War,Peace, and Promise-Making: Becoming a Late-Life Activist

In this article I reflect on the effect of two wars on my life: World War II and the war in Viet Nam. Then I discuss the complexities involved in relinquishing the role of silent bystander in the analytic space as well as on the world stage through an examination of the concept of promise-making. A clinical example illustrates how the complicated and demanding process of making and keeping promises affected a therapeutic process.     

Workplace duties or opportunities? Challenge stressors,regulatory focus,and creativity

Previous research has produced contradictory findings about the impact of challenge stressors on individual and team creativity. Based on the challenge–hindrance stressors framework (LePine, Podsakoff, & LePine, 2005) and on regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997), we argue that the effect of challenge stressors on creativity is moderated by regulatory focus. We hypothesize that while promotion focus strengthens a positive relationship between challenge stressors and creativity, prevention focus reinforces a negative relationship. Experimental data showed that high demands led to better results in a creative insight task for individuals with a strong trait promotion focus, and that high demands combined with an induced promotion focus led to better results across both creative generation and insight tasks. These results were replicated in a field R&D sample. Furthermore, we found that team promotion focus moderated the effect of challenge stressors on team creativity. The results offer both theoretical insights and suggest practical implications.     

Heidegger: The Role of Logic in his Thought

Since his inaugural lecture at Freiburg in 1929 in which Heidegger delivered his most celebrated salvo against logic, he has frequently been portrayed as an anti-logician, a classic example of the obscurity resultant upon a rejection of the discipline of logic, a champion of the irrational, and a variety of similar things. Because many of Heidegger's statements on logic are polemical in tone, there has been no little misundersanding of his position in regard to logic, and a great deal of distortion of it. All too frequently the position which is attacked as Heidegger's is a barely recognizable caricature of it. We shall, therefore, attempt to determine precisely what Heidegger understands by logic. When he “attacks” logic, as he did in the inaugural lecture, as well as in many other of his writings, what “logic” is he attacking? The word “logic” is, after all, placed in quotation marks which would seem to indicate some special sense. This paper will argue that if one takes logic as it has traditionally been understood and practiced that one is forced to the conclusion that it is incompatible with Heidegger's “way of thought” (Denkweg). This rejection of logic, however, does not deliver him up to irrationalism or the enthronement of blind instinct in place of reason, as some of his critics have charged. Neither is it a self-indulgent refusal to achieve clarity and precision which ends in a kind of mystical pseudo-poetry. Rather, it will be argued, it represents a quite valid, and indeed rich, approach to Being, though certainly not a “logical” one in the traditional sense.     

Sentence Completion Correlates of Airline Pilot Attitude and Proficiency

Sentence completion scores for dependency, anxiety, and hostility were correlated with sentence completion measures of good flying attitude and omissions for 300 male airline pilot candidates. The scoring-by-example method used with the first three variables was highly reliable and avoided scoring overlap. All sentence completion scores were also correlated with 15 traditional measures of pilot qualification such as mechanical information and signal reaction time. While the proficiency measures were generally unrelated to the projective measures, a good attitude towards flying was positively associated with coping (not omitting sentence completion items) and the extreme suppression of anxiety and hostility under stress. Civilian airline pilots appear similar to military pilots in their exaggerated display of good adjustment.     

Significance of a Preponderance of Human Movement Responses on the Rorschach in Children Below Age Ten

Abstract

Beck, Samuel J. Rorschach's Test III. Advance in Interpretation. New York: Grune &; Stratton, 1952. Reviewed by Mortimer M. Meyer

Brower, Daniel and Abt, Lawrence Progress in Clinical Psychology. Volume I. New York: Grune &; Stratton, 1952. Reviewed by Ohmer Milton

Buhler, C., Smitter, F., and Richardson, S. Childhood Problems and the Teacher. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1952. Pp. 372, $3.75. Reviewed by Lois Barclay Murphy

Jolles, Isaac. A Catalogue for the Qualitative Interpretation of the H-T-P. Beverly Hills: Western Psychological Services, 1952, 97 pp. Reviewed by Wilson H. Guertin

Kinget, Marian G., The Drawing-Completion Test. New York: Grune and Stratton, Inc., 1952. Reviewed by Fred Brown

Meili, Richard. Lehrbuch der Psychologischen Diagnostik. Bern: Verlag Hans Huber, 1951, 372 pp. Reviewed by Walther Joel

Szondi, L. Experimental Diagnostics of Drives (Translated by Gertrude Aull). New York: Grune and Stratton, 1952, 220 pp. Reviewed by Henry P. David     

