Book reviews

The Continuity of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism. IAN HARRIS, 1991. Leiden, E. J. Brill. 191 pp., hb £42.85

Twin Peaks: Compassion and Insight. PADMASIRI de SILVA, 1991. Singapore, Buddhist Research Society. p., 170.

Neoplatonism and Islamic Thought Studies in Neoplatonism: Ancient and Modem, Vol. 5. Edited by PARVIZ MOREWEDGE, 1992. Albany, NY, State University of New York Press. 267 pp., pb £16.00     

Perfectionism in relation to attributions for success or failure

The present study examined the association between dimensions of perfectionism and attributions for success and failure. A sample of 124 students (40 males, 84 females) completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS) and the Multidimensional Multiattributional Causation Scale (MMCS). The MPS consists of three subscales measuring self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism, and socially pre-scribed perfectionism. The MMCS measures internal attributions (i.e., ability, effort) and external attributions (i.e., luck, contextual factors) for positive and negative hypo-thetical outcomes in the achievement and affiliation domains. The main finding of this study was that socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with a general ten-dency to attribute outcomes to external causes. This external attribution pattern was obtained for successes and failures in both the achievement and interpersonal spheres. Overall, the main results suggest that socially prescribed perfectionism is associated with perceptions of learned helplessness. The implications of these findings are dis-cussed.     

Daily Mood Variability: Form of Diurnal Patterns and Determinants of Diurnal Patterns

Mood and affect are often assessed in psychological research without regard for the potential influence of time of day or other environmental factors. This study examined the determinants of daily mood variability. Ninety-four subjects completed a diary every 15 min for 1 day, and subjects' moods, activities, and locations were assessed. Diurnal cycles were found for several moods (e.g., happy, tired), activities (e.g., discourse, thinking), and locations (e.g., home, work). Diurnal cycles in most moods were strongly associated with activities and location, yet diurnal cycles of some moods (rushed, sad, and tired) were not dependent on these factors. These findings have implications for mood assessment: Mood assessment performed only at particular times of day, or those relying on point assessment, may be influenced by time of day and by the activities and location of the subject.     

The relationship between cognitive inhibition and psychotic symptoms

Cognitive models of schizophrenia have highlighted deficits of inhibitory attentional processes as central to the disorder. This has been investigated using "negative priming" (S. P. Tipper, 1985), with schizophrenia patients showing a reduction of negative priming in a number of studies. This study attempted to replicate these findings, but studied psychotic symptoms rather than the broad diagnostic category of schizophrenia. Psychotic individuals exhibiting positive symptoms were compared with asymptomatic psychiatric patients and with a normal control group. As predicted, the symptomatic group failed to show the usual negative priming effect, which was present in the asymptomatic and normal groups. A modest but significant correlation was found between negative priming and delusions. Neither diagnosis, nor affective or negative symptoms, nor chronicity, nor medication, was related to negative priming. These data replicate previous findings that positive symptoms are related to a reduction in cognitive inhibition, although considerable variability was observed among the psychotic patients.     

Counseling for Suicide: Client Perspectives

The purpose of this study was to describe key therapeutic processes that facilitated overcoming suicidal ideation and behaviors in previously suicidal clients. A research method called “concept‐mapping” was used to develop an understanding of what was helpful in counseling. Thirty‐five (9 male, 26 female) previously suicidal clients (M = 38 years) performed card sorts on 65 statements derived from qualitative interviews of 9 (2 male, 7 female) previously suicidal individuals (M = 42 years). Participants identified 3 therapeutic processes that contributed to overcoming their suicidal thoughts and behaviors: (a) validating relationships, (b) working with emotions, and (c) developing a new identity.     

The effects of social anxiety on emotional face discrimination and its modulation by mouth salience

People high in social anxiety experience fear of social situations due to the likelihood of social evaluation. Whereas happy faces are generally processed very quickly, this effect is impaired by high social anxiety. Mouth regions are implicated during emotional face processing, therefore differences in mouth salience might affect how social anxiety relates to emotional face discrimination. We designed an emotional facial expression recognition task to reveal how varying levels of sub-clinical social anxiety (measured by questionnaire) related to the discrimination of happy and fearful faces, and of happy and angry faces. We also categorised the facial expressions by the salience of the mouth region (i.e. high [open mouth] vs. low [closed mouth]). In a sample of 90 participants higher social anxiety (relative to lower social anxiety) was associated with a reduced happy face reaction time advantage. However, this effect was mainly driven by the faces with less salient closed mouths. Our results are consistent with theories of anxiety that incorporate an oversensitive valence evaluation system.     

Concurrent processing of words and their replacements during speech

Two picture naming experiments, in which an initial picture was occasionally replaced with another (target) picture, were conducted to study the temporal coordination of abandoning one word and resuming with another word in speech production. In Experiment 1, participants abandoned saying the initial name, and resumed with the name of the target picture. This triggered both interrupted (e.g., Mush- …scooter) and completed (mushroom …scooter) productions of the initial name. We found that the time from beginning naming the initial picture to ending it was longer when the target picture was visually degraded than when it was intact. In Experiment 2, participants abandoned saying the initial name, but without resuming. There was no visual degradation effect, and thus the effect did not seem to be driven by detection of the stopping cue. These findings demonstrate that planning a new word can begin before the initial word is abandoned, so that both words can be processed concurrently.     

Language integration in bilingual sentence production

To what extent are processes used in sentence production integrated between the different languages of a bilingual and to what extent are they kept separate? We consider three models that differ in their assumptions about the degree of integration: De Bot's [De Bot, K. (1992). A bilingual production model: Levelt's Speaking model adapted. Applied Linguistics, 13, 1-24] bilingual blueprint of the speaker, Ullman's [Ullman, M. T. (2001). The neural basis of lexicon and grammar in first and second language: The declarative/procedural model. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4, 105-122] declarative/procedural model of bilingualism, and Hartsuiker et al.'s [Hartsuiker, R. J., Pickering, M. J., & Veltkamp, E. (2004). Is syntax separate or shared between languages? Cross-linguistic syntactic priming in Spanish/English bilinguals. Psychological Science, 15, 409-414] integrated model. A review of the evidence from bilingual sentence production studies shows that Hartsuiker et al.'s predictions are supported, but argues against the other two models. We discuss some repercussions for bilingual language use.