Timing of pubertal maturation in girls: an integrated life history approach

Life history theory provides a metatheoretical framework for the study of pubertal timing from an evolutionary-developmental perspective. The current article reviews 5 middle-level theories--energetics theory, stress-suppression theory, psychosocial acceleration theory, paternal investment theory, and child development theory--each of which applies the basic assumptions of life history theory to the question of environmental influences on timing of puberty in girls. These theories converge in their conceptualization of pubertal timing as responsive to ecological conditions but diverge in their conceptualization of (a) the nature, extent, and direction of environmental influences and (b) the effects of pubertal timing on other reproductive variables. Competing hypotheses derived from the 5 perspectives are evaluated. An extension of W. T. Boyce and B. J. Ellis's (in press) theory of stress reactivity is proposed to account for both inhibiting and accelerating effects of psychosocial stress on timing of pubertal development. This review highlights the multiplicity of (often unrecognized) perspectives guiding research, raises challenges to virtually all of these, and presents an alternative framework in an effort to move research forward in this arena of multidisciplinary inquiry.     

Commentary on the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD

The multimodal treatment study of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (MTA Study) constitutes a landmark in the history of treatment research in child psychopathology, being the largest single study of its kind ever undertaken. Important findings have emerged from this project, as the papers in the present volume will attest. This commentary focuses on several concerns about the assumptions that appear to have guided the design of the MTA study, particularly its psychosocial treatment component, as well as the manner in which treatment results have been presented to date. In particular, no explicit theory of ADHD appears to have guided the construction of the treatment components, relying instead on implicit theories associated with those treatments, such as the notion that the symptoms of ADHD arise through faulty learning and defective contingencies of reinforcement. Future articles from this study will need to address these and other concerns if the results of the study are to be properly interpreted and the scientific and clinical yield is to be maximized.     

Predicting Intentions to Use Condoms: A Meta-Analysis and Comparison of the Theories of Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior1

A meta-analysis was conducted on 23 psychosocial predictors of intentions to use condoms. Data from 67 independent samples were included in the review. Findings demonstrated that demographic, sexual experience, and personality variables had small average correlations with intentions. Knowledge about HIV/AIDS and perceptions of the threat of disease were also weakly related to decisions about using condoms. Attitudes and subjective norms from the theory of reasoned action, on the other hand, demonstrated medium to strong effect sizes. Two components of social influence not specified by the theory of reasoned action also received support. Evidence suggested that perceived behavioral control from the theory of planned behavior was a reliable predictor of behavioral intentions and explained variance over and above the effects of attitudes and subjective norms.     

Pragmatism,enactivism, and ecological psychology: towards a unified approach to post-cognitivism

This paper argues that it is possible to combine enactivism and ecological psychology in a single post-cognitivist research framework if we highlight the common pragmatist assumptions of both approaches. These pragmatist assumptions or starting points are shared by ecological psychology and the enactive approach independently of being historically related to pragmatism, and they are based on the idea of organic coordination, which states that the evolution and development of the cognitive abilities of an organism are explained by appealing to the history of interactions of that organism with its environment. It is argued that the idea of behavioral or organic coordination within the enactive approach gives rise to the sensorimotor abilities of the organism, while the ecological approach emphasizes the coordination at a higher-level between organism and environment through the agent’s exploratory behavior for perceiving affordances. As such, these two different processes of organic coordination can be integrated in a post-cognitivist research framework, which will be based on two levels of analysis: the subpersonal one (the neural dynamics of the sensorimotor contingencies and the emergence of enactive agency) and the personal one (the dynamics that emerges from the organism-environment interaction in ecological terms). If this proposal is on the right track, this may be a promising first step for offering a systematized and consistent post-cognitivist approach to cognition that retain the full potential of both enactivism and ecological psychology.

