Showing papers in "American Psychologist in 1973"

Testing for Competence Rather Than for "Intelligence"

Abstract: The testing movement in the United States has been a success, if one judges success by the usual American criteria of size, influence, and profitability. Intelligence and aptitude tests are used nearly everywhere by schools, colleges, and employers. It is a sign of backwardness not to have test scores in the school records of children. The Educational Testing Service alone employs about 2,000 people, annually administers Scholastic Aptitude Tests to thousands of aspirants to college, and makes enough money to support a large basic research operation. Its tests have tremendous power over the lives of young people by stamping some of them "qualified" and others "less qualified" for college work. Until recent "exceptions" were made (over the protest of some), the tests have served as a very efficient device for screening out black, Spanish-speaking, and other minority applicants to colleges. Admissions officers have protested that they take other qualities besides test achievements into account in granting admission, but careful studies by Wing and Wallach (1971) and others have shown that this is true only to a very limited degree. Why should intelligence or aptitude tests have all this power? What justifies the use of such tests in selecting applicants for college entrance or jobs? On what assumptions is the success of the movement based? They deserve careful examination before we go on rather blindly promoting the use of tests as instruments of power over the lives of many Americans.

The self-concept revisited: Or a theory of a theory.

Abstract: most from the beginning, the field has been divided on this question. From a behavioristic viewpoint, the self-concept has an aura of mysticism about it, appearing not far removed from the concept of a soul. One can neither see a self-concept, nor touch it, and no one has succeeded as yet in adequately defining it as a hypothetical construct. Definitions that are offered tend to lack meaningful referents or to be circular. Thus, the self has been defined in terms of the "I" or the "me," or both, or as the individual's reactions to himself. Some authors, apparently having despaired of providing an adequate definition, dispense with the matter by an appeal to common sense and by asserting that everyone knows he has a self as surely as he knows what belongs to him and what does not. Allport (1955), in an attempt to make afresh start, coined a new word, the "proprium," which he defined as "all the regions of our life that we regard as peculiarly ours [p. 40]." The difficulty here is that one cannot identify the proprium until one identifies what people regard as essentially theirs, which, in effect, requires identification of the self. One occasionally detects a note of authoritative assertiveness in place of logical analysis when an author feels certain he knows what the self is, but finds it a slippery concept whose adequate definition is irritatingly elusive. Thus, Sullivan (1953) stated, When I talk about the self-system, I want it clearly understood that I am talking about a dynamism which comes to be enormously important in understanding interpersonal relations. This dynamism is an explanatory conception; it is not a thing, a region, or what not, such as superegos, egos, ids, and so on [p. 167]. It is encouraging to know that a dynamism, unlike an ego, is a concept that can be understood without, specifying its referents. If the self is not a thing and cannot be defined as a concept, then perhaps it can be dispensed with altogether. It is noteworthy that Allport, one of the proponents of the self-concept, essentially agrees with this conclusion. He noted that everything that has been explained by reference to a self concept can be explained as well without it, and the only advantage in retaining the word is that it draws attention to important areas of psychology that otherwise would be ignored. He stated, If …

A functional analysis of depression.

Abstract: Depression, like infantile autism (Ferster, 1961), appears to be an especially appropriate field for the behavioral psychologist because of the missing items of behavior that are so prominent. The behavioral style of analysis emphasizes the frequency of behavior as the primary datum, while the particular categories of behavior whose frequency is to be accounted for are sought from the clinical literature or from common experience. A behavioral approach is useful for communicating, clarifying, and making objective knowledge of human behavior that has been discovered clinically or experientially. Thus, the behavior analysis may be used to complement rather than substitute for clinical knowledge (Ferster, 1972). This approach is derived from Skinner's functional analysis of behavior, particularly in his book Science and Human Behavior (Skinner, 1957). Especially in the chapters analyzing self-control, education, religion, government and law, and social behavior, Skinner defines the major kinds of activities that characterize various performances and seeks the variables that account for and influence their frequency. Ferster has provided more details of a functional analysis of self-control (Ferster, 1962) and childhood psychosis (Ferster, 1961). The first task in a behavioral analysis is to define behavior objectively, emphasizing functional (generic) classes of performances consistent with prevailing clinical facts, the component behaviors of which can be observed, classified, and counted. Then, the basic behavioral processes can be applied to discover the kinds of circumstances that can increase and decrease the frequency of particular

On being useful: the nature and consequences of psychological research on social problems.

Abstract: The movement to make psychological research more relevant to social problems needs to avoid potential pitfalls and unanticipated negative consequence of moving the orientation of psychology into the public arena. The authors discuss social policy at the national level in terms of the tendency to hold individuals responsible for their problems, then explore the utility and applicability of psychological thought and research to social problems within this framework. Noting that, regardless of the type of problem and the intent of the investigator, the findings of psychologically oriented research lend themselves more easily to person-blame than to system-blame interpretations, they focus on the processes by which this takes place and the implications for problem subgroups, the profession, and society as a whole. 21 references, 1 table.

