Showing papers in "American Psychologist in 1980"

The totalitarian ego: Fabrication and revision of personal history.

Abstract: This article argues that (a) ego, or self, is an organization of knowledge, (b) ego is characterized by cognitive biases strikingly analogous to totalitarian information-control strategies, and (c) these totalitarian-ego biases junction to preserve organization in cognitive structures. Ego's cognitive biases are egocentricity (self as the focus of knowledge), "beneffectance" (perception of responsibility for desired, but not undesired, outcomes), and cognitive conservatism (resistance to cognitive change). In addition to being pervasively evident in recent studies of normal human cognition, these three biases are found in actively functioning, higher level organizations of knowledge, perhaps best exemplified by theoretical paradigms in science. The thesis that egocentricity, beneffectance, and conservatism act to preserve knowledge organizations leads to the proposal of an intrapsychic analog of genetic evolution, which in turn provides an alternative to prevalent motivational and informational interpretations of cognitive biases. The ego rejects the unbearable idea together with its associated affect and behaves as if the idea had never occurred to the person at all. (Freud, 1894/1959, p. 72) Alike with the individual and the group, the past is being continually re-made, reconstructed in the interests of the present. (Bartlett, 1932, p. 309) As historians of our own lives we seem to be, on the one hand, very inattentive and, on the other, revisionists who will justify the present by changing the past. (Wixon & Laird, 1976, p. 384) "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." (Orwell, 1949, p. 32) What follows is a portrait of self (or ego—the terms are used interchangeably) constructed by interweaving strands drawn from several areas of recent research. The most striking features of the portrait are three cognitive biases, which correspond disturbingly to thought control and propaganda devices that are considered to be defining characteristics of a totalitarian political system. The epithet for ego, Vol. 35, No. 7, 603-618 totalitarian, was chosen only with substantial reservation because of this label's pejorative connotations. Interestingly, characteristics that seem undesirable in a political system can nonetheless serve adaptively in a personal organization of knowledge. The conception of ego as an organization of knowledge synthesizes influences from three sources —empirical, literary, and theoretical. First, recent empirical demonstrations of self-relevant cognitive biases suggest that the biases play a role in some fundamental aspect of personality. Second, George Orwell's 1984 suggests the analogy between ego's biases and totalitarian information control. Last, the theories of Loevinger (197,6) and Epstein (1973) suggest the additional analogy between ego's organization and theoretical organizations of scientific knowledge. The first part of this article surveys evidence indicating that ego's cognitive biases are pervasive in and characteristic of normal personalities. The second part sets forth arguments for interpreting the biases as manifestations of an effectively functioning organization of knowledge. The last section develops an explanation for the totalitarian-ego biases by analyzing their role in maintaining cognitive organization and in supporting effective behavior. /. Three Cognitive Biases: Fabrication and Revision of Personal History Ego, as an organization of knowledge (a conclusion to ,be developed later), serves the functions of observing (perceiving) and recording (remembering) personal experience; it can be characterized, therefore, as a personal historian. Many findings Acknowledgments are given at the end of the article. Requests for reprints should be sent to Anthony G. Greenwald, Department of Psychology, Ohio State University, 404C West 17th Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210. AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST • JULY 1980 • 603 Copyright 1980 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0003-066X/80/3507-0603$00.75 from recent research in personality, cognitive, and social psychology demonstrate that ego fabricates and revises history, thereby engaging in practices not ordinarily admired in historians. These lapsesin personal scholarship, or cognitive biases, are discussed below in three categories: egocentricity (self perceived as more central to events than it is)', "beneffectance" (self perceived as selectively responsible for desired, but not undesired, outcomes), and conservatism (resistance to cognitive

The opponent-process theory of acquired motivation: The costs of pleasure and the benefits of pain.

Abstract: When an unconditioned stimulus, a reinforcer, or an innate releaser is repeatedly presented to human or animal subjects, three major affective phenomena are often observed. First, one often sees affective or hedonic contrast. Second, frequent repeti- tion of the unconditioned stimulus, reinforcer, or innate releaser often gives rise to affective or hedonic habitu- ation (tolerance). Finally, after frequent repetition of these stimuli, a withdrawal or abstinence syndrome often emerges directly following stimulus termination. These affective dynamics of organismicall y important stimuli generate new motives, new opportunities for reinforcing and energizing operant behaviors, based on the hedonic attributes of withdrawal or abstinence syndromes. This article describes the opponent-process theory of such new or experientiall y produced motives and discusses recent research testing the theory. The theory attempts to account for such diverse acquired motives as drug addiction, love, affection and social attachment, and cravings for sensory and aesthetic ex- periences (cases in which the initial reinforcers are posi- tive) and for such acquired motives as parachuting, jog- ging and "marathoning," sauna bathing, and a variety of self-administered, aversive stimuli like electric shocks (cases in which the initial reinforcers are negative). The empirical laws governing the establishment of these new motives are described. Crucial variables include the quality, intensity, and duration of each stimulus presentation and the time intervals between presenta-

Expectancy confirmation processes arising in the social interaction sequence.