     

The Need for a Revolution in the Philosophy of Science

There is a need to bring about a revolution in the philosophy of science, interpreted to be both the academic discipline, and the official view of the aims and methods of science upheld by the scientific community. At present both are dominated by the view that in science theories are chosen on the basis of empirical considerations alone, nothing being permanently accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence. Biasing choice of theory in the direction of simplicity, unity or explanatory power does not permanently commit science to the thesis that nature is simple or unified. This current ‘paradigm’ is, I argue, untenable. We need a new paradigm, which acknowledges that science makes a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, theories being chosen partly on the basis of compatibility with these assumptions. Eleven arguments are given for favouring this new ‘paradigm’ over the current one. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Terms of empowerment/exemplars of prevention: Toward a theory for community psychology

In order to develop theory any community of scientists must agree as to what constitutes its phenomena of interest. A distinction is made between phenomena of interest and exemplars. The concept "prevention" is viewed as an exemplar, whereas the concept "empowerment" is suggested as a leading candidate for the title "phenomena of interest" to Community Psychology. The ecological nature of empowerment theory is described, and some of the terms of empowerment (definitions, conditions, and periods of time) are explicated. Eleven assumptions, presuppositions, and hypotheses are offered as guidelines for theory development and empirical study.     

Do Personal Dispositions Affect the Relationship Between Psychosocial Working Conditions and Workplace Bullying?

There is scarce research on the interaction between psychosocial working conditions and being a target of workplace bullying with individual characteristics as a moderator. We therefore examined 3,363 employees from 60 Danish workplaces to test whether sense of coherence moderates the relationship between the job demand-control model and bullying. This work is exploratory in nature, as no previous study to assess this moderation was found. Hierarchical linear regressions showed that demand-control model was significantly associated with bullying. Sense of coherence displayed a significant though practically negligible moderating effect. This suggests that negative psychosocial working conditions are associated with bullying independently of personal characteristics, at least in terms of sense of coherence.     

On the Distinctive Features of Ecological Laws

Ecological psychology is grounded in the assumption of the availability of lawlike regularities in the world as the basis of reliable information for perceiving-acting systems. This article aims to articulate some of the necessary conditions for an account of lawfulness that accommodates ecological theories of perceiving and acting. This attempt considers historically influential accounts of laws but offers modifications of the notions of law and especially of cause that are of greater relevance to the practice of an ecological science. A guiding assumption is that the laws of the animate are the most general. The authors advocate understanding laws in reference to reliable regularities, causes as not being strictly Newtonian in character, and flexibility with respect to certain formal and philosophical commitments.     

Contextualizing the Psychosocial Well‐being of Military Members and Their Partners: The Importance of Community and Relationship Provisions

Evidence of the impact of communities has been documented for a variety of individual and relational outcomes, including mental and physical health as well as the quality of romantic and parent–child relationships. The military represents a rather unique work context; in that, it is generally considered a lifestyle with a distinct culture and community. Yet, military families are also members of their broader, comprehensive community. Drawing from the social organizational theory of action and change (SOC) (Mancini & Bowen, 2013), and relationship provisions theory (Weiss, 1969) and utilizing a sample of 266 active duty military families, this study examined connectedness with the military community and the broader, comprehensive community. A dyadic model was evaluated whereby each partner's perspective of their comprehensive and military community was hypothesized to influence their own psychosocial well‐being as well as their partner's psychosocial well‐being. The role of relationship provisions (that is, having relationship needs met) as a mechanism linking community connections to psychosocial well‐being was also examined. Overall, the findings supported the hypothesized model, particularly for intra‐individual effects and military members. Findings emphasize the importance of considering what is gained from connections within a community rather than a focus solely on the connections themselves.     

Implications of an initial empirical victory for the truth of the theory and additional empirical victories

Psychologists take two propositions for granted. Specifically, empirical verification of predictions derived from a theory (a) support that the theory is more likely to be true and (b) support that additional predictions derived from the theory have an increased probability of being sustained if subjected to empirical testing. In contrast, I argue that both propositions depend strongly on whether auxiliary assumptions are taken into account. When auxiliary assumptions are not taken into account, the first proposition is valid but the second is not. When auxiliary assumptions are taken into account, the first proposition is not valid, and the second proposition encounters additional problems. I use Venn diagrams and Bayesian principles to demonstrate these conclusions.     

