Constructing a theory of the triple typology: Some (second) thoughts on nomothetic and idiographic approaches to personality

Our fundamental scientific task is to convert observations of particular persons behaving in particular ways in particular situations into assertions that certain kinds of persons will behave in certain kinds of ways in certain kinds of situations, that is, to construct triple typologies or equivalence classes—of persons, of behaviors, and of situations—and to fashion theories of personality that relate these equivalence classes to one another. It is argued that the different approaches to the study of personality are distinguished from one another not by whether they are idiographic or nomothetic but by the strategies they employ for constructing—or ignoring—each of these three types of equivalence classes. The likely attributes of a successful interactional theory of personality—one that would embrace the entire triple typology—are proposed and discussed.     

Predictors of competitive anxiety direction in male Tae Kwon Do practitioners: a multilevel mixed idiographic/nomothetic interactional approach

Objectives: To examine (a) affective states, proximity of competition and personality traits as predictors of anxiety direction and (b) investigate the role of personality characteristics in moderating the relationship between anxiety direction and proximity of competition and affective states.Method: A multilevel mixed idiographic/nomothetic approach. Intensity and direction of competitive anxiety and positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) were monitored in 22 male Tae Kwon Do practitioners across a week preceding a major competition using the experience sampling method (ESM). The participants were assessed on neuroticism and extraversion. Negative and positive affect and anxiety intensity and direction were measured at three random times a day across 1 week before the competition and 1 hour pre-competition.Results: Multilevel regression analyses revealed that cognitive anxiety intensity, positive affect, proximity to competition and extraversion were significant predictors of cognitive anxiety direction. Significant interaction effects of proximity to competition and neuroticism, and neuroticism and negative affect on cognitive anxiety direction were also observed. Somatic anxiety direction was a function of positive affect, somatic anxiety intensity, proximity to competition and the interaction effects of neuroticism and somatic anxiety intensity and neuroticism and proximity to competition.Conclusions: A multilevel mixed idiographic/nomothetic interactional approach may substantially assist in the explanation of intra- and inter-individual differences in anxiety direction.     

Subjectivity in parent-infant relationships: A discussion of internal working models

Bowlby (1969/1982, 1973, 1980) has proposed that internal working models of self and other are psychic structures that guide an individual's subjective experience of and responses to others in important relationships. They are termed “working” models because they are believed to be dynamic mental representations that are modifiable, although they are presumed to become more resistant to change after the early years. This paper reviews Bowlby's construct of internal working models, including some recent empirical evidence usefully explained by the construct. The authors apply the construct of working models to parents' subjective experiences of their infants and review some preliminary evidence that suggests that parental working models of their infants are present even prior to the infants' birth and influence the parents' perception and interpretation of the infants' characteristics and behaviors. The authors then consider the development of infants' working models of self and other in the context of parental attributions. They conclude that subjectivity in parent-infant relationships is an exciting and promising area for investigation, although, at present, future progress is limited by problems of measurement. A brief discussion of directions for future research is included.     

Empirical evidence supporting the conceptual relatedness of object representations and internal working models

The proliferation of new developmental and clinical theories broadly termed "psychoanalytic" demands a methodology for making systematic comparisons to establish the commonalities and distinctions among them. This article presents an empirical method for the comparative evaluation of such theories. The Mother-To-Child Object Representation / Internal Working Model Q-sort is a 100-item instrument constructed to assess the quality of the prototypical mother's object representation and internal working model of her child at age five. Object relations judges were asked to sort these items for a complex, differentiated, integrated object representation of a five-year-old, attachment judges for a secure, coherent, freely valuing internal working model of a five-year-old. Judges' criterion Q-sorts in each group yielded a composite criterion Q-sort of the quality of the prototypical mother's mental representation of her child according to each group's theoretical perspective. The Spearman-Brown correlation between the two composite criterion Q-sorts was r = .90, p < .001 , suggesting that when confined to a 100-item common vocabulary, judges representing each theoretical construct agreed on the conceptual relatedness of object representations and internal working models. The theoretical constructs of object representations and internal working models share common assumptions in need of further exploration.     

At the intersection of social and cognitive development: internal working models of attachment in infancy

Three visual habituation studies using abstract animations tested the claim that infants' attachment behavior in the Strange Situation procedure corresponds to their expectations about caregiver-infant interactions. Three unique patterns of expectations were revealed. Securely attached infants expected infants to seek comfort from caregivers and expected caregivers to provide comfort. Insecure-resistant infants not only expected infants to seek comfort from caregivers but also expected caregivers to withhold comfort. Insecure-avoidant infants expected infants to avoid seeking comfort from caregivers and expected caregivers to withhold comfort. These data support Bowlby's (1958) original claims-that infants form internal working models of attachment that are expressed in infants' own behavior.     

