Editorial.

In the 6 years since the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology was divided into three sections, Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes (IRGP) has come to be the impoverished sibling in the family. This weakness seems curious in a discipline that concentrates on human interrelatedness as its central theme. Indeed, Gordon Allport's definition in the Handbook of Social Psychology (1968) acknowledged the social core of social psychology: "an attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others." Perhaps the short rations to which many readers have become accustomed reflected a reluctance of researchers to engage these phenomena in the individualistic Zeitgeist of the 1970s and early 1980s. Nevertheless, 1986 brings a renewed interest in the scientific study of human social bonds. It is to the dissemination of the very best of this work that this editorship is dedicated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fred L. Strodtbeck (1919-2005).

This obituary is about Fred L. Strodtbeck, who was a professor emeritus of sociology and psychology at the University of Chicago. Fred began his faculty career at Yale, moving to Chicago in 1953, where he remained continuously except for one year at the University of Michigan and another year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, California. Although identified as a social psychologist, throughout his career Fred was fully engaged in the challenging interdisciplinary perspective propounded by the Department of Social Relations. Fred took pride in the accomplishments of his many students. His tutelage was emotional as well as intellectual, as he was mindful of those two dimensions that informed so much of his small-groups work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editorial.

Presents a reaffirmation of the goals of the Canadian Journal of Psychology. The primary objective of the Canadian Journal of Psychology is to provide a vehicle for the communication of scientific research in general experimental psychology. The editor hopes to encourage Canadian experimental psychologists to take pride in their Journal, and submit their quality work to it. The Journal will continue to maintain a small and selective book review section, and it will maintain its short report section. There is no question that there is ample material to fill the pages of the Journal and make it interesting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editorial.

Introduces the fifty-second volume of the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. With this volume, the Journal comes once more under new editorial direction. The new editor outlines his conception of his task and the policies that he proposes to follow while filling this role. He also makes it known that articles in this number that bear a date of receipt in February, 1955 are under his editorship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editorial.

Editorial characterizes the articles comprising the special issue as dealing with social psychology applied to social issues in Canada. The contributions were solicited from active researchers in Canada, spanning a wide range of topics within the domain of social psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Countertransference: A Social Relations Perspective.

Countertransference (CT)-therapists' perceptions of and reactions to their clients-falls within the broader domains of interpersonal perception and relations. Therefore, social psychological paradigms may prove useful for studying this phenomenon. The authors demonstrate how D. A. Kenny's (1994a) social relations model (SRM) can provide a useful approach for studying CT. Specifically, the SRM distinctions among target, perceiver, and relationship variance were used to understand some of the theoretical developments within clinical CT literature. The authors also suggest that findings from prior SRM research may have implications for issues within the CT literature. A sample of prior empirical research on CT was reviewed from an SRM perspective, and the authors offer suggestions for future CT studies using the SRM. Finally, the authors discuss the implications of this approach for psychotherapy integration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Les concepts fondamentaux de la psychologie sociale.

Reviews the book, Les concepts fondamentaux de la psychologie sociale by Gustave-Nicolas Fischer (2010). This work is intended as an introduction to social psychology and will be a welcome contribution to the field. It consists of eight chapters presenting various concepts of social psychology, each of which is covered with a level of detail that is appropriate for a text aimed at undergraduate university students. Certainly this text will help meet the need for French-language works in social psychology. Overall, the work is quite successful in achieving its objective, presented in the Foreword, namely to provide readers with a better knowledge of the psychosocial processes at work in the world in which they live. This work, divided into eight chapters, presents the key concepts of social psychology. Definitions, approaches and concepts are clearly stated. Sometimes a critical analysis of a theme is offered, other times not. Few practical applications and examples from everyday life are included. The author does, however, provide a wrap-up question at the end of each chapter, and also a list of supplementary readings. The overall quality of the work is very good and it is well suited to the target population. One weakness, though, is the lack of references to recent studies and texts, the latest being from 2004. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some effects of situational threat on group behavior.

It was found that situational threat affected behavior in three main areas of functioning: interpersonal relations, utilization of actors' and other group members' resources, and effectiveness of the group. An attempt was made to analyze and interpret these results within the framework of a competing response theory of anxiety. 20 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive processes and interpersonal predictions.

