional societies should play in establishing, encouraging, and enforcing ethical standards.     

A new vision of personality...and of personality theory: Reply.

Replies to comments by Maddi (see record 2006-05893-007) on "A Tale of Two Visions: Can a New View of Personality Help Integrate Psychology?" (see record 2005-05480-001). In the original article, the current author proposed a new fieldwide framework for the discipline of personality psychology; in essence, it is a new outline to organize contemporary theory and research in the field. Maddi raised two interrelated objections to that proposed framework. First, he believes that there is a better way to organize the discipline of personality psychology than the one the current author proposed. His method involves comparing and analyzing the grand theories of personality and using the results of his analyses to guide research in the discipline. Maddi's (1968) meta-theory usefully organizes the statements of the grand theories of the early-to-mid-20th century, but the current author is not sure it is sufficient to organize the field. Second, he was concerned that the current author wants to de-emphasize the grand theories of the field. Maddi (2006) believes that disagreements among the grand theories are a fruitful source of research ideas. Although that may be true, there is more to personality psychology than the grand theories alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phyletic differences in learning.

It was hypothesized for many years that "the laws of learning were the same everywhere in the animal series… . It is difficult for the nonspecialist to appreciate quite how restricted has been the range of animals studied in experiments on animal learning because the restriction is so marked." Selected animal research is reviewed and a table is presented indicating behavior of a variety of animals in 4 classes of problem, (spatial reversal, spatial probability, visual reversal and visual probability) which differentiate rat and fish. Animals specified in the table are monkey, rat, pigeon, turtle, decorticated rat, fish, cockroach, and earthworm. Behavior of each kind of animal is evaluated in terms of its similarity to the behavior of 1 or the other of these 2 reference animals (rat and fish). This serves "as a summary of results already obtained" and "as a guide to further research." Systematic parametric variation is still of significance in comparative research; but "the table will save us some parametric effort in certain regions." An expanded table of this sort "will provide some useful clues to the evolution of intelligence and its relation to the evolution of the brain." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perspective: Arnheim and In-Between Solutions.

Arnheim wrote extensively about perspective and percepts that were "in between" correct perception of objects and projected shapes. We apply Arnheim's views to a Renaissance piazza of square tiles. We show the kind of formalization to which the analysis leads and give a formula applicable to a perspective picture as an example. We argue that Arnheim was answering the Gestalt phenomenological question "why the world looks as it does" with comments that, happily, are also a solution to the Realist question "how perception lets us know about the world." Like Renaissance writers, Arnheim recognized that perspective had strict limits. Both the Gestalt and the Realist perception theories give accounts of the effects of perspective and both argue perspective constancy is widespread in perception, but Arnheim is correct that it operates within strict limits. We conclude that perception uses an approximation to perspective. The approximation is close under many circumstances but it produces what Arnheim called "in-between" percepts (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reply to Professor Bechtoldt's critique.

Presents a reply regarding Bechtoldt's critique (see record 1960-06754-001) of the article by Haggard et al. (see record 1960-00131-001). True, many of the comments in his section on "Factor Analytic Techniques" are interesting and informative--and generally corrective--but they are also essentially irrelevant to our paper and its purpose. There is clear difference of opinion as to whether, when, or what factor analytic techniques should be used in particular cases. Some of Bechtoldt's remarks in his sections entitled "Direct Correlation Methods'and "Concluding Remarks" call for more specific comment, primarily because I think he misses the point from time to time. Bechtoldt has us on the ropes when he cites the statement "with the procedures discussed thus far, it is not possible to form groups around such a priori profiles." We should have said "not practicable" (instead of using the too strong term "not possible") to indicate that, for the majority of research workers, these procedures are not possible from a practical point of view. In his concluding paragraph, he appears to chide us (following his phrase "other technically questionable discussions") for possibly suggesting "the testing of statistical hypotheses using sets of related observations." We took pains to observe that, although multivariate data can be analyzed properly only by the appropriate multivariate statistical techniques, approximate produres for pattern analytic studies are available which utilize most of the information in the data without violating certain important statistical assumptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety level of schizophrenic and control patients and their parents.