Abstract: Psychologists have begun to use Merton's concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy to explain a wide variety of social phenomena and problems. The present article further develops the theory behind this and related concepts. The core of our argument is that self-fulfilling prophecy effects occur when any one of many possible forces distort the processes occurring in normal social interactions. To elucidate this argument, we describe a model of simple social interactions that involves (a) a perceiver's formation of an expectancy about a target person, (b) his or her behavior congruent with the expectancy, (c) the target's interpretation of this behavior, (d) the target's response, (e) the perceiver's interpretation of the response, and (/) the target's interpretation of his or her own response. We discuss the biasing factors that may lead to self-fulfilling prophecy effects at each step of this sequence. In addition, we suggest several other forms of expectancy confirmation that may occur via the social interaction process. Our presentation has two major purposes: to increase the theoretical clarity of the self-fulfilling prophecy and related effects and to identify needs for future research on the topic. The concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy continues to generate research (e.g., Crano & Mellon, 1978; Snyder & Swann, 1978), theory (R. A. Jones, 1977), and controversy (Archibald, 1974; Wilkins, 1977). This activity is certainly a testimony to the importance of the construct, which is central to many of the practical implications of psychological knowledge for real-world settings (Rosenhan, 1973; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). Partly because of this enormous practical importance, the majority of empirical investigations of the selffulfilling prophecy have involved its occurrence in classroom settings. Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) contended that the induction of a teacher's expectation of improvement in certain children's achievement performance caused such an improvement. Despite the controversy regarding this initial research (Elashoff & Snow, 1971; Jensen, 1969; Thorndike, 1968), subsequent experimental investiVol. 35, No. 10, 867-881 gations (e.g., Meichenbaum, Bowers, & Ross, 1969; Zanna, Sheras, Cooper, & Shaw, 1975) have confirmed that teacher expectations affect student achievement. Several recent studies, aimed at documenting the workings of the teacher-student expectancy confirmation in nonexperimental social interaction settings, have provided some estimates of the magnitude and generality of the effect. A series of correlational studies showed that naturally occurring teacher expectancies are related to students' achievement (e.g., Palardy, 1969; Rist, 1970; Seaver, 1973; Sutherland & Goldschmid, 1974). For example, Seaver (1973) suggested that teachers form expectations about a younger sibling on the basis of the older sibling's performance. He found a greater relationship between the achievement scores of two siblings taught by the same teacher than between the achievement scores of control siblings taught by different teachers. Such correlational findings are always open to question concerning causal direction. A recent cross-lagged panel analysis suggests, however, that it is the teacher expectations that affect student performance. Crano and Mellon (1978) found that teacher attitudes affected children's achievement to a greater degree than students' performance impinged on the teachers' attitudes. This is impressive testimony to the practical importance of

Test validity and the ethics of assessment.

Abstract: Questions of the adequacy of a test as a measure of the characteristic it is interpreted to assess are answerable on scientific grounds by appraising psychometric evidence, especially construct validity. Questions of the appropriateness of test use in proposed applications are answerable on qthical grounds by appraising potential social consequences of the testing. The first set of answers provides an evidential basis for test interpretation, and the second set provides a consequential basis for test use. In addition, this article stresses (a) the importance of construct validity for test use because it provides a rational foundation for predictiveness and relevance, and (b) the importance of taking into account the value implications of test interpretations per se. By thus considering both the evidential and consequential bases of both test interpretation and test use, the roles of evidence and social values in the overall validation process are illuminated, and test validity comes to be based on ethical as well as

On the permanence of stored information in the human brain.

