Control Group Studies of Suicide Survivors: A Review and Critique

Empirical studies of suicide survivors with designs that include control groups are reviewed. Investigations are discussed individually with respect to those in which participating survivors are friends or a combination of many different relationships to the deceased, parents of the deceased child, and spouses. Following the review is a brief discussion of the commonalities of the findings and the most frequent methodological difficulties. Concluding comments suggest methodological improvements as well as issues and groups for which additional investigations are needed.     

The concept of psychogenic pain: A psychological investigation of women with pelvic pain

Women with pain occurring in the absence of pathology have been reported to have personality and mood disturbances which account for their pain. These studies suffer from both methodological and theoretical difficulties. A common methodological problem is the absence of comparison groups of women with pain of equivalent chronicity yet with diagnosed pathology. This study compares women with and without pathology, matched for pain chronicity, on a range of psychological measures. No differences were observed between “pathology” and “no pathology” groups on global measures of personality or mood. Differences do emerge in specific attitudes and exposure to illness. The implications of these findings for our understanding of pain mechanisms are discussed and the limitations of the notion of “psychogenic” pain are considered.     

AN ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION FOR THE ASYMMETRICAL EFFECTS IN RELATIONAL DEMOGRAPHY RESEARCH

Several relational demography studies have demonstrated asymmetrical effects of dissimilarity across different groups of employees. Some groups of employees appear to be more influenced by differences from fellow employees, whereas other groups of employees appear indifferent. Although numerous theoretical explanations have been developed to account for these asymmetrical effects, this paper argues that such effects are actually methodological artifacts resulting from an imbalance in the proportion of group members and deficiencies in the most commonly used measure of dissimilarity, Euclidean distance. This paper illustrates how such asymmetrical effects can be observed even when none exist in the population. Suggestions for methodological improvements in future diversity research are discussed along with recommendations for managing diversity in organizations.     

The reinforcement of disagreement in a small group

The present studies were conducted to determine whether differentially reinforcing decisions of a three-person group can modify how often individuals will disagree in making a decision. The results indicate that disagreement is likely to occur more often in groups where reinforcement in achieving a decision is made contingent on disagreement as compared with groups where reinforcement is not contingent on this interaction. Some methodological, theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Methodological problems in cross-cultural studies of linguistic relativity

Bloom (1981) tested a weak version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis (i.e., "Language affects thinking though it does not determine thinking") in a series of cross-cultural experiments. According to Bloom, Chinese lacks two linguistic devices that are present in English and supposed to be critical in performing theoretical thinking. It was found that the Chinese subjects were outperformed by American counterparts in all the tests designed to assess the ability of theoretical thinking. The results were taken as evidence for the weak version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. A methodological consideration has revealed, however, that all of his experiments except one are uninterpretable because of the lack of necessary control conditions. In addition, three experiments in the present study have demonstrated that the findings in Bloom's sole interpretable experiment were artifacts due to a methodological flaw. Further theoretical considerations reveal the inadequacy of Bloom's basic methodology and the limitation in the effects of linguistic relativity that may be possible at least theoretically.     

Methodological Requirements for Studying Creativity in Organizations

This article begins by broadly defining creativity and then more narrowly focusing on the definition of this construct. The broad methodological issues associated with organizational creativity are then discussed. To a large extent, the methodological requirements for studying organizational creativity depend on theoretical models. The most relevant theoretical models are reviewed. Specific methodological requirements for studying creativity in organizations are then reviewed, with emphasis on issues of validity and reliability. Finally, the article considers how organizational creativity research might be studied in a manner consistent with the methodological issues raised.     

A.R. luria's contribution to the study of the verbal control of behavior

Summary This paper examines Luria's contribution to research on the verbal control of behavior, which spanned from the 1930s to 1962. The speechmotor method utilized in the original Soviet experiments is reviewed, and the central methodological issues discussed. The internalization of speech is suggested as a theoretical problem yet to be adequately explained in cognitive or behaviorist theory.     

