Méta-analyse et efficacité des psychothérapies : faits et fictions

In a political environment increasingly concerned with the problem of escalating health care costs, the issue of psychotherapy efficacy evaluation is still debated. Historically, this debate started after Eysenck (1952) published a famous article suggesting that average improvement from pre- to post-therapy has nothing to do with psychotherapy participation, but something that would tend to happen anyway (“spontaneous remission”). Wanting to prove that psychotherapy was effective (Glass, 2000), Smith and Glass (1977) published the first meta-analysis of the psychotherapy efficacy, combining the results of several controlled clinical trials, and found that psychotherapy was remarkably efficacious. Following a brief historical introduction, the objectives of this paper is to define the principles of meta-analysis, to discuss of epistemological contextualization of this methodological approach, and finally to examine the interest and limits of the application of this method in the field of evaluation of psychotherapy.     

Rorschach et maladies somatiques : Applications et éléments de validité

The goal of this article is to review the main applications of the Rorschach to the field of physical illness. Studies are presented and discussed concerning three areas, from the most theoretical to the most empirical: (1) The most widely used content scoring procedures, namely those of Fisher and Cleveland’s (1958) and Masling et al. (1967); (2) A group of studies dealing with a psychosomatic risk factor (alexithymia); (3) A summary of results concerning investigations of how Rorschach variables correlate with and determine self-care behaviours in people with various diseases. These three research axes illustrate the different types of relations between mind and body. Their results demonstrate that research questions and methods are being renewed.     

Implicatures et développement

We summarize our work on pragmatic inference-making in children, while generally focusing on scalar implicatures. Such inferences arise when a relatively weak term implies the rejection of a stronger one. For example, some is often understood to mean not all. While adults readily draw such implicatures, children tend to rely on the terms’ minimal, lexically encoded meanings (with which some is compatible with all). Given that children’s treatments coincide with logical ones, children end up appearing more logical than adults on standard reasoning tasks. We describe this effect in detail while showing that (a) even young children can be encouraged to carry out implicatures and, that; (b) evidence of non-pragmatic behavior is best explained as due to unavailable effort.     

Théories naïves et raisonnements téléologiques sur les animaux et les plantes

The cognitive status of plants as a biological category remains unclear in the conceptual organisation. A series of five experiments investigated whether adults agree with different kinds of teleological assertions to account for attributes of animals or plants. One major finding is that adults are inclined towards explanations that evoke an advantage for other species to motivate the existence of attributes in plants, but not in animals. This supports our assumption about social-serving teleological reasoning for plants, as for artefacts, and may contribute to increase the ambiguous status of plants within the unified concept of living thing. Therefore, plants may not only differ from animals by the low relevance of an intuitive psychology to account for their properties, but also by their tendency to trigger intuitive explanations devoted to artefacts.     

Temps et mémoire

Theoretical and empirical support about the relationship between working memory and timing is presented in this paper. Common observations and ideas in these two fields of research suggest a reciprocal influence such that memory would be involved in timing and temporal information could be used in memory processes. Empirical data supporting this relationship and theoretical models integrating timing and memory processes are discussed in the present paper.     

Régulations endogène et exogène des émotions : des processus complémentaires et indissociables

Studies dealing with emotion regulation have known a fast expansion during the last twenty years. Yet, they are most often based on models centered on endogenous cognitive and behavioral processes as well as the pursuit of welfare, and do not consider the social aspect of emotions and emotion expression which elicit exogenous emotion regulation processes from social interaction partners. The goal of this article is to show that both endogenous and exogenous emotion regulation processes are complementary and indivisible, and to suggest working hypotheses about how they connect. In the first part of this document, after a quick reminder of the different theoretical approaches of (individual) endogenous emotion regulation, we emphasize works about social approach behaviors (social affiliation) in emotional situations. These studies report that social interactions are sometimes sought as they would allow for the endogenous implementation of interpersonal emotion regulation strategies, especially by means of emotion expression. Individual and interpersonal endogenous emotion regulation processes would then complementarily modify the emotions experienced by an individual faced with a critical situation. The second part of this article underlines that social interaction partners actually are operators of exogenous emotion regulation processes rather than passive reservoirs of resources an individual may pick up to regulate their emotions. For that purpose, we especially consider the ways relatives (directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly) constrain the social affiliation behaviors and emotion expressions of an individual who experiences emotions. Thus, we argue that those behaviors are strongly influenced not only by the nature and intensity of emotions, but also by: firstly, social learning about how to feel, what to express and how to regulate emotions in a specific situation; secondly, features of the social environment as well as social expectations and demands about sharing emotions versus inhibiting their expression; and thirdly, the exogenous emotion regulation strategies a partner may use to regulate an individual's emotions. This set of studies entices us to consider endogenous and exogenous emotion regulation processes as acting jointly to promote not only the adaptation to emotional situations, but also the quality of social bonds between members of a social network. Social integration is thus central in the study of emotion regulation processes.     

Processus et subjectivité dans l’addiction

Addictive behaviors point out difficulties in definition and conceptualization. Emotion in its different forms is one of the most important phenomenon in the dynamic of addictions. We question the nature of the act, its economical status and its adaptative value. Moreover, we question the individual vulnerability and behavior's effects. The most important difficulty is to propose a general model of addiction, which can put together and explain the different forms of addictive behaviours. Those have to describe behaviour and its relationships with the individual's functioning, like subjectivity. We tend to propose in this paper such a model and insist on a particular economical system in the addiction.     