Abstract: Many people believe that information that is stored in long-term memory is permanent, citing examples of "retrieval techniques" that are alleged to uncover previously forgotten information. Such tech- niques include hypnosis, psychoanalytic procedures, methods for eliciting spontaneous and other conscious recoveries, and—perhaps most important—the electri- cal stimulation of the brain reported by Wilder Pen- field and his associates. In this article we first evaluate • the evidence and conclude that, contrary to apparent popular belief, the evidence in no way confirms the view that all memories are permanent and thus poten- tially recoverable. We then describe some failures that resulted from attempts to elicit retrieval of pre- viously stored information and conjecture what cir- cumstances might cause information stored in memory to be irrevocably destroyed. Few would deny the existence of a phenomenon called "forgetting," which is evident in the com- mon observation that information becomes less available as the interval increases between the time of the information's initial acquisition and the time of its attempted retrieval. Despite the prevalence of the phenomenon, the factors that underlie forgetting have proved to be rather elusive, and the literature abounds with hypothesized mechanisms to account for the ob- served data. In this article we shall focus our attention on what is perhaps the fundamental issue concerning forgetting; Does forgetting consist of an actual loss of stored information, or does it result from a loss of access to information, which, once stored, remains forever? It should be noted at the outset that this ques- tion may be impossible to resolve in an absolute sense. Consider the following thought experiment. A person (call him Geoffrey) observes some event, say a traffic accident. During the period of ob- servation, a movie camera strapped to Geoffrey's head records the event as Geoffrey experiences it. Some time later, Geoffrey attempts to recall and

Toward the delineation of therapeutic change principles.

Abstract: There is a growing discontent among therapists of varying orientations. Psychoanalytic, behavioral, and humanistically oriented clinicians are starting to raise serious questions about the limits of their respective approaches and are becoming more open to contributions from other paradigms. This article documents this trend within the field, which resembles a Kuhnian-type crisis, noting some of the political, economic, and social forces apt to affect our likelihood of ever reaching a consensus within the field and presenting an approach to the delineation and study of commonalities across various orientations.

Behavioral health and behavioral medicine: frontiers for a new health psychology.

Abstract: Developments over the past decade in psychology, in medicine, in funding institutions such as the National Institutes of Health, and in industry make clear that the rapidly growing areas of behavioral medi- cine and behavioral health are presenting psychology as well as its sister professions with new opportunities for training, research, and practice. Specific develop- ments within psychology leading to the establishment of APA's Division 38 (Health Psychology) are traced. Also traced are some activities on the national level that have led to the development of organizations with a more interdisciplinary focus. Despite a modicum of overselling in some quarters, behavioral health- and health psychology appear to be ideas whose time has come. Some writers appear to be using the terms be- havioral health, behavioral medicine, and health psychology as synonyms. It is proposed here, how- ever, that henceforth we use the term behavioral medicine for that broad interdisciplinary field of scientific inquiry, education, and practice which concerns itself with health and illness or related dysfunction (e.g., essential hypertension, choles- terolemia, stress disorders, addictive smoking, obesity, etc.); the term behavioral health for a new interdisciplinary subspecialty within behavioral medicine specifically concerned with the mainte- nance of health and the prevention of illness and dysfunction in currently healthy persons; and the term health psychology as a more discipline-specific term encompassing psychology's role as a science and profession in both of these domains. Although each of these terms made its lexical appearance only within the past several years, the idea of the exquisitely delicate and finely tuned relationship between mind and body that they embody is found in the earliest writings of civilization dating back to 5000 B.C. (Ehrenwald, 1976). The name of this mind-body field, has varied from century to century and recently from generation to genera- tion, changing in the 20th century from psycho-

Physiological, motivational, and cognitive effects of aircraft noise on children: Moving from the laboratory to the field.

Abstract: Author(s): Cohen, S; Evans, GW; Krantz, DS; Stokols, D | Abstract: Studied the effects of aircraft noise on 3rd- and 4th-grade students as evidence for the effects of community noise on behavior and as an example of a study that examines the generality of laboratory effects in a naturalistic setting. The impact of noise on attentional strategies, feelings of personal control, and physiological processes related to health was measured. Results are consistent with laboratory work on physiological response to noise and on uncontrollable noise as a factor in helplessness. 142 Ss from noisy schools had higher blood pressure than 120 Ss from matched quiet schools. Noisy-school Ss were also more likely to fail on a cognitive task and more likely to give up before the time to complete the task elapsed. The development of attentional strategies predicted from laboratory and previous field research was, on the whole, not found. The implications for understanding the relationship between noise and behavior and for influencing public policy are discussed. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1980 American Psychological Association.

The psychology of life after death.