Fear of death mediates ostracism distress and the moderating role of attachment internal working models

Ostracism is known to cause psychological distress; however, it remains unclear why ostracism evokes this response. Two experiments tested empirically whether fear of death mediates ostracism effects and whether attachment internal working models moderate this role. A total of 288 participants played Cyberball with two other ostensible players. After the game the accessibility of their death-related thoughts was assessed by a word completion task, and the Needs Satisfaction Scale was used to measure their distress. Participants’ attachment orientation was measured using the Experiences in Close Relationship scale. Death anxiety fully mediated ostracism distress. However, this effect was stronger in low-anxiety individuals. These studies contribute to the ostracism literature by providing further empirical support that death anxiety mediates ostracism distress, and to the attachment literature by documenting the moderation effect of attachment anxiety.     

Embarrassment and empathy before helping: How internal working models come into play

Prior research has described embarrassment and empathy as predictors of social helping and as self-conscious emotions involving reasoning about the self and others. It remains unclear how cognitive representations of the self and others relate to the two emotions as precursors of social helping. We examined 136 participants’ self-report measures of internal working models as well as dispositional embarrassability, empathic concern, personal distress, and perspective taking. Controlling all the other variables, embarrassability was primarily associated with the model of self and personal distress, whereas empathic concern was primarily associated with the model of others and perspective taking. Moreover, the association between personal distress and embarrassability was moderated by the interaction between models of others and perspective taking. The general proneness to distress arousal was also predicted by the interaction between models of self and others. The findings extended prior research linking internal working models and socio-cognitive emotions associated with helping.     

The relevance of attachment theory to a contemporary Jungian view of the internal world: internal working models, implicit memory and internal objects

In this paper I examine the various meanings of the term 'internal object' and the differences between various theoretical models for the formation of internal objects. I suggest that the idea in attachment theory of 'internal working models' emphasizes the internal world as one consisting of unconscious internalized patterns of emotional relationships. The term 'internal object' lacks this clarity and the different meanings it carries within differing theoretical frameworks are a source of confusion. I describe the role implicit memory plays in the formation of 'internal working model's and suggest that these offer us an alternative explanation for unconscious fantasy and for object relationships to that of instinctual drives. This model is then brought to bear on contemporary Jungian concepts of the internal world, with a suggestion that, seen in this light, Jung's formulation of the concept of the complex has many features in common with the 'internal working model' of attachment theory.     

The relations between maternal behaviors and urban preschool children's internal working models of attachment security

Interviewed 93 African-American, low-income women who had become pregnant as teenagers and their preschool-aged children in their homes. Mothers answered questions regarding their everyday stresses and feelings of depression. Children were assessed for receptive vocabulary ability, then video-taped completing five stories thematically related to attachment experiences with mother and rated on their security of attachment. Mothers and children were also videotaped playing together, and mothers were assessed on their sensitivity to their children's cues. After controlling for children's age and receptive vocabulary ability, mothers' sensitivity significantly predicted children's level of attachment security. The positive association between maternal sensitivity and children's security of attachment, and the strengths and weaknesses of administering the Attachment Story-Completion Task in the home with this population, are discussed. Implications for assessing attachment in the home are considered.     

Attitudes towards seeking psychological help among a sample of Turkish university students: the roles of rumination and internal working models

The current study investigates how attitudes towards seeking psychological help relate to internal working models of attachment (self-model and other-model) and ruminative tendencies. The study includes 589 Turkish university students (278 females, 308 males and 3 unknown) by implementing a convenient sampling procedure. The average age of the participants was 22.4 years (SD = 2.2). Participants were administered the Attitudes toward Seeking Psychological Help-Short, the Relationship Questionnaire and the Rumination Scale. The results of the study indicate that the other-model and rumination have a relationship to women's help-seeking attitudes whereas the self-model has a relationship to men's help-seeking attitudes. The results are discussed in light of the related literature.     

Differential involvement of internal clock and working memory in the production and reproduction of duration: a study on older adults

The present study uses the inter-individual variability in time perception of a group of elderly participants to differentiate the processes underlying time production and time reproduction. Participants performed duration production and reproduction tasks. They were also administered working memory tests and a spontaneous motor tempo task. The findings suggest that duration production and duration reproduction involve different mechanisms. Correlational analyses revealed a double dissociation: production was only correlated with spontaneous motor tempo and reproduction only with working memory measures. These findings suggest that the internal clock rate modulates the production of duration and that reproduced duration varies according to working memory capacities.     

Scoring methods and the predictive ability of working memory tasks

Measures of working memory (WM) are useful predictors of cognitive skills and educational attainment in children. A number of scoring methods can be used for WM tasks—for example, the sum of all correctly recalled stimuli in perfectly recalled lists (absolute score) or the proportion of items recalled in the correct serial position during the task (proportion correct). The present study explored whether proportion correct scoring had an advantage over absolute scoring of WM tasks for predicting children’s educational attainment. The participants were 81 primary school children aged 7–8 years. Each participant was tested on five measures of WM. Schools supplied national curriculum attainment levels for each child in reading, writing, mathematics, and science. The results revealed that proportion correct scoring resulted in WM tasks’ being better predictors of children’s achievement. The results are discussed in terms of both psychological theory and implications for research methods.     