Errorless Learning in the Rehabilitation of Memory Impairment: A Critical Review

This review considers the origins of the errorless learning (EL) concept, its application in memory rehabilitation, the evidence for its effectiveness, and the theoretical basis for the observed findings. The evidence suggests that EL offers valuable benefits for at least some people with memory impairments when teaching certain types of tasks. However, the benefits are not evident for all groups, some findings are equivocal, and there are some limitations associated with this approach. We discuss methodological issues impacting on these mixed findings, consider which theoretical explanations might account for the findings regarding benefits and limitations of EL, and comment on the implications for rehabilitation practitioners of the current state of evidence in this area.     

Attentional bias to pain-relevant body locations: New methods,new challenges

In a recent issue of Consciousness and Cognition, Filbrich, Torta, Vanderclausen, Azanon, and Legrain (2016) commented on a paper in which we used a tactile Temporal Order Judgment (TOJ) task to show that expecting pain on a specific body location biased attention to that location (Vanden Bulcke, Crombez, Durnez, & Van Damme, 2015). Their main criticism is that the effects are likely to reflect response bias rather than genuine attentional bias. We agree that the TOJ task used may be susceptible to response bias, and welcome the authors’ methodological suggestions to control for such bias. However, we feel that certain aspects of our work are misrepresented in their paper. Most importantly, we contest their argument that our instructions made the threat location task-relevant, thereby increasing risk of response bias. Further, we reply to other methodological and theoretical issues raised by these authors.     

Cognition and Suicide: A Methodological Review

This article reviews the literature related to studies measuring various cognitive properties in suicidal patients. It provides a structural framework with which to classify the studies, and employs the categories of suicidal logic, cognitive style, social cognition, and cognitive control. The methodological issues discussed include: sample characteristics, operational definitions of suicidal behaviors, use of appropriate control groups, and the temporal nature of assessment. Improvements in experimental design are suggested for use in future research.     

Interaction Analysis and Psychology: A Dialogical Perspective

Interaction analysis is not a prerogative of any discipline in social sciences. It has its own history within each disciplinary field and is related to specific research objects. From the standpoint of psychology, this article first draws upon a distinction between factorial and dialogical conceptions of interaction. It then briefly presents the basis of a dialogical approach in psychology and focuses upon four basic assumptions. Each of them is examined on a theoretical and on a methodological level with a leading question: to what extent is it possible to develop analytical tools that are fully coherent with dialogical assumptions? The conclusion stresses the difficulty of developing methodological tools that are fully consistent with dialogical assumptions and argues that there is an unavoidable tension between accounting for the complexity of an interaction and using methodological tools which necessarily “monologise” this complexity.     

Evaluation of a home-based language training programme with severely mentally handicapped children

A home-based Language Training Programme was carried out with pre-school and school-age severely mentally handicapped children, over a 16–18-month period. Compared to control groups, the experimental groups did not show significantly greater progress on normreferenced measures of language development, although all groups showed significant improvement over time. The implications of these findings are discussed in the light of a number of methodological problems with the study.     

Assimilation Setbacks as Switching Strands: A Theoretical and Methodological Conceptualization

This paper offers a theoretical and methodological formulation of setbacks in the process of assimilation of problematic experiences in psychotherapy. It is based on a series of theory-building case studies, in which case observations were used to modify and confirm an evolving understanding. Assimilation typically follows a sawtoothed progression in which advances alternate with setbacks. Research has identified two main types of setbacks, called exceeding the therapeutic zone of proximal development, and the balance strategy, which occur under systematically different conditions. Both types of setbacks can be understood as switching strands within a problematic theme. This formulation defines and elaborates the methodological concepts of topic, theme, and strand, as well as the underlying theoretical concepts of internal voices and sub-voices. These are illustrated with examples from a clinical case. This elaboration of the assimilation model is related to other perspectives that emphasize people’s multiplicity of internal voices and used to suggest further studies.     

Groupes fratries comme dispositifs d’accompagnement des frères et sœurs d’enfants porteurs de handicap et/ou maladie : une revue de la littérature

This paper is aiming to a literature review on support groups for siblings of children with disability or illness. It is in line with the work of Dayan, Picon, Scelles and Bouteyre (2006), with an inventory of publications in English and French published between 2006 and 2020. Given the increase in studies targeting autism spectrum disorders (ASD), a focus is proposed on groups conducted in this specific context. After describing the diversity of the sibling groups’ methodological/theoretical frameworks and approaches, their functioning and objectives, a comparative analysis of the benefits they provide is carried out according to whether they concern any type of disability/disease or focus on ASDs. The limitations of these studies are analyzed and perspectives for future work are outlined.     