An investigation of the cognitive process by which one observer makes predictions about another person in a social situation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The benefits of interpersonal regulatory fit for individual goal pursuit.

The present work examines whether individual goal pursuit is influenced by advice and suggestions from interaction partners whose regulatory orientation is perceived to fit (vs. not fit) the individual's orientation. We sought to investigate whether such interpersonal regulatory fit yields motivational consequences for goal pursuit that parallel those of intrapersonal regulatory fit. Furthermore, we investigated whether these effects occur in a symmetrical fashion for promotion- and prevention-oriented individuals. The results of 6 experiments revealed that promotion-oriented individuals profit from interpersonal regulatory fit, experiencing motivational benefits when receiving goal-relevant advice from promotion-oriented interaction partners; however, prevention-oriented individuals do not profit from prevention-oriented interaction partners. These findings support the proposal that regulatory fit can fruitfully be examined as an interpersonal phenomenon, highlighting the role that interaction partners may play in the pursuit of personal goals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

After the facts: Psychology and the study of gender.

Over the past 30 years, psychologists have developed diverse approaches for studying women and gender. One approach, the study of gender differences, assesses the attributes and characteristics of men and women. A second approach conceptualizes gender not in terms of individual difference, but in contextual terms. It focuses attention on social relations, interactive processes, and linguistic practices which structure relations between men and women. Some workers have drawn on qualitative and discursive approaches to explore the processes and practices that produce gender. A third approach, which the author calls feminist skepticism, draws upon postmodern thought and critical psychology. It views psychology and cultural life as mutually constitutive, and examines psychology as a cultural artifact. Workers have also explored how the social relations and work conditions in the field have shaped knowledge. Feminist psychology has yielded a rich body of knowledge about gender, innovative modes of inquiry, and new understandings about psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of training upon accuracy and variability in interpersonal perception.

The relationship between accuracy and variability in estimations and the effects of a training program in interpersonal relations upon interpersonal perception were investigated in 72 senior medical students divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received training in physician-patient relationships and the control did not receive such training. "Contrary to expectation, the experimental group tended to become less accurate than the control group… . These results, which agree with a hypothesis advanced by Cronbach, suggest that training programs devoted to increasing accuracy of interpersonal perception run the risk of decreasing accuracy when they increase the trainee's responsiveness to individual differences." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editorial Note.

This editorial discusses the tragic death of President Kennedy and the shocking circumstances surrounding it. President Kennedy grasped the impact of science on public policy and provided arrangements within the executive branch of the government to articulate and effect the wide use of science in the advancement of human welfare and the development of national goals. The tragic circumstances of the President's death must indeed spur the efforts of the human sciences to gain the knowledge and understanding which will enlarge and sustain our common humanity. This issue of the American Psychologist calls attention to several aspects of public policy both as it may affect psychology and, in turn, as psychology has an opportunity to contribute to policy and to action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group climate as a factor in the relevance and accuracy of social perception.

"Twenty-eight groups of five or four graduate students each, controlled for sex, education, and acquaintance were assigned to congenial or noncongenial group climates." The accuracy of social perception as a function of the "climate" of social interaction was studied. "Individuals in congenial groups were significantly more accurate in perceiving task oriented behavior of their group than were individuals in noncongenial groups… . Individuals in noncongenial groups were not more accurate in perceiving the interpersonal relations in the groups than were individuals in congenial groups." Other findings on accuracy of perception are reported. "It is concluded that social climates can predictably affect the perception of task-oriented behavior, but that further research on the relationships among social climate, ego-oriented behavior, and accuracy in social perception is necessary." 24 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Harming high performers: A social comparison perspective on interpersonal harming in work teams.

This study developed a multilevel model of the interpersonal harming behavior associated with social comparison processes in work teams. We tested this model using temporally lagged data from a sample of student teams (Study 1) and cross-sectional data from a sample of work teams in a telecommunication services company (Study 2). In both studies, social relations analyses revealed that in teams with less cooperative goals, comparison to a higher performing team member was positively associated with interpersonal harming behavior, but only when expectations of future performance similarity to that member were low. The interactive relationship of social comparison and expected future performance similarity with interpersonal harming was buffered, however, in teams with more cooperative goals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conflicting social motives in negotiating groups.

