Becoming relational: From abstract systems to embodied relations.

Reviews the book, Relational being: Beyond self and community by Kenneth J. Gergen (see record 2009-10534-000). The primary plea of the book is that psychology consider a relational rather than individual (much less subindividual) conception of its phenomena. Gergen encourages us to "treat what we take to be the individual units as derivative of relational process" (xxi). This notion of a fundamentally relational subject is one that the reader is invited to explore and to test against other, more traditional, ways of constructing being. It is a proposition entertained and evaluated in terms of its implications but it is not presented as the real, true, or most factual account of human experience. Throughout the text, Gergen attempts to replace the individual or monological expositional style with a more dialogical, plural kind of textual negotiation. The book is constantly questioning and coming to terms with itself, its critics, and its limitations. The book is, as Bakhtin (1973) might have it, multivocal. Gergen invokes his own authorial voice, but also his voice as an embedded, historical being. Each chapter is peppered with anecdotes and personal reflections woven into the overall narrative as concrete counterpoint to the abstractions of theoretical argument. In the process, Gergen is surprisingly intimate, personal, and generous with his private life and history. The book also becomes something more human, narrative, and funny than is usual in theoretical exegesis. This style is quite inviting, partly because it is rooted in everyday life but also because it explicitly invites, and even voices, the critic, the question, and the doubt. Ultimately, what is compelling in the pages of Relational Being is what is fundamentally compelling about relationalism itself—namely, the way that it displaces abstract system as the core of meaning and replaces it with embodied relation. This displacement has the potential to redress some of the essential distortions at the heart of Enlightenment reason—particularly that venerable tradition of riding one’s chosen theoretical hobby horse into the face of concrete, lived experience (and into the face of the doubting, suffering, demanding other that stands in the way). Relational practice moves us away from the distortions that inevitably come when we make everything we encounter instrumental to some idea that we cherish (and, in the process, become blind to whatever lived truth first made that idea sing for us). Relational practice asks us, instead, to continually return to the lived relation and so continually rupture and remake the narratives by which we understand it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Situation models and aging.

Younger and older adults were tested for their ability to process and retrieve information from texts. The authors focused on the construction and retrieval of situation models relative to other types of text representations. The results showed that during memory retrieval, younger adults showed superior memory for surface form and textbase knowledge (what the text was), whereas older adults had equivalent or superior memory for situation model information (what the text was about). The results also showed that during reading, older and younger adults were similar in their sensitivity to various aspects of the texts. Overall, these findings suggest that although there are age-related declines in the processing and memory for text-based information, for higher level representations, these abilities appear to be preserved. Several possibilities for why this is the case are discussed, including an in-depth consideration of one possibility that involves W. Kintsch's (1988) construction-integration model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Employee stock ownership and employee attitudes: A test of three models.

Results of a test of three alternative models of the conditions necessary for employee ownership to positively influence employee attitudes are reported. Based on a study of 37 employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) companies (N of individuals?=?2,804), results support hypotheses for the extrinsic and instrumental satisfaction models. Average company ESOP satisfaction and organizational commitment are high and average company turnover intention is low when the ESOP provides substantial financial benefits to employees, when management is highly committed to employee ownership, and when the company maintains an extensive ESOP communications program. In contrast, the results provide no support for the intrinsic satisfaction model of ESOP effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal models of diabetes and their relations to self-care activities.

Investigated the personal models (PMs) of diabetes held by 46 female outpatients with non–insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, 24 of whom were taking insulin. Two weeks after an interview, Ss provided information about levels of self-care activities, including exercise, diet, and glucose testing. The interview provided indicators of the PM constructs from which 4 composites were formed assessing cause, symptoms, treatment, and seriousness. These dimensions significantly improved the prediction of diet level and marginally improved the prediction of exercise after accounting for the effects of age and insulin taking. Results are discussed in terms of variations in PMs across different patient groups and diseases and the role of PMs in determining self-care behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social status and abstract behavior.

