Review of General Psychology

Self-compassion: Conceptualizations, correlates, & interventions.
Within American psychology, there has been a recent surge of interest in self-compassion, a construct from Buddhist thought. Self-compassion entails: (a) being kind and understanding toward oneself in times of pain or failure, (b) perceiving one's own suffering as part of a larger human experience, and (c) holding painful feelings and thoughts in mindful awareness. In this article we review findings from personality, social, and clinical psychology related to self-compassion. First, we define self-compassion and distinguish it from other self-constructs such as self-esteem, self-pity, and self-criticism. Next, we review empirical work on the correlates of self-compassion, demonstrating that self-compassion has consistently been found to be related to well-being. These findings support the call for interventions that can raise self-compassion. We then review the theory and empirical support behind current interventions that could enhance self-compassion including compassionate mind training (CMT), imagery work, the gestalt two-chair technique, mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Directions for future research are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
Unpacking intuition: A process and outcome framework.
In recent years, the topic of intuition has become an important focus of attention in psychology. It is often assumed to be a unitary construct; however, recent research suggests that intuition is multifaceted. This article disaggregates intuition by discriminating between domain-general mechanisms and domain-specific processes of intuiting and primary types of intuition and secondary types of intuition. The theoretical relationships between and within processes and types are examined and analyzed at behavioral and information processing levels, noting the importance in advances in social cognition research. As a result of this analysis, we provide a conceptual framework that connects intuitive processes and outcomes. The article concludes by outlining some of the implications of the framework and in particular highlights future methodological challenges faced by intuition researchers in laboratory and organizational field settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
An integrative conceptual framework for assessing personality and personality pathology.
As a contribution to the ongoing debate over the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-5, we present a framework for jointly conceptualizing personality and personality pathology. The key element is an explicit distinction between personality description (which is the realm of basic personality psychology) and personality evaluation (which is the realm of clinical personality psychology). Previous diagnostic systems did not acknowledge this crucial distinction. We created a sample diagnostic system, to illustrate how a practical application of our conceptual framework may look like. The system comprises two ingredients: First, a list of personality dispositions that may become problematic. These are described at a “basic level” of abstraction (i.e., the level at which patients and clinicians intuitively communicate about personality problems). Second, a list of negative consequences that are used to evaluate the extent to which a patient's personality pattern is “problematic.” A sample of therapists used the system for describing actual patients and found it to be better than the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 and DSM–IV. Based on our conceptual deliberations, we analyze the DSM-5 proposal for personality and personality disorders. The proposal contains three different sets of “higher-order concepts” (personality traits, personality types, and levels of personality functioning). Only the first of these is sufficiently supported by empirical evidence, including analyses of our own set of personality dispositions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
Abstracting grammar from social–cognitive foundations: A developmental sketch of learning.
Although the understanding of the development of infants' social cognition and cooperative reasoning has progressed significantly, to date, it has yet to be worked through in any detail how this knowledge interacts with and constrains emerging syntactic representations. This review is a step in that direction, aiming to offer a more integrated account of the learning mechanisms that support linguistic generalizations. First, I review the developmental literature that suggests social–cognitive foundations get linguistic constructions “off the ground.” Second, I focus on building layers of abstractions on top of this foundation and the kind of cognitive processes that are involved. Crucially important in this explanation will be the fact that humans possess a unique set of social–cognitive and social motivational-skills that allows language to happen. Furthermore, early linguistic categories are formed around the underlying functional core of concepts and on the basis of their communicative discourse function. This, combined with powerful pattern-detection skills, enables distributional regularities in the input to be paired with what the speakers intend to communicate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
Rereading Vygotsky's theses on types of internalization and verbal mediation.