Abstract: Traditionally, people's concern with an afterlife has been of interest only to philosophy and religion. The recent explosion of popular articles and books about life after death has now reached the medical and psychiatric journals, in which "scientific" reports cite evidence from survivors of clinical death and from deathbed visions of terminal patients, among other sources of data. This article critically reviews the evidence in light of ethological, anthropological, and psychological findings. The similarity of afterlife visions to drug-induced hallucinations invites a rational framework for their experimental analysis. From observations of animals burying their dead, through awareness of the seasonal rebirth of nature, to recognition of inherited characteristics, early homo sapiens developed the concept of life after death in an effort to explain these behaviors and their underlying feelings. Cross-cultural studies confirm that the experiences of dying and visiting "the other side" involve universal elements and themes that are predictable and definable. These phenomena arise from common structures in the brain and nervous system, common biological experiences, and common reactions of the central nervous system to stimulation. The resultant experience can be interpreted as evidence that people survive death, but it may be more easily understood as a dissociative hallucinatory activity of the brain. The time is 1920. Thomas Edison had always been a believer in electrical energy. He once wrote that when a person dies, a swarm of highly charged ^ energies deserts the body and goes out into space, entering another cycle of life. Always the scientist, Edison felt that some experiment demonstrating the immortal nature of these energies was necessary. In an interview in the October 1920 Scientific American he stated, I have been thinking for some time of a machine or apparatus which could be operated by personalities which have passed onto another existence or sphere. . . . I am inclined to believe that our personality hereafter does affect matter. If we can evolve an instrument so delicate as to be affected by our personality as it survives in the next life, such an instrument ought to record something. Edison never built his machine, but on his deathVol. 35, No. 10, 911-931 bed he had a vision of the next life and remarked, "It is very beautiful over there" (quoted in Sandberg, 1977, p. 65). The time is 1973. Based on pioneering research started at the University of California, Los Angeles, Raymond Western had just completed the development of a vast electronic computer nicknamed MEDIUM. Operating on complex electromagnetic principles, MEDIUM was designed to communicate with unique electromagnetic configurations orbiting in a space-time continuum separate from that which we call reality. These unique configurations were the energies of departed human personalities. Although Western did not like the word soul, he agreed with the theologians and scientists who tried his device that communication with the dead was possible. Life after death was

Investigation and Its Discontents Some Constraints on Progress in Psychological Research

Abstract: This article examines a number of prom- inent trends in the conduct of psychological research and considers how they may limit progress in our field. Failure to appreciate important differences in tempera- ment among researchers, as well as differences. in the particular talents researchers bring to their work, has prevented the development in psychology of a vigorous tradition of fruitful theoretical inquiry. Misplaced emphasis on quantitative "productivity," a problem for all disciplines, is shown to have particularly unfortu- nate results in psychology. Problems associated with the distorting effects of seeking grant support are shown to interact with the first two difficulties. Finally, the distorting effects of certain kinds of experimental studies are discussed, together with their implications for progress in this field.

Birth order family size and decline of SAT scores.