"The contention that 'intelligence' tests are biased against lower-class children was investigated by testing lower- and middle-status children of similar IQs with block-sorting (abstract behavior) problems. These problems involved only 4 relatively simple concepts found to be equally familiar to the 2 groups. It was hypothesized that lower-status subjects are actually brighter than their IQs indicate, and that their performance on the blocksorting problems would be superior to that of middle-status Ss of similar IQ. The hypothesis was not confirmed; middle-status Ss were significantly superior to lower-status Ss." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional relations are not models: A note on covariation detection.

Reviews the main points made by the authors (1985) in their article on covariation judgment and argues that, while C. F. Surber's (see record 1986-16237-001) arguments about covariation detection models and about assessment of variable importance are essentially correct, they are inappropriately applied to the authors' analyses of functional relations. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Situation models in language comprehension and memory

This article reviews research on the use of situation models in language comprehension and memory retrieval over the past 15 years. Situation models are integrated mental representations of a described state of affairs. Significant progress has been made in the scientific understanding of how situation models are involved in language comprehension and memory retrieval. Much of this research focuses on establishing the existence of situation models, often by using tasks that assess one dimension of a situation model. However, the authors argue that the time has now come for researchers to begin to take the multidimensionality of situation models seriously. The authors offer a theoretical framework and some methodological observations that may help researchers to tackle this issue.     

Attitude–behavior relations: A comparison of the Fishbein-Ajzen and the Bentler-Speckart models.

Compares the model of attitude–behavior relations developed by M. Fishbein and I. Ajzen (1975) with the modifications of the model made by P. M. Bentler and G. Speckart (see record 1980-00949-001). Ss were 236 undergraduates; class attendance was the behavioral measure. An analysis of linear structural relationships, using multiple indicators for each underlying construct, supported the Bentler-Speckart addition to the Fishbein-Ajzen model, with prior behavior as a direct causal influence on both subsequent behavior and behavioral intentions. However, consistent with the original Fishbein-Ajzen model, a significant direct path from attitude to subsequent behavior was not found. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

No ownership of common factors.

Comments on the original article, The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy, by J. Shedler (see record 2010-02208-012). Shedler’s informative article raised several issues worthy of comment. His choice of the word distinctive (p. 98) in describing aspects of psychodynamic technique is open to at least two interpretations. On the one hand, distinctive can have a qualitative meaning and indicate the presence of a characteristic that is not shared. For example, a sign in the Bronx Zoo distinguishes birds from all other creatures as follows: “If it has feathers it’s a bird, if it doesn’t, it isn’t.” On the other hand, distinctive can have a quantitative meaning and indicate that one practice has more of a common element than another practice. Careful reading of Shedler’s article and the article by Blagys and Hilsenroth (2000) that forms the basis of the “seven features [that] reliably distinguished psychodynamic therapies from other therapies” (Shedler, 2010, p. 98) shows that Shedler subscribes to the latter, quantitative, definition of distinctive. In other words, the seven features he presented are present in both psychodynamic therapies and the cognitive-behavioral therapies to which he compares them. For example, although Shedler did not mention it, dialectical behavior therapy explicitly focuses on six of the seven features, namely, “focus on affect and expression of emotion,” “exploration of attempts to avoid distressing thoughts and feelings,” “identification of recurring themes and patterns,” “discussion of past experience,” “focus on interpersonal relations,” and “focus on the therapy relationship” (Shedler, 2010, p. 99). However, in the articles that Blagys and Hilsenroth reviewed, psychodyamic therapists engaged in more of these behaviors than did cognitive-behavioral therapists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexical access for concrete and abstract words.

