Erikson's General and Adult Developmental Revisions of Freudian Thought: “Outward,Forward, Upward”

In this paper I explore Erik Erikson's revisions of Freudian thought and reasons for his conceptual departure. I show Erikson as the second stage psychoanalytic theorist who shifted thought upward in consciousness, outward to the social world, and forward throughout the complete life span. I explore Erikson's dispute of Freud's reductionism and predeterminism, and illustrate Erikson's movement afield of a model of mental illness, fragmentation, and negation. I explore Erikson's view that the social world is both inside and outside the psyche, rather than solely external to the person as Freud had held. Addressed is Erikson's conversion of Freud's notions of adult morality to a developmental view of the adult as a potentially moral–ethical person, and Erikson's revision of Freud's concepts of the potentially rational adult to a view of the adult with rational and emotional attributes. These words are Erikson's (1975, p. 39) terms for his theoretical focus. Erikson said that he had felt compelled to alter Freudian views, for the second stage psychoanalytic thought in which he participated required a focus on healthy development instead of attention to deviations from health. Such thought also required analysis of the importance of consciousness and of engagement in the social world, as well as a theory of adult development that extends throughout the mature years to chart the person's psychosocial growth and the development of principled behavior. To Erikson, Freud's views were reductionistic due, in part, to their placement within Newtonian and Darwinian thought. Further, Freud's thought was based on the assumption of an invariably moral person, and of the human who would eventually rise above the irrational powers that he found to govern the self. In this paper, I take up these points. I look to Erikson's revisions of Freudian thought, emphasizing the ways in which he made us think differently about psychological life and about adults in their ongoing development. This synthesis adheres to the points Erikson himself made about his departure from Freud, thoughts that appear in Erikson's (1987b) Harvard notes and marginalia, in his audiotapes, and in portions of his published writings.     

Using fMRI to investigate

Using fMRI, we investigated the functional organization of prefrontal cortex (PFC) as participants briefly thought of a single just-experienced item (i.e., refreshed an active representation). The results of six studies, and a meta-analysis including previous studies, identified regions in left dorsolateral, anterior, and ventrolateral PFC associated in varying degrees with refreshing different types of information (visual and auditory words, drawings, patterns, people, places, or locations). In addition, activity increased in anterior cingulate with selection demands and in orbitofrontal cortex when a nonselected item was emotionally salient, consistent with a role for these areas in cognitive control (e.g., overcoming “mental rubbernecking”). We also found evidence that presenting emotional information disrupted an anterior component of the refresh circuit. We suggest that refreshing accounts for some neural activity observed in more complex tasks, such as working memory, long-term memory, and problem solving, and that its disruption (e.g., from aging or emotion) could have a broad impact.     

Violations of implicit theories and the sense of prediction and control: implications for motivated person perception

Beginning with the assumption that implicit theories of personality are crucial tools for understanding social behavior, the authors tested the hypothesis that perceivers would process person information that violated their predominant theory in a biased manner. Using an attentional probe paradigm (Experiment 1) and a recognition memory paradigm (Experiment 2), the authors presented entity theorists (who believe that human attributes are fixed) and incremental theorists (who believe that human attributes are malleable) with stereotype-relevant information about a target person that supported or violated their respective theory. Both groups of participants showed evidence of motivated, selective processing only with respect to theory-violating information. In Experiment 3, the authors found that after exposure to theory-violating information, participants felt greater anxiety and worked harder to reestablish their sense of prediction and control mastery. The authors discuss the epistemic functions of implicit theories of personality and the impact of violated assumptions.     

Maternal Appraisal Styles,Family Risk Status and Anger Biases of Children

The present study investigated the relationship between maternal appraisal styles, family risk status, and anger biases in children. Participants included 90 mothers and their children between 3–6 years of age. Eighty families were followed up 1 year later. Maternal appraisal styles were assessed via a naturalistic story-reading method, and Time 1 and Time 2 emotion biases included teacher ratings of anger and aggression, peer ratings of anger, as well as classroom and playground observations of anger. While discussing ambiguous stories with their children, mothers with higher scores on the family risk index utilized more hostile appraisals and fewer prosocial appraisals in their explanations. A higher proportion of hostile-to-prosocial appraisals was also related to higher-risk family status. Prosocial appraisals by mothers were inversely correlated with childrens anger biases at school. When the appraisal balance in mothers talk favored hostile appraisals, children tended to show higher levels of anger biases evidenced at school. Finally, a hostile balance of maternal appraisals was found to predict change in childrens anger biases in the school with different effects in high- and low-risk families.     

