The empirical foundations of psychoanalytic approaches to psychological testing

The view that psychoanalytic approaches to psychological testing lack empirical foundations is disputed by systematically examining the ways in which psychoanalytic theory expands the sources of data available to the psychological tester at each step in the assessment process. The contention is made that it is unscientific to restrict the concept of what constitutes scientific rigor to formal experimentation with statistical analysis.     

Not All Great Minds Think Alike: Systematic and Intuitive Cognitive Styles

Individuals process information and make decisions in different ways. Some plan carefully and analyze information systematically, whereas others follow their instincts and do what “feels right.” We aimed to deepen our understanding of the meaning of the intuitive versus systematic cognitive styles. Study 1 (N = 130, 39% female, M_age = 24) compared cognitive styles of arts, accounting, and mathematics students. Cognitive styles were associated with values (Study 2: N = 154, 123, 78; female = 59%, 49%, 85.9%; M_age = 22, 23, 27) and traits (Study 3: N = 77, 140, 151; female = 59%, 66%, 46%; M_age = 22, 25, 23), and they interacted with experience in predicting performance (Study 4: N = 63, 48% female, M_age = 23; Study 5: N = 44, 39% female, M_age = 23). All participants were Caucasian Israeli students. The systematic style was most frequent among accountants, and the intuitive style was most frequent among artists, validating the meaning of the styles. Systematic style was positively correlated with Conscientiousness and with security values and negatively correlated with stimulation values. The intuitive style had the opposite pattern and was also positively correlated with Extraversion. Experience improved rule‐based performance among systematic individuals but had no effect on intuitive ones. Cognitive style is consistent with other personal attributes (traits and values), with implications for decision making and task performance.     

Reality-Humanity (Self-Liberated from the Stave in the Wheels)

Adi Da argues that no solutions currently proposed are sufficient to righten the present unsustainable trajectory of life on Earth, because there is no integrated approach to the ordering of society and use of the planet. The presumption of separateness—manifesting collectively as separate “tribes” vying for control—characterizes human affairs, rather than the prior (“a priori”) unity of existence. The struggle for dominance is the “stave in the wheels” of the Earth-system's inherent capacity to self-correct. A new institution, “the Global Cooperative Forum,” is proposed—invoked by “everybody-all-at-once” (a global populace awakened as a single force, capable of cooperatively effecting global change).     

Book Reviews

In his famous lecture on Kant's essay 'An Answer to the Question What is Enlightenment' Foucault distinguished between two traditions in modern philosophy coming out of Kant's work: 'an analytic of truth' and 'an ontology of present reality [ actualité ]' or 'a genealogy of ourselves'. The paper presents this distinction as a fruitful displacement of the distinction between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy,which gives the latter precise cultural and philosophical meaning. The paper clarifies the distinction and argues that almost without exception, analytic philosophers are not interested -in their capacity as philosophers - in interpreting and understanding their historical present. Some possible reasons and some possible consequences of this lack of interest are examined briefly. Within the continental tradition itself, two major contemporary forms of 'an ontology of present reality' are distinguished, one exemplified by Habermas and the other by Foucault. The difference between these two forms of 'taking aim at the heart of the present' (to use Habermas' phrase) is explicated as a difference between distinct genres of critical discourse, or forms of critique. The difference is presented in respect to two major aspects: historical time and historicity, and critique's mode of engagement with 'an analytic of truth'. The last point, namely the presence of a crucial analytic moment in the philosophical interpretation of present reality, suggests a possible modification of the initial distinction between the two philosophical traditions.     

framing of prenatal screening test results and women's health-illness orientations as determinants of perceptions of fetal health and approval of amniocentesis

