Understanding Psychopathology: Cybernetics and Psychology on the Boundary between Order and Chaos

Abstract

We have argued for a balanced perspective on the relative benefits and costs of approach and avoidance motivation, and that thinking hierarchically about these motives contributes to a better understanding of goal pursuit. Having received several scholarly commentaries on these primary claims, in this reply, we further clarify the roles of regulatory fit and intelligibility in goal pursuit, examine surviving and thriving at different levels of the motivational hierarchy, and demonstrate that thinking hierarchically about approach and avoidance motivation provides a wealth of opportunities for additional research into the dynamics of motivation.     

An Investigation of College Students’ Perceptions of Academic Dishonesty,Reasons for Dishonesty,Achievement Goals,and Willingness to Report Dishonest Behavior

This study investigated students’ perceptions of their own and their peers’ academic dishonesty (AD), their reasons for this dishonesty, their achievement goals, and their willingness to report AD (WRAD) within a Chinese cultural context. The results identified students’ belief that their peers had a greater likelihood of engaging in AD and had more motivation to do so than did the students themselves. Gender and academic major did not affect students’ WRAD. However, students were significantly more willing to report classmates than friends. In terms of the participants’ self-perceptions and peer perceptions concerning motivations for AD, more female students cited the lack of penalties as the reason for their own and their peers’ AD, whereas male students more frequently cited their lack of attention to schoolwork as the reason for their own AD. In contrast to students in the social sciences, business students more frequently cited inadequate capabilities as the reason for their AD, and engineering students more frequently attributed their AD to self-interest. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that three motivations for AD (opportunism, inadequacy, and self-promotion) could positively predict AD, whereas mastery-approach goals could negatively predict AD.     

Paleolithic Art and Cognition

In this article, I have explored some of the possible relationships between the first appearance of representational art in human history and the early development of human cognition. I argue that most Upper Paleolithic depictions directly represent generalized mental images of their animal subjects rather than percepts or recollected scenes from life and that these images, in turn, are representations of concepts at the basic level of categorization. A common feature of Paleolithic art forms is the salience of parts, and the treatment of parts indicates analytic and synthetic (recombinative) abilities. There are some indications of superordinate categorization. An expansion of conceptual thinking seems to be implied as well as the beginnings of operational thought. The presence and practice of depiction may have had the effect of bringing concepts into consciousness and thus inducing reflection in at least a partially abstract mode.     

The Accuracy of Human Decisions and Objective Measurements in Psychophysiological Detection of Knowledge

I examined the relative detection efficiency of three measurements—skin resistance response (SRR) amplitude, respiration line length (RLL), and human respiration response evaluation (RRE)—in a guilty knowledge experiment. Thirty-two subjects were presented with lists of personal information in which only one of five items was correct. Subjects were instructed to try to avoid detection of the relevant items in the polygraph test. All three measurements discriminated better than chance between relevant and neutral items, with the objectively measured SRR and RLL superior to the subjective RRE. When SRR and RLL were compared for their relative efficiency, the former yielded better detection. The differentiation was even better with a measure that combined the SRR and the RLL. The results are discussed with respect to previous findings and practical implications.     

Travel: A Long-Range Goal of Retired Women

The authors surveyed retired persons (predominately women) with regard to their immediate, intermediate, and long-range activities following retirement. As predicted, leisure travel emerged as a frequent long-range goal for persons retired more than 5 years. The travel activity preferences of long-retired older women present challenges and opportunities to both researchers and marketers. Length of trips and frequency of trips have been predicted from regression models, with trip length in particular being well predicted by the problem of daily life hassles. A theoretical model of continued post-retirement travel is presented as a variant of Solomon's opponent process theory of affect (R. L. Solomon, 1980). The authors suggest that to the degree that places traveled to are varied and different, older people may remain stimulated and continue to enjoy retirement.     

