Punishment fantasies and the construction of reality.

The internalizations comprising the conscience are not a mere representation of what to expect of one's self and the environment. Such internalizations serve to relinquish incestuous object choices and derivatives and to undo and redirect dangerous hostile, competitive impulses. These internalizations are comprised of self and object-representations that are actively induced and reconstructed in the world. Further, such internalizations are organized sado-masochistically and function as a sort of normative perverse structure, reinforcing narcissistic fantasies of omnipotent control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retrospection in social dilemmas: How thinking about the past affects future cooperation.

This article reports 2 studies investigating the effects of retrospective thought on future cooperation in social dilemmas. Some general theories of cooperation presume, but have not tested, whether retrospection has impact: People may think about the choices they could have made instead, realize that cooperation would have produced larger outcomes, and change their strategy as a result. Across both studies, the authors show that rate of future cooperation is directly related to the number of best-case scenarios and inversely related to the number of worst-case scenarios generated. The 2nd study also shows that the number and type of retrospective thoughts generated can be predicted from the person's social value orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Episodic memory and episodic future thinking in adults with autism.

The ability to remember past experiences (episodic memory) is thought to be related to the ability to imagine possible future experiences (episodic future thinking). Although previous research has established that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have diminished episodic memory, episodic future thinking has not previously been investigated within this population. In the present study, high-functioning adults with ASD were compared to closely matched typical adults on a task requiring participants to report a series of events that happened to them in the past and a series of events that might happen to them in the future. For each event described, participants completed two modified Memory Characteristics Questionnaire items to assess self-reported phenomenal qualities associated with remembering and imagining, including self-perspective and degree of autonoetic awareness. Participants also completed letter, category, and ideational fluency tasks. Results indicated that participants with ASD recalled/imagined significantly fewer specific events than did comparison participants and that participants with ASD demonstrated impaired episodic memory and episodic future thinking. In line with this finding, participants with ASD were less likely than comparison participants to report taking a field (first-person) perspective and were more likely to report taking an observer (third-person) perspective during retrieval of past events (but not during simulation of future events), highlighting that they were less likely to mentally reexperience past events from their own point of view. There were no group differences in self-reported levels of autonoetic awareness or fluency task performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thinking about the future moves attention to the right.

Previous studies have shown that past and future temporal concepts are spatially represented (past being located to the left and future to the right in a mental time line). This study aims at further investigating the nature of this space–time conceptual metaphor, by testing whether the temporal reference of words orient spatial attention or rather prime a congruent left/right response. A modified version of the spatial cuing paradigm was used in which a word’s temporal reference must be kept in working memory whilst participants carry out a spatial localization (Experiment 1) or a direction discrimination, spatial Stroop task (Experiment 2). The results showed that the mere activation of the past or future concepts both oriented attention and primed motor responses to left or right space, respectively, and these effects were independent. Moreover, in spite of the fact that such time-reference cues were nonpredictive, the use of a short and a long stimulus onset asynchrony in Experiment 3 showed that these cues modulated spatial attention as typical central cues like arrows do, suggesting a common mechanism for these two types of cuing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

New thoughts about thinking.

Reviews the book, The Nature of Thought: Essays in Honor of D.O. Hebb edited by P.W. Jusczyk and R.M. Klein (1980). The phenomenon of thinking, the topic to which this important collection of essays is addressed, is one of the principal perennial concerns of psychology. It is as fundamental and as unsolved a problem today as at the time of experimental psychology's introspectionist beginnings and, through the ensuing decades, has never ceased to stimulate, fascinate, baffle, and bewilder the serious student of psychological phenomena. The present volume appropriately reflects a wide spectrum of specific concerns and approaches to this topic. Appropriate, as well, is its dedication in honour of D.O. Hebb, whose own approach to the study of thought is especially broad and encompassing. The book resulted from a recent series of lectures, in Hebb's honour, at Dalhousie University. This is not, however, a volume primarily addressed to Hebb's ideas. Rather, it is a collection of progress reports by a number of distinguished researchers in the fields of human and animal cognition on recent approaches to topics such as consciousness, mental imagery, problem solving, representation, attention, and skilled performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Search Behavior Related to Expectations Concerning Brand Performance.