An Error Concerning Noses

We identify a strategy for getting beliefs from fiction via three assumptions: (1) a certain causal generality holds in the fiction and does so because (2) causal generalities in fiction are (with noted exceptions) carried over from what the author takes to be fact; (3) the author is reliable on this topic, so what the author takes to be fact is fact. We do not question (2). While (3) will, in particular cases, be doubtful, the strategy is vulnerable more generally to the worry that what looks like a causal generality may be instead an authorial intervention of a kind from which no causal connection can be inferred; in such cases (1) turns out to be false though it may seem at first sight to be true. In consequence we have extra reason for being careful in forming beliefs based on fictions.     

Age Moderates the Relationship Between Social Support and Psychosocial Problems

Social support is commonly assumed to protect people from the experience of psychological distress and to enhance well‐being. However, past research shows that the effectiveness of social support from family members and friends varies over the life span. Both the stage model of life satisfaction and compensatory processes associated with aging provide accounts for why this may be the case. Accordingly, age was predicted to moderate the association between perceived functional and structural social support and the experience of depressive symptoms and loneliness. Age was also predicted to be associated with lower relationship standards that allow people to remain content regardless of whether available social support decreases. This moderational model was tested in a community‐based sample of 325 adults ranging in age from 19 to 85 years. Results indicated that social support from family members and sheer contact with them, as well as social support from a spouse or partner, was most strongly and negatively related to the psychosocial problems in the younger participants. Age also moderated the association between relationship standards and loneliness. Consistent with the assumptions of the stage model of life satisfaction and previous research on compensatory processes associated with aging, older people do not appear to be as dependent as younger people on receiving social support from diverse sources in order to maintain a sense of well‐being.     

Substantive assumptions in interaction: a logical perspective

In this paper we study substantive assumptions in social interaction. By substantive assumptions we mean contingent assumptions about what the players know and believe about each other’s choices and information. We first explain why substantive assumptions are fundamental for the analysis of games and, more generally, social interaction. Then we show that they can be compared formally, and that there exist contexts where no substantive assumptions are being made. Finally we show that the questions raised in this paper are related to a number of issues concerning “large” structures in epistemic game theory.     

The Land Ethic,Moral Development,and Ecological Rationality

There has been significant debate over both the imiplications and the merit of Leopold's land ethic. I consider the two most prominent objections and a resolution to them. One of these objections is that, far from being an alternative to an “economic” or cost‐benefit perspective on environmental issues, Leopold's land ethic merely broadens the range of economic considerations to be used in addressing such issues. The other objection is that the land ethic is a form of “environmental fascism” because it subordinates the welfare of humans to the good of the ecological whole. I argue that these objections are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of his theory by advocates and detractors alike. The land ethic is centrally a psychological theory of moral development and ecological rationality that advocates a shift in the way that environmental problems are conceptualized and approached.     

Psychosocial Predictors of Health Status and Health Care Costs among People with Fibromyalgia

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of psychosocial characteristics on health status and the relationship between health status and health care use and costs in a group of people with fibromyalgia (FMS) over a 1-year period. The participants were 600 members of a large health maintenance organization. Demographic characteristics (age, education, employment status, ethnicity and income), need variables (comorbid conditions and baseline health status), and psychosocial variables (self-efficacy, helplessness, coping, and depression) were examined. Better health status at baseline, use of emotion-focused coping, and higher self-efficacy predicted better health status the following year. Higher health care use at baseline, being Caucasian, being older, and having more co-morbid conditions predicted higher health care use at 1 year. Only health care costs at baseline predicted health care costs the following year. Our results indicate that health care use and cost tend to be stable. Intense interventions focused on changing patterns of health care use and methods for coping with the change need to be developed and tested.     

Explaining Delay in Care Seeking for Breast Cancer Symptoms1

From a theory of care-seeking behavior, this study answered two questions: Do psychosocial variables (anxiety, utility, norm, and habit) and objective, facilitating conditions (e. g., regular practitioner) influence care-seeking delay with a breast symptom directly, or are psychosocial influences moderated by facilitating conditions? Do demographic or clinical factors explain delay, controlling for psychosocial variables and facilitating conditions? Women with breast cancer symptoms (N= 106) completed questionnaire measures. Delay was measured by the days between symptom detection and first contact with the health system. Norm and having a regular practitioner were related inversely to delay. The influence of anxiety was moderated by having a regular practitioner. Among women lacking a practitioner, anxiety was related inversely to delay; among women with a practitioner, anxiety was not related to delay. Controlling for psychosocial variables and facilitating conditions, women of color delayed longer than did Caucasians. Findings can guide research and theory about care seeking.     

