Theoretical orientation and psychotherapy integration: Comment on Poznanski and McLennan (1995).

J. J. Poznanski and J. McLennan (see record 1996-07039-001) have made a strong contribution to our understanding of theoretical orientation. This comment considers their discussion and proposals for measurement of theoretical orientation in light of recent interest in psychotherapy integration. Suggestions are made to allow better assessment of the orientation of counselors who espouse integrative theories or technical eclecticism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Afterthoughts on counselor theoretical orientation: Reply to Arnkoff (1995) and Gelso (1995).

C. J. Gelso's (see record 1996-07032-001) and D. B. Arnkoff's (see record 1996-07029-001) responses to our review of past research into conceptualizing and measuring counselors' theoretical orientation (J. J. Poznanski & J. McLennan, see record 1996-07039-001) suggest that further conceptual analysis and empirical exploration is required. Counselor theoretical orientation should be seen as multifaceted and incorporating four elements: Theoretical School Affiliation, Espoused Theory, Inferred Theory in Action, and the superordinate component Personal Therapeutic Belief System. Implications for measuring theoretical orientation are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attachment perspectives on the counseling relationship: Comment on Mallinckrodt, Gantt, and Coble (1995).

B. Mallinckrodt, D. L. Gantt, and H. M. Coble (see record 1995-42468-001) highlight the role of attachment theory for explaining critical elements of the client–counseling relationship and the counseling process. The use of the Client Attachment to Therapist Scale as a typological vs continuous measure and the relationship between attachment style and therapeutic relationship constructs are discussed. A cautionary note on the internal validity of this scale is raised before underscoring the rich research possibilities gained by it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Jamesian model of self-investment and self-esteem: Comment on Pelham (1995).

B. W. Pelham (see record 1996-14327-001) proposed new perspectives for a weighted-average model of esteem based on W. James (1890) and responded to my (H. W. Marsh, 1993b) critique of B. W. Pelham and W. B. Swann (1989). In this Jamesian perspective, the effect of a specific self-view on global esteem is moderated by the importance an individual places on the self-view. For example, if one judges musical skills to be unimportant, then one's self-evaluation of musical skill should have little effect on one's self-esteem. The intuitive appeal of this Jamesian perspective is so compelling that it has been widely accepted for over 100 years despite a dearth of supportive research. B. W. Pelham and I seem to agree that support is weaker than previously assumed and limited primarily to specific traits and, perhaps, specific subgroups of individuals. This continuing dialogue offers new theoretical insights and methodological advances for this central issue in self-concept research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How to improve Bayesian reasoning: Comment on Gigerenzer and Hoffrage (1995).

G. Gigerenzer and U. Hoffrage (1995) claimed that Bayesian inference problems, which have been notoriously difficult for laypeople to solve using base rates, hit rates, and false-alarm rates, become computationally simpler when information is presented with frequencies based on natural sampling. They made an evolutionary argument for the improved performance. The authors of the present article show that performance can improve with either probabilities or frequencies, depending on the rareness of the events and the type of information presented. When events are rare, probabilities are more difficult to understand than frequencies (i.e., 5 out of 1,000 vs. .005.). Furthermore, when the information is presented as joint and marginal events, nested sets become more apparent. Frequencies based on natural sampling have these desirable properties. The authors agree with Gigerenzer and Hoffrage that frequencies can improve Bayesian reasoning, but they attribute that improvement to the use of mental models that involve elements of nested sets. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood is a component of mental context: Comment on Eich (1995).

E. Eich (see record 1995-42800-001) found that partcipants' ratings of the similarity of their feelings at input and test sessions predicted the size of the observed place dependent memory effect and that a mood manipulation affected recall more than did a place manipulation. He concluded that mood dependence is the underlying cause of place dependence (and possibly of drug-state dependent memory). This conclusion assumes that mood states are transsituationally identical and that a mood can cue all associated memories, regardless of how the mood is achieved. An alternative explanation of Eich's results, the mental context hypothesis, views mood, place, mental set, and other factors as components of one's mental context, any of which can serve to cue the representation of mental context at test. In this light, Eich's results can be interpreted as showing that mood is a more reliable determinant than place of one's mental context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

For the love of working on play: Comment on Tinsley and Eldredge (1995).

H. E. A. Tinsley and B. D. Eldredge (see record 1995-27399-001), using sound instrumentation and large samples, developed a need-based taxonomy of leisure activities that enlarges counseling psychology's understanding of both the leisure experience and psychological needs. This study and other studies of psychological needs can benefit from the comparability afforded by a consensus set of higher order need dimensions. This study points up 2 important developments in counseling psychology (and the rest of psychology as well): the use of latent variables to construe "mind" and the use of the questionnaire to instrument introspection. By their sustained study of the leisure experience, Tinsley and his colleagues have helped to add the knowledge of "play" (E. S. Bordin, 1994) to the counseling psychologist's more extensive knowledge of work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The benefits of working hard on leisure: Comment on Tinsley and Eldredge (1995).

