Looking ahead: the future of psychology and APA

While serving as APA president, I very much enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about the variety and complexity of psychology as a discipline and practice. In particular, I became interested in various emerging directions and future possibilities. This article, based on my 2007 presidential address at the APA annual convention, summarizes my observations and reflections and attempts to present a reasonably compelling portrait of psychology's future and that of the APA. I hope that this overview will stimulate others to gaze into their own crystal balls and use their insights to construct an even more lively and vibrant psychology.     

Difficulty and interpersonal attraction

Male subjects learned that they would have to perform an easy, moderately difficult, or very difficult memory task in order to qualify for a “learning session” in which they would be accompanied by a moderately attractive female. Subjective measures taken just prior to task performance indicate that subjects viewed the female target as more attractive, sexy, and cute in the Moderately Difficult task condition than in the Easy and Very Difficult task conditions. Results are discussed in terms of a recently proposed model of motivation (Brehm 1979; Brehm, Wright, Solomon, Silka, & Greenberg, 1983), and research on the relation between difficulty and interpersonal attraction.     

Paradoxical Sadness

Three experiments were conducted to examine the theoretical prediction that the intensity of sadness is determined not only by the instigating event but also by factors that impede or deter the function or purpose of sadness. In the first two experiments, participants were asked to read a story designed to induce sadness, and were then given a $1, $2, or $3 gift. In both, reported sadness was higher for persons receiving a $2 gift than for those receiving either a $1 or $3 gift. However, the increase in sadness from the $1 to $2 group failed to reach an acceptable level of significance. In the second experiment, as expected, a $1 gift produced less sadness than did the story by itself, and as in the first experiment, a $2 gift resulted in more sadness than either a $1 or $3 gift. The third experiment replicated the $1 and $2 conditions and obtained a highly reliable effect; sadness was greater among those who received the $2 gift. Measures of positive affect suggested that participants experienced either sadness or positive feelings, not both.     

Can the Simultaneous Experience of Opposing Emotions Really Occur?

Various investigators have proposed that people may feel simultaneous positive and negative affect. However, experimental evidence from tests of a recent theory about the intensity of emotion (J. W. Brehm, 1999) suggests that even when they are invited by the experimental design, positive and negative emotions do not occur at the same time. When people have been instigated to feel a particular emotion, such as happiness, and then are given a reason (e.g., sad news) for not feeling happy, they report continued happiness but no increase in sadness unless the reason for feeling sad is very great, in which case sadness replaces happiness. The present paper briefly reviews the underlying theory and evidence, and discusses implications.

Avoidant control difficulty and aversive incentive appraisals: Additional evidence of an energization effect

There is evidence that certain physiological and subjective indices of stress are relatively great when control over aversive outcomes is moderately difficult and relatively reduced when control over such outcomes is either easy or impossible. A possible explanation is suggested by Brehm's recent theory of motivation, which asserts that energy mobilization and the perceived unpleasantness of an aversive event will (a) increase with the difficulty of avoidant behavior so long as avoidance is believed to be possible and worthwhile, and (b) be low when avoidant behavior is impossible, not worthwhile, or simply unavailable. This article reports two experiments that examined appraisals of an aversive incentive under conditions where avoidance was expected to be easy, difficult, and impossible. The first demonstrated the complete nonmonotonic pattern of appraisals predicted by the energization theory, something that has proved elusive in previous investigations. The second study demonstrated this as well and, in addition, showed a correspondence between subjects' incentive appraisals and their cardiovascular responses immediately before and during an avoidance task period. Implications and alternative interpretations are discussed.This research was supported in part by a Faculty Research Award from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.     

Monozygotic twins with schizoform psychosis and hypothalamic-induced hypogonadotropic hypogonadism

It is reported about an uniovular male pair of twins which has been permanently hospitalized because of an intermittently progressing schizoform psychosis. A hypothalamically conditioned hypogonadotropic hypogonadism provable beyond that substantiates the possibility of the common causal genetic embodiment of both the clinical pictures which is disputed in literature.     

Perceived difficulty,energization, and the magnitude of goal valence

This paper examines the proposition that the mobilization of energy and consequent magnitude of valence of a potential outcome (e.g., goal) is a function of what the individual perceives can and must be done in order to attain or avoid the outcome. An outcome that is difficult to attain or avoid requires a relatively high level of energization and will be relatively attractive, if positive, or unpleasant, if negative. Outcomes that are easy or impossible to attain or avoid require little or no energization and will be relatively low in attractiveness, if positive, or low in unpleasantness, if negative. This formulation was supported by four experiments that demonstrated (a) attractiveness of a goal is a nonmonotonic function of perceived difficulty of attaining it; (b) unpleasantness of a potential negative outcome is a nonmonotonic function of perceived difficulty of avoiding it; (c) the nonmonotonic effect of perceived difficulty on goal attractiveness disappears once instrumental behavior has been completed; and (d) the nonmonotonic effect of perceived difficulty on unpleasantness of a potential negative outcome occurs in immediate but not distant anticipation of initiating instrumental behavior. Alternative explanations, theoretical problems, and implications are discussed.