The response of counsellors to apartheid: A reply to Dryden (1990) and De Jager (1992)

This reply to Dryden (1990) and De Jager (1992) explores the role of organised counselling psychology in challenging, maintaining or promoting apartheid. Counsellors have an important role to play in newly racially integrated tertiary institutions. This role should be informed by an acknowledgement of the central involvement of race and politics within counselling psychology so that appropriate politically contextualised organisational interventions can be implemented.     

The response of South African professional psychology associations to apartheid

Professional psychology associations in South Africa have overtly and covertly furthered the aims of apartheid. Guidance about the ethical obligations of psychologists in the South African context has been singularly lacking, and as a result blacks have not been attracted to the profession of psychology in sufficient numbers to administer to psychological needs of the client population. The political dimension of psychological practice in South Africa needs to be addressed directly so that healing strategies relevant to the burgeoning racial conflict in South Africa can be implemented.     

Confusion in philosophy: A comment on Williams (1992)

Patricia Williams made a number of claims concerning the methods and practise of cladistic analysis and classification. Her argument rests upon the distinction of two kinds of hierarchy: a divisional hierarchy depicting evolutionary descent and the Linnean hierarchy describing taxonomic groups in a classification. Williams goes on to outline five problems with cladistics that lead her to the conclusion that systematists should eliminate cladism as a school of biological taxonomy and to replace it either with something that is philosophically coherent or to replace it with pure methodology, untainted by theory (Williams 1992, 151). Williams makes a number of points which she feels collectively add up to insurmountable problems for cladistics. We examine Williams' views concerning the two hierarchies and consider what cladists currently understand about the status of ancestors. We will demonstrate that Williams has seriously misunderstood many modern commentators on this subject and all of her five persistent problems are derivable from this misunderstanding.

Nelson (1989, 67).

     

A misleading review of response bias: comment on McGrath, Mitchell, Kim, and Hough (2010)

In the May 2010 issue of Psychological Bulletin, R. E. McGrath, M. Mitchell, B. H. Kim, and L. Hough published an article entitled "Evidence for Response Bias as a Source of Error Variance in Applied Assessment" (pp. 450-470). They argued that response bias indicators used in a variety of settings typically have insufficient data to support such use in everyday clinical practice. Furthermore, they claimed that despite 100 years of research into the use of response bias indicators, "a sufficient justification for [their] use… in applied settings remains elusive" (p. 450). We disagree with McGrath et al.'s conclusions. In fact, we assert that the relevant and voluminous literature that has addressed the issues of response bias substantiates validity of these indicators. In addition, we believe that response bias measures should be used in clinical and research settings on a regular basis. Finally, the empirical evidence for the use of response bias measures is strongest in clinical neuropsychology. We argue that McGrath et al.'s erroneous perspective on response bias measures is a result of 3 errors in their research methodology: (a) inclusion criteria for relevant studies that are too narrow; (b) errors in interpreting results of the empirical research they did include; (c) evidence of a confirmatory bias in selectively citing the literature, as evidence of moderation appears to have been overlooked. Finally, their acknowledging experts in the field who might have highlighted these errors prior to publication may have prevented critiques during the review process.     

Causal and conditional inferences: A comment on Cummins (1995)

Cummins (1995) offers an analysis of causal and truthfunctional sufficiency and necessity to predict and explain the effects on conditional inferences of two pragmatic factors: alternative causes and disabling conditions. However, the justification of these predictions is inconsistent. This note offers a modified analysis which puts her predictions on a sounder base: it is proposed that alternative causes and disabling conditions affect judgments of argument validity under three different models for the causal conditional.     

The need for public policies to promote healthier food consumption: A comment on Wansink and Chandon (2014)

Current approaches to addressing obesity have fallen short. This is largely due to the many environmental forces that undermine people's self-regulatory capacity to be personally responsible for their food choices. Novel insights from the social sciences are needed to inform voluntary, health-promoting actions by companies, institutions, and citizens as well as the design of public health policies. Voluntary interventions that rely on nudges should complement traditional public health strategies such as taxation and restriction of child-targeted marketing in schools. In this commentary, we discuss four food policy issues that would benefit from consumer psychology research: (a) the restriction of food marketing to children, (b) provision of nutrition information through food labels, (c) improving school food environments, and (d) placing limits on portion sizes. Identifying effective solutions for obesity will require approaches that integrate psychological, public health, and legal perspectives and methods.     

The intelligence of the moral intuitions: comment on Haidt (2001)

The social intuitionist model (J. Haidt, 2001) posits that fast and automatic intuitions are the primary source of moral judgments. Conscious deliberations play little causal role; they are used mostly to construct post hoc justifications for judgments that have already occurred. In this article, the authors present evidence that fast and automatic moral intuitions are actually shaped and informed by prior reasoning. More generally, there is considerable evidence from outside the laboratory that people actively engage in reasoning when faced with real-world moral dilemmas. Together, these facts limit the strong claims of the social intuitionist model concerning the irrelevance of conscious deliberation.     