A 2 × 2 factorial design was used with 63 Ss. One factor was brand performance related to expectations, the other a cost of search. So that performance would exceed and fall short of expectations, all Ss were exposed to the same level of performance in an initial phase of the experiment; in a second phase, performance was above and below the initial level. As hypothesized, search was lower where performance exceeded expectations and where a search cost was imposed. The hypothesis that more Ss would reach brand loyalty under the cost as compared to the no-cost condition was supported. No significant differences in brand loyalty were found in comparing the performance above and below expectation treatments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-regulation of goal-setting: Turning free fantasies about the future into binding goals.

Fantasy realization theory states that when people contrast their fantasies about a desired future with reflections on present reality, a necessity to act is induced that leads to the activation and use of relevant expectations. Strong goal commitment arises in light of favorable expectations, and weak goal commitment arises in light of unfavorable expectations. To the contrary, when people only fantasize about a desired future or only reflect on present reality, expectancy-independent moderate goal commitment emerges. Four experiments pertaining to various life domains supported these hypotheses. Strength of goal commitment was assessed in cognitive (e.g., making plans), affective (e.g., felt attachment), and behavioral terms (e.g., effort expenditure, quality of performance). Implications for theories on goal setting and goal striving are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Analytic gains and anxiety tolerance: Punishment fantasies and the analysis of superego resistance revisited.

The great anxieties of our lives are based on childhood anxieties, underscored by childhood disappointments and traumas, embellished by our own rage and desires. These anxieties, usually organized around object representations, comprise our punishment fantasies. Punishment fantasies exist in opposition to "forbidden" childhood wishes, comprising our unconscious. Such wishes and punishment fantasies insinuate themselves into our waking lives, yielding the conscious anxiety with which we are forced to cope. In demystifying unconscious desires and anxieties we help patients gain greater freedom to seek the realistic pleasures available in their lives. To do this, the patients must be able to tolerate and to some extent master their experiences of anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The future of psychotherapy.

This "article" contains two blank pages, as an indication of G. W. Albee's concerns about the future of psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tracking the construction of episodic future thoughts.

The ability to mentally simulate possible futures (episodic future thinking) is of fundamental importance for various aspects of human cognition and behavior, but precisely how humans construct mental representations of future events is still essentially unknown. We suggest that episodic future thoughts consist of transitory patterns of activation over knowledge structures at different levels of specificity, with general knowledge about the personal future (i.e., personal semantic information and anticipated general events) providing a context or frame for retrieving, integrating, and interpreting episodic details. In line with this hypothesis, Study 1 showed that the construction of episodic future thoughts is frequently a protracted generative process in which general personal knowledge is accessed before episodic details. We then explored in more detail the nature of this general personal knowledge and tested the hypothesis that it is mainly organized in terms of personal goals. Study 2 showed that cuing participants with knowledge about personal goals increased the ease of future event production during a fluency task. Study 3 further demonstrated that cuing participants with their personal goals facilitated access to episodic details during the imagination of future events. Taken together, these findings indicate that general personal knowledge and, in particular, knowledge about personal goals plays an important role in the construction of episodic future thoughts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual fantasies, sexual functioning, and hysteria among women: A test of Freud's (1905) hypothesis.

In Three essays on the theory of sexuality, Freud (1986) wrote of a relationship between hysteria and sexuality and commented that hysteria was precipitated by the onset of a real sexual situation. Here, the scores on a measure of hysteria and sexual fantasies of student women who were (n=93) and were not (n=26) intercourse active were compared. Women who were intercourse active had higher scores on the PDQ4+ Histrionic scale (Hyler, 1994), p     

Effects of the interpersonal interaction on abstract thinking performance in schizophrenics.

Schizophrenics were subjected either to a positive or negative interpersonal situation (a standard interview) between administrations of parallel forms of a proverb scale. The level of abstract verbal performance was shown to be affected by the nature of the intervening interpersonal interaction and changes in level of performance were in the predicted directions for positive, negative, and control groups. No relationship between severity of the schizophrenic disorder and amount of change in level of abstract verbal performance was demonstrated. The proverb scales were cross-validated in this research which further supports their validity as prognostic indicators. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impulsive versus realistic thinking: An examination of the distinction between primary and secondary processes in thought.

The nature of the distinction between primary and secondary processes, as described by Freud, has relevancy for both a cognitive psycholoy and a psychology of motivation. Several issues arising from an examination of the 2 processes are examined. Possible empirical approaches to the basic problems are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sad mood promotes self-initiated mental contrasting of future and reality.