Some Prerequisites for Teaching Thinking: Methodological issues in the Study of LOGO Programming

Various publications over the past several years have discussed the cognitive benefits of learning the programming language LOGO. This study represents an effort to experimentally evaluate the claims that learning LOGO can enhance children's general thinking skills. Two main points are made. The first is that much of the previous literature investigating the effects of LOGO is flawed due to failure to consider important methodological requirements. The importance of clearly defining training conditions, documenting programming mastery, and defining transfer measures (including underlying theoretical motivations and instrument reliabilities) is discussed, along with the consequences of failure to consider these issues. The second major point deals with the importance of considering the method of teaching LOGO and its effects on the development and transfer of general thinking skills from the LOGO environment to non-LOGO problems. A study attempting to meet the methodological concerns was designed to determine whether a structured teaching method was more effective than an unstructured, discovery-oriented method in achieving language mastery and transfer of general skills. Three groups of fifth graders (structured, unstructured, and control) varying in previous academic success level (successful or less successful) were included. The structured and unstructured groups were taught LOGO for 1 hr per day, 5 days per week, for 5 weeks. Measures of LOGO mastery showed significant differences favoring the structured group on items requiring anything more than basic knowledge of LOGO commands. Pretest and posttest measures of general thinking skills showed no differences between experimental and control students on tests of students' independent performance, although one test measuring performance in a prompted testing situation showed significant differences favoring the experimental group. Implications of these results for teaching general thinking skills are discussed.     

Childhood depression: pharmacological therapy/treatment (pharmacotherapy of childhood depression)

Critiqued the published double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of antidepressant pharmacotherapy in child and adolescent major depressive disorder to assess their overall efficacy. The pharmacological mechanism of antidepressant action also was discussed. At best, antidepressant treatment for depressed youths is only modestly effective. In particular, the tricyclic antidepressants are not superior to placebo; however, early evidence with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors is more encouraging. The theoretical basis for this response pattern is discussed from a methodological perspective, from a neurodevelopmental status, and from a biological viewpoint. Study modifications are suggested which could improve some of the methodological limitations apparent in previous clinical drug trials.     

Short- and long-term implicit memory in aging and Alzheimer's disease

Implicit memory processes were investigated via picture naming in healthy young and older adults and in persons with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). Repetition priming in picture-naming was intact in all groups over the course of a short retention interval (seconds), and only the AD group revealed a deficit over a longer interval (72 hours). In addition, the AD group showed impaired procedural memory, with no benefit of practice on picture-naming. Impaired long-term priming was related to severity of AD. Both theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.     

Critical comments on the theory and practice of behavior therapy from the viewpoint of Marxist-Leninist philosophy

By analyzing previous critical studies of the theoretical and methodological positions of behavioral therapy, which were conducted on Marxist-Leninist principles, the authors discuss the complex relationship of one-sided philosophical assumptions, simplifying elements of psychological theories, and radional moments of successful practical application in certain fields. Both critical delimitation from untenable theoretical interpretations and the inclusion of rational forms of therapy in a complex system of psychotherapy are considered essential.     

“My way or no way”: Anarchic power,relationship satisfaction,and male violence

Abstract It was hypothesized that couples experiencing husband violence are more likely than nonviolent couples to have “anarchic” power outcomes, that is, the failure to reach agreement or make a decision when discussing relationship problems. Three groups of U.S. couples in committed relationships participated in the current study: 41 experiencing husband violence, 23 nonviolent but maritally distressed, and 39 nonviolent‐nondistressed. The power outcome was assessed by noting which partner's solution couples adopted using both hypothetical and actual marital problem discussions. The study findings suggested that power gridlocks are related to relationship dysfunction but may not be specifically linked to husband violence among a community sample. The conclusion includes a discussion of the methodological and theoretical issues that need to be considered in future research.