Everyday conceptions of modesty: a prototype analysis

Good theoretical definitions of psychological phenomena not only are rigorously formulated but also provide ample conceptual coverage. To assess the latter, we empirically surveyed everyday conceptions of modesty in a combined U.S./U.K. sample. In Study 1, participants freely generated multiple exemplars of modesty that judges subsequently sorted into superordinate categories. Exemplar frequency and priority served, respectively, as primary and secondary indices of category prototypicality that enabled central, peripheral, and marginal clusters to be identified. Follow-up studies then confirmed the ordinal prototypicality of these clusters with the aid of both explicit (Studies 2 and 3) and implicit (Study 3) methodologies. Modest people emerged centrally as humble, shy, solicitous, and not boastful and peripherally as honest, likeable, not arrogant, attention-avoiding, plain, and gracious. Everyday conceptions of modesty also spanned both mind and behavior, emphasized agreeableness and introversion, and predictably incorporated an element of humility.     

Adding Silence to Stories: Narrative Therapy and Contemplation

A review of the literature reveals that one particular form of contemplation—mindfulness—has been integrated into cognitive-behavioral therapy. Built upon this background, this article raises the issue of combining contemplation and narrative therapy. It first examines the unique experiences that occur when one enters into silence. Then, it explores the implications of these experiences for narrative therapy. A contemplative-based approach to narrative therapy differs from traditional narrative therapy in that it utilizes: (a) contemplative skills, (b) contemplative and narrative metaphors, (c) modified interventions, and (d) broader views of reality and self. The outcome is an enlarged narrative approaches that possess numerous benefits and possibilities for future treatment models. P. Gregg Blanton is a Professor of Human Services at Montreat College. He is a Clinical Member and Approved Supervisor of AAMFT.     

Graded auditory Stroop effects generated by gender words

Two auditory Stroop experiments requiring identification of the speaker's sex were conducted. An auditory Stroop effect was expected, analogous to visual effects found in Stroop literature. In Exp. 1 the speaker's sex was identified faster when sex labels ("male" and "female") and words that imply a sex (e.g., father, grandmother) were congruent with the speaker's sex. In Exp. 2, an auditory semantic gradient was established in which words that were more meaningfully tied to a particular sex produced more Stroop interference. This auditory semantic gradient is analogous to effects found in the visual Stroop literature of a semantic gradient related to color.     

Conceptualizing Patient Barriers to Nonadherence with Homework Assignments

Nonadherence with homework assignments and, by implication, “barriers” to homework assignments are a frequent occurrence in the practice of standard cognitive therapy (Beck, A.T., Rush, A.J., Shaw, B.F., Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. New York: The Guilford Press). The clinical examples in this article illustrate some of the ways in which environmental, patient, task, and therapist factors can serve as barriers to homework completion. Although these classes of barriers may be discussed independently, they are actually overlapping processes and are more helpful when discussed in tandem. This article illustrates how the therapist’s ability to conceptualize can serve as the context for making sense of the patient’s perceived ability to undertake an activity, the patient’s beliefs about the specific task, and how our ability to use the conceptualization to anticipate barriers is part of evaluating our own therapeutic skills. Several clinical case examples are discussed.     

Impact of encoding depth on awareness of perceptual effects in recognition memory

Pictorial stimuli are more likely to be recognized if they are the same size, rather than a different size, at study and at test. This size congruency effect was replicated in two experiments in which the encoding variables were respectively undivided versus divided attention and level of processing. In terms of performance, these variables influenced recognition and did not influence size congruency effects. But in terms of awareness, measured by remember and know responses, these variables did influence size congruency effects. With undivided attention and with a deep level of processing, size congruency effects occurred only in remembering. With divided attention and with a shallow level of processing, size congruency effects occurred only in knowing. The results show that effects that occur in remembering may also occur independently in knowing. They support theories in which remembering and knowing reflect different memory processes or systems. They do not support the theory that remembering and knowing reflect differences in trace strength.     

Multiple Identities and the Integration of Personality

ABSTRACT Life-history interviews show narrators to shift among multiple, often contradictory self-representations. This article outlines a model that accounts for how a relatively small set of self-symbols and metaphors can form a grammar-like system that simultaneously defines and integrates multiple identities. Drawing on generative theories from linguistics, anthropology, and music, the model proposes that this system provides a unitary deep structure that can be configured in various arrangements to yield multiple surface structures. Each “surface” identity constructs an individual's emotions and social relations–and what he or she accepts as “Me” and rejects as “not-Me”—into a distinct pattern, with identity per se appearing as a dialogic or fugue-like structure of opposed voices. Study-of-lives interviews conducted by the author in urban America and rural Morocco are used to present the model and to demonstrate the pivotal role played by multistable or “structurally ambiguous” symbols in anchoring reversible self-representations which integrate personality as a system of organized contradiction. The musical analogy is emphasized in order to build a bridge toward current research in cognitive science and toward efforts to formulate a “state integration” theory of personality development.     

The effect of set size on the latency to name words

The experiment attempted to determine whether or not Ss' verbal reaction time to name words was influenced by the number of possible word stimuli in a set. It was suggested that a discrepancy between the results of previous investigators was an artefact of the manner in which some of the data had been analysed. The results of the experiment indicate that set size does have a small but significant effect on reaction time to this task.     

APCOL: A programming system for computer-controlled psychology laboratories

The development of on-line computer systems can be facilitated by higher-level programming languages that are more powerful and easier to learn than machine-level Assembly languages. In general, it is not possible to speak ofa programming language without also describing the operating system and functional problem domain of the small computer system for which it is intended. This is because of the great variety in the architecture and configuration of small computers. However, it is possible to state more general requirements and design criteria for on-line computer languages in psychology. APCOL is an example of an integrated programming system. One of the important distinguishing features of the system is that it is implemented both on the small-scale laboratory computer and on a large general-purpose computer linked to the smaller machine via a high-speed communications network. This arrangement permits firsthand access to interactive program construction with immediate test of program function by using the on-line implementation as well as access to the text-editing and mass storage facilities of the large-scale machine.