Annual Review of Psychology - Volume 47, 1996

Cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) involves a highly diverse set of terms and procedures. In this review, the origins of CBT are briefly considered, and an integrative theoretical framework is proposed that (a) distinguishes therapy interventions targeted at circumscribed disorders from those targeted at generalized disorders and (b) distinguishes interventions aimed at modifying conscious beliefs and representations from those aimed at modifying unconscious representations in memory. Interventions aimed at altering consciously accessible beliefs are related to their theoretical bases in appraisal theories of emotion and cognitive theories of emotion and motivation. Interventions aimed at modifying unconscious representations are related to their theoretical bases in learning theory and findings from experimental cognitive psychology. In the review, different formulations of CBT for anxiety disorders and depression are analyzed in terms of this framework, and theoretical issues relating to self-representations in memory and to emotional processing are considered.

Static models of interacting persons measured at the interval level are reviewed. A discussion of the fundamental sources of variance and key design decisions in social-interaction research is presented. Outlined are the basic designs for social-interaction research and their proper analysis. Multilevel modeling is likely to become the most common data analysis method. Critical issues unique to social-interaction research are examined, particularly the effect of the partner on the interaction actor. Finally, illustrations of analyses from four extended examples are presented.

Research in clinical personality assessment continues to be produced at a high rate. The MMPI/MMPI-2 remains the most popular instrument for both clinical application and psychopathology research. Two other clinical personality instruments, the Rorschach and TAT, continue to find a place in research and clinical assessment. Some new instruments have surfaced recently to deal with areas, such as personality disorders, that have been considered inadequately addressed. There is a growing recognition that the Five-Factor Model is too superficial for clinical assessment that requires more refined and broadened patient information. Clinical personality assessment has successfully survived a number of past challenges. The newest challenge stems from the health-care revolution, in which managed-care providers are reluctant to pay for assessment because of shrinking funds. Psychologists need to develop models for incorporating assessment information into the treatment process. The future is likely to see more extensive research and theoretical development in this endeavor.

This review addresses the importance of studies of human psychoneuroimmunology in understanding the role of psychological factors in physical illness. First, it provides psychologically and biologically plausible explanations for how psychological factors might influence immunity and immune system–mediated disease. Second, it covers substantial evidence that factors such as stress, negative affect, clinical depression, social support, and repression/denial can influence both cellular and humoral indicators of immune status and function. Third, at least in the case of the less serious infectious diseases (colds, influenza, herpes), it considers consistent and convincing evidence of links between stress and negative affect and disease onset and progression. Although still early in its development, research also suggests a role of psychological factors in autoimmune diseases. Evidence for effects of stress, depression, and repression/denial on onset and progression of AIDS and cancer is less consistent and inconclusive, possibly owing to methodological limitations inherent in studying these complex illnesses, or because psychological influences on immunity are not of the magnitude or type necessary to alter the body's response in these cases. What is missing in this literature, however, is strong evidence that the associations between psychological factors and disease that do exist are attributable to immune changes.

This chapter focuses on recent research concerning verbal learning and memory. A prominent guiding framework for research on this topic over the past three decades has been the modal model of memory, which postulates distinct sensory, primary, and secondary memory stores. Although this model continues to be popular, it has fostered much debate concerning its validity and specifically the need for its three separate memory stores. The chapter reviews research supporting and research contradicting the modal model, as well as alternative modern frameworks. Extensions of the modal model are discussed, including the search of associative memory model, the perturbation model, precategorical acoustic store, and permastore. Alternative approaches are discussed including working memory, conceptual short-term memory, long-term working memory, short-term activation and attention, processing streams, the feature model, distinctiveness, and procedural reinstatement.

Long-term potentiation (LTP), a relatively long-lived increase in synaptic strength, remains the most popular model for the cellular process that may underlie information storage within neural systems. The strongest arguments for a role of LTP in memory are theoretical and involve Hebb's Postulate, Marr's theory of hippocampal function, and neural network theory. Considering LTP research as a whole, few studies have addressed the essential question: Is LTP a process involved in learning and memory? The present manuscript reviews research that attempts to link LTP with learning and memory, focusing on studies utilizing electrophysiological, pharmacological, and molecular biological methodologies. Most evidence firmly supports a role for LTP in learning memory. However, an unequivocal experimental demonstration of a contribution of LTP to memory is hampered by our lack of knowledge of the biological basis of memory and of the ways in which memories are represented in ensembles of neurons, the existence of a variety of cellular forms of LTP, and the likely resistance of distributed memory stores to degradation by treatments that incompletely disrupt LTP.

