ELSEVIER''''S DICTIONARY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES phần 3 potx

See also ADLER’S THEORY OF PERSONAL-ITY; AGGRESSION, THEORIES OF; DECISION-MAKING THEORIES; DEUTSCH’S CRU-DE LAW OF SOCIAL RELATIONS AND RESOLUTIONS; EGO DEVELOPMENT, THEORIES OF; EQ-UIT

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commodities or opportunities The realistic

conflict theory also suggests that as such

competition persists, the members of the

groups involved come to view each other in

increasingly negative ways, much as

indi-cated in the image theories The concept of

conflict has been invoked, also, in the

his-tory of psychology by the German

philoso-pher/educator Johann Friedrich Herbart

(1776-1841) Based on the popular

assump-tion that elementary bits of ideas or

experi-ences may combine harmoniously into

wholes, Herbart taught that ideas

them-selves may come into relation with each

other through conflict or struggle, as well

Thus, according to Herbart, ideas that are

incapable of combining tend to compete

with one another, and this competition

oc-curs in order to gain a place in

conscious-ness Recent writers, including the

psycho-analysts, emphasize that objects of thought

do not conflict with each other because they

are in logical opposition, as Herbart

pro-posed, but because they lead to divergent

lines of conduct; ideas are in conflict if they

lead individuals to do opposite things The

concept of conflict may be found, also, in

the area of visual perception For example

conflict of cues have been discussed

rela-tive to demonstrations of the influence of

visual context upon monocular and

binocu-lar perception; surprising, sometimes

star-tling, effects have been produced in the

“Ames room demonstrations” [named after

the American psychologist Adelbert Ames,

Jr (1880-1955) who set up demonstrations

involving a series of illusions, and

includ-ing distorted rooms so constructed that

sizes and shapes in them appear to be

dis-torted even though the actual trapezoidal

room itself appears to be rectangular when

viewed mon-ocularly; (see Appendix A,

also)], such as seeing someone changed

into a giant or a dwarf, and red spots on

playing cards change to black - because of

sheer congruity and the perceiver’s “need

for internal unity.” In the Ames room

situa-tion, affective and familiarity factors may

destroy the intended illusion For example,

the Honi effect/phenomenon refers to the

failure of the well-known perceptual

distor-tion effects of the Ames room to occur

when a very familiar person such as a ent or spouse is placed in the room [in

par-1949, the American psychologist A Hadley Cantril (1906-1969) observed that a woman, nicknamed “Honi,” while viewing her husband in the Ames room reported that there was no distortion in her husband’s size as he walked along the back wall of the room, which is contrary to one’s perception

of unfamiliar persons walking along the same route in the room; thus, the main fac-tor that seems to determine whether a per-son will or will not seem to be distorted in the Ames room is whether or not that per-son produces anxiety in the observer; anxi-ety-producing persons appear to be less

distorted] The term conflict, when used in the area of psychoanalysis, refers to a pain-

ful emotional state that results from a sion between opposed and contradictory wishes and is due, theoretically, to the fact that an unconscious (repressed) wish is forcibly prevented from entering the con-

ten-scious system (cf., psychic/psychical flict - the condition under which two con-

con-tradictory tendencies oppose each other in a person’s mind; some such conflicts are conscious, as when a desire is opposed by a

moral constraint, but it is unconscious flicts that Sigmund Freud assumed to gen-

con-erate neurotic symptoms; also, according to psychoanalysis, such conflicts between ideas are traceable, theoretically, to con-

flicts between instincts) The term major conflict refers to the more dominant emo-

tional state in a current conflict between

opposed and contradictory wishes Actual conflict is a presently occurring conflict

where, in the psychoanalytic context, such conflicts are assumed to derive from “root conflicts” (i.e., the underlying conflict that

is assumed to be primarily responsible for

an observed psychological disorder; cf.,

nuclear conflict, which tends to be used in a broader fashion) Nuclear conflict is a fun-

damental dilemma occurring during infancy

or early childhood that is assumed to be a root cause of a number of psychoneurotic disorders that may emerge only later in life