Psychologie sociale et perception du temps : l'estimation temporelle des stimuli sociaux et émotionnels

Two experiments using a temporal bisection task investigated the influence of the social meaning of stimuli on the estimation of their duration. The results showed that: a) the duration of faces expressing diverse emotional states was overestimated relative to the duration of neutral faces; b) the duration of faces representing elderly people was underestimated relative to the duration of faces representing young people. In both cases, this influence was found to appear at the earliest stage of the estimation process, modulating the rhythm of the estimator's internal clock. In the discussion, we suggest three different perspectives to account for the observed link between social and temporal perception.     

L’imagerie bizarre et la mémoire

One experiment examined free recall memory performance for bizarre and common pictures. Bizarre pictures were designed either deleting some components (SB pictures) either adding some components (AB pictures). A classical bizarreness effect was only obtained for AB pictures. Indeed no facilitative effect of bizarreness was obtained when incomplete fragmented pictures were used. Results were discussed in light of theories interested by the explanation of the bizarreness effect in memory.     

Créativité, haut potentiel et talent

Creativity (the capacity to realize original productions that fit the problem at hand) is increasingly considered as an important part of giftedness and talent. In this article, we first examine different points of view concerning the role of creativity in the phenomenon of giftedness and talent. Measures of creative potential and talent, as well as studies on the development of creativity are presented. We then consider the place of creativity in the education of gifted children. Finally, we discuss the implications of studying creativity in gifted children and propose possible lines of research and educational applications with a special focus on creativity.     

Tradition religieuse et capacité de pardon

Forgiveness is a fundamental ingredient of everyday life. This article is intended to present, in a synthetic way, a number of recent works having empirically determined the relationship between religious tradition and forgivingness. To forgive is basically to give something to someone. For/give is the equivalent of the latin per/donare. Forgiveness is the gift of one's right to resentment after having been the victim of an offense. Forgiveness has been empirically investigated in two ways. The first approach specifically considered forgiveness as a possible answer to a given situation. The second approach considered forgiveness as a philosophy of life, as a habit; that is, as a personality trait. The studies reported in this article illustrate this second approach. A three-factor model of forgivingness is presented: lasting resentment, sensitivity to the circumstances of the offence, and unconditional forgiveness. It is shown that this model nicely fit empirical data from samples of persons grown up either in the Buddhist tradition, or in the Christian tradition, or in the Hindu tradition. It is also shown that among people grown up in the Muslim tradition this model must be adjusted to reflect the unique character of this tradition: Islam is both a religious and a political tradition. In brief, people whose spiritual references are either Buddhist or Christian or Hindu must be aware that if a conflict, even a minor one, opposes them to Muslims, a particular attention will be attributed to their apologizing behavior and to their efforts to repair the wrong committed. Forgiveness will probably be granted only after the offender has satisfied a number of conditions. Symmetrically, people whose references are Muslim must be aware that, if a conflict opposes them to people grown up in the other traditions, all the circumstances of the situation will probably play a more or less similar role (intention, apology, social proximity) and that forgiveness may be unconditionally granted. Unconditional forgiveness exists, at least in theory, in these traditions: it is not regarded as a weakness or as an immoral disposition.     

Représentations sociales et influence sociale

Since content and structure of social representations are determined through communication, their link with the study of social influence should be of relevance. Three research programs are presented. In the tradition of social influence studies, the first one demonstrates that a majority source induces manifest influence on a social representation, whereas influence induced by a minority is latent. Considering an expert source, the second one confirms that high status sources may induce only superficial influence, showing that such dynamics are due to identity stakes. The third one examines the reciprocal influence that social representations may exert on the social influence processes themselves.     

Domination et impérialisme en psychologie

We offer some arguments in support of the idea that the only goal the teaching and research system of the United States can serve is that of the global system to which it belongs, namely, domination. We show how, within the last few decades, French research in psychology - its issues, its institutions, its practices, its ethics - has undergone a process of Americanization that has turned it into a mainstream Western (and basically American) psychology. We point out some research trends that have contested this mainstream psychology, either because it appears too male chauvinist or liberal (opposition psychologies) or because it is grounded in the individualist and liberalist postulates of Western cultures (indigenous psychologies). Unfortunately, because dominant epistemology is governed by a principle of continuity, these contesting trends have not increased our scientific requirements; on the contrary, they have often led to anti-scientific approaches. It is still the task of psychology to break away from kwoledges and values of common sense.     

Facteur d’impact et mondialisation culturelle

In the present article, we recall the principle of articles consummation as defined by the ISI creator (Institute for Scientific Information). That principle justifies the impact factor (IF) used as a measure of a journal scientific value, of a researcher or of a researcher group… We expose some assumptions that support the IF validity. Further we demonstrate that, on the one hand, these assumptions are not very well established and, on the other hand, that principle and the IF success bias the scientific activity. We consider next two shapes that this bias could take: at best a phenomenon of fashions, at worst, an ideological war having as purpose the American way of thinking domination.     

Conflits et stratégies suscités par l'innovation

L'auteur examine les raisons des résistances induites par le changement technique en insistant sur la dévalorisation du statut des personnes touchées. Puis il présente la tentative de formalisation des organisations par l'informatique centralisée avant de montrer que l'acceptation de l'innovation passe par une négociation ménageant les objectifs défendus par les utilisateurs. Mais l'exécutant peut aussi s'approprier la technique et l'exploiter pour développer une stratégie de pouvoir. Des exemples sont pris dans des domaines variés: industrie, enseignement, administration, politique, agriculture, secteur médical.
This article examines the reasons of resistances caused by technical change with a special emphasis on status devaluation of persons concerned. The author continues with a discussion of management's attempt to control the work process in introducing centralized computer-based information systems, before arguing that innovation acceptance calls for a negotiation saving user's aims. But workers can also appropriate the technology and exploit it to develop a power strategy. Examples are chosen in a variety of sectors: industry, teaching, administration, politics, agriculture, medicine.