This review considers recent theoretical and empirical developments in cross-cultural studies within social and organizational psychology. It begins with a description of the importance and the difficulties of universalizing psychological science. It then continues with an examination of theoretical work on both the internal-proximal and the external-distal constraints that mediate culture's influence on behavior. Influences on social cognition are documented by describing research on self-concept, self-esteem, emotions, attribution processes, person perception, interpersonal attraction, and justice. Group processes are addressed in the areas of leadership, decision-making, and negotiation, and research in organizational psychology is examined with respect to work motivation and work behavior. The review concludes that considerable improvement is evident in recent cross-cultural research. However, future research must include a broader range of cultures and attend more closely to the levels at which cultural effects should be analyzed, and cultural samples must be unpackaged in more psychologically useful ways.

The stereotyping literature within psychology has grown considerably over the past decade. In large part, this growth can be attributed to progress in understanding the individual mechanisms that give rise to stereotypic thinking. In the current review, the recent psychological literature on stereotypes is reviewed, with particular emphasis given to the cognitive and motivational factors that contribute to stereotype formation, maintenance, application, and change. In addition, the context-dependent function of stereotypes is highlighted, as are the representational issues that various models of stereotypes imply.

Expert and exceptional performance are shown to be mediated by cognitive and perceptual-motor skills and by domain-specific physiological and anatomical adaptations. The highest levels of human performance in different domains can only be attained after around ten years of extended, daily amounts of deliberate practice activities. Laboratory analyses of expert performance in many domains such as chess, medicine, auditing, computer programming, bridge, physics, sports, typing, juggling, dance, and music reveal maximal adaptations of experts to domain-specific constraints. For example, acquired anticipatory skills circumvent general limits on reaction time, and distinctive memory skills allow a domain-specific expansion of working memory capacity to support planning, reasoning, and evaluation. Many of the mechanisms of superior expert performance serve the dual purpose of mediating experts' current performance and of allowing continued improvement of this performance in response to informative feedback during practice activities.

This review examines recent research on groups and teams, giving special emphasis to research investigating factors that influence the effectiveness of teams at work in organizations. Several performance-relevant factors are considered, including group composition, cohesiveness, and motivation, although certain topics (e.g. composition) have been more actively researched than others in recent years and so are addressed in greater depth. Also actively researched are certain types of teams, including flight crews, computer-supported groups, and various forms of autonomous work groups. Evidence on basic processes in and the performance effectiveness of such groups is reviewed. Also reviewed are findings from studies of organizational redesign involving the implementation of teams. Findings from these studies provide some of the strongest support for the value of teams to organizational effectiveness. The review concludes by briefly considering selected open questions and emerging directions in group research.

This chapter reviews how psychology in Canada evolved over half a century to become the most popular discipline in universities and a respected health-care and helping profession. The organization, journals, and funding of the scientific discipline are described. The importance of DO Hebb's research as the stimulus and foundation for discipline growth and significant research contributions to basic processes is identified. The multicultural mosaic of Canadian society and early research on second-language learning are shown to have influenced cross-cultural and social research. Canadian research contributions to basic processes and to the social and health sciences are reviewed. Although late to begin in Canada, clinical research and the profession of psychology are shown to have substantially developed over the past two decades. With large numbers of quality researchers and practitioners, psychology has a bright future in Canada.

We present an overview of methodological issues involved in conducting psychopathology research, including conceptual, analytic, and interpretive considerations. Research issues germane to structured diagnostic interviewing, comorbidity of mental disorders, and ascertainment and sampling are reviewed. Further, the problem of specificity (with respect to disorder, to differential deficit, and to time) is discussed. Specific issues concerning risk vs protective factors, conducting research with special populations, and the continuity of abnormal and normal functioning are highlighted. Finally, various analogue strategies (human subclinical syndromes, experimental study of “pathological” processes in normals, animal models, and computer simulations) are critiqued. Our review documents many of the impressive methodological developments that have emerged in this field, and we hope our review stimulates additional research that exploits recent methodological advances.

The term social structure refers to a relatively enduring pattern of social arrangements or interrelations within a particular society, organization, or group. This chapter reviews how the social structure of the larger society and the organizational structure of schools affect the educational process within American schools. The institutional context of schooling is first discussed. The ideology of mass education, social stratification, status attainment, credentialism, and the emphasis on ability differences are considered. The focus then shifts to the organizational structure of schools, beginning with a discussion of the external social context for school organization. Attention is given to professionalism and bureaucracy, institutional forms of organization, decentralized control, and community influences. Finally, the internal structure of school organization is considered: teachers' working conditions, status differences among students, and curriculum tracking. Throughout, the emphasis is on ways in which social structure influences what is taught in school, how it is taught, and what is learned.