Psycholinguistics and Plato's paradoxes of the Meno.

Abstract: ion, on the other hand, consists of making overt behavior depend on certain properties of a stimulus pattern while disregarding other properties. . . . Abstraction, then, means making behavior take account of some of the signals in the message and disregarding the remainder [p. 45]. In philosophy, the dream of constructing the entire complexity of the world on a basis of concrete particulars constantly recurs. A recent milestone in this tradition is Nelson Goodman's (1951) attempt in The Structure of Appearance to construct abstracta out of concreta. W. V. O. Quine is also of professed nominalist leanings. In general, one must admit that nominalism, seemingly implied by the empiricist world view, dominates the philosophical scene. Generic concepts, classes, etc., are admitted, albeit grudgingly, but the majority of lip service is still to nominalism. But despite the plausibility and pervasiveness of the \"received view\" doctrines stemming from Aristotle, it is easy to see that they are indefensible dogmas. The destructive burden of this article is to show that nominalism and associationism are utterly incapable of providing adequate accounts for our two problems. They are, indeed, considerably more implausible than the seemingly unscientific doctrines of Plato. Let us now examine some recent \"heresies\" in philosophy and psychology that expose the \"received view\" doctrines as the egregious blunders that they in fact are. Consider first the untenability of nominalism. The Conceptual Primacy of the Abstract A number of developments in recent philosophy force the abandonment of nominalism in its traditional forms. They may be grouped conveniently under the heading of the epistemological, or more 2 There are prominent cracks in the nominalistic bulwark, however. For example, Quine (1960) now defends nominalism as an admitted bias, on pragmatic grounds only. Consider these comments in Word and Object: The case that emerged for classes rested on systematic efficacy. Note it is certainly a case against nominalism's negative claims, but still it is no case against a preferential status for physical objects. In a contest for sheer systematic utility to science, the notion of physical object still leads the field. On this score alone, therefore, one might still put a premium on explanations that appeal to physical objects and not to abstract ones, even if abstract objects be grudgingly admitted too for their efficacy elsewhere in the theory [p. 238]. But the point remains—one cannot notice cracks in the wall of nominalism unless the solidity outweighs the proportion of crumbling doctrine. generically, the conceptual, primacy of the abstract. We can dismiss nominalism by considering (at least) these areas: the conceptual nature of facts or \"factual relativity\"; the abstract nature of scientific explanation or the \"deductive unification of experience\"; and finally, the primacy of the abstract in the nature of both common sense and scientific knowledge, and in scientific theory construction. Consider first factual relativity. Philosophers of the \"empiricist\" persuasion that Aristotle championed hold that our knowledge is founded or based on \"facts.\" The given in experience for the nominalistic empiricist is the particular, the concrete, and the atheoretical. The deliverances of sense are the touchstone on which scientific knowledge rests and is validated, and those deliverances have nominalistic properties \"built in,\" according to the received view. But there is a problem with \"facts\": they cannot have either the nominalistic or the foundational properties that this position demands. Facts cannot be the \"raw data\" of observation. A little reflection shows that observation is something over and above the raw data of perception— it requires an active process to construct facts out of the raw data. Observation requires skill: it is an achievement term in the sense of Austin or Ryle. As Turner (1967) rightly noted: \"An observer who could claim no other credentials than those of naivete would see very little that would be of interest to the scientist [p. 190].\" But this has simply not been noticed by empiricist philosophers. The reason such philosophers have ignored the conceptual nature of facts is obvious: it destroys the foundation (all knowledge is a deliverance of sense) on which their world view was erected. For the empiricist, reality consists of the given, the concrete, and the particular. Factual relativity says, in effect, that the given cannot be \"taken\" at all, that what there is is not concrete as the empiricist construes the term, and that the particular cannot be known at all without prior or simultaneous knowledge of the general. But theorists do not, in viewing the same \"objective\" situation, perceive the \"same\" facts. As T. S. Kuhn (1970) has indicated in discussing paradigm clashes, theorists on opposite sides in a clash literally live in different worlds. This gulf between observers of different theoretical persuasions is well captured in a historical example: If in the brilliant disc of which he is visually aware Tycho sees only the sun, then he cannot but see that it is a body AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST January 1973 19 which will behave in characteristically \"Tychonic\" ways. These serve as the foundation for Tycho's general geocentric-geostatic theories about the sun. . . . Tycho sees the sun beginning its journey from horizon to horizon. He sees that from some celestial vantage point the sun (carrying with it the moon and planets) could be watched circling our fixed earth. Watching the sun at dawn through Tychonic spectacles would be to see it in something like this way. Kepler's visual field, however, has a different conceptual organization. Yet a drawing of what he sees at dawn could be a drawing of exactly what Tycho saw, and could be recognized as such by Tycho. But Kepler will see the horizon dipping, or turning away, from our fixed local star [Hanson, 1958, p. 231. Factual relativity guarantees that one cannot simply go out into the world and neutrally collect facts. Without a prior conceptual framework, that is, a point of view from which to impose order upon reality, there is only the changing phenomenal flux of experience, the \"blooming, buzzing confusion\" of William James. The data of sensation do not come with little tags attached proclaiming their factual status. Observation is not merely focusing one's attention on the data, but rather assimilation of data into the conceptual scheme of the observer. Factual relativity, emphasizing the theoretical contamination of the allegedly solid and neutral data base of science, is the first step in the overthrow of nominalism. The nominalist holds that what is given to the mind, the basis of all its further constructions, is atheoretical and neutral, or in a nutshell, concrete. Factual relativity removes this alleged concreteness from the deliverances of sense in a most convincing fashion: the \"data base\" for either science or everyday human endeavor is theoretical, shifting, dependent on nonobjective factors, and thoroughly nonconcrete. Thus, what is given to the mind is not concrete: is it also not particular? If it is not particular, then nominalism, as the thesis that there are no nonconcrete nonparticulars, is untenable. Let us now look at the perceptual experiences that are said to constitute the ultimate data base of scientific explanations, and see that not only are there no \"perceptual experiences\" whatsoever at the \"basis\" of science, but also that the propositions of explanatory discourse deal with abstract and ideal entities. Concordant with the view that science does not \"collect\" its facts but must instead \"manufacture\" them, this claim can be advanced: science can never deal directly with particulars or individual things at all, but only with \"abstract\" entities or thing-kinds. Most contemporary \"philosophy of science,\" insofar as it deals with substantive theories at all, is concerned with the purely formal structure of the subject-matter theories examined (in particular, those that are or can be axiomatized). But one factor that has been quite neglected is the restriction which the structure of scientific axiomatic systems imposes on the subject matter of such theoretical systems. In endorsing factual relativity, we have denied that any form of the given in experience provides a bedrock on which to found science; now we must question the other facet of the empiricist \"foundations\" view of knowledge which holds that that which is given is to be taken as particular. Posing the issue in this form leads back to the problems of knowledge with which we began: how does the nominalist-empiricist know (or come to recognize, be acquainted with, or recollect, etc.) his concrete particulars as instances of particulars? That is, if a \"thing\" is proffered to me as \"an X,\" where X is any description (i.e., classification) of it whatsoever, how can I know that to be the case (that it is an X) without first knowing what it is to be an instance of a thing-kind, namely, of kind XI In order to recognize a thing (fact), mustn't one presuppose knowledge of, or operation within, a framework (theory) of thing-kinds? Reflection indicates that classification is fundamentally a process of abstraction. But this goes against the nominalistic attempt to accord abstracta derivative status from concreta, by making the process of abstraction a sine qua non for determination of concreta. Let us develop this point by considering what is involved in \"scientific\" explanation. The ideal form of theoretical explanation is usually taken to be the hypothetico-deductive schema. The question we must ask is: Does employment of the hypothetico-deductive method idealize the domain to which it is applied? That is, what does the process of deduction require of the empirical predicates of the science before it may be applied legitimately? Korner (1966) considers two classes of such constrain