Relational Scaffolding of School Motivation: Developmental Continuities in Students' and Parents' Ratings of the Importance of School Goals

The authors investigated whether parents and students are consistent, over grade levels, in the importance they assign to school goals. Elementary and high school students (n = 178) and their parents (n = 130) completed a questionnaire addressing the personal importance of students' school goals, defined in terms of school success. Parent-child consistencies in the rating patterns of school goals over grade levels were more common than were inconsistencies. These developmental consistencies support the position that students' school goals are embedded within the parent-child relationship (J. Youniss, 1980; J. Youniss & J. Smollar, 1985) and are scaffolded within it (J. S. Bruner, 1975; L. S. Vygotsky, 1978). Potential sources of relational and phenotypic influences on school goals are discussed, as is the need for effective friendship management and school performance in high school.     

Forms of Prosocial Behaviors are Differentially Linked to Social Goals and Peer Status in Adolescents

Traditionally, prosocial behaviors are conceptualized and assessed as a unidimensional construct, but recent research suggests they include various distinct forms, reflecting proactive (instrumental, self-benefiting), reactive (in response to an individual in need), and altruistic (beneficial to others without expectation of personal gain) functions. The authors examined these forms of adolescent prosocial behavior and their links to social goals and social adjustment among peers. In Study 1, they examined agentic (status) and communal (closeness) goals in relation to self-reported altruistic, reactive, and proactive prosocial behaviors. In Study 2, they examined peer-reported altruistic and proactive prosocial behaviors in association with likeability, rejection, and popularity among peers. The associations varied meaningfully among the forms of prosocial behavior. For instance, proactive prosocial behaviors were positively related to agentic goals and popularity, whereas altruistic prosocial behaviors were positively related to communal goals and likeability by peers. The findings underscore the importance of examining multiple forms of prosocial behaviors during adolescence.     

Children in psychodynamic psychotherapy: changes in global functioning

This study was part of the Erica Process and Outcome Study. The aim was to investigate if children's global functioning improves after psychodynamic psychotherapy. Variables that may predict changes in global functioning were examined both statistically and qualitatively, for example, the child's age and gender; diagnosis and comorbidity; treatment variables. The sample consisted of 33 children (five to 10 years of age) who participated in psychodynamic psychotherapy with parallel work with parents. Twenty-nine children had at least one DSM-IV diagnosis, and 15 children had comorbid conditions. At the start of psychotherapy, the most frequent diagnoses were attention disorder and disruptive behaviour. Child psychotherapists rated the children's global functioning using CGAS and HCAM. Large effect sizes were obtained (d = 1.80 and d = 1.98). However, no statistical correlations were found between global functioning and the selected variables. In order to illuminate the complex connection between process and outcome the study was complemented with in-depth case studies where data were taken from questionnaires, completed by the child therapists every third month. Two child therapies were selected: one in which the therapist rated a large change and one in which a small change was rated (CGAS). The analysis showed that important individual change, for example, attainment of formulated goals, was not always reflected in the change rated using the CGAS. Findings suggest that psychodynamic child psychotherapy can be beneficial. However, further research is needed to identify factors that contribute to change in children's global functioning.     

Factorial structure of a socialization goal questionnaire across non-migrant and migrant mothers in Germany

The aim of the study was to examine the factorial structure of a socialization goal questionnaire across three groups within Germany. The instrument has been previously used in cross-cultural research to assess autonomy and relatedness orientations, but lacks validation in contexts of migration. Additionally, the original instrument was modified to account for specific manifestations of both orientations. Participants were Turkish migrant, Former Soviet Union migrant and non-migrant mothers with children at preschool age, living in Germany. Single-group confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) lead to modification of the initial model. Following multigroup CFAs revealed configurational and metric equivalence across the three groups. However, fit indices did not support equivalent structural relations between factors at the variance/covariance level. In sum, the results support the factorial structure of the socialization goal questionnaire, but point to mothers' different conceptualizations of the relationship between both dimensions.