Perceived tempo change is dependent on base tempo and direction of change: Evidence for a generalized version of Schulze's (1978) internal beat model

Assumptions of a theory, still influential, of tempo perception by Schulze (1978) are reconsidered in view of counter-evidence from other time-perception and timing studies. Specifically, it is shown that the role of base tempo of stimuli and the orientation of tempo change (acceleration versus deceleration) have to be incorporated in them. Therefore, Schulze's assumptions were extended so as to include the two stimulus parameters. A generalized version of Schulze's internal beat model, one of three formal elaborations of the theory, was tested in an experiment which required subjects (N = 17) to tell the direction of change (acceleration or deceleration) in metronomic tone sequences presented at tempi of 1, 2, or 4 Hz, the amount of tempo change being varied in steps of 2% between –10% (acceleration) and + 10%, including zero change. Psychometric curves obtained from logistic regression analysis showed the limitation of the original assumptions and supported the proposed generalization of Schulze's model. The validity of the theoretical interpretation of the data was discussed with respect to some methodological constraints in the experiment, such as the presentation of the different tempo conditions and the time length of the metronomic stimuli used, and with respect to their applicability to the performance of expressive drift (rubato versus accelerando) in music.     

The changing psychology of culture in German‐speaking countries: A Google Ngram study

This article provides evidence for the long‐term affiliation between ecological and cultural changes in German‐speaking countries, based on the assumptions derived from social change and human development theory. Based on this theory, the increase in urbanisation, as a measure of ecological change, is associated with significant cultural changes of psychology. Whereas urbanisation is linked to greater individualistic values and materialistic attitudes, rural environments are strongly associated with collectivistic values like allegiance, prevalence of religion, and feelings of belonging and benevolence. Due to an increase in the German urbanisation rate over time, our study investigates whether Germany and the German‐speaking countries around show the presumed changes in psychology. By using Google Books Ngram Viewer, we find that word frequencies, signifying individualistic (collectivistic) values, are positively (negatively) related to the urbanisation rate of Germany. Our results indicate that predictions about implications of an urbanising population for the psychology of culture hold true, supporting international universality of the social change and human development theory. Furthermore, we provide evidence for a predicted reversal for the time during and after World War II, reflecting Nazi propaganda and influence.     

Modeling the Ecological Validity of Neurocognitive Assessment in Adults with Acquired Brain Injury

Neuropsychologists are increasingly asked to make judgments regarding treatment options and rehabilitation strategies in addition to evaluating the degree and scope of neuropsychological impairment following acquired brain injuries. The capacity to make informed clinical decisions relies upon research investigating the relationships between neuropsychological and psychosocial status (i.e., ecological validity). Unfortunately, much of this research employs exploratory analyses, an approach that can lead to theoretical ambiguity and ad-hoc interpretations. The current availability and accessibility of analytical tools, like structural equation modeling (SEM), however, permits the testing of specific hypotheses regarding ecological validity and promotes a-priori theory development. In the current study, a theory-driven model of the ecological validity of a neurocognitive assessment was tested against data obtained from individuals with acquired brain injury using SEM. The results provide confirmatory evidence for the ecological validity of neurocognitive constructs and empirical support for a theory-driven analytical approach to ecological validity research.     

Psychosocial knowledge and allopathic medicine: Points of convergence and departure

The past 15 years have witnessed a call for allopathic medicine to incorporate psychosocial perspectives into education and clinical practice. While a biopsychosocial perspective has influenced academic medicine in areas such as primary care and psychiatry, its direct impact on clinical medicine has been questionable. One barrier to the incorporation of psychosocial information into medicine which has only recently received attention has been different cultural assumptions which govern medicine versus the social-behavioral sciences. These assumptions are examined in the context of four issues: knowledge paradigms, models of education, acculturation of psychosocial knowledge into medicine, and patient autonomy. This cultural analysis provides a vantage point for understanding similarities as well as points of divergence between psychosocial and biomedical knowledge and practice.