Exposure to Externalizing Peers in Early Childhood: Homophily and Peer Contagion Processes

Guided by a transactional model, we examined the predictors and effects of exposure to externalizing peers in a low-risk sample of preschoolers and kindergarteners. On the basis of daily observations of peer interactions, we calculated measures of total exposure to externalizing peers and measures of exposure to same- and other-sex externalizing peers. Analyses of predictors of externalizing peer exposure supported a homophily hypothesis for girls. Tests of peer contagion effects varied by sex, and exposure to externalizing peers predicted multiple problem behaviors for girls but not for boys. Sex differences were a function of childrens own sex, but not of peers sex. The study provides evidence of externalizing peer exposure effects in a low-risk sample of young children, notably for girls.Contributed equally to the conceptualization of this project     

Perception of motion affects language processing

Recently developed accounts of language comprehension propose that sentences are understood by constructing a perceptual simulation of the events being described. These simulations involve the re-activation of patterns of brain activation that were formed during the comprehender's interaction with the world. In two experiments we explored the specificity of the processing mechanisms required to construct simulations during language comprehension. Participants listened to (and made judgments on) sentences that described motion in a particular direction (e.g. "The car approached you"). They simultaneously viewed dynamic black-and-white stimuli that produced the perception of movement in the same direction as the action specified in the sentence (i.e. towards you) or in the opposite direction as the action specified in the sentence (i.e. away from you). Responses were faster to sentences presented concurrently with a visual stimulus depicting motion in the opposite direction as the action described in the sentence. This suggests that the processing mechanisms recruited to construct simulations during language comprehension are also used during visual perception, and that these mechanisms can be quite specific.     

Confirmation bias in sequential information search after preliminary decisions: an expansion of dissonance theoretical research on selective exposure to information

Research on selective exposure to information consistently shows that, after having made a decision, people prefer supporting over conflicting information. However, in all of these experiments participants were given an overview of all available pieces of information, selected them simultaneously, and did not process the requested information during the selection phase. In the present research the authors show that an even stronger preference for supporting information arises if information is presented and processed sequentially instead of simultaneously (Experiment 1), and they demonstrate that this stronger confirmation bias is due to sequential presentation and not to sequential processing of information (Experiment 2). The authors provide evidence that the increase in confirmation bias under sequential presentation is caused by heightened commitment due to the participants' increased focusing on their decision (Experiments 3 and 4).     

Zeroing in on the dark side of the American Dream: a closer look at the negative consequences of the goal for financial success

Recent research has demonstrated that aspiring to the American Dream of financial success has negative consequences for various aspects of psychological well-being. The present longitudinal study examining the relation between the goal for financial success, attainment of that goal, and satisfaction with various life domains found that the negative impact of the goal for financial success on overall life satisfaction diminished as household income increased. The negative consequences of the goal for financial success seemed to be limited to those specific life domains that either concerned relationships with other people or involved income-producing activities, such as one's job; satisfactions with two of those life domains, however, were among the strongest predictors of overall life satisfaction in this sample of well-educated respondents in their late 30s. The negative consequences were particularly severe for the domain of family life; the stronger the goal for financial success, the lower the satisfaction with family life, regardless of household income.     

Science and Human Behavior at fifty

The golden anniversary of Science and Human Behavior is cause for celebration. Toward that end, the present paper is largely an historical consideration of the book, its inception and reception, both at the time of its publication and in subsequent years. The range and intensity of reactions to S&HB mark its impact and show it to be among Skinner's most important works, if not the most important. S&HB was written as an introductory psychology text--a vigorous use of the book in our teaching could do much to benefit the dissemination of behavior analysis.