Learning and teaching (briefly)

This paper was given as the Annual Ellen Noonan Counselling Lecture on July 2012 and retains some of the spoken style of the lecture. It uses examples of Ellen Noonan’s work to examine aspects of the process of teaching and learning psychodynamic practice. The difficulties of how to embed theoretical knowledge with its clinical application are discussed and the question of what are the key skills of the self-reflective practitioner is raised with reference to whether, and how, they can be taught or learnt. It is suggested that part of this process consists in helping students, and their teachers, to be more comfortable with not knowing, a concept that is both counter intuitive and counter cultural. From this aspects of contemporary therapeutic practice, with specific reference to psychodynamic short-term therapy, are addressed. The paper looks at the ambivalence felt by many psychodynamic clinicians towards working within a short-term paradigm in current workplace settings and how this might be addressed. The paper discusses the intrinsic qualities of a psychodynamic short-term approach and its relation to contemporary therapeutic modalities. It is suggested that the increasing managerial culture, leading to the ascendance of protocol driven, manualised and structured therapies, represents an attack on the relational and must be challenged.     

A randomised Monty Hall experiment: The positive effect of conditional frequency feedback

The Monty Hall dilemma (MHD) is a notorious probability problem with a counterintuitive solution. There is a strong tendency to stay with the initial choice, despite the fact that switching doubles the probability of winning. The current randomised experiment investigates whether feedback in a series of trials improves behavioural performance on the MHD and increases the level of understanding of the problem. Feedback was either conditional or non-conditional, and was given either in frequency format or in percentage format. Results show that people learn to switch most when receiving conditional feedback in frequency format. However, problem understanding does not improve as a consequence of receiving feedback. Our study confirms the dissociation between behavioural performance on the MHD, on one hand, and actual understanding of the MHD, on the other. We discuss how this dissociation can be understood.     

Even better than the real thing: Alternative outcome bias affects decision judgements and decision regret

Three experiments demonstrated that decisions resulting in considerable amounts of profit, but missed alternative outcomes of greater profits, were rated lower in quality and produced more regret than did decisions that returned lesser (or equal) amounts of profit but either did not miss or missed only slightly better alternatives. These effects were mediated by upward counterfactuals and moderated by participants’ orientation to the decision context. That decision evaluations were affected by the availability and magnitude of alternative outcomes rather than the positivity of actual outcomes is counter to the outcome bias effect—a bias in which decisions are rated more positively when they led to more positive outcomes (despite a priori probabilities associated with the decision outcomes). Experiment 3 demonstrated that these effects represent a bias that occurs even when it is clear that the process by which decisions were made followed rational decision processes. This research suggests that when alternative worlds are even better than the desirable outcomes experienced, affect and cognition may be more strongly linked to the magnitude of alternative realities than to obtained outcomes.     

Cognitive styles and person–environment fit: Investigating the consequences of cognitive (mis)fit

There is currently considerable interest in the key elements of person–environment fit to understand vocational behaviour and to develop strategic human resource management practices. In the light of this interest, we wanted to investigate (1) whether people within similar functions have similar cognitive styles, and (2) what the consequences of cognitive (mis)fit are on three work attitudes, using two large-scale databases (N = 24,267 and N = 2,182). We identified a knowing-oriented cognitive climate in finance, information technology (IT), and research and development (R&D) functions; a planning-oriented cognitive climate in administrative and technical and production functions; and a creating-oriented cognitive climate in sales and marketing functions and general management. Furthermore, we found that the relationship between people's cognitive styles and work attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, job search behaviour, and intention to leave) does not depend on the cognitive climate in which they work. However, we did find that people with a higher creating style on average score higher on intention to leave and job search behaviour in comparison with people who score lower on the creating style, irrespective of the cognitive climate they are working in. The cognitive climate also partially affects job satisfaction and intention to leave after controlling for cognitive styles. In summary, cognitive styles and cognitive climate seem to have separate influences on people's work attitudes. Our findings are relevant for selection and recruitment policies of organizations and in the context of training, job design, and workforce planning.     

Methodological practices in cognitive style research: Insights and recommendations from the field of business and psychology

This study provides insights and recommendations concerning methodological practices of cognitive style research applied to the field of business and psychology. Based on a carefully designed selection process, 139 style-related articles published between 1986 and 2010 were content-analysed. In terms of research design, we found the field to be dominated by quantitative, cross-sectional, and single-source designs that relied heavily on self-reports, sample surveys, and student samples. While this might indicate a potential vulnerability in terms of internal and external validity, a strong emphasis on construct validity was also found, exemplified by high attention to reliability, and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. With regard to construct measurement, although more than 30 different instruments were used, the field was dominated by three of these. Regarding data analysis, traditional approaches have been mainly used and more advanced and novel approaches have not yet permeated through the cognitive style field. Implications and suggestions for future research are offered. This is the first review of methodological practices in cognitive style research and represents an important step in the advancement of the field.     

Temperament Styles of Nigerian and U.S. Children

Abstract

Temperament styles of 400 Nigerian children are described in reference to possible gender and age differences and compared with those of 3200 U.S. children in light of Jung's theory of temperament as modified by Myers and Briggs, one that highlights four bipolar qualities: extroversion-introversion, practical-imaginative, thinking-feeling, and organized-flexible styles. Nigerian children generally prefer introverted to extroverted styles, practical to imaginative styles, feeling to thinking styles, and organized to flexible styles. In contrast to males, females are more likely to prefer feeling and organized styles. Age differences are seen only on organized-flexible styles, with a preference for flexible styles increasing with age. In contrast to U.S. children, Nigerian children tend to express higher preferences for introversion, practical, feeling, and organized styles.     

待岗人员的应付方式、控制感特点及其关系研究

对待岗人员的应付方式和控制感进行调查发现：（1）待岗人员对待压力的应付方式依次为退避、合理化、求助、自责、发泄。女性更多地采用这五种应付方式,年龄偏大组更倾向于选择合理化和退避,30岁是应付方式发展的转折时期;（2）待岗人员的控制感由高至低依次为环境变化、人际关系、情绪情感和生活方面的控制感。女性更能控制情绪情感;（3）在待岗人员应付待岗后各种压力的情境下,可将退避归为积极的应付方式,将自责、求助、发泄归为消极的应付方式。     

Mind, Self, and Personality: Dynamic Interactions from Late Childhood to Early Adulthood

This paper aims to integrate research on mind, personality, and self-development using a general model which hypothesizes that mind and personality are organized in 3 levels. The first level includes environment-oriented, domain-specific systems that specialize in the representation of and interaction with particular types of relationships in the environment in both the cognitive and the social realms. The second level comprises self-oriented monitoring and representation processes that build maps of the environment-oriented systems. Self and identity derive from the interaction between these 2 levels, which is subject to the constraints and the system's processing capacity at the successive ages. These constraints may be taken as the third level of the self. Efficiency in overcoming these constraints is determined by the self-oriented processes, generating feelings and self-representations of self-worth. These feelings are idiosyncratic, and function as a personal constant, which is applied on self-evaluation and self-representations. This constant is rescaled and differentiated with development. Thus, we have simultaneously both modular and transmodular constructs in the mind and the self, which change with relative independence of each other under the constraints of the general processing capabilities and the personal constant. A series of studies are presented to support this model, and its implications for life-span theories of development are discussed.