Discussion of articles on relational theory in psychoanalysis.

Comments on differences between classical and relational theories in psychoanalysis, focusing on discussions by A. Wilson, J. F. Murray, F. Busch, and J. L. Bachant et al (see PA, Vol 82:33124, 33115, 34118, and 33102). Modell contends that a relational theory is a necessary added dimension to Freudian psychoanalysis and that differences of opinion should not lead to separate psychoanalytic schools of thought. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rigor, rigor mortis, and conspiratorial views of depression research.

The authors reassert the need for methodological changes in depression research appearing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and other personality and social psychology journals. In this rejoinder the authors update their earlier literature review (H. Tennen, J. Hall, & G. Affleck; see record 1995-31710-001) and respond to the commentaries by P C. Kendall and E. C. Flannery-Schroeder (see record 1995-31700-001) and G. Weary, J. A. Edwards, and J. A. Jacobson (see record 1995-31713-001). The authors notice that G. Weary et al.'s own findings demonstrate the need to change how depression is measured and participants are assigned to experimental groups. The authors also challenge G. Weary et al.'s contention that structured interviews are limited because they require interviewer judgments, and they urge personality and social psychologists to learn more about these interviews. Finally, G. Weary et al.'s suspicion that depression research guidelines reflect professional parochialism is disputed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the Value of Correcting Mischaracterizations of Stereotype Threat Research.

Replies to comments by C. M. Steele and J. Aronson (see record 2004-10043-009) on the mischaracterizations alleged by P. R. Sackett et al (see record 2004-10043-001) in the 1995 experiment by Steele and Aronson (see record 1996-12938-001) on the intellectual test performance of African Americans. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? An appreciative appraisal.

Seeks to find the appreciative, positive inquiry aspects of and similarities in the papers by B. D. Slife (see record 1995-13451-001), R. N. Williams (see record 1995-12851-001), M. S. Richardson (see record 1995-14311-001), and G. S. Howard (see record 1995-13446-001) without critical academic judgment, applauding the removal, although insufficient, of the linear time metaphor, suggesting the allowance of agency as a characteristic of people-in-relations, and lamenting the commentary gap on relational unit of client and therapist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is free will a process or a content: Both? Neither? Are we free to affirm a position on this question?

Comments on the views on free will (FW) offered by B. D. Slife (see record 1995-13451-001), M. Gergen (see record 1995-14294-001), R. N. Williams (see record 1995-12851-001), M. S. Richardson (see record 1995-14311-001), and G. S. Howard (see record 1995-13446-001) in light of the classical definition of FW as being capable of doing otherwise. It is argued that FW interpretations differ markedly depending on whether they are viewed as due to a process or to contents within some process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neither broken hearts nor broken bonds.

Comments on the M. Stroebe et al (see record 1993-05637-001) article concerning the retention and severance of bonds with a deceased person. Stroebe et al are criticized for their modernist representation of J. Bowlby's (1980) conception of grief, which essentially left Bowlby's true position of relational attachments virtually unrecognizable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Comparative practice of psychological assessment by clinical psychologists": Reply.

Replies to comments by J. Hunsley (see record 83:28521) on the original article by C. E. Watkins et al (see record 1995-23048-001) on the practice of psychological assessment by clinical psychologists. While Watkins et al feel that Hunsley raises some valid points, they contend that he goes too far in referring to their conclusions as inaccurate, not warranted, and as having effects that could be unfortunate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sentential context and on-line lexical decision.

J. L. Nicol and D. Swinney (see record 1989-35356-001) reported that lexical decision response times to a test word that was related to the implicit object of a verb were faster, when tested immediately after the verb, than response times to a control test word. They concluded from this result that the relation between the implicit object and the verb was understood during comprehension. In G. McKoon et al (see record 1995-04309-001), another interpretation was suggested, that the faster lexical decision response times were due to the better semantic–pragmatic fit of the related test words to the sentential contexts, and experimental data were presented to support this interpretation. In response, Nicol et al (see record 1995-04311-001) pointed out some possible problems with these experiments. The experiment presented in this article undermines their arguments. By using sentences in which there was no implicit object, exactly the same pattern of results was found as originally reported by Nicol and Swinney, thereby implicating some factor other than syntactic processing of an implicit object as an explanation of their finding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why models rather than rules give a better account of propositional reasoning: A reply to Bonatti and to O'Brien, Braine, and Yang.

D. P. O'Brien et al (see record 1995-08272-001) argue that the mental model theory of propositional reasoning is easy to refute, and they report 3 experiments that they believe falsify the theory. In contrast, L. Bonatti (see record 1995-08253-001) argues that the model theory is too flexible to be falsified. It is shown that the experiments by O'Brien et al do not refute the model theory and that Bonatti's claims are ill founded. Formal rule theories of propositional reasoning have 3 major weaknesses in comparison with the model theory: (1) They have no decision procedure; (2) they lack predictive power, providing no account of several robust phenomena (e.g., erroneous conclusions tend to be consistent with the premises); and (3) as a class of theories, they are difficult to refute experimentally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using cross-modal lexical decision tasks to investigate sentence processing.

Recent investigations of sentence processing have used the cross-modal lexical decision task to show that the antecedent of a phonologically empty noun phrase (specifically, WH-trace) is reactivated at the trace position. G. McKoon et al (see record 1995-04309-001) claimed that (1) a design feature concerning the choice of related and unrelated targets is a possible confound in this work and (2) the conclusions drawn from this previous research are therefore called into question. These claims are considered in light of both the McKoon et al experimental findings and the results of the J. L. Nicol et al experiments in which linguistic materials are tested. Nicol et al argue that their results may be due to the nature of their materials, and that a follow-up experiment reported by McKoon and R. Ratcliff (see record 1995-04308-001) used a technique that is not comparable to the cross-modal lexical decision task. It is concluded that current evidence supports the claim that structural information is used during on-line sentence processing and that the cross-modal technique is sensitive to this. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stress and adaptational outcomes: The problem of confounded measures.