Three experiments with 48 undergraduates compared the speed and accuracy of lexical decisions for concrete and abstract nouns. Results of Exp I, in which separate groups of Ss judged each word type, and of Exp II, in which all Ss judged mixed blocks of both word types, indicate that there was a small speed advantage for concrete nouns in lexical decision. To observe transfer effects from one word type to the other, all Ss in Exp III made judgments within blocked presentations of each word type. Findings show that when blocks of abstract words followed blocks of concrete words, judgments for the abstract words were significantly longer than those for concrete words. When concrete blocks followed abstract blocks, however, there was no difference in response time for the 2 word types. It is concluded that the effect of concreteness in lexical decision appears to be critically sensitive to order of presentation. Implications for models of common vs dual representation in lexical memory are discussed. (56 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and sexual relations.

Examined the relationship between self-monitoring propensities and orientations toward sexual relations among 116 female and 139 male undergraduates, who completed the Self-Monitoring Scale, questions pertaining to previous and anticipated overt sexual behavior, and attitudinal indices regarding sex without commitment and casual sex. Factor analysis revealed that high self-monitoring Ss tended to establish an unrestricted orientation toward sexual relations (e.g., having sex with others to whom they were not necessarily psychologically close), whereas low self-monitoring Ss tended to establish a restricted orientation (e.g., they would have sex only with partners to whom they were psychologically close). At the behavioral level, high relative to low self-monitoring Ss indicated that they had a larger number of different sexual partners within the preceding year, could foresee themselves having sex with a larger number of different partners within the next 5 yrs, and were more likely to have engaged in sex with someone on only 1 occasion. At the attitudinal level, low compared to high self-monitoring Ss indicated that they would be more reluctant to have sex with someone to whom they were not committed and that they would be more uncomfortable with, and less likely to enjoy engaging in, casual sex with different partners. Possible explanations for these contrasting orientations are discussed. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Long-term abstract learning of attentional set.

How does past experience influence visual search strategy (i.e., attentional set)? Recent reports have shown that, when given the option to use 1 of 2 attentional sets, observers persist with the set previously required in a training phase. Here, 2 related questions are addressed. First, does the training effect result only from perseveration with the currently active set or from long-term learning? Experiment 1 supported the latter alternative: When training and test were separated by up to 1 week, to prevent perseveration across the 2 sessions, the training effect was still obtained. Second, is the learning feature-specific (tuned to a precise set of colors) or more abstract? Experiments 2 and 3 supported the latter: When stimulus colors were switched between training and test to remove the possibility of feature-specific learning, the training effect again was obtained. These experiments indicate that attentional set is largely guided by long-term abstract learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Basic emotions, relations among emotions, and emotion-cognition relations.

From the cognitive theory perspective that emotions are cognition dependent and contain cognitive components, A. Ortony and T. J. Turner (see record 1990-27526-001) questioned the validity of the concept of basic emotions. They argued that the so-called basic emotions were neither psychologically or biologically "primitive" nor "irreducible building blocks" for generating the "great variety of emotional experiences." In the biosocial theory tradition, researchers have identified multiple noncognitive activators of emotion and demonstrated the usefulness of defining the essential components of emotion as phenomena that do not require cognitive mediators or constituents. In this framework, emotions are seen as basic because their biological and social functions are essential in evolution and adaptation. Particular emotions are called basic because they are assumed to have innate neural substrates, innate and universal expressions, and unique feeling–motivational states. The great variety of emotional experiences is explained as a function of emotion–cognition interactions that result in affective–cognitive structures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Explaining the relations among children's actual and perceived performances and self-esteem: A comparison of several causal models.

Used structural equation methods to compare various causal models of the relation between children's performances and self-esteem. Analysis was based on cross-sectional data collected from 415 children from 6th–8th grades. Ss' GPA, athletic performance, self-esteem, perceptions of academic ability, perceptions of sociometric status, and lists of peers they liked were analyzed. Models in which self-esteem affected perceptions of popularity fit the data better than models in which the reverse or reciprocal effects were posited. It appears that for ambiguous attributes, such as popularity, a self-consistency bias operates whereby children's self-esteem affects how popular they think they are. For more verifiable attributes (i.e., academic and athletic achievement), perceptions of achievement are more strongly related to actual achievement, and they are more likely to affect self-esteem rather than the reverse. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Context and the recallability of concrete and abstract sentences.