The Vygotskyan sociocultural approach to human development and cognition marked a new direction in psychology and created new, distinctive avenues for exploring fundamental matters of the mind. The complexity, diversity, and multilayered meaning of Vygotsky's formulations have in the history of psychology triggered scholastic debate, which has focused on the clarification, implications, and extension of the core explanatory constructs of his framework—mediation and internalization. The aim of this review is to offer a contemporary logico-semantic rereading of Vygotsky's formulations of these constructs with an emphasis on speech and, in particular, its dual mediatory role as a primary mediational means and a mediating process. Vygotsky's less renowned, and rather incomplete, propositions on the types of internalization are revived and examined in relation to the ontogenetic formation of speech. In this critical analysis, some ambiguous conceptual links between the notion of internalization types and the transformation of social speech into private speech and inner speech are explicated, debated, and refined. By addressing these conceptual links, the present examination extends the sociocultural account of semiotic mediation. The interpretations proposed highlight the logical cohesion and enhance the comprehensibility of Vygotsky's theoretical stance on human development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
The return of the anal character.
The anal character is a central concept in the psychoanalytic theory of personality. It was originally described in the first decade of the 20th century, and quickly applied to the analysis of clinical cases, psychobiographies, and cultural phenomena. In midcentury a generation of psychoanalytically oriented psychologists found some evidence that anal traits cohere and that they are related to attitudes toward excreta. Subsequently, the concept of the anal character lost currency as studies failed to support the psychoanalytic explanation of its origins and enthusiasm for psychoanalysis dwindled. However, although the concept might seem to have met its demise, it has resurfaced under different names as a diverse assortment of characteristics that have inspired active research programs. These characteristics—authoritarianism, conscientiousness, detail focus, disgust sensitivity, hoarding, obsessive–compulsive personality disorder, perfectionism, and Type A—have a rarely remarked family resemblance that the anal character illuminates. I argue that the anal character has not so much been consigned to the scrap heap of bad ideas, but has been recycled into several smaller but better ones. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
The influence of fictional narrative experience on work outcomes: A conceptual analysis and research model.
Fictional narrative experience is assumed to have a profound impact on human behavior, but the possible outcomes and the processes through which fictional narrative experience influence behaviors have rarely been studied. This paper introduces a model of the consequences of fictional narrative experience through transportation and transformation processes. We discuss a framework for understanding the effects of fictional narrative experience, distinguishing affective and behavioral effects, and temporality of effects (short-term or persistent). Exemplary outcomes of fictional narrative experience are presented, including recovery, creativity and interpersonal behavior. Finally, we propose that the effects of fictional narrative experience are dependent upon a person's frame of reference, as well the extent to which a reader can identify with the main characters, the perceived usefulness of a narrative, and degree of verisimilitude in the narrative. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
Fearing the future of empirical psychology: Bem's (2011) evidence of psi as a case study of deficiencies in modal research practice.
In this methodological commentary, we use Bem's (2011) recent article reporting experimental evidence for psi as a case study for discussing important deficiencies in modal research practice in empirical psychology. We focus on (a) overemphasis on conceptual rather than close replication, (b) insufficient attention to verifying the soundness of measurement and experimental procedures, and (c) flawed implementation of null hypothesis significance testing. We argue that these deficiencies contribute to weak method-relevant beliefs that, in conjunction with overly strong theory-relevant beliefs, lead to a systemic and pernicious bias in the interpretation of data that favors a researcher's theory. Ultimately, this interpretation bias increases the risk of drawing incorrect conclusions about human psychology. Our analysis points to concrete recommendations for improving research practice in empirical psychology. We recommend (a) a stronger emphasis on close replication, (b) routinely verifying the integrity of measurement instruments and experimental procedures, and (c) using stronger, more diagnostic forms of null hypothesis testing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
Measure twice, cut down error: A process for enhancing the validity of survey scales.
For years psychologists across many subfields have undertaken the formidable challenge of designing survey scales to assess attitudes, opinions, and behaviors. Correspondingly, scholars have written much to guide researchers in this undertaking. Yet, many new scales violate established best practices in survey design, suggesting the need for a new approach to designing surveys. This article presents 6 steps to facilitate the construction of questionnaire scales. Unlike previous processes, this one front loads input from other academics and potential respondents in the item-development and revision phase with the goal of achieving credibility across both populations. Specifically, the article describes how (a) a literature review and (b) focus group–interview data can be (c) synthesized into a comprehensive list to facilitate (d) the development of items. Next, survey designers can subject the items to (e) an expert review and (f) cognitive pretesting before executing a pilot test. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)

Review of General Psychology - Vol 15, Iss 4