The persistent scholarship by Diane and Howard Tinsley represents the premier research program on the psychology of leisure. The article by H. E. A. Tinsley and B. D. Eldredge (see record 1995-27399-001) advances the Tinsleys' work by developing a large-scale taxonomy of leisure activities based on psychological needs. Their empirical and methodological work is exemplary. However, some of the conceptual and theoretical bases for their article are not always as clear or compelling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptualizing and Measuring Personality Vulnerability to Depression: Comment on Coyne and Whiffen (1995).

J. C. Coyne and V. E. Whiffen (1995) reviewed research on personality vulnerability to depression, focusing on S. J. Blatt's (1974, 1990) concepts of dependency and self-criticism and A. T. Beck's (1983) concepts of sociotropy and autonomy. The authors discuss 6 issues raised in that review: (a) the typological or dimensional nature of vulnerability, (b) the theoretical implications of "mixed" vulnerability, (c) the relations of vulnerability to Neuroticism. (d) the potential confounding of vulnerability with concurrent depression, (e) the potential confounding of vulnerability with social context, and (f) the differentiation of dependency from relatedness. The authors conclude that Blatt's and Beck's concepts are continuous, nearly orthogonal dimensions that can be identified and measured independently from Neuroticism, depression, and social context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Linking stress experiences with coping resources and responses: Comment on Catanzaro, Horaney, and Creasey (1995), Long and Schutz (1995), Heppner et al. (1995), and Bowman and Stern (1995).

The articles in the Special Section on Stress and Coping (see PA, Vol 82:43479; 45556; 42425; and 45331) are considered within the historical perspective of research on these topics in psychology. In addition, the potential contributions of cognitive psychology for defining the linking mechanisms between stress and related coping resources and responses are described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attachment categories as reflections of multiple dimensions: Comment on Fraley and Spieker (2003).

Ainsworth's system of classifying patterns of attachment behavior has served the field well and will not be easily displaced--not because of a commitment by attachment researchers to the taxonomic status of these categories but rather because of difficulties lying in the way of a dimensional approach. Foremost among these is the large number of dimensions used in making classifications and the need to develop reliable scales to tap them. Other problems include the need to capture how behavior changes across age and across the episodes of the Strange Situation. Others will debate R. C. Fraley and S. J. Spieker's (2003) arguments concerning taxonomic status. However, whether taxa or not, Ainsworth's categories at the least have represented well the multidimensional space underlying attachment behavior in conditions of mild stress. Only when an alternative approach is demonstrated to predict (with equal power, in practice) the vast range of outcomes associated with Ainsworth's categories will it be a candidate for substitution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive accessibility and sentiment override—starting a evolution: Comment on Fincham et al. (1995).

F. D. Fincham, P. C. Garnier, S. Gano-Phillips, and L. N. Osborne (see record 1995-21088-001) present a methodology new to the marital arena (reaction time assessment) and use it to illuminate a classic issue in the marital area, sentiment override. In doing so, they highlight the potential of this new methodology for enhancing marital assessment and allowing for the rigorous test of theory. However, the promise of this specific methodology and its implications for marital assessment may be less important than the broader research agenda implied. Because Fincham et al utilized an information processing approach developed within the robust tradition of social-cognition research, they open the marital area to a broad array of potential assessment techniques and implicitly invite the field to join them in a profound reconceptualization of the role of cognition in shaping each spouse's response to the other. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interaction between semantic and orthographic factors in conceptually driven naming: Comment on Starreveld and La Heij (1995).

P. A. Starreveld and W. La Heij (see record 1995-42762-001) tested the seriality view of lexical access in speech production, according to which lexical selection and the encoding of a word's form proceed in serial order without feedback. In 2 experiments, they looked at the combined effect of semantic and orthographic relatedness of written distractor words in tasks that required conceptually driven naming. They found an interaction between semantic relatedness and orthographic relatedness and argued that the observed interaction refutes the seriality view of lexical access. In this comment, the authors argue that Starreveld and La Heij's rejection of serial access was based on an oversimplified conception of the seriality view and that interaction, rather than additivity, is predicted by existing conceptions of serial access. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alphabetic search: Comment on Klahr, Chase, and Lovelace (1983).