Negotiators' social motives (cooperative vs. individualistic) influence their strategic behaviors. In this study, the authors used multilevel modeling and analyses of strategy sequences to test hypotheses regarding how negotiators' social motives and the composition of the group influence group members' negotiation strategies. Four-person groups negotiating a 5-issue mixed-motive decision-making task were videotaped, and the tapes were transcribed and coded. Group composition included 2 homogeneous conditions (all cooperators and all individualists) and 3 heterogeneous conditions (3 cooperators and 1 individualist, 2 cooperators and 2 individualists, 1 cooperator and 3 individualists). Results showed that cooperative negotiators adjusted their use of integrative and distributive strategies in response to the social-motive composition of the group, but individualistic negotiators did not. Results from analyses of strategy sequences showed that cooperators responded more systematically to others' behaviors than did individualists. They also redirected the negotiation depending on group composition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The triangle of interpersonal models.

This article develops a framework for social psychology, the triangle of interpersonal models (TIM). TIM is a 2-dimensional classification scheme for the impact of people on social-psychological phenomena. TIM classifies a social-psychological phenomenon by the number of people who contribute to the phenomenon and the number of distinct social-psychological functions that those people serve. TIM includes models for phenomena that involve 1 person, 2 people, 3 people, and p people. In those phenomena, people serve 1, 2, 3, or f distinct social-psychological functions. TIM decomposes complex phenomena into components that reflect different levels of interpersonal causation. It brings rigor to holistic conceptions of social psychology and offers a fresh perspective on the relationship between the individual and the group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group Therapy for Students in Clinical Psychology.

It has been the experience of six graduate students in clinical psychology at the Florida State University that the adage "Physician, heal thyself might profitably be amended to "Psychologists, heal each other." Inasmuch as a psychotherapeutic group composed of clinical psychologists is rather unique, the writer feels that his group's experiences may facilitate the formation of similar groups. Some of the salient topics and issues addressed here include the attempt to acquire a group leader, secrecy, the admission of new members, the members' psychological sophistication, and the cross currents of interpersonal relations. The writer feels that perhaps this therapy group's greatest contribution relates to the generally accepted opinion that a healthy therapist is a desideratum. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How to overcome the detrimental effects of noise in social interaction: The benefits of generosity.

Interpersonal misunderstanding is often rooted in noise, or discrepancies between intended and actual outcomes for an interaction partner due to unintended errors (e.g., not being able to respond to an E-mail because of a local network breakdown). How can one effectively cope with noise in social dilemmas, situations in which self-interest and collective interests are conflicting? Consistent with hypotheses, the present research revealed that incidents of noise exert a detrimental effect on level of cooperation when a partner follows strict reciprocity (i.e., tit for tat) but that this effect can be overcome if a partner behaves somewhat more cooperatively than the actor did in the previous interaction (i.e., tit for tat plus 1). Also, when noise was present, tit for tat plus 1 elicited greater levels of cooperation than did tit for tat, thereby underscoring the benefits of adding generosity to reciprocity in coping with noise in social dilemmas. The Discussion outlines implications of the present work for theories focusing on self-presentation and attribution, communication, and trust and prorelationship behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of social exclusion in trauma survivors with posttraumatic stress disorder.

Trauma survivors with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often experience or report social stigmatization and isolation. Williams (2001) provided an experimental paradigm to assess behavioral effects of social exclusion. This paradigm (face-to-face version) has been applied in a 2 × 2 group × experimental condition design. Participants in the PTSD group (N = 16) and the nontraumatized control group (N = 25) were randomly assigned to an exclusion or inclusion condition. The results showed interaction effects for main psychopathological assessments (depression, anxiety, psychoticism) and expected main effects for the majority of outcome measures (psychopathology, well-being, belonging, and meaningful existence). The research concludes that a general assumption of elevated levels of self-perceived social exclusion in PTSD patients has to be considered in terms of differentiated psychopathological effects of exclusion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)