A further comment on the construct validity of laboratory aggression paradigms: A response to giancola and chermack

Giancola and Chermack responded to our criticisms of laboratory paradigms for studying aggression by arguing that two existing laboratory procedures circumvent the problems raised, and they provide evidence for the validity of these procedures. We argue that Giancola and Chermack do not succeed in their defense of existing paradigms for both conceptual and methodological reasons.     

Polyglot aphasics and language mixing: A comment on Perecman (1984)

Perecman (1984) Brain and Language, 23, 43-63, proposes that language mixing (and especially utterance level mixing) in polyglot aphasics reflects a linguistic deficit and that spontaneous translation indicates a prelinguistic processing deficit. It is argued in this comment that both language mixing (including utterance-level mixing) and spontaneous translation are also found in normal polyglots, and that they may not therefore always be reflecting language deficit in aphasics. Only a good assessment of the patient's language and speech before and after the injury will determine if these behaviors do indeed reflect deficits.     

The media do matter: comment on Steinberg and Monahan (2011)

Steinberg and Monahan's (2011) reanalysis of the Teen Media longitudinal survey of adolescents does not meet prevailing standards for propensity score analysis and therefore does not undermine the original conclusions of the Brown, L'Engle, Pardun, Guo, Kenneavy, and Jackson (2006) analysis. The media do matter in the sexual socialization of adolescents.     

The glass ceiling is not fragile: A response to Odum (2000)

Odum (2000) criticized our recent conclusions about the participation of women in the experimental analysis of behavior (McSweeney & Swindell, 1998). We address her criticisms here. We argue against the need for statistical tests. We show that our conclusions still apply to all journals except the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior even when we include the senior editorial staff along with members of the editorial board. We argue that the data that Odum provides to show gender equity are limited, inconsistent with past findings, and hard to interpret in the absence of other data. Finally, we argue that Odum failed to address our most convincing argument for gender inequity and misinterpreted our suggestions for improvements.     

The double-anchoring theory of lightness perception: a comment on Bressan (2006)

Recently, a double-anchoring theory (DAT) of lightness perception was proposed (P. Bressan, 2006), which offers explanations for all the data explained by the original anchoring theory (A. Gilchrist et al., 1999), as well as a number of additional lightness phenomena. Consequently, DAT can account for an unprecedented range of empirical results, potentially explaining everything from the basic simultaneous contrast display to subtle variations of the Gelb effect. In this comment, the authors raised 4 concerns that demonstrate serious theoretical and empirical difficulties for DAT.     

Catching up with our changing (digital) world: A comment on Baier (this issue)

Many mental health clinicians participate in the use of social media in their professional and personal lives. There are a number of ethics issues and challenges associated with this social media use, particularly with regard to self-disclosure. In this comment, key issues relevant to social media use and self-disclosure are addressed including relevant ethics guidance for participating in social media; social media use, boundaries, and multiple relationships; informed consent and the social media policy; and preparation of our next generation for working ethically and effectively in the digital world. These challenges are examined and recommendations for addressing each of them in a thoughtful and proactive manner are made with a focus on each mental health professional’s overarching ethics obligations to those we serve.     

The importance of theory: response to Brenner (2000)

L. Brenner's (2000) critique of I. Erev, T. S. Wallsten and D. V. Budescu (1994) focuses on their (a) use of a model to explain the paradox of the same data appearing to suggest over- and underconfidence, depending on how they are analyzed; (b) definitions of true judgment and error; and (c) specific use of judgments transformed to log-odds and a model formulated in those terms. The authors of the present article strongly disagree with the first point and discuss the importance of using models to interpret data. With regard to the second, the authors admit that the constructs of true judgment and error are poorly named but dispute L. Brenner's specific criticisms. Concerning the third, the authors had not claimed that the log-odds metric has any special status in judgment research and thus agree with L. Brenner's basic point.     

Aphasia for Morse code: A comment on Wyler and Ray (1986)

A. R. Wyler and R. W. Ray (1986, Brain and Language, 27, 195-199), present a case of aphasia for Morse code; they relate the deficit to the inability to detect high-speed auditory temporal sequences. Based on a personal observation of transient aphasia for Morse code, we proposed that at least three different abilities participate in recognizing and producing Morse code messages: (1) a specific linguistic ability, (2) a praxic skill, and (3) an auditory discrimination skill. Our patient presents difficulties in the first and second abilities, Wyler and Ray's in the third ability.