For Sigmund Freud, the Oedipus complex

fulfilled this hypothesized role; for Karen

Horney, it was a child’s feeling of

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ness; and for Alfred Adler, it was feelings

of inferiority The term basic conflict is

Horney’s term for the fundamental conflicts

that emerge when “neurotic needs” are

discoordinate In Horney’s theory of

per-sonality, the term central conflict is the

psychic conflict between one’s “real self”

and one’s “idealized self.” The term

con-flict-free ego sphere is Heinz Hartmann’s

concept in his ego theory for the part of the

ego called “primary autonomy,” which

includes the individual’s perception,

motil-ity, and memory In the area of

measure-ment and statistics, the concept called

con-flict index, or C, is a statistic that gives an

exact value for the total amount of energy

that an organism (or other dynamic system)

has bound up internally Thus, conflict

theories, and the versatile concept of

con-flict, have been used widely, among other

things, to refer to individual or group

pref-erences for incompatible actions in a given

learning or motivation situation, to

particu-lar aspects of different psychoanalytic

theo-ries, to philosophical analyses concerning

ideas, to perceptual demonstrations, to a

statistical index, and to practical contexts

involving resolution and resolution therapy,

cooperation and competition, and

ne-gotiations and mediation situations See

also ADLER’S THEORY OF

PERSONAL-ITY; AGGRESSION, THEORIES OF;

DECISION-MAKING THEORIES;

DEUTSCH’S CRU-DE LAW OF SOCIAL

RELATIONS AND RESOLUTIONS; EGO

DEVELOPMENT, THEORIES OF;

EQ-UITY THEORY; ERIKSON’S THEORY

OF PERSONALITY; FESTINGER’S

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY;

FREUD’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY;

HAWK-DOVE AND CHICK-EN GAME

EFFECTS; HORNEY’S THEORY OF

PERSONALITY; LEWIN’S FIELD

THE-ORY; PREJUDICE, THEORIES OF

REFERENCES

Lewin, K (1935) A dynamic theory of

personality New York:

McGraw-Hill

Miller, N E (1944) Experimental studies

in conflict In J McV Hunt (Ed.),

Personality and the behavior

dis-orders New York: Ronald Press

Horney, K (1945) Our inner conflicts: A

constructive theory of neurosis

New York: Norton

Neumann, J von, & Morgenstern, O

(1947) Theory of games and economic behavior Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press Deutsch, M (1950) A theory of coopera-

tion and competition Human lations, 2, 129-152

Re-Miller, N E (1951) Comment on

theoreti-cal models illustrated by the velopment of a theory of conflict

de-Journal of Personality, 20,

82-100

Ittelson, W (1952) The Ames

demonstra-tions in perception Princeton,

NJ: Prin-ceton University Press

Hartmann, H (1958) Ego psychology and

the problem of adaptation New

York: International Universities Press

Miller, N E (1959) Liberalization of basic

S-R concepts: Extensions to flict behavior, motivation, and social learning In S Koch (Ed.),

con-Psychology: A study of a science

Vol 2 New York: McGraw-Hill Deutsch, M., & Krauss, R M (1960) The

effect of threat upon interpersonal

bargaining Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 61, 181-

189

Siegel, S., & Fouraker, L (1960)

Bargain-ing and group decision-makBargain-ing: Experiments in bilateral monop- oly New York: McGraw-Hill

Sherif, M., Harvey, O., White, B., Hood,

W., & Sherif, C (1961) group conflict and cooperation: The Robber’s Cave experiment

Inter-Norman: University of Oklahoma Press

Epstein, S., & Fenz, W (1965) Steepness

of approach and avoidance ents in humans as a function of experience: Theory and experi-

gradi-ment Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70, 1-12

Miller, N E (1971) Selected papers on

conflict, displacement, learned

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123

drives, and theory Chicago:

Al-dine

Pruitt, D (1972) Methods for resolving

conflicts of interest: A theoretical

an-alysis Journal of Social

Is-sues, 28, 133-154

Toomey, M (1972) Conflict theory

proach to decision-making

ap-plied to alcoholics Journal of

Personality and Social

Psychol-ogy, 24, 199-206

Deutsch, M (1973) The resolution of

con-flict: Constructive and destructive

processes New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press

Epstein, S (1982) Conflict and stress In L

Goldberger & S Breznitz (Eds.),

Handbook of stress New York:

Free Press

Moore, C W (1986) The mediation

proc-ess: Practical strategies for

re-solving conflict San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass

Johnson, D W., & Johnson, R T (1989)

Cooperation and competition:

Theory and research Edina, MN:

