Entrevista Con H. F. Kanfer

RESUMEN

Esta entrevista comienza con el repaso de las diferencias entre el modelo original de autorregulación y el que presenta F. H. Kanfer en sus trabajos más recientes considerando, entre otras, las aportaciones de la teoría motivacional de Klinger a este último. Seguidamente el autor se centra en la dificultad de manejar el concepto de personalidad, expresando su poca confianza en que se descubra un pequeño número de variables de personalidad que permitan hacer predicciones amplias sobre conductas individuales. En la entrevista se tratan, además, cuestiones tales como la contribución de Cronbach (1975) respecto a los efectos temporales y contextuales, las relaciones entre la investigación sobre procesos cognitivos y su aplicación en la práctica clínica o los problemas de generalización en la terapia. También se explican las ventajas de los modelos mediacionales como el de autorregulación respecto a otros que no lo son, la utilidad del concepto de autorrefuerzo o la valoración de los estudios analógicos del autocontrol. En la última parte de la entrevista se clarifican las relaciones entre psicología comunitaria y psicología clínica, finalizando con algunas reflexiones en torno a los objetivos y contenidos de esta última.     

F. H. Bradley and the philosophy of science

It is sometimes thought that Absolute Idealism was undermined by its inability to deal with science. Through a critical discussion of F. H. Bradley's philosophy of science, this idea is challenged. His views on science are divided into a positive and a negative part, and it is argued that, although he found the scientific world view to be essentially false, he was nonetheless able to develop a sympathetic and intelligent philosophy of science. This was basically pragmatic and instrumental in tone, and gave to science a large measure of autonomy from philosophy. His doctrine is connected with certain contemporary ideas in the philosophy of science.     

H. G. Wells and B. F. Skinner on the superorganism

In Skinner's Walden Two, the central character Frazier refers to the superorganism and how to build it, but without elaboration. An examination of some parallels between the work of H. G. Wells and B. F. Skinner, however, casts light on that reference and other aspects of Skinner's views, such as multiple selves. Both Wells and Skinner wrote in similar ways about what the composition of such a superorganism would be and the conditions for its development. In particular, attention is directed to the ways in which their forecasts of the conditions for producing the superorganism changed over time, from determinism-based conditions to more evolutionary or selection-based conditions.     

B. F. Skinner and G. H. Mead: on biological science and social science.

Skinner's contributions to psychology provide a unique bridge between psychology conceptualized as a biological science and psychology conceptualized as a social science. Skinner focused on behavior as a naturally occurring biological phenomenon of interest in its own right, functionally related to surrounding events and, in particular (like phylogenesis), subject to selection by its consequences. This essentially biological orientation was further enhanced by Skinner's emphasis on the empirical foundations provided by laboratory-based experimental analyses of behavior, often with nonhuman subjects. Skinner's theoretical writings, however, also have affinity with the traditions of constructionist social science. The verbal behavior of humans is said to be subject, like other behavior, to functional analyses in terms of its environment, in this case its social context. Verbal behavior in turn makes it possible for us to relate to private events, a process that ultimately allows for the development of consciousness, which is thus said to be a social product. Such ideas make contact with aspects of G. H. Mead's social behaviorism and, perhaps of more contemporary impact in psychology, L. Vygotsky's general genetic law of cultural development. Failure to articulate both the biological and the social science aspects of Skinner's theoretical approach to psychology does a disservice to his unique contribution to a discipline that remains fragmented between two intellectual traditions.     

Rediscovering H. H. Farmer

Books reviewed in this article:
H. H. Farmer, C. H. Partridge (ed.), Reconciliation and Religion: Some Aspects of the Uniqueness of Christianity as a Reconciling Faith
C. H. Partridge, H. H. Farmer's Theological Interpretation of Religion: Towards a Personalist Theology of Religions