Three approaches to the psychology of culture: Where do they come from? Where can they go?

Cultural psychology, cross-cultural psychology, and indigenous psychology are three approaches to the psychology of culture. The author begins by comparing the three approaches – conceptually, methodologically; and historically. She concludes that each approach has contributed knowledge of the "deep structure" of culture to the field of psychology. This "deep structure" consists of the framework of individualism and collectivism; particular cultures are therefore surface forms of one or the other of these basic cultural frameworks. Rather than being universal, classical social and developmental psychology are seen as reflecting a particular indigenous psychology. For the future, a truly universal psychology must offer a theoretical framework that encompasses alternative indigenous psychologies.     

A Review of “Where did the gods go?”

Gods in Everyman: A New Psychology of Men's Lives and Loves. By Jean Shinoda Bolen. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.

Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women. By Sylvia Brinton Perera. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1981.

The Goddess Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths That Shape Women's Lives. By Jennifer Barker Woolger and Roger J. Woolger. New York: Fawcett Books 1989.     

Inhibitory phonetic priming: Where does the effect come from?

Both phonological and phonetic priming studies reveal inhibitory effects that have been interpreted as resulting from lexical competition between the prime and the target. We present a series of phonetic priming experiments that contrasted this lexical locus explanation with that of a prelexical locus by manipulating the lexical status of the prime and the target and the task used. In the related condition of all experiments, spoken targets were preceded by spoken primes that were phonetically similar but shared no phonemes with the target (/bak/–/dεt/). In Experiments 1 and 2, word and nonword primes produced an inhibitory effect of equal size in shadowing and same–different tasks respectively. Experiments 3 and 4 showed robust inhibitory phonetic priming on both word and nonword targets in the shadowing task, but no effect at all in a lexical decision task. Together, these findings show that the inhibitory phonetic priming effect occurs independently of the lexical status of both the prime and the target, and only in tasks that do not necessarily require the activation of lexical representations. Our study thus argues in favour of a prelexical locus for this effect.     

Where does attention go when you blink?

Many studies have shown that covert visual attention precedes saccadic eye movements to locations in space. The present research investigated whether the allocation of attention is similarly affected by eye blinks. Subjects completed a partial-report task under blink and no-blink conditions. Experiment 1 showed that blinking facilitated report of the bottom row of the stimulus array: Accuracy for the bottom row increased and mislocation errors decreased under blink, as compared with no-blink, conditions, indicating that blinking influenced the allocation of visual attention. Experiment 2 showed that this was true even when subjects were biased to attend elsewhere. These results indicate that attention moves downward before a blink in an involuntary fashion. The eyes also move downward during blinks, so attention may precede blink-induced eye movements just as it precedes saccades and other types of eye movements.     

Where does work stress come from? A generalizability analysis of stress in police officers

Differences among workers and workplace stressors both contribute to perceiving work as stressful. However, the relative importance of these sources to work stress is not well delineated. Moreover, the extent to which work stress additionally reflects unique matches between specific workers and particular job stressors is also unclear. In this study, we use generalizability theory to specify and compare sources of variance in stress associated with police work. US police officers (N?=?115) provided ratings of 60 stressors commonly associated with policing duties. Primary and secondary stress appraisal ratings reflected differences among officers in tendencies to generally perceive work stressors as stressful (14–15% officer effect), and also agreement among officers in viewing some stressors as more stressful than others (18–19% stressor effect). However, ratings especially reflected distinct pairings of officers and stressors (38–41% interaction effect). Additional analyses revealed individual differences and stressor characteristics associated with each variance component, including an officer?×?stressor interaction – compared to officers low in neuroticism, highly neurotic officers provided lower primary appraisal ratings of stressors generally seen as not serious, and also higher primary appraisal ratings of stressors that were seen as serious. We discuss implications of the current approach for the continued study of stress at work.     

Where does it come from? Collaborative emergence in creative work practices

This article presents a case in which analytical tools coming from the tradition of distributed cognition are able to account for what has been defined collaborative emergence (Sawyer & DeZutter, 2009; Sawyer 2012) in creative practices. With this article, we aim to contribute to the debate of distributed creativity by discussing an empirical case of collaborative emergence and providing the analytical tools able to account for its analysis. Introducing the concept of a creative network of interactions, we stress the importance of selecting, describing, and analysing the interactions that give rise to the collaborative emergence in creative work. Introducing the concept of collective creative imagination, we account for the collective emergence of the scene. We suggest that collaborative emergence is the result of a process of collective coordination and improvisation, emerging from moment-to-moment contingency in collective cognition and imagination. The new unpredictable outcome does not emerge from a sudden singular intuition avulsed from the environment, but it is the result of several coordinated steps made by the participants.     

Where do hypotheses come from?

