Book reviews

A stor , J ames Michael Fordham; Innovations in Analytical Psychology
K ast , V erena . Joy, Inspiration, and Hope
K ugler , P aul (ed.). Jungian Perspectives on Clinical Supervision
R obertson , R obin . Jungian Archetypes: Jung, Gödel, and the History of Archetypes
R oss , L ena B, & R oy , M anisha (eds). Cast the First Stone: Ethics in Analytic Practice
H acking , I an . Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personalities and the Sciences of Memory     

Uninstructed human responding: Sensitivity of low-rate performance to schedule contingencies

College students' presses on a telegraph key occasionally turned on a light in the presence of which button presses produced points later exchangeable for money. Initially, responding was maintained by low-rate contingencies superimposed on either random-interval or random-ratio schedules. Later, the low-rate contingencies were relaxed. Low-rate key pressing had been established for some students by shaping and for others by demonstration and written instructions. After the low-rate contingencies were relaxed, higher response rates generally did not increase point earnings with random-interval scheduling, but did so with random-ratio scheduling. In both cases, shaped responding usually increased, and instructed responding usually continued at an unchanged low rate. The insensitivity of instructed responding typically occurred despite contact with the contingencies. The differential sensitivity to schedule contingencies of shaped responding relative to instructed responding is consistent with the different properties of contingency-governed and rule-governed behavior and is not rate-dependent.     

Optimism, pessimism, and false failure feedback: Effects on vigilance performance

Following the logic of a prior experiment (Seligman et al., 1990) with varsity collegiate swimmers, sixty student volunteers performed a brief, but highly stressful vigilance task. Half were then given false feedback indicating poor performance; the others experienced a non-evaluative display at that point. All were then asked to repeat the vigil. Half the observers were assessed as high optimists and half as high pessimists. The pessimists showed a steeper vigilance decrement than the optimists, consistent with a model (Scheier and Carver, 1987) that proposes that pessimists are more emotion-focused under stress than optimists, and hence would be less attentive to the vigilance display, regardless of feedback condition. The false negative feedback actually turned out to be ineffective; hence, based on Seligman's account of the swimmer study, which requires effective negative feedback, there should have been no vigilance performance difference between optimists and pessimists, either pre- or post-feedback.     

Association and categorisation effects on free recall

Lists of 18 words which varied in mean associative strength, the category membership of the associations and in word frequency were presented to subjects 3 times with recall required after each presentation. Recall efficiency increased with association level and with similarly categorised associates. In lists of High mean associative strength which consisted of similarly categorised words, the recall of high frequency word lists was facilitated but at low levels of associative strength, with similarly categorised words, recall was facilitated at both levels of word frequency used. Clustering and errors which were associatively related to the items being learned were greater in lists which contained sets of similarly categorised associates.     

Yoked variable-ratio and variable-interval responding in pigeons

Pigeons' key pecks were maintained by variable-ratio or variable-interval schedules of food reinforcement. For pairs of pigeons in one group, variable-ratio reinforcement was arranged for one pigeon's pecks; for the second pigeon, reinforcement was arranged according to a variable-interval schedule yoked to the interreinforcement times produced by the first pigeon. For pairs of pigeons in another group, variable-interval reinforcement was arranged for one pigeon's pecks; for the second pigeon, reinforcement was arranged according to a variable-ratio schedule yoked to the interreinforcement responses produced by the first pigeon. For each pair, the yoking procedure was maintained for four or five consecutive sessions of 50 reinforcements each. In more than three-quarters of the pairs, variable-ratio response rates were higher than variable-interval rates within two sessions; in all cases, the rate difference developed within four sessions.     

Neural substrate for brain stimulation reward in the rat: cathodal and anodal strength-duration properties.

The trade-off between current strength and duration of a stimulating pulse was studied for the rewarding and priming effects of brain stimulation reward (BSR). With cathodal pulses, strenght-duration functions for BSR had chronaxies of .8-3 msec. No differences were observed between the results for rewarding and priming effects. With anodal pulses. strength-duration curves were parallel to the cathodal curves at pulse durations of .1-5 msec, but at pulse durations greater than 5 msec the anodal curves showed a greater drop in required current intensity than did the cathodal curves. The parallel portion of the anodal curves was interpreted as due to anode-make excitation, and the drop at longer pulse durations was interpreted as due to anode-break excitation. Cathodal strength-duration functions for the motor effect elicited through the BSR electrodes had chronaxies of .15-.48 msec. Measurements of the latency of the muscle twitch confirmed that anode-make and anode-break excitation occurred, the latter becoming evident at pulse durations as brief as .3-.4 msec. The results provide quantitative characterization of cathodal and anodal strength-duration properties of the neural substrate for BSR and are discussed in terms of their value in guiding electrophysiological investigation of that substrate.     

Correspondence between definitions and procedures: A reply to Stokes, Osnes, and Guevremont

Stokes, Osnes, and Guevremont's (1987) implicit definition of correspondence classes appears close to ours (Matthews, Shimoff, & Catania, 1987). Their definition, however, is fundamentally procedural and thus may have to be modified as experimental methodologies are refined. The advantage of our contingency-space analysis is that it is independent of specific procedures and focuses attention on problems inherent in some procedural definitions. Specifically, a contingency-space analysis addresses the issue of distinguishing specific instances from classes and reminds us that correspondence can be identified as a class only on the basis of observing a population of opportunities for say/do sequences in which the subject sometimes does not say.     

The effects of anxiety on intellectual performance: When and why are they found?

An experiment tested the effects on intelligence and creativity test performance of two 16PF primary anxiety traits, and general mood and activation components of state anxiety. Two attentional theories of the deleterious effects of anxiety on performance were also tested. Subjects were 80 male students. Trait and state components of anxiety appeared to affect creativity test performance independently. Intelligence test performance was insensitive to anxiety variables. The O anxiety primary factor was significantly negatively correlated with creativity test performance, but the unique variance of the other anxiety primary (Q4) was associated with higher levels of performance. Neither specific attentional theory was supported, but data were generally compatible with “dual-mechanism” theories of anxiety, which posit separate detrimental and sometimes facilitative effects of anxiety on performance.     

Playing hard-to-get: A two-determinant model

Walster, Walster, Piliavin, and Schmidt (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1973, 26, 113–121) found that a hard-to-get woman was liked only if she was hard-to-get for other men but easy-to-get for the subject. They suggested that the subjects liked this type of woman because of the socially desirable personality characteristics they attributed to her. A second determinant of liking is proposed in the present study. It concerns the effect of a person's evaluation of a subject on the subject's self-esteem. It was predicted that there would be a positive relationship between changes in the subject's self-esteem and liking for the evaluator. The results demonstrated that this determinant, as well as the one that Walster et al. suggested, is important in understanding the type of opposite-sex person that men and women find most attractive. These results, and the differences between the Walster et al. and the present studies, were discussed in terms of the relative impact of the two determinants in laboratory and real-life situations.