Rated 24 good and 24 poor male schizophrenic patients, 24 nonschizophrenic male psychiatric patients, and the parents of each for anxiety prior to and during a difficult family interaction. 2 techniques to measure anxiety on the basis of speech were employed. Some results, such as that the poor schizophrenics were the most anxious of the patients, are consistent with general beliefs and prior research. However, most results present a picture of the schizophrenic patient and his parents that is dramatically different from what most theories and research suggest. Parents did not appear to be upsetting to the patient, even when their behavior was very noxious. If the family plays a role in schizophrenia, findings suggest this role is quite different from what is widely believed. (33 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frequent allelic loss at 7p14-15 associated with aggressive histologic types of breast cancer

Cats were initially trained to make operant conditioned food responses to light by an "active selection of reinforcement" method. Provision of low-quality (a mixture of meat and bread) or high-quality (meat) reinforcement depended on the animal pressing a pedal in response to switching on a light with a short (1 sec) or long (10 sec) delay. Some animals responded to long delays--group I, animals with "self control," while others responded with short delays--group II, "impulsive" animals. Implanted semimicroelectrodes were used in chronic experiments to record multineuron activity in the basolateral amygdala. Cross-correlation analysis was used to study interneuron interactions in the spike discharges of individual neurons, extracted from multineuron activity. The numbers of interneuron interactions were significantly higher in "impulsive" cats of group II in all behavioral situations than in animals with "self control," and were dominated in "impulsive" animals by the shortest connections, with latencies of 0-30 msec. The largest numbers of connections in both groups were seen on omission of the conditioned pedal-pressing movement response, i.e., when the reinforcement selection task was more difficult. These data indicate that the basolateral amygdala should be regarded as a structure determining the individual typological characteristics of the animals' behavior.     

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)     

Psychology and women’s studies: Epistemological dilemma or opportunity?

Women used to be relegated to the periphery in psychology: most of us were not really heard as primary members of our discipline. Moreover, fundamental concepts and methods were developed by men about men, and applied to women only as an afterthought and without due process. Recently, more women are speaking straightforwardly from their experiences and are beginning to be heard with increasing respect, though change is slow. Concurrently, Women's Studies is coming to its own as an academic discipline. Now it is paradoxical that as women psychologists, many of us find ourselves with one foot in each of two different worlds—one in psychology and the other in women's studies. As I reflect on what it must have been like for women many years ago in psychology and on how that experience has (and has not) changed in my generation, I am coming to appreciate the intellectual challenge which I face. In this essay I discuss several epistemological and methodological issues in Women's Studies which are relevant to psychology in an attempt to bring both of my feet closer together. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual fantasy.

This article reviews the research literature on sexual fantasy, a central aspect of human sexual behavior. Topics include (a) gender similarities and differences in the incidence, frequency, and content of sexual fantasies and how they relate to sociocultural and sociobiological theories of sexual behavior; (b) the association between frequency or content of sexual fantasies and variables such as age, sexual adjustment and satisfaction, guilt, sexual orientation, personality, and sexual experience; and (c) "deviant" sexual fantasies (i.e., what they are, whether they play a role in the commission of sexual crimes, and whether they can be modified). The article ends with a summary of major findings and suggestions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dark side of nursing: impact of stigmatizing responses on patients

The current emphasis in nursing is on caring, what it involves and why it is the profession's responsibility. This article focuses on the opposite behaviors--the "dark side of nursing" (Jameton, 1992). By developing a fuller understanding of nurse behaviors labeled the "dark side of nursing," the profession can better comprehend what caring involves and develop innovative ways to reduce dark-side behaviors. Although marginalizing, labeling and stereotyping, and stigmatizing are related, the focus will be on stigmatizing responses to patients. A number of investigators document nurse stereotyping of suicidal patients, persons with AIDS, racial/ethnic groups, and sex offenders and the impact on patients. Social psychological theories on stereotyping and deviant behavior provide some explanation for the nurse's behavior. The organizational perspective, however, has not been employed to enhance our understanding of nor to eliminate this phenomenon. Combining an organizational perspective with the social psychological theory of negative stereotyping (stigmatizing) and philosophical theory involving ethics provides a more comprehensive theory for understanding the "dark side of nursing" and designing interventions to reduce the occurrence of this damaging behavior.