Examined the influence of contextual information on the recall of abstract and concrete sentences in 3 experiments, using 216 undergraduates. In Exp I, concrete and abstract target sentences were presented in either a coherent paragraph context or a random paragraph context. In the random context, Ss recalled more concrete target sentences than abstract ones, but there was no difference between the 2 groups when the sentences were presented in a coherent context. Exp II extended this finding by adding a moderately coherent context that used many of the same nouns as the coherent paragraph, but it was not as thematically coherent. Exp II replicated the results of Exp I and found that the moderately coherent context provided intermediate facilitation for the recall of abstract sentences relative to the random context and the coherent context; context structure had no effect on the recall of concrete sentences. In Exp III, the target sentences were abstract and the concreteness of the context was varied. Abstract context sentences were recalled as well as concrete context sentences if the contexts formed a coherent paragraph; if the context was a randomly ordered list of sentences, concrete context sentences were recalled better than abstract context sentences. Results were interpreted in terms of the differential availability of contextual information for abstract and concrete materials and support the context availability model. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impairment in abstract conceptualization in schizophrenia.

Discusses investigators' disagreements with K. Goldstein's (1940) and L. Vigotsky's (1934) notion that schizophrenics are impaired in abstract conceptualization. Following a review of terminological and theoretical issues, the evidence derived from investigations employing sorting test methods and principles is critically examined. Research findings are interpreted as strongly supporting the Goldstein-Vigotsky position. Critics' dissatisfaction with the early theorists' proposals appears to be based on a misunderstanding of Goldstein's and Vigotsky's ideas and a faulty assessment of the available evidence. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Person?×?Situation interactions: Choice of situations and congruence response models.

Examined 2 models of person?×?situation interactions using 42 undergraduates. The 1st model (H. A. Murray, 1938) predicts that there is a relation between personality and the situations people naturally choose to be in; the 2nd model (H. J. Eysenck, 1952) predicts that when there is congruence between the situation and personality, a person will experience more positive and less negative affect. These models were investigated by using mood and activity reports gathered on 3,512 occasions sampled randomly from Ss' everyday lives. Situational dimensions were related to some but not all personality variables investigated. Need for order predicted choice of typical situations, and extraversion correlated with time spent recreating socially. However, it was found that Ss did not spend more time in those settings in which they experienced more positive emotions nor less time in those situations in which they experienced more negative affect. In terms of the affect–congruence model, several predicted relations were found, but several others did not reach significance. The failure of the affect–congruence model to be consistently supported was probably because Ss' affect was relatively consistent across situations. Results suggest that although some theoretically meaningful person?×?situation interactions do occur, they are not necessarily strong or easily predictable. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reversal and extradimensional shifts in abstract and concrete schizophrenics.

72 concrete schizophrenics, defined in terms of conceptual sorting difficulties, were trained under 1 of 3 discrimination-learning conditions: reversal (R) shift, extradimensional (ED) shift, or control. 72 abstract schizophrenics were similarly divided, 1/2 of the Ss in each condition received verbal reinforcement, and 1/2 received candy reinforcement. Results indicated that concrete Ss required significantly more trials to learn the shift concepts than abstract Ss. Both R and ED shifts produced negative transfer relative to control conditions, but there was no significant difference between the 2 shift conditions. No differential effect was attributable to the different reinforcers. Results were discussed in terms of 2-stage discrimination-learning models and Goldstein's theory of schizophrenic concreteness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Plagiarism, credit assignment, and ownership of data.

Many instances of alleged ethical misconduct relating to plagiarism, credit assignment in publications, and ownership of research data involve complexities of kinds not fully envisioned in past years. Cases are described to illustrate (a) new forms of incompatibility among the ethical systems of different professions, (b) diffusion or loss of protective control over confidential research data, and (c) use of credit assignments for purposes other than fair identification of contributors. (1 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)