Disruption and Working Through in the Supervisory Process: A Vignette From Supervision of a Psychoanalytic Candidate

This paper describes the author’s supervision of a psychoanalytic candidate, including the development and resolution of impasse in both the supervised analysis and the supervisory relationship. When the author became aware of the degree to which her own anxieties and defenses were implicated, she sought consultation, after which both supervision and analysis moved forward. As supervision continued, work on supervisee’s and supervisor’s interlocking anxieties and defenses, and understanding of their impact on the supervised analysis, deepened. The author concludes that exploring supervisory disruptions allows both members of the supervisory dyad to come to grips with conflicts that subtly distort their work and facilitates a deepening of the supervised analysis.     

When the Going Gets Tough: The “Why” of Goal Striving Matters

No prior research has examined how motivation for goal striving influences persistence in the face of increasing goal difficulty. This research examined the role of self‐reported (Study 1) and primed (Study 2) autonomous and controlled motives in predicting objectively assessed persistence during the pursuit of an increasingly difficult goal. In Study 1, 100 British athletes (64 males; M_age = 19.89 years, SD_age = 2.43) pursued a goal of increasing difficulty on a cycle ergometer. In Study 2, 90 British athletes (43 males; M_age = 19.63 years, SD_age = 1.14) engaged in the same task, but their motivation was primed by asking them to observe a video of an actor describing her or his involvement in an unrelated study. In Study 1, self‐reported autonomous goal motives predicted goal persistence via challenge appraisals and task‐based coping. In contrast, controlled goal motives predicted threat appraisals and disengagement coping, which, in turn, was a negative predictor of persistence. In Study 2, primed autonomous (compared to controlled) goal motives predicted greater persistence, positive affect, and future interest for task engagement. The findings underscore the importance of autonomous motivation for behavioral investment in the face of increased goal difficulty.     

Keeping the reader's mind in mind: Development of perspective-taking in children's dictations

This study investigated when children can take the perspective of their reader if the information-processing demands of writing are removed by means of dictation to a scribe. Participants (N = 96) aged 5, 6 and 7 years dictated letters to an addressee who possessed requisite content knowledge, and then revised the letter or dictated a new letter to an addressee who lacked this knowledge (counterbalanced). Results showed that 19% of 5-year-olds, 41% of 6-year-olds, and 72% of 7-year-olds considered their reader's missing knowledge. Children's awareness of their reader's knowledge was neither related to performance on higher-order theory of mind tasks, nor to measures of executive function. Significantly greater perspective-taking was demonstrated in children's new letters than revised letters. However, although revision is considered a late-developing skill, half of even the 5-year-olds were able to make revisions (albeit few revisions demonstrated actual perspective-taking). Findings have significant implications for the emergent-literacy curriculum.     

Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Intense Involvement in Sports,edited by Irwin Hirsch,Phillip Blumberg,and Robert I. Watson,Jr., Routledge,Abingdon and New York, 2021, 193 pp.

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Changes in Life Goals Over College: A Comparison Between Men and Women Majoring in STEM

Sex Roles - Informed by goal congruity theory and emerging adulthood theory, this study examined changes over time and gender differences in the importance that college STEM majors placed on three...     

Gender stereotypes and belonging across high school girls’ social groups: beyond the STEM classroom

Social Psychology of Education - Previous research on the impact of gender stereotypes on female adolescents’ feeling of belonging to peer groups has focused on STEM classrooms and...     

Contrast effects in flavour preference learning

In four experiments the role of contrast effects in producing learned flavour preferences was examined. The experiments showed that contrast effects are pervasive in flavour preference learning, producing results that are often paradoxical from a traditional reinforcement point of view. In Experiment 1, rats preferred a reinforced flavour over a nonreinforced flavour more if the reinforcer was 1% sucrose than if the reinforcer was 8% sucrose. Because the cue flavour was dissolved in 8% sucrose, this represents an anticipatory positive contrast effect. In Experiment 2, the relationship between cue and consequence was shown to be important in flavour preference learning, as expected if contrast effects are involved. In Experiment 3, rats preferred a flavour that was reinforced 4 times, and they preferred this flavour more than one reinforced 8 times, presumably because the greater the expectancy of the consequence, the greater the anticipatory negative contrast. In Experiment 4, rats consumed less of 0.15% saccharin if they received 32% sucrose randomly 90 min either before or after the 0.15% saccharin than if they received only 0.15% saccharin, a simultaneous negative contrast effect.     

WOMEN AND POWER Definition, Dualism, and Difference

This article reviews the discussions of power and of women and power in United States psychology. Although the field has had difficulty dealing with power, feminist psychology has focused attention on the topic and has advanced the discussion significantly. There are three problems in the literature: definition; person/society dualism; and the need to deal with race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and other social differences besides gender. This article describes components needed for a good definition, criticizes the reduction of power to two modes, and discusses issues involved in improving the analysis of social differences and moving towards resolving person/society dualism. Several nondualistic concepts and potentially useful directions are proposed.