Research relevant to the origins and early development of two functionally dissociable perceptual systems is summarized. One system is concerned with the perceptual control and guidance of actions, the other with the perception and recognition of objects and events. Perceptually controlled actions function in real time and are modularly organized. Infants perceive where they are and what they are doing. By contrast, research on object recognition suggests that even young infants represent some of the defining features and physical constraints that specify the identity and continuity of objects. Different factors contribute to developmental changes within the two systems; it is difficult to generalize from one response system to another; and neither perception, action, nor representation qualifies as ontogenetically privileged. All three processes develop from birth as a function of intrinsic processing constraints and experience.

In this review of auditory psychophysics and perception, we cite some important books, research monographs, and research summaries from the past decade. Within auditory psychophysics, we have singled out some topics of current importance: Cross-Spectral Processing, Timbre and Pitch, and Methodological Developments.

Complex sounds and complex listening tasks have been the subject of new studies in auditory perception. We review especially work that concerns auditory pattern perception, with emphasis on temporal aspects of the patterns and on patterns that do not depend on the cognitive structures often involved in the perception of speech and music.

Finally, we comment on some aspects of individual differences that are sufficiently important to question the goal of characterizing auditory properties of the typical, average, adult listener. Among the important factors that give rise to these individual differences are those involved in selective processing and attention.

A review of research and theory on transactions between people and physical environments emphasizes new contributions to theory and empirical research published in major journals of environmental psychology, 1989–1994. Theories focused on arousal, load, stress, privacy-regulation, behavior settings, and transactional analysis; new theory increasingly incorporated situational and contextual variables. Empirical research emphasized field settings over the laboratory and employed increasingly diverse methods, populations, and cultures. Environmental design studies integrated scientific and applied goals through post-occupancy evaluation. New findings concerned features of residences, work places, hospitals, schools, prisons, and larger community environments. New studies also addressed environmental stressors (e.g. temperature, noise); effects of attitudes and behaviors on conservation, crime, pollution, and hazards; and issues for neighborhoods, public places, and natural environments. Directions for the future include integrated theory to guide research, more design experiments, and development of conventions for case studies.

Cognitive skill acquisition is acquiring the ability to solve problems in intellectual tasks, where success is determined more by subjects' knowledge than by their physical prowess. This review considers research conducted in the past ten years on cognitive skill acquisition. It covers the initial stages of acquiring a single principle or rule, the initial stages of acquiring a collection of interacting pieces of knowledge, and the final stages of acquiring a skill, wherein practice causes increases in speed and accuracy.

Attachment theory is criticized for being based on momentary stressful situations, for being limited to behaviors that occur with the primary attachment figure, for including only overt behaviors in its paradigm, and for failing to consider multiple attachments at different stages of life. A model of psychological attunement is then presented and supported by several studies documenting behavioral, physiological, and biochemical responses to separations from parents and peers.

Although covariance structure analysis is used increasingly to analyze nonexperimental data, important statistical requirements for its proper use are frequently ignored. Valid conclusions about the adequacy of a model as an acceptable representation of data, which are based on goodness-of-fit test statistics and standard errors of parameter estimates, rely on the model estimation procedure being appropriate for the data. Using analogies to linear regression and anova, this review examines conditions under which conclusions drawn from various estimation methods will be correct and the consequences of ignoring these conditions. A distinction is made between estimation methods that are either correctly or incorrectly specified for the distribution of data being analyzed, and it is shown that valid conclusions are possible even under misspecification. A brief example illustrates the ideas. Internet access is given to a computer code for several methods that are not available in programs such as EQS or LISREL.

In this chapter, we consider the degree to which individuals are pulled to behave by their conceptions of the future, pushed to act by their recollections of the past, or primarily driven by current exigencies. In examining conceptions of the future, we discuss how individuals bridge the present and the future, the origin of goals, their impact on behavior and cognition, and the motivational underpinnings for inferring other people's goals. We then outline four theoretical approaches to goal prioritization, the motivational impact of proximal vs distal goals, and the distinction between approaching positive vs avoiding negative outcomes. Turning to conceptions of the past, we discuss the motivational push of the past, the use of the past to select one's goals, the impact current goals have on recall and interpretations of the past, and individual differences in using the past. We conclude that temporal focus provides a meaningful framework for social cognitive approaches to motivation.