Interaction Book Co

CONFLUENCE THEORY See

ZA-JONC’S AROUSAL THEORY

CONFORMITY

HYPOTHE-SIS/THEORY See ALLPORT’S

FORMITY HYPO-THESIS; ASCH

measure-to determine whether apparent interaction effects come from actual interactions among the underlying attributes or if they are artifacts of the specific measurement model employed Other general and spe-

cific terms related to conjoint measurement theory are the following: axiomatic measurement theory (or abstract measurement theory) - study of the correspondence be-

tween measurements of psychological or extra-psychological attrib-utes/characteristics and the attributes them-

selves; measurement model - study of the

relationship assumed to exist between merical scales recorded as data in an em-pirical investigation and the attrib-

nu-ute/characteristic being measured; cative model - study of the expression of an

multipli-effect as a weighted product of several dependent/manipulated variables, so that if any of the independent variables is zero, then the value of the dependent/measured

in-variable, also, is zero; multiplicative models

may be divided into those that can be

con-verted into additive models (via monotonic

transformations of their independent and dependent variables) and those that cannot

be converted (“non-additive models”);

axiomatic conjoint measurement theory -

study of the qualitative aspects of data to determine the optimal way to scale the data;

numerical conjoint measurement theory (or conjoint analysis) - study of an assumed,

particular composition rule and its ship to scaled data while attempting to ar-

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CONNECTION, LAWS OF See

REIN-FORCEMENT, THORNDIKE’S THEORY

OF

CONNECTIONISM, THEORY OF See

ASSOCIATION, LAWS/PRINCIPLES

OF; PARALLEL DISTRIBUTED

PROC-ESSING MODEL; REINFORCEMENT,

THORN-DIKE’S THEORY OF; SCALAR

TIMING THEORY

CONNECTIONIST MODEL OF

HU-MOR The American cognitive scientist

Bruce F Katz (1993) proposes a neural

connectionist model of humor that purports

to have advantages over the traditional

“incongruity-resolution” theory The neural

model consists of two “disjoint”

con-cepts/entities that are stored in a neural

network and whereby the concepts are

con-nected to two “external triggers” that

simu-late the role of internal and external factors

that activate the concepts According to this

model, the appropriate timing of the

trig-gers may result in a high, but unstable,

arousal condition in which two incongruous

concepts are possible for a brief period of

time Such a “boost/arousal” state may

occur both in cases where an incongruity is

resolved or merely where the incongruities

are simultaneously present Theoretically,

when the thresholds of the neural units are

lowered, humor effects (especially in cases

of tendentious humor - humor that advances

a definite point of view or, in

psychoana-lytical terms, humor that involves the

re-lease of libidinal drives) are associated with

greater activation levels than are available

normally See also COGNITIVE

THEO-RIES OF HUMOR; FREUD’S THEORY

OF WIT AND HUMOR; HUMOR,

THEORIES OF;

INCONGRU-ITY/INCONSISTENCY THEORIES OF

HUMOR;

INCONGRUITY-RESO-LUTION THEORIES

REFERENCES

Zillman, D., & Bryant, J (1980)

Mis-attribution of tendentious humor

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16, 146-160

Katz, B F (1993) A neural resolution of

the incongruity-resolution and congruity theories of humour

in-Connection Science: Journal of Neural Computing, Artificial In- telligence, and Cognitive Re- search, 5, 59-75

CONSCIOUS ILLUSION THEORY See

LIPPS’ EMPATHY THEORY

CONSCIOUSNESS, PHENOMENON

OF Consciousness is the ability to

demon-strate awareness and to process sensations, thoughts, images, ideas, feelings, and per-ceptions; it is also the capacity of having experiences, the central affect of neural reception, the subjective aspect of brain activity, the relation of self to environment, and the totality of an individual’s experi-ences at any given moment Whereas E B Titchener (1867-1927), the major American proponent of the school of “Structuralism,” declared that psychology is the “science of consciousness,” J B Watson (1878-1958), the founder of the psychological school of

“Behaviorism” (cf., Meyers’ psychological theories), insisted on relegating the phenomenon of consciousness to the sphere of

mythology or to the “rubbish heap of ence” [Roback (1964); cf., Sutherland (1996) who suggests that nothing worth reading has been written on the issue or

sci-phenomenon of consciousness] The

consis-tent and pervasive fascination with the

no-tion of consciousness within, as well as

outside of, psychology derives from the strong and intuitive sense that it is one of the basic defining features of the human species To be human, say some investiga-tors, is to be able to study and reflect on our own conscious awareness and to “know that

we know.” Historically, the phenomenon of consciousness has been especially popular

in the areas of Structuralism and analytic theory, but today is finding re-newal as a topic for scientific study in the

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psycho-125 areas of neuropsychology, language, and

cognition E R Hilgard (1977) suggests

that it is useful to assign two modes to

con-sciousness (cf., Shallice, 1972): a receptive

mode and an active mode, where the former

is reflected in the relatively passive

regis-tration of events as they impinge on one’s

sense organs, and the latter is reflected in

the active, planning, and voluntary aspects

of behavior; both of these modes are

dem-onstrated in the special problems of a

“di-vided consciousness” or “di“di-vided control.”