Abstract

Framing effects of medical test results and interactions of these effects with personal perspectives were investigated in the context of prenatal screening. Hundred and Thirty-three pregnant women undergoing the ‘triple-test’ were assessed as having health or illness orientations, and were randomly presented with reassuring/moderate/severe diagnoses framed in normal/abnormal terms, forming a 2 × 3 × 2 between subjects design. Evaluations of fetus' health and recommendations to perform amniocentesis were assessed. Findings showed healthier evaluations of the fetus and weaker recommendations to perform amniocentesis in normal versus abnormal framings. An interaction was found between framing, diagnosis, and personal orientations: women with health orientations receiving a moderate diagnosis framed in abnormal terms were significantly more inclined to recommend amniocentesis than illness-oriented women given the same diagnosis; the normal/abnormal framing of severe diagnoses yielded opposite effects on health-oriented versus illness-oriented women. The influences of framing effects and health/ illness orientations on health perceptions and behavioral intentions were discussed.     

Mother—infant interaction structures and presymbolic self‐ and object representations

Using research on the purely social face‐to‐face exchange, we examine patterns of mother—infant interaction and their relevance for the presymbolic origins of self and object representations, focusing on the representation of inter‐relatedness between self and object. Based on a dyadic systems view in which the system is defined by both self‐ and interactive‐regulation processes, we argue that characteristic patterns of self and interactive regulation form early interaction structures, which provide an important basis for emerging self and object representations. What will be represented, presymbolically, is the dynamic interactive process itself, the interplay, as each partner influences the other from moment to moment. This is a dynamic, process view of “interactive”; or “dyadic”; representations. The argument that early interaction structures organize experience is based on a transformational model in which there are continuous transformations and restructurings, where development is in a constant state of active reorganization. To define the capacities on which a presymbolic representational capacity is based, we review the last decade's research on infant perception and memory, which has radically changed our concepts of representation. The interaction structures we describe illustrate the salience of arousal, affect, space, and time in the early organization of experience: (1) state transforming, the expectation that an arousal state can be transformed through the contribution of the partner; (2) facial mirroring, the expectation of matching and being matched in the direction of affective change; (3) disruption and repair, the expectation of degree of ease and rapidity of interactive repair following facial‐visual mismatches; (4) “chase and dodge,”; the expectation of the misregulation and derailment of spatial‐orientation patterns, without repair; and (5) interpersonal timing, the expectation of degree of vocal rhythm matching.     

Investigating the Efficacy of CoMeT,a New Mediation Model for High-Conflict Separating Parents

Although mediation has been effective for a large number of separating couples, it does not share the same effectiveness for highly conflicted couples, estimated to represent approximately twenty per cent of all separating couples. Twenty-three highly conflicted separating couples were recruited to investigate the impact of a new model that combines mediation with therapy (CoMeT). Comparing pre- and post-intervention scores, significant improvements were found in parent well-being and reductions in parent conflict, acrimony, and attachment. No gender differences were found. Results support this new, gender-neutral CoMeT model which significantly enhances the mediation process for high-conflict separating parents.     

Convergent and discriminant validity of three measures of stage of change

The University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (E. A. McConnaughy, J. O. Prochaska, & W. F. Velicer, 1983), the Stages of Change Readiness and Treatment Eagerness Scale (W. R. Miller & J. S. Tonigan, 1996), and the Readiness to Change Questionnaire (S. Rollnick, N. Heather, R. Gold, & W. Hall, 1992) are commonly used multidimensional measures of stage of change. The authors examined the convergent and discriminant validity of drug-use versions of these 3 measures through multitrait-multimethod analysis in a population of indigent, out-of-treatment drug users (N = 377). Agreement in stage-of-change assignment and the relationship between stage of change and drug-use behaviors were also examined. Confirmatory factor analysis suggests that the Stages of Change Readiness and Treatment Eagerness Scale may have questionable convergent validity with the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment and Readiness to Change Questionnaire. There was moderate agreement in stage assignment. Analysis of behavior did provide some support for the construct validity of the measures. The results suggest that these drug-use stage-of-change measures may not be equivalent.