Notes that confounding is a major source of uneasiness among many who do research on the relationship between stress and adaptational outcomes such as psychological symptoms and somatic health. A commonly proposed solution, illustrated by B. S. Dohrenwend et al (see record 1984-22172-001), is to purify the independent variable, stress, by focusing on its environmental aspects and by making it independent of psychological response variables such as perceptions or appraisals. It is argued that such a solution, however, is neither possible nor desirable, and it obviates relational, cognitive theories of psychological stress. The present authors examine the problem of confounding and circularity in stress research and reanalyze data obtained by A. D. Kanner et al (1981) and the 2nd author et al (see record 1983-05622-001) in light of the Dohrenwend et al findings. It is concluded that the appraisal process should not and cannot be removed in the measurement of psychological stress, and therefore some confounding is inevitable. (50 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Item gains and losses during hypermnesic recall: Implications for the item-specific-relational information distinction.

S. B. Klein et al (see record 1990-03546-001) suggested that the literature on hypermnesia (improved recall across repeated tests) could be explained by reference to the item-specific–relational information distinction. Klein et al showed that conditions designed to promote individual-item processing produced more item gains across repeated tests, whereas conditions that induced relational processing resulted in fewer item losses across tests. Five experiments generally replicate the Klein et al results and provide evidence that item gains and losses can be used to index amount of individual-item and relational processing in a variety of experimental contexts. It is suggested that the item gain and loss measures of individual-item and relational processing may be more appropriate than the currently used measures in some experimental situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Effects of age and gender on perceived facial attractiveness": Reply.

Responds to comments by R. H. Bradshaw et al (see record 1995-01642-001) on B. McLellan and S. J. McKelvie's study (see record 1993-45212-001) investigating the effects of age and gender on attractiveness of photographs of faces. Although the major result of this study was a negative relationship between age and perceived attractiveness, the authors conclude that sociobiological theory received qualified support, with 4 out of 6 revised predictions confirmed. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response bias and the process-dissociation procedure.

Two different approaches for treating response bias in the process-dissociation procedure were assessed: a multinomial approach proposed by A. Buchner et al (see record 1995-31816-001) and a dual-process, signal-detection approach proposed by A. P. Yonelinas et al (see record 1996-29360-001). The authors examined data presented by Buchner et al and found that, although the signal-detection-based model worked slightly better than the multinomial model, the data did not provide a strong test of either model. However, an examination of other recognition data showed that the multinomial model produced distorted estimates of recollection and familiarity, and it was unable to account for observed receiver operating characteristics (ROCs). In contrast, the dual-process, signal detection model produced unbiased estimates and was able to account for the observed ROCs. The authors also provide an overview of the general controversy surrounding the process-dissociation approach. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scanning and form-contingent color aftereffects.

G. K. Humphrey et al (see record 1994-28172-001) and J. Broerse and P. Grimbeek (see record 1994-28160-001) suggested that the form-contingent color aftereffect reported by S. Siegel et al (see record 1992-22207-001) would not be obtained if Ss were instructed to scan the induction and assessment forms. The authors present data from 10 adult Ss who were instructed to scan the forms. These scanning Ss displayed aftereffects that were no different from those described earlier by Siegel et al. Scanning Ss do display spatiotopic contingent color aftereffects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A rejoinder to Notarius.

Responds to C. I. Notarius's (see record 1984-11607-001) rebuttal of the present author's (see record 1984-11616-001) criticisms of a study by Notarius et al (see record 1983-05644-001) which supported the discharge model of the facial expressivity/physiological reactivity relationship. It is concluded that only when all data from the Notarius et al study are examined will one know what their results have shown. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Encounter research.

Refers readers interested in the article by D. Hartley et al (see record 1977-01609-001) to 4 articles on encounter research by M. J. Diamond and J. L. Shapiro (see record 1976-05062-001), J. Rowan (see record 1976-02670-001), W. Schutz (see record 1976-02672-001), and P. B. Smith (see record 1976-02673-001). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparing genuine and simulated suicide notes: Response to Diamond et al. (1995).

G. M. Diamond et al.'s (see record 1995-25469-001) critique of S. T. Black (see record 1993-45704-001) is based on an inflexible and unnecessarily limited model of scientific psychology as a purely theory-driven enterprise. There is more than one way to legitimately contribute scientific knowledge in psychology. This article includes a discussion of the problems associated with their view and a response to methodological and logical criticisms. Research on suicide notes may yet be fruitful and ought not be abandoned. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some comments about cognitions as causal variables.

Notes problems with the position forwarded by I. S. Schonfeld (see record 1990-31203-001) that cognitive behaviors may play a role in antisocial behaviors. A longitudinal study by L. R. Huesmann et al (see record 1987-15097-001) is cited that is not consistent with Schonfeld's hypothesis but is consistent with the hypothesis presented by G. R. Patterson et al (see record 1989-26278-001) that achievement failures are the result of antisocial behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Effective dissemination of energy-related information: Applying social psychology and evaluation research": Rejoinder.

Responds to comments by E. S. Geller (see record 1992-37385-001) and P. B. Crabb (see record 1992-37381-001) on the M. L. Dennis et al (see record 1991-08669-001) review of social and behavioral science literature related to energy conservation (EC). The Dennis et al article was not an attempt to recommend a comprehensive EC policy but rather intended to show how prior research and experience could be used to make information more effective in producing changes in public behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)