Abstract: Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores of three cohorts were examined together with data on family configuration, collected in-an attempt to calculate the, contribution made to the score decline by family factors. The analysis shows-that only a negligible fraction of the decline in SAT scores can be explained by changes in family configuration. In general, SAT scores showed little variation with birth order and family size—much less than found in other data sets. The results are discussed in the light of surveys of younger populations, for which test scores parallel birth trends remarkably well. According to a recent count (Wharton, 1977), 79 hypotheses have been advanced to explain the alarming decline in Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores during the last decade. Some hypotheses lay the blame on parental neglect, others on the spread of drugs, growing anti-intellectualism, waning support for schools, inadequate teacher training, addiction to TV, and even food additives. Most of these conjectures, however, are nonfalsifiable. Among those that are testable is the hypothesis that at least some portion of the decline in SAT Scores can be attributed to the changing family configuration (Zajonc, 1976). This hypothesis is derived from the confluence model (Zajonc & Markus, 1975), which describes the influences of family factors on intellectual development. In particular, the model predicts a systematic decline of intellectual performance in relation to birth order. Because the average order of birth in the United States has been declining in parallel with the decline in SAT scores, a causal connection was suspected. This hypothesis of a causal connection between the changing SAT scores and birth order patterns was further reinforced by data on younger populations from Iowa and New York. Both states have programs, of extensive testing of the elementary school population. The results of these Iowa and New York programs are of particular interest because their recent surveys 662 • JULY 1980 • AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST Copyright 1980 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0003-066X/80/3507-0662$00.75' cover the local minimum in birth trends. Inasmuch as the U.S. birthrate increased steadily from the war years until the early sixties, the average order of birth of these cohorts must have undergone a corresponding decline. That is, from the late forties on, children born in the postwar era came from increasingly larger families and were correspondingly lower in order of birth on the average. A dramatic reversal of this trend occurred in 1962, and since that time there has been a steady increase in the average order of birth. Although'the SAT scores of individuals born in 1962 and thereafter will not be knbwn until 1980, their scores in elementary school are already available, at least in New York and Iowa. If intellectual performance scores are indeed associated with birth order, we would expect a reversal in the trend of these scores for children born after 1962. It was precisely this finding among the New York and Iowa children that strengthened the supposition about the relation between SAT scores and birth order (Zajonc, 1976, pp. 233-234). How much of the drop in the SAT scores could be attributed to the changing family patterns? A simple calculation can provide some hints. We first need some indication of how much of a difference in intellectual performance is associated with differences in birth order. Breland's (1974) research provides the best source for this purpose because his population is most similar to that taking SAT tests. Breland examined a large sample of high school students (nearly 800,000) who took the National Merit Scholarship Qualification The research reported in this article was supported by Grant BNS 77-13973 from the National Science Foundation. The authors wish to thank Lee Cronbach for suggesting the method of protecting the privacy of the respondents and candidates. Requests for reprints should be sent to R. B. Zajonc, Research Center for Group Dynamics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Vol. 35, No. 7, 662-668 Test (NMSQT), relating their scores to family factors. We have recalculated his data to establish the relation between birth order (averaged over all family sizes) and NMSQT scores. According to this calculation, the NMSQT scores for the first five birth orders are 105.46, 102.79, 101.86, 99.38, and 96.89. By a linear fit (r = .99), these average scores represent a decline of 2.16 points for each birth rank. For purposes of evaluating SAT scores (which have a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100), we can convert these scores and Breland's figures (which have a mean of 102.5 and a standard deviation of 21.249) into standard scores, (M — M)/SD. When Breland's data are converted into standard units and the linear relation between these units and birth order is calculated, NMSQT scores decline by .10205 standard units per birth rank. For purposes of illustration we have selected the period of 1965 to 1977, because during that period both SAT scores and the average order of birth in the United States showed steady monotonic trends. Between 1965 and 1977, there was a drop of 34,5 points in the average overall SAT score (averaged over the verbal and quantitative portions). This decline from an average of 483.5 to 449.0 represents .345 standard units. According to the U.S. census, during the same period there was a change in the average order of birth of about one half of a birth rank (from an average order of 2.3973 to 2.9448). Since each birth rank changes a standard intellectual score by .10205 units, we should expect a change of .10205 (2.9448 2.3973) = .055872 standard units in the average SAT score associated with changes in the average order of birth. This change amounts to no more than 5.6 SAT points. Therefore, if changes in birth order alone were responsible for the SAT decline, the national average today should be around 478 rather than 450. Clearly, then, only a fraction (16%) of the massive decline in SAT scores can be attributed to the changing family patterns. Beaton, Hilton, and Schrader (1977) compared the reading scores of high school seniors tested in 1960 and the scores of those tested in 1972 and found that a decline in these scores calculated on the basis of changes in birth order was only \"about one-fourth as large as the observed\" decrease. In comparing the SAT scores of college entrants in this manner, Beaton et al. found that the magnitude of the contribution of birth order effects was smaller yet; proportionately less of the drop in SAT scores could be attributed to birth order effects, which is in agreement with the above projection of 5.6 points out of a total decline of 34.5. What is surprising about these data is that predictions for the elementary school populations are borne out so accurately, both in respect to the precise timing of the change in intellectual scores and in respect to the direction of the changes. The decline in SAT scores, too, is beginning to show the predicted leveling off. It appears quite likely that their trend will reverse, just as the trend of the elementary school scores has, because the children who were in elementary school in the early seventies are now begining to take their SATs. The purpose of the present article is to examine in greater detail the role of family factors in the decline of SAT scores by sampling three cohorts of college entrance candidates. Method The research reported here was carried out in collaboration with the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) and the Educational Testing Service (ETS). We received permission from the CEEB to collect family-configuration data from each of three recent SAT cohorts. The confidential nature of this information was thoroughly protected by a specially designed procedure. A random sample of 12,597 names from among the 1970-71, 1973-74, and 1976-77 SAT participants was selected by ETS research personnel. The parents or guardians of each student received by mail a questionnaire requesting the birth date and sex of the candidate and the birth dates of the student's siblings. The mail questionnaires sent from ETS were returned to ETS, where the responses were merged with the corresponding SAT scores and with data from the Student Descriptive Questionnaire (SDQ). The SDQ contains a variety of information about students' academic performance, their career aspirations, participation in school and community activities, and so forth. As the responses from the mail questionnaire were merged with SAT scores and SDQ data at the ETS, the students' names were removed. ETS then delivered to us a file contain1 The ETS part of the project was conducted by Rex Jackson and Sandy M. Campos, whose assistance is very much appreciated. AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST • JULY 1980 • 663 TABLE 1 v . , • SA T Scores and Birth Order of Cohorts in 1970-1971,1973-1974, and 1976-1977