The Boulder model's fatal flaw.

The author argues that the Boulder model contained a fatal flaw that has distorted and damaged the development of clinical psychology ever since. It is suggested that the uncritical acceptance of the medical model, the organic explanation of mental disorders, with psychiatric hegemony, medical concepts, and language was the fatal flaw. The author contends that after World War II, psychologists were needed to provide psychiatric services for the vast number of veterans needing interventions for mental and emotional disorders. He maintains that by placing psychology graduate students in psychiatric settings for training and service, psychologists lost their students to the invalid, ideological tattered, often incompetent psychiatric worldview. In addition, the author suggests that there are major political differences between a medical/organic/brain-defect model to explain mental disorders and a social-learning, stress-related model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impossibility of achieving consistently good mental health.

Rational-emotive therapy (RET) hypothesizes that people largely disturb themselves by thinking in a self-defeating, illogical, and unrealistic manner—especially by escalating their rational preferences and desires into absolutistic, dogmatic musts and commands on themselves, others, and their environmental conditions. This article extends the RET concept of irrational beliefs (iBs) presumably leading to emotional and behavioral problems and shows how some kinds of iBs are blatant and obvious whereas others are subtle and tricky. It hypothesizes that the latter kind, along with other modes of unperceptive, rigid, pollyannaish, and circular thinking, make people more disturbed and less likely to acknowledge and surrender their disturbances than do the former kind. Because of the biological tendency of humans to think irrationally and because of the pandemic incidence of subtle and tricky (as well as obvious and blatant) iBs, it is theorized that even when helped by the most efficient forms of psychotherapy, contemporary humans still find it virtually impossible to consistently achieve and maintain good mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between advanced age and mental abilities.

Scores on primary mental abilities, speed, memory, and motor rigidity were obtained from 50 college graduates ranging in age from 70 to 84 years. A cross sectional study demonstrates a differential decline in these abilities with advancing age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validating the confluence model.

Some studies that claimed to have tested the confluence model concluded the model invalid and the data unreliable. The present paper shows these "tests" to be inappropriate because, among other things, they substitute simple linear regression equations for quite different nonlinear equations of the confluence model. The disparity between the amount of variance accounted for when aggregate and individual data are compared is explained by the failure to consider parental intellectual levels when individual data are analyzed. A review of empirical evidence on the effects of family configuration factors on intellectual performance scores reveals a consistent pattern of results supporting the assumptions and predictions of the confluence model. With one exception, all studies show performance scores to decline with family size for sibships larger than one. The pattern of these effects remains the same even when SES is held constant. As predicted by the confluence model, birth order effects are found to be age dependent, with children younger than 13 yrs showing no birth order effects. Older children's intellectual performance scores are found to be influenced negatively by birth order. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On mental multiplication and age.

In 2 experiments, younger and older adults were presented with simple multiplication problems (e.g., 4?×?7?=?28 and 5?×?3?=?10) for their timed, true or false judgments. All of the effects typically obtained in basic research on mental arithmetic were obtained, that is, reaction time (RT) (1) increased with the size of the problem, (2) was slowed for answers deviating only a small amount from the correct value, and (3) was slowed when related (e.g., 7?×?4?=?21) vs unrelated (e.g., 7?×?4?=?18) answers were presented. Older adults were slower in their judgments. Most important, age did not interact significantly with problem size or split size. The authors suggest that elderly adults' central processes, such as memory retrieval and decision making, did not demonstrate the typical age deficit because of the skilled nature of these processes in simple arithmetic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical versus actuarial predictions of violence in patients with mental illnesses.

This study compared the accuracy of an actuarial procedure for the prediction of community violence by patients with mental illnesses with the accuracy of clinicians' ratings of concern about patients' violence. Data came from a study in which patients were followed in the community for 6 mo after having been seen in a psychiatric emergency room. Accuracy of actuarial prediction was estimated retrospectively, with a statistical correction for capitalization on chance. Actuarial prediction had lower rates of false-positive and false-negative errors than clinical prediction. The seriousness of the violence correctly identified by the actuarial predictor (the true positives) was similar to the seriousness identified by clinicians. Actuarial predictions based only on patients' histories of violence were more accurate than clinical predictions, as were actuarial predictions that did not use information about histories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The coming of creative confluence in therapeutic practice.

In recent decades we have witnessed a broad convergence among therapeutic schools toward a common concern with human meaning. This concern first centered on individual subjectivity, but more recently shifted to meaning within relationship. At the same time, this latter move, often identified as social constructionist, questions the possibility of rational or empirical foundations for practice. With this shift in emphasis toward pluralism and collaboration, the door opened to a broader array of therapeutic possibilities. In a first wave are therapies expanded to include political, spiritual, and bodily concerns. However, the ultimate direction is toward creative confluence, in which therapists draw from multiple domains of cultural life to create unique combinations of treatment activity. While holding enormous promise, such a condition may also be perilous to the profession. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in memory for prose: The question of sensitivity to passage structure.

The hypothesis that older adults remember prose less well than young adults because they are less sensitive to the structure of prose passages was investigated in three experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, older adults (aged 54–85) recalled less information than younger ones (aged 20–36) from stories having various structures, but there was no evidence that older people were insensitive to story structure. The pattern of recall of information high and low in the story structure was similar for young and old for each story examined. Experiment 3 extended the findings to recall of full-length essays and their summaries. These results suggest that the old are as sensitive to passage structure as the young. In addition, comparisons across the three experiments suggest that other frequently invoked explanations of age deficits in prose recall, such as individual differences in verbal ability and the nature of the materials used, cannot explain our results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"The relationship between advanced age and mental abilities": Erratum.

