Kurt Lewin

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) is often called the father of social psychology, although this can be disputed. Lewin established a reputation in Germany for his work on affect and motivation when these topics were considered to be outside the scope of psychological research. He escaped the Nazis and started work in social psychology at the University of Iowa. In 1945, he established the Research Center for Group Dynamics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with faculty and students who formed modern experimental social psychology. He also established the Commission on Community Interrelationships and helped to found the T Group movement. Lewinian Field Theory stressed that behavior is a function of the person and the environment, or B = f (p, e).     

Plural Action Sentences and Logical Form: Reply to Himmelreich

This paper replies to Himmelreich's ‘The Paraphrase Argument Against Collective Actions’ [2017], which presents three putative counterexamples to the multiple agents analysis of plural action sentences. The paper shows that the argument from the first example, the discursive dilemma, fails because it relies crucially on a simplification of the target analysis, and that the others don't bear on the question because they turn out on examination to be about individual rather than group action sentences.     

Outcome pre- and postexposure effects: retention interval interacts with primacy and recency

Effects of outcome-alone pretraining and posttraining exposure were investigated in conditioned suppression experiments conducted within a sensory preconditioning preparation with rats. Experiment 1 found that interference by outcome postexposure was stronger than that by outcome preexposure, suggesting a recency effect. Experiment 2 found that after a long retention interval, outcome preexposure produced more interference than outcome postexposure, suggesting a shift from recency to primacy with increasing retention interval. Experiment 3 showed that presentation of a priming stimulus that had been embedded within the earlier phase of treatment also caused a shift from recency to primacy. These results suggest that, at least in a sensory preconditioning paradigm, retrievability of outcome-alone exposure memory is an important determinant of any outcome-alone exposure effect.     

Assessing normative approaches to communicating violence risk: a national survey of psychologists

There is growing attention to the importance of violence risk communication, and emerging empirical evidence of how evaluating clinicians who conduct risk assessments communicate their conclusions about the risk of violence toward others. The present study addressed the perceived value of different forms of risk communication through a national survey of practicing psychologists (N = 1,000). Responses were received from a total of 256 participants, who responded to eight vignettes in which three factors relevant to risk communication were systematically varied in a 2 x 2 x 2 within-subjects design, counterbalanced for order: (i) risk model (prediction oriented versus management oriented), (ii) risk level (high risk versus low risk), and (iii) risk factors (static versus dynamic). Participants were asked to rate the value of six styles of risk communication for each of eight vignettes. The most highly valued style of risk communication involved identifying risk factors applicable to the individual, and specifying interventions to reduce risk. These results were consistent with findings from several previous studies in this area, and reflect an emerging trend in preferences for style and context of risk communication of violence.     

Discrepancies between explicit and implicit self-concepts: Consequences for information processing

Individuals with discrepancies among their explicit beliefs often engage in greater elaboration of discrepancy-related information in a presumed attempt to reduce the discrepancy. The authors predicted that individuals with discrepancies between explicit and implicit self-conceptions might similarly be motivated to engage in processing of discrepancy-related information, even though they might not be aware of the discrepancy. Four studies were conducted in which various self-dimensions were assessed with explicit and implicit measures. Across several different self-dimensions (e.g., need to evaluate, self-esteem), the authors found that as the discrepancy between the explicit and implicit measure increased (regardless of direction), people engaged in more thinking about information framed as related to the self-dimension on which the discrepancy existed. This research suggests that individuals might be motivated to examine relevant information as a strategy to minimize the implicit doubt that accompanies an inconsistency between explicit and implicit self-conceptions.     

Semantic versus phonological false recognition in aging and Alzheimer's disease

Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been found to exhibit lower levels of false recognition of semantic associates compared with healthy older adults. Because these patients may show impaired performance of episodic and semantic memory tasks, this finding could be explained by deficits in episodic memory, semantic memory, or both. The authors adapted a paradigm for comparison of semantic versus phonological false recognition. They found that: (a) patients with AD exhibited lower levels of corrected false recognition of semantic, phonological, and hybrid (mixed semantic and phonological) lists than older adults, and (b) patients with AD showed very similar levels of false recognition for all list types. These results suggest that only episodic memory deficits are necessary to explain the lower level of false recognition of semantic associates observed in patients with AD when compared to older adults. Additionally, (c) older adults showed greater levels of semantic, phonological, and hybrid false recognition than younger adults, extending previous false recognition research of semantically related words and categorized colored photographs to phonologically related words.     

Crossing the Threshold: First Impressions in Psychoanalysis and Negotiation

This paper explores the role that first impressions play in two different relational contexts: psychodynamic treatment and negotiation. Although the goals of therapy and negotiation are very different, both endeavors rest on the capacity of the participants to engage in a process of constructive dialogue, and to get things done via a relationship. We argue for the utility of an interdisciplinary conversation between psychoanalysis and negotiation, and specifically suggest that exploring these similarities and differences about first steps in building a working relationship may be instructive for practitioners in both professions.     

Memory enhancement by a semantically unrelated emotional arousal source induced after learning

It has been well established that moderate physiological or emotional arousal modulates memory. However, there is some controversy about whether the source of arousal must be semantically related to the information to be remembered. To test this idea, 35 healthy young adult participants learned a list of common nouns and afterward viewed a semantically unrelated, neutral or emotionally arousing videotape. The tape was shown after learning to prevent arousal effects on encoding or attention, instead influencing memory consolidation. Heart rate increase was significantly greater in the arousal group, and negative affect was significantly less reported in the non-arousal group after the video. The arousal group remembered significantly more words than the non-arousal group at both 30 min and 24 h delays, despite comparable group memory performance prior to the arousal manipulation. These results demonstrate that emotional arousal, even from an unrelated source, is capable of modulating memory consolidation. Potential reasons for contradictory findings in some previous studies, such as the timing of "delayed" memory tests, are discussed.     

The clinical effectiveness of cognitive behaviour therapy: outcome for a large sample of adults treated in routine practice

There is increasing interest in questions about how far the demonstrated efficacy of psychological therapies in research trials can be translated into clinical effectiveness in routine practice. This paper summarises outcome data from several hundred patients treated with CBT in routine clinical practice in a National Health Service psychology service, and compares their outcomes with some of the published research. Although the data have flaws common in ordinary clinical practice (no untreated controls, missing data, uncontrolled pharmacotherapy, etc.), the analyses suggest that CBT in this context is an effective treatment, albeit with probably not quite such good results as it achieves in research trials. Using clinical significance statistics on standardised measures, about half of the sample reliably improved over a course of therapy, including about a third who recovered to normal range.