Why are human inferences sometimes remarkably close to the Bayesian ideal and other times systematically biased? In particular, why do humans make near-rational inferences in some natural domains where the candidate hypotheses are explicitly available, whereas tasks in similar domains requiring the self-generation of hypotheses produce systematic deviations from rational inference. We propose that these deviations arise from algorithmic processes approximating Bayes’ rule. Specifically in our account, hypotheses are generated stochastically from a sampling process, such that the sampled hypotheses form a Monte Carlo approximation of the posterior. While this approximation will converge to the true posterior in the limit of infinite samples, we take a small number of samples as we expect that the number of samples humans take is limited. We show that this model recreates several well-documented experimental findings such as anchoring and adjustment, subadditivity, superadditivity, the crowd within as well as the self-generation effect, the weak evidence, and the dud alternative effects. We confirm the model’s prediction that superadditivity and subadditivity can be induced within the same paradigm by manipulating the unpacking and typicality of hypotheses. We also partially confirm our model’s prediction about the effect of time pressure and cognitive load on these effects.     

The computer psychiatrist: How far have we come? Where are we heading? How far dare we go?

The use of computers in psychiatry and psychology is reviewed. It is noted that computers are already being used successfully for consultation, interviewing, and continuing education. Issues related to the usage of computers in mental health are discussed. Guidelines for future work in the area are suggested.     

Animal models of drug addiction: Where do we go from here?

Compulsion and impulsivity are both primary features of drug addiction. Based on decades of animal research, we have a detailed understanding of the factors (both environmental and physiological) that influence compulsive drug use, but still know relatively little about the impulsive aspects of drug addiction. This review outlines our current knowledge of the relationship between impulsivity and drug addiction, focusing on cognitive and motor impulsivity, which are particularly relevant to this disorder. Topics to be discussed include the influence of chronic drug administration on impulsivity, the mechanisms that may explain drug-induced impulsivity, and the role of individual differences in the development of impulsive drug use. In addition, the manner in which contemporary theories of drug addiction conceptualize the relationship between impulsivity and compulsion is examined. Most importantly, this review emphasizes a critical role for animal research in understanding the role of impulsivity in the development and maintenance of drug addiction.     

Where do Bayesian priors come from?

Bayesian prior probabilities have an important place in probabilistic and statistical methods. In spite of this fact, the analysis of where these priors come from and how they are formed has received little attention. It is reasonable to excuse the lack, in the foundational literature, of detailed psychological theory of what are the mechanisms by which prior probabilities are formed. But it is less excusable that there is an almost total absence of a detailed discussion of the highly differentiating nature of past experience in forming a prior. The focus here is on what kind of account, even if necessarily schematic, can be given about the psychological mechanisms back of the formation of Bayesian priors. The last section examines a detailed experiment relevant to how priors are learned.     

Where did the ventricular localization of mental faculties come from?

During the Middle Ages it was widely believed that the various mental faculties-sensation, cognition, memory, and so forth-were each located in a specific part of the three ventricles that were thought to be housed in the brain. The origin of this scheme was commonly attributed to the ancient scholars, but it was rare for a specific individual to be identified as the originator. Modern researchers sometimes attribute it to Galen, but Galen was clear in his contention that the mental faculties were located in the substance of the brain rather than in the ventricles. It was only later scholars who, using Galen's anatomy as their basis, placed the mental faculties in the ventricles themselves. The system came together piece by piece over a period of centuries, probably not appearing fully in the form known to the Medieval world until the Middle Ages themselves. This article traces the development of the theory of ventricular localization of the mental faculties from the Ancient world to the early part of the Middle Ages.     

Developmental differences in working memory: Where do they come from?

Several models assume that working memory development depends on age-related increases in efficiency and speed of processing. However, age-related increases in the efficiency of the mechanisms that counteract forgetting and restore memory traces may also be important. This hypothesis was tested in three experiments by manipulating both the processing duration within a working memory task and the time available to restore memory traces. Third- and sixth-grade children performed a complex span task in which they maintained series of letters while adding numbers to series of digits. When we equated processing and restoration times between ages, the developmental difference in working memory span was reduced but remained significant. However, this residual difference was eliminated when the time available to reactivate memory traces was tailored to the processing speed of each age group. This indicates that children employ active mechanisms for maintenance and restoration of memory traces that develop with age.     

A Review of “Catch Them Before They Fall: The Psychoanalysis of Breakdown”

Abstract

THE SUPERVISORY ENCOUNTER. Jacobs, Daniel, Paul David, and Donald Jay Meyer, New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995, 285 pages, $l32.50. Reviewed by Constance C. Hendrickson.

THE LANGUAGE OF PERVERSION AND THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE. Bach, Sheldon. Northvale, NJ/London: Jason Aronson, 1994, 202pages, $40.00. Reviewed by Ezra Teitelbaum.     

Complex semantic processing in old age: does it stay or does it go?

Old adults' (N = 24) and young adults' (N = 24) speed of producing exemplars of semantic categories (i.e., semantic fluency) varying in difficulty was assessed both in a standard condition and in a "set-switching" condition where exemplars had to be produced from 2 categories in an alternating manner. "Retrieval-position function" parameters were used to assess speed of semantic access independent of nonsemantic factors. Results suggested age effects in nonsemantic components but not in semantic retrieval per se. Also, age deficits in set switching were relatively subtle. Findings are discussed with relation to issues of domain specificity of age effects as well as of the role of executive control during semantic retrieval and age differences therein.