Reports an error in the original article by Charles R. Strother, K. Warner Schaie, and Paul Horst (Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology, 1957[Sept], 55, 166-170. The cuts for Figs. 1 and 3 were erroneously transposed in printing. The graph labelled Fig. 1 is derived from the data shown in Table 4 and represents the corrected T-score values. The graph labelled Fig. 3 is derived from the data in Table 1 and shows the uncorrected values. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1959-03294-001). Scores on primary mental abilities, speed, memory, and motor rigidity were obtained from 50 college graduates ranging in age from 70 to 84 years. A cross sectional study demonstrates a differential decline in these abilities with advancing age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reestimating Zajonc's confluence effects on the SAT.

In response to the article by R. B. Zajonc (see record 1987-02628-001) on the confluence model and prediction of national Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, the present authors reestimate Zajonc's model using their estimates of proportion of high school seniors taking the SAT. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recall in normals and subnormals of like mental age.

Normal children and young adult imbeciles were matched for mental age and were given sets of 6 pairs of words to learn by association. The words were recorded on tape, and presented to subgroups at a sound intensity of 90 db. or 55 db. Each subgroup was further subdivided—? the Ss being given 10 and ? given 20 repetitions. 1 minute, 2 days, and 1 month later they heard the stimulus word of each pair and were asked to give the appropriate response word. It was shown that there was no difference in learning or memory scores between normals and imbeciles. Frequency of presentation affected immediate recall scores of both groups, with intensity level contributing to a lesser degree. Memory over longer time intervals was determined by the amount initially learned, rather than by the conditions under which such learning had occurred. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of model's race and sex on interviewees' self-disclosure.

Assigned 48 White college students, 24 of each sex, to 1 of 8 modeling conditions, which varied for model's race (Black or White), sex, and length of disclosure (20 or 60 sec). Ss were exposed to a videotape of a model who disclosed on 10 topics (half favorable and half unfavorable); then they responded to the same 10 topics. Ss' depth of disclosure, speech duration, and number of self-references were not related to model's race, length of disclosure, or to their scores on the Self-Disclosure Questionnaire. However, Ss disclosed at greater depths and for longer durations after observing models of the same sex. Significant negative correlations were found between self-disclosure scores and the Ss' ratings of the importance of a counselor's sex, age, and socioeconomic status for the counseling process. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The God question in psychoanalysis.

This essay addresses certain complexities of dealing with the God-concept in psychoanalytic terms. Preanalytic philosophical and theological parallels to understanding the existence and nature of God find their echoes in psychoanalytic formulations of the God-concept. Centered on the idea of the God-representation, questions arise concerning the function of this representation as expressing the person's internal psychic reality as opposed to having some reference to a really existing divinity. Tensions in current analytic approaches to this problem are discussed, and suggestions are offered for advancing the potential dialogue in terms of the God-representation as a form of transitional conceptualization. Implications for the therapeutic handling of related issues are also suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The epistemology question in psychology.

That psychologists are debating epistemological questions appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon only if one has no appreciation for the history of the discipline. Whether we evoke the writings of Wundt, Hull, Tolman, or more recent cognitive psychologists, it is impossible to escape the recurrence of certain fundamental questions on the nature of psychological knowledge and the justification of that knowledge. Even Skinner is a remarkably adept epistemologist despite his avowal that theories of learning are not necessary. But psychology has been enthralled for the better part of this century by a caricature of the very science it would become, and, while it has been consistently and severely criticized for this mistake, it has shown itself to be remarkably immune to such criticism. Part of the reluctance to change has stemmed from the lack of a serious indigenous alternative to the hackneyed version of logical empiricism and its operationist credo that have held sway over the discipline for the better part of its life. The papers included in the present issue of Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne are a small wedge into the broader conversation concerning what it means to have psychological knowledge. Each of these was part of a symposium presented at the Canadian Psychological Association Meetings in Montreal in 1988 by the Section on the History and Philosphy of Psychology. Each of the four papers argues (a) against the status quo of the shop-worn operationism and its attendant claims which pass for epistemology in psychology, and (b) for a renewed emphasis of either some one form of realism or constructionism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the confluence model of intellectual development.

Longitudinal data from 53,000 children on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (collected at age 4 yrs), the WISC, and the Wide Range Achievement Test (collected at age 7 yrs) were used to test 5 confluence model hypotheses (R. B. Zajonc; 1975, 1976, 1979). Results failed to confirm the importance of birth interval as a determinant of intellectual development. Alternative interpretations, involving social class effects and prenatal care, are suggested. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The question of lay analysis reconsidered.

Theodor Reik was central to the struggle for the legitimization of nonmedical or lay analysis both in Europe and the United States. This paper deals with the book Freud wrote in defense of Reik, The Question of Lay Analysis, and places it within its historical context. It then discusses the resistance to lay analysis by the New York Psychoanalytic Society and speculates on some of the reasons for this opposition. Finally, it discusses the state of nonmedical analysis today and a perspective for the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The transtheoretical model's stages and processes of change and their relation to premature termination.

This study explored the issue of premature termination by using the client readiness variables reflected in the stages of change and processes of change proposed in J. O. Prochaska and C. C. DiClemente's (1982) transtheoretical model. This study used these variables in an attempt to distinguish between premature and nonpremature terminators in a college counseling center. Results indicated that the 2 termination groups were distinguishable on stages and processes of change, though some results were not predicted by the transtheoretical theory or model. Recommendations are made for future research to identify and predict clients at risk for premature termination and to determine how to avert such termination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Now is the time for all good mental cases to come to the aid . . . of the psychologists."

Presents humerous excerpts from Washington columnists on the Congressional hearings into psychological testing and personnel selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)