Response time (RT) curves were obtained from Ss who were instructed to search for following or preceding letters in the alphabet with respect to given stimulus letters. To describe the shape of these curves, D. Klahr et al (see record 1984-05777-001) proposed a search model. It was assumed that the alphabet was internally represented by a number of chunks of a few letters. Klahr et al assumed that serial searches occurred along 2 hierarchical levels: (1) a search for the correct chunk and (2) a search of the letters within the chunk. The Klahr et al model predicted an ascending sawtooth-shaped RT curve. However, according to the authors' analysis of the data, the RT curves did not show the expected sawtooth shapes. In order to find out whether the lack of empirical support for the model was an artifact of averaging the data, the experiment was replicated. It was found that individual RT curves did not show the shape characteristics that were predicted by the Klahr et al model either. The data supported the hypothesis that the access of letters was direct without any hierarchy, and that the retrieval of successive letters was determined by the variable associations between subsequent letters. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of observational coding in family therapy research: Comment on Alexander et al. (1995).

The author recommends a systematic, context-sensitive method for using observation to increase understanding of how change actually occurs in couples and family therapy. In this method, a task analysis of in-session performances on a specific task leads to the building of a model of the change process. This approach is exemplified in the process of in-session conflict resolution in couples therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Similarity, identification, and categorization: Comment on Ashby and Lee (1991).

F. G. Ashby and W. W. Lee (see record 1991-23345-001) tested various models derived from the general recognition theory (GRT; Ashby and N. A. Perrin, 1988; Ashby and J. T. Townsend, 1986) on their ability to predict and interrelate similarity, categorization, and identification performance. This commentary (1) argues that contrary to Ashby and Lee's suggestion, the likelihood-based GRT cannot generally predict categorization from identification without incorporating selective attention, (2) argues that the categorization rule in the likelihood-based GRT is extremely close in spirit to R. M. Nosofsky's (1986) exemplar-based similarity model, (3) reports new model-based analyses that call into question Ashby and Lee's interpretation of their identification-confusion data, (4) raises questions about the identification and similarity models tested by Ashby and Lee, and (5) criticizes Ashby and Lee's methods of fitting and evaluating the various models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Words, deeds, and motivations: Comment on Maestripieri and Carroll (1998).

A considerable proportion of Old World monkey mothers living in social groups under seemingly benign conditions maltreat their young. This interesting finding is the basis for the suggestion by D. Maestripieri and K. A. Carroll (see record 1998-01884-001) that monkeys might provide an animal model for investigating child abuse and neglect in the human population. This suggestion tacitly assumes that the phenomena of abuse and neglect in monkeys and humans are based on similar processes. This possibility is more plausible for neglect than for abuse. Child abuse shows such great diversity of forms and causes in human societies that it is unlikely to have a natural counterpart among nonhuman primates. The suggestion that it does may inadvertently lend support to attitudes that are unduly restrictive or actively opposed to animal research in psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuropsychology and malingering: Comment on Faust, Hart, and Guilmette (1988).

D. Faust et al (see record 1989-05633-001) recently reported on the inability of neuropsychologists to detect malingering in children who were asked to "fake bad" on a battery of neuropsychological measures. Because of methodological issues, implications of their research are not generalizable to the actual clinical setting. Limitations of the questionnaire format in detecting factitious results are discussed along with the inherent bias of such a research design to overinterpret pathology. The competency of the clinical neuropsychologist judges and their selection process are questioned. Last, some guidelines are offered for future research dealing with the issue of detection of malingering in neuropsychological practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On gender role conflict in men—Future directions and implications for counseling: Comment on Good et al. (1995) and Cournoyer and Mahalik (1995).

15 yrs of research on gender role conflict indicate it has been a fruitful construct in counseling psychology. G. E. Good, J. M. Robertson, J. M. O'Neil, L. F. Fitzgerald, M. Stevens, K. A. Debord, K. M. Bartels, and D. B. Braverman (1995) and R. J. Cournoyer and J. R. Mahalik (1995) add to the empirical knowledge and are certain to stimulate thinking in this area. In this comment, issues related to (a) psychological maladjustment, (b) test development, (c) life span development, and (d) practice implications are discussed. Although clear progress is being made, much more is unknown about how gender-related variables positively and negatively affect male development and, subsequently, the practice of counseling psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral observation and family psychology: Strange bedfellows or happy marriage?: Comment on Alexander et al. (1995).

J. F. Alexander et al (see record 1996-17914-001) provide a thoughtful and comprehensive framework for conceptualizing the process of developing, evaluating, and using observational coding systems. In this article, the authors attempt to link the framework of Alexander et al. with that proposed by F. Floyd (1989), and they discuss how observational methods may contribute to the advancement of family psychology. They discuss specific issues and recommendations that they believe will contribute to moving the field of behavioral observation forward, including, for example, the ascendance of global over microanalytic coding systems, the importance of considering effects of gender and ethnicity of coders on coding, difficulties in conducting observational research and analyzing observational data, and the persistent problem of capturing low base-rate behaviors using observational methods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)