Psychology and the soul

Otto Rank (1884–1939) wrote the present work at the height of his creative powers, betweenWill Therapy andArt and Artist. Here he presents a sweeping history of psychology—individual and social—from the animistic era to psychoanalysis. An earlier translation (by William D. Turner, 1950) was incomplete and somewhat inaccurate. Unlike Sigmund Freud, his mentor, Rank viewed religion with respect and clarifies its role in individual and communal life through this study of soul-belief through the ages. The book contains important insights on immortality, will, dreams, Judaism and Christianity, Hamlet and Don Juan, Jung and Adler, and Freud himself. (Translated by Gregory C. Richter and E. James Lieberman) Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Division of Language and Literature, Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri. He translated Otto Rank'sThe Incest Theme in Literature and Legend (1912), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. E. James Lieberman, M.D., author ofActs of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank (1985), is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, George Washington University School of Medicine. This excert from the book of the same title by Otto Rank is printed with the permission of the publisher, The Johns Hopkins University Press, for which we are grateful.     

The interaction of objective and subjective organizations in a localization search task

We investigated how both objective and subjective organizations affect perceptual organization and how this perceptual organization, in turn, influences observers’ performance in a localization search task. Two groups of observers viewing exactly the same stimuli (objective organization) performed in significantly different ways, depending on how they were induced to parse the display (subjective organization). In Experiments 1 and 2, the observers were asked to describe the location of a tilted target among a varying number of vertical or horizontal distractors. Subjective organization was induced by instructing observers to parse the display into either three horizontal regions (rows) or three vertical regions (columns). The position of the target was critical: location performance, as assessed by reaction time and errors, was consistently impaired at the locations adjacent to the boundaries defining the regions, producing what we refer to as thesubjective boundary effect. Furthermore, the extent of this effect depended on whether the stimulus-driven and conceptually driven information concurred or conflicted. This made location information more or less accessible. In Experiment 1, the strength of objective grouping was a function of the proximity of the items (near or far conditions) and their orientation in a 6×6 matrix. In Experiment 2, the strength of objective grouping was a function of similarity of color (items were color coded by rows or by columns) and the orientation of the items in a 9×9 matrix. The subjective boundary effect was more pronounced when the display promoted grouping in the direction orthogonal to that of the task (e.g., when observers parsed by rows but vertical distractors were closer together [Experiment 1] or color coded [Experiment 2] to induce global columns). In contrast, this effect decreased when the direction of both objective and subjective organizations was parallel (e.g., when observers parsed by rows and horizontal distractors were closer together [Experiment 1] or were color coded [Experiment 2] to induce global rows). A localization search task proved to be an ideal forum in which objective and subjective organizations interacted. We discuss how these results indicated that observers’ performance in a localization task was determined by the interaction of objective and subjective organizations, and that the resulting perceptual organization constrained coarse location information.     

Bias and expert testimony of mental health professionals in adversarial proceedings: A preliminary investigation

The role of mental health professionals testifying as expert witnesses has been the subject of increasing criticism. Cases in which opposing experts reach different conclusions are dismissed as “battles of the experts” and psychologists and psychiatrists are described as “hired guns.” This preliminary, analogue study examined the degree to which the opinions and testimony of mental health professionals may differ according to which side retains the expert. Results provided some support for the proposition that mental health professionals' testimony may vary according to the side by which they are retained.     

Sex differences and personality factors in responsivity to pain

This study investigated the relationship between measured levels of masculinity-femininity, social desirability, and responsivity to pain in men and women. The literature suggests that the two personality variables might provide an explanation for the common findings of higher pain thresholds and tolerances in men than in women. A significant interaction was found between masculinity-femininity and sex for pain thresholds. Analysis of this interaction indicated that for men, but not women, there was a significant correlation between masculinity-femininity and pain, where higher masculinity was associated with higher pain thresholds. However, this finding did not account for the sex difference in pain threshold. The sex of the subject remained a significant predictor of both pain thresholds and tolerances after allowing for the influence of masculinity-femininity, social desirability, and their associated interactions.     

“Yes,I Can,I Feel Good,and I Just Do It!” On Gain Cycles and Spirals of Efficacy Beliefs,Affect, and Engagement

Taking Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory as our starting point, we tested how efficacy beliefs (self‐efficacy and perceived collective efficacy) reciprocally influence activity engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption) indirectly through their impact on positive affect (enthusiasm, satisfaction, and comfort) over time. We conducted two longitudinal studies using independent samples. Study 1 is a two‐wave longitudinal field study that examines gain cycles regarding the dynamic relationships among self‐efficacy, positive affect, and work engagement in 274 secondary school teachers. Study 2 is a three‐wave longitudinal laboratory study about gain spirals in the dynamic relationships among collective efficacy beliefs, positive affect, and task engagement in 100 university students working in groups. Our findings show that: (1) efficacy beliefs reciprocally influence activity engagement indirectly through their impact on positive affect over time; (2) enthusiasm is the positive affect with the strongest effect on activity engagement; and (3) a gain spiral exists whereby efficacy beliefs increase over time due to engagement and positive affect (most notably enthusiasm). Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications in terms of Social Cognitive Theory.