Self-regulation by mentally contrasting a positive future with negative reality leads people to differentiate in their goal commitments: They commit to goals when expectations of success are high and let go when expectations of success are low. On the contrary, when indulging in the positive future or dwelling on negative reality, people fail to consider expectations of success and do not form selective goal commitments (Oettingen, Pak, & Schnetter, 2001). Whereas prior research has examined the effects of experimentally induced mental contrasting, we address sad mood as a contextual influence promoting self-initiated mental contrasting. Across various mood inductions, sad moods—which are associated with problem solving strategies—facilitated self-initiated mental contrasting more than neutral moods (Studies 1, 5) or happy moods (Studies 2, 3, 4, 6). Importantly, mood did not affect the relation between mental contrasting and selective formation of goal commitment (Studies 5, 6). The results suggest that sad moods aid in self-regulation by making people self-initiate goal commitments that are sensitive to their expectations of success. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Remembering the past and imagining the future in schizophrenia.

It has been suggested that patients with schizophrenia experience a distorted sense of continuity of self across time. However, temporal aspects of self-processing have received little empirical attention in schizophrenia. In this study, the authors investigated schizophrenic patients' ability to generate specific mental images of their personal past and future. Results showed that patients recalled fewer specific past events than did healthy controls and were even more impaired in generating specific future events. These deficits were associated with positive symptoms but were not associated with negative symptoms or with performances on verbal fluency tasks. It is suggested that schizophrenic patients' failures to project themselves into specific past and future episodes might be related to difficulties in retrieving contextual details from memory, as well as disturbance of the sense of subjective time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The future of psychotherapy integration: A roundtable.

This article provides a compilation of forecasts on the future of psychotherapy integration from 22 prominent figures in the integration movement. Contributors succinctly addressed questions on desirable practice, research, theoretical, and training directions for the movement. Contributors also responded to the question, What would you like the field of psychotherapy integration to look like in 25 years? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ensuring the future of professional psychology.

The future of professional psychology will be ensured if the profession collectively addresses several key issues critical to its success. This address focuses on ways to guarantee patients' rights, expand our visions for professional psychology, remain a doctoral profession, and make science an ally of practice. It urges us to use the resources of APA and our state and provincial psychological associations to accomplish the goal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Goal Activation, Expectations, and the Placebo Effect.

Motivational factors receive little attention in current theories of the placebo effect. Reasons for this position are reviewed, and an argument is made for reconsidering the influence of motivation on the placebo effect. The authors hypothesize that nonconscious goals alter reactions to a placebo expectation. Specifically, the authors predict that the placebo effect is most likely to occur when individuals have a goal that can be fulfilled by confirmation of the placebo expectation. The authors tested this notion in 5 experiments. The results demonstrate the role of motivation in the placebo effect across a variety of symptom domains and via 4 different goal activation techniques. Moreover, this moderating effect occurred for both positive and negative placebo expectations, across different placebo effect measures, and in brief laboratory experiments as well as in lengthier studies. It is argued that theories regarding the placebo effect should incorporate motivational factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contaminated thinking: A specimen of the primary process.

We conducted an intensive analysis of contaminated responses on the Rorschach. The process of contaminated thinking assumes different forms which are analogous to the numerous varieties of dream condensation. Most of these responses combine regressive and progressive features, in that they combine primary and secondary process thinking. Many appear to have dynamic significance as well. We described the struggle implicit in such responses, between a regressive loss of objects, and an effort to remain in contact with reality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The future of psychoanalytic institutes.

The author contends that both conceptual and institutional problems permeate psychoanalytic institutes. Although institutional problems are historically based, they also derive from confusions around ill-defined concepts that lead to arbitrariness, authoritarianism, and the stifling of creativity. Psychoanalysis is a humanistic discipline that is touted as a science but is organized as a religion. Problems surrounding the right to train pervade psychoanalytic schisms, and transmission comes through processes of anointment. Institutional "false expertise" invokes the aura of anointment where training analysts pass down received truth through an esoteric pipeline depending on genealogy instead of function. Quasi-religious thinking and politics rush in to fill the gap between the level of claimed knowledge that affords qualification and the far lower level of real knowledge. Institutes should rely on evidence of candidates' performance and engage in open-ended inquiry. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)