Silk Purses into Sow's Ears: The Decline of Psychological Testing and a Suggestion for Its Redemption.

Abstract: (1973). Silk Purses into Sow's Ears: The Decline of Psychological Testing and a Suggestion for Its Redemption. School Psychology Review: Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 18-23.

Who wants the children? Some relationships among attitudes toward children parents and the liberation of women.

Abstract: A survey of relationships among attitudes toward children parents and the womens liberation movement used a questionnaire covering the following self-reporting areas: 1) marital status and age 2) father at home 3) working mother 4) creativity of child rearing 5) value of child rearing to society 6) mother and fathers nurturance 7) attitudes toward womens liberation. The sample consisted of undergraduates: 109 men (M) and 133 women (W) from an introductory psychology classroom and 47 older women from a Continuing Education for Women (CEW) program. Respondents were grouped into 4 categories by attitude toward having and rearing children: highly positive moderate low and inconsistent. Highly positive subjects ranked child rearing as more creative. The creativity of child rearing was ranked highest by CEW second by W and lowest by M. Highly positives considered child rearing more socially valuable. Proliberation women ranked child rearing as more creative but themselves less interested in it; they were less eager to have children and remember less care from their parents. Proliberation women evaluated fathers more poorly than mothers and had more positive feeling for their fathers. Proliberation women associate motherhood with the low status of women. We must come to view children as desirable and child rearing as not incompatible with other creative activities.