Nomothetic science and idiographic history in twentieth-century Americanist anthropology

For over a century, Americanist anthropologists have argued about whether their discipline is a historical one or a scientific one. Proponents of anthropology as history have claimed that the lineages of human cultures are made up of unique events that cannot be generalized into laws. If no laws can be drawn, then anthropology cannot be a science. Proponents of anthropology as science have claimed that there indeed are laws that govern humans and their behaviors and cultures, and these laws can be discovered. Interestingly, both sides have the same narrow view of what science is. The same sorts of debates over science and history were played out in evolutionary biology over a half-century ago, and what emerged was the view that that discipline and its sister discipline, paleontology, were both history and science--hence the term "historical sciences." Anthropology and its sister discipline, archaeology, have only recently begun to realize that they too are historical sciences.     

Preflexes and internal models in biomimetic robot systems

The next generation of neuroprostheses, which are aimed at the restoration of natural movement of paralysed body parts or at the natural interaction with external devices, will be quite similar to biomimetic robot systems which attempt to duplicate the organization of the biological motor control system. In the paper, we review some of the organizing principles that have emerged in the last few years and might provide useful guidelines for a biomimetic design.     

Longitudinal idiographic analyses of appraisal and coping responses in sport

Objectives: To (a) identify perceived stressors encountered by high-performance female athletes and examine their attempts at coping with these specific stressors, and (b) to monitor athletes’ perceptions of their coping responses and assess how coping influenced on-going appraisal of the situation and subsequent coping.Method: Data were collected from four high-performance female soccer players (aged 21 to 28 years). Players maintained audio-diaries over a 6-week period during the season. They were also interviewed once at the start and again at the end of the data collection period.Results: Presented via idiographic profiles, results revealed certain recursive relationships between personal goals, stress appraisals, and coping responses. Stressors were reported when personal goals were threatened, and the coping responses that were employed appeared to influence subsequent stress reappraisals and coping.Conclusions: Appraisals and coping appear to occur in a recursive manner. Longitudinal idiographic approaches that include daily diaries may be useful in future research that considers other recursive relationships between goals, emotions, appraisal, and coping.     

依恋内部工作模型与老年人婚姻满意度的关系：基于夫妻成对数据的分析

依恋内部工作模型反映了个体在关系中对自我和他人的认知,虽然有很多研究证实了依恋风格与关系质量存在紧密关联,但自我和他人两个工作模型是否在预测关系质量上存在差异性尚未得到明确回答。本研究以老年群体为研究对象,直接考察自我模型与他人模型分别以怎样的方式预测婚姻满意度。研究使用问卷法对112对老年夫妻的内部工作模型、夫妻依恋取向、婚姻满意度等进行了测量,采用中介模型、交叉互倚模型以及方差分析分别从被试个体、夫妻主客体效应、以及夫妻匹配模式三个分析视角考察了依恋的两种内部工作模型与婚姻满意度的关联性。结果发现,相比他人模型,老年人自我模型与婚姻满意度的关联更为密切,且可以通过夫妻依恋双维度对其产生影响。但同时也发现,老年人依恋的内部工作模型与婚姻满意度的关联受到夫妻角色差异的影响：对于丈夫而言,自我模型与婚姻满意度的关联更为紧密,这可能与中国传统文化中的男性主导地位有关;而对于妻子而言,他人模型与婚姻满意度的关系更为紧密,这可能与女性在社会互动中更倾向于关系导向有关,也可能是传统文化中的“夫为妻纲”对老年女性的影响使然。     

Mental models in propositional reasoning and working memory's central executive

We examine the role of working memory's central executive in the mental model explanation of propositional reasoning by using two working memory measures: the classical “reading span” test by Daneman and Carpenter (1980 Daneman, M. and Carpenter, P. A. 1980. Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19: 450–466. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and a new measure. This new “reasoning span” measure requires individuals to solve very simple anaphora problems, and store and remember the word solution in a growing series of inferential problems. We present one experiment in which we check the involvement of the central executive in conditional and disjunctive inference tasks and compare predictions of the new reasoning span test with those of the classical reading span test. The results of the experiment confirm that reasoning responses, which according to mental model theory require high cognitive work, are predicted by working memory measures. Results also show that some reasoning responses are probably obtained by means of superficial biases or strategies that do not load working memory. The reasoning span test, which involves the central executive to a greater degree, predicts reasoning performance better than the reading span test. The significance and possibilities of the new measure in studying reasoning are discussed.