Hypnosis, reporting bias, and suggested negative hallucinations.

We examined the role of reporting bias in hypnotic negative hallucinations by using a paradigm in which reporting bias was assessed independently of perceptual change. In Experiment 1, highly hypnotizable subjects reported significant loudness reductions when tested for hypnotic deafness. Later, however, these subjects biased their reported loudness reductions in the absence of perceptual change, and their reporting bias scores were almost as large as their hypnotic deafness reports. Subjects also biased their ratings of strategy use. In Experiment 2, ratings of blindness given in response to a hypnotic negative visual hallucination suggestion were significantly correlated with reporting bias scores obtained in this paradigm. Although hypnotic blindness and hypnotic deafness correlated significantly, the partial correlation between these variables was nonsignificant when reporting bias scores were statistically controlled. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Depression and social problem solving.

Twenty depressed patients with major depressive disorder, 20 nondepressed matched control subjects, and 17 patients with anxiety disorders were compared in different measures of social problem solving. Problem solving was assessed with the Means-Ends Problem-Solving Test (Study 1), the solution of personal problems, and a problem-solving questionnaire (Study 2). Results showed that, as predicted, depressed subjects suffered from a deficit in problem solving in all three measures. The majority of these deficits were also displayed by the clinical control group rather than being specific to a diagnosis of depression. However, depressed subjects produced less effective solutions than did normal and clinical control subjects. The results suggest that depressed and anxious patients may have difficulties at different stages of the problem-solving process.     

Self-criticism in adulthood and recalled childhood experience.

We investigated in a sample of 75 medical students the hypothesis that higher levels of self-criticism, a major vulnerability factor for depression, are related to retrospective reports of less satisfactory parenting, even when the potentially confounding factors of mood state and social desirability response set are controlled. At each of 2 measurement times, there were significant cross-sectional correlations between parental ratings and both depression and self-criticism, but the associations with self-criticism were no longer significant when depression was controlled. However, even after controlling for the effects of mood state and social desirability, persons with high levels of self-criticism at both measurement points (high trait self-criticism subjects) reported significantly worse relationships with their mothers than did the remaining subjects. They were also more likely to report below average relationships with both parents jointly.     

Forms of memory failure in schizophrenia.

Effortful and automatic memory task performances were examined in 36 schizophrenic patients and 18 normal control Ss. Tasks included free recall, recognition, and frequency estimation. Patients demonstrated impairment in recall, in recognition, in semantic encoding, and in frequency estimation. Deficits were observed across tasks despite differences in attentional demands. The results suggest a basic compromise of memory function, which is consistent with recent neuroimaging evidence of structural or physiological abnormalities in frontal and temporal lobe structures in schizophrenia.     

Illness, Family Theory, and Family Therapy: I.Conceptual Issues

This article examines and clarifies controversies about the concept of illness in the field of family therapy. We contend that illness, as traditionally understood in all cultures, is a relational, transactional concept that is highly congruent with core principles of present-day family theories. Family therapists need not buy into a biotechnical, reductionistic reframing of illness as disease. Rather, it is more appropriate to conceptualize and work with illness as a narrative placed in a biopsychosocial context. Such a narrative includes how shared responsibility for coping and for finding solutions can take place, without becoming involved in disputes about causal models.     

Procedural Justice and Culture

The past fifteen years have seen the development of a considerable research literature on the social psychology of procedural justice (see Lind & Tyler, 1988, for a review). Procedural justice research reveals some serious shortcomings in the exchange theories that have traditionally dominated Western analyses of the social psychology of groups, and in so doing, the procedural justice literature has important ramifications for cross-cultural psychology. Results from a number of studies conducted in the United States and Western Europe show that individualistic, self-interest based models of human behaviour are insufficient to explain procedural justice phenomena. Instead, procedural justice effects frequently reveal strong group-oriented concerns and motivations even in cultural contexts generally thought to be characterized by individualistic orientations. The research literature also shows that if a group's procedures are judged to be fair, people are more likely to show group-oriented behaviour and to hold more favourable attitudes toward the group and its leaders. These findings have led to the development of a theory of justice judgments—the Lind and Tyler group-value theory—which is based on group norms and relations rather than on social exchange theory. We describe a general model of social behaviour that integrates group- and individually-oriented behaviour, and we discuss the implications of the model for social and cross-cultural psychology.     

The Protestant Work Ethic and Just World Beliefs in Great Britain and India

This study examined Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) and Just World Beliefs (JWB) in Great Britain and India. Secondary school children, university students and adults completed seven PWE questionnaires and the JWB questionnaire. A three-way (sex × occupational status × nationality) ANOVA showed highly significant main effects, particularly for nationality, but few significant interactions. Generally females more than males, Indians more than Britons, and schoolchildren more than adults endorse the PWE and JWB. Possible experimental artifacts and moderator variables are considered along with the possibility that genuine cultural differences were found. These results are discussed in terms of the relevant literature on cross-cultural studies of the PWE and BJW.