Aging and self-reported internal and external memory strategy uses: The role of executive functioning

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of advanced age on self-reported internal and external memory strategy uses, and whether this effect can be predicted by executive functioning. A sample of 194 participants aged 21 to 80 divided into three age groups (21-40, 41-60, 61-80) completed the two strategy scales of the Metamemory in Adulthood (MIA) questionnaire, differentiating between internal and external everyday memory strategy uses, and three tests of executive functioning. The results showed that: (1) the use of external memory strategies increased with age, whereas use of internal memory strategy decreased; (2) executive functioning appeared to be related only to internal strategies, the participants who reported the greatest use of internal strategies having the highest executive level; and (3) executive functioning accounted for a sizeable proportion of the age-related variance in internal strategy use. These findings suggest that older adults preferentially use external memory strategies to cope with everyday memory impairment due to aging. They also support the view that the age-related decrease in the implementation of internal memory strategies can be explained by the executive hypothesis of cognitive aging. This result parallels those observed using objective laboratory memory strategy measures and then supports the validity of self-reported memory strategy questionnaire.     

Positive psychological states and anxiety: the mediating effect of proactive coping

The current study examined the mediating role of proactive coping in the relationship between positive psychological states like optimism and self-esteem and trait anxiety. 204 undergraduate students completed measures of optimism, self-esteem, and trait anxiety, together with the proactive coping subscale of the Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI). Mediated effects were explored using a series of regression analyses and were confirmed through bootstrapping procedures. Results revealed that proactive coping was a partial mediator in the relationship between both optimism and self-esteem and trait anxiety. Findings indicated that proactive coping enhances a perspective on life that involves a positive attitude toward future events in the form of optimistic expectancies and enhanced feelings of self-worth. Implications of the findings for clinical practice and mental health promotion are discussed.     

Effect of initial status and growth in pseudoword reading on Spanish reading comprehension at the end of first grade

This study analyzes the effect of initial status and growth in Spanish pseudoword reading in kindergarten and first grade on reading comprehension in Spanish at the end of first grade. One hundred and sixty-eight Spanish-speaking English learners who were learning to read in Spanish and English in the United States participated in the study. Results of hierarchical linear modeling indicate that students grew, on average, by 95 letter-sounds in Spanish from the middle of kindergarten to the end of first grade. Structural equation modeling indicated that 53% of the variance in Spanish reading comprehension at the end of first grade was explained by Spanish initial status on pseudoword reading, Spanish kindergarten overall reading performance, and growth in Spanish pseudoword reading. Findings are important in a Response to Intervention approach where screening and progress monitoring of pseudoword reading helps educators determine the level of support beginning readers need to acquire the alphabetic principle, an important skill that contributes substantially to Spanish reading comprehension.     

Extending the job design perspective on individual innovation: Exploring the effect of group reflexivity

Extending previous research on group reflexivity as a group level predictor of individual innovation, we examined group reflexivity as a possible moderator of the effect of job control and task complexity on individual innovation. We obtained data on job and group characteristics from 135 members of software development teams; line managers provided ratings on individual innovation. Data were analysed using hierarchical linear modelling. Results lend further support to a positive effect of job design on individual innovation, but no effect was found for group reflexivity. The interplay between job design and group reflexivity reveals a more complex picture. While the positive effect of job control is augmented in the presence of high reflexivity, in contrast, task complexity is negatively associated with innovation in teams with high reflexivity. Results are discussed from a time and cognitive resource perspective. Furthermore, the development of context‐specific models on group reflexivity is proposed.     

How to Create Shared Symbols

Human cognition and behavior are dominated by symbol use. This paper examines the social learning strategies that give rise to symbolic communication. Experiment 1 contrasts an individual‐level account, based on observational learning and cognitive bias, with an inter‐individual account, based on social coordinative learning. Participants played a referential communication game in which they tried to communicate a range of recurring meanings to a partner by drawing, but without using their conventional language. Individual‐level learning, via observation and cognitive bias, was sufficient to produce signs that became increasingly effective, efficient, and shared over games. However, breaking a referential precedent eliminated these benefits. The most effective, most efficient, and most shared signs arose when participants could directly interact with their partner, indicating that social coordinative learning is important to the creation of shared symbols. Experiment 2 investigated the contribution of two distinct aspects of social interaction: behavior alignment and concurrent partner feedback. Each played a complementary role in the creation of shared symbols: Behavior alignment primarily drove communication effectiveness, and partner feedback primarily drove the efficiency of the evolved signs. In conclusion, inter‐individual social coordinative learning is important to the evolution of effective, efficient, and shared symbols.