Occasionally, the phenomenon of

con-sciousness is equated with the term

“self-consciousness” wherein to be conscious it

is only necessary for one to be aware of the

external world Some skeptical writers,

notably the behaviorists, assert that

con-sciousness is an interesting, but elusive,

phenomenon: it is impossible to specify

what it is, what it does, or why it evolved

[cf., Reese (2001, p 229) who states that

“very little, if any, progress has been made

in a century of research on consciousness;

we are not even closer to having a

satisfac-tory definition of the term”] See also

BE-HAVIORIST THEORY; DISSOCIATION

THEORY; IMAGERY AND MENTAL

IMAGERY, THEORIES OF; LIFE,

THEO-RIES OF; MEYER’S PSYCHOLOGICAL

THEORIES; MIND-BODY THEORIES;

SELF-CONCEPT THEORY;

UNCONSCI-OUS INFERENCE, DOCTRINE OF

REFERENCES

Roback, A (1964) History of American

psychology New York: Collier

Sperry, R (1969) A modified concept of

consciousness Psychological

Re-view, 76, 532-536

Ornstein, R (1972) The psychology of

consciousness San Francisco:

Freeman

Shallice, T (1972) Dual functions of

con-sciousness Psychological

Re-view, 79, 383-393

Penfield, W (1975) The mystery of the

mind: A critical study of

con-sciousness and the human brain

Princeton, NJ: Princeton

Univer-sity Press

Tart, C (1975) States of consciousness

New York: Dutton

Globus, G., Maxwell, G., & Savodnik, I

(Eds.) (1976) Consciousness and the brain New York: Plenum

Press

Schwartz, G., & Shapiro, D (Eds.) (1976)

Consciousness and regulation Advances in research

self-Vol 1 New York: Plenum Press

Hilgard, E R (1977) Divided

conscious-ness: Multiple controls in human thought and action New York:

Wiley

Jaynes, J (1977) The origin of

conscious-ness in the breakdown of the cameral mind Boston: Houghton

Sutherland, S (1996) The international

dictionary of psychology New

York: Crossroad

Baars, B (1997) In the theater of

con-sciousness New York: Oxford

University Press

Hemeroff, S., Kaszniak, A., & Scott, A

(Eds.) (1998) Toward a science

of consciousness II The second Tucson discussions and debates

Cambridge, MA: M.I.T Press Tononi, G., & Edelman, G (1998) Con-

sciousness and complexity ence, 282, 1846-1851

Sci-Reese, H W (2001) Some recurrent issues

in the history of behavioral

sci-ences Behavior Analyst, 24,

227-239

Zeman, A (2001) Consciousness Brain,

124, 1263-1289

Lambie, J A., & Marcel, A J (2002)

Con-sciousness and the varieties of emotion experience: A theoretical

framework Psychological view, 109, 219-259

Re-CONSERVATION OF ENERGY, LAW/ PRINCIPLE OF See GESTALT THE-

ORY AND LAWS; JUNG’S THEORY OF PER-SONALITY; THERMODYNAMICS, LAWS OF

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HYPOTHE-SIS/THE-ORY See

FORGET-TING/MEMORY, THE-ORIES OF

CONSTANCY HYPOTHESIS =

percep-tual constancy This hypothesis, as

em-ployed in the area of perception

psychol-ogy, states that perceived objects tend to

remain constant in size where their distance

from the observer (and, thus, the size of

their retinal images) varies (cf., theory of

misapplied constancy - states that the

inap-propriate interpretation of cues in the

per-ception of certain illusions is the result of

the observer’s having previously learned

strong cues for maintaining size constancy)

Also, according to the constancy hypothesis

in this perceptual context, objects tend to

remain constant in shape (when the angle

from which they are regarded - and, thus,

the shape of their retinal images - varies), in

brightness (when the intensity of

illumina-tion varies), and in hue (when the color

composition of illumination varies) In

general, perceptual constancy is the

ten-dency for a perceived object to appear the

same when the pattern of sensory

stimula-tion (i.e., “proximal” stimulus) alters via a

change in distance, orientation, or

illumina-tion, or some other extraneous variable

Thus, there are constancies regarding color,

lightness, melody, object, odor, person,

position, shape, size, velocity, and words

The term Brunswik ratio [named after the

Hungarian-born American psychologist

Egon Brunswik (1903-1955)] refers to an

index of perceptual constancy expressed as:

(R-S)/(A-S), where R is the physical

magni-tude/intensity of the stimulus chosen as a

match, S is the physical magnitude/intensity

for a stimulus match with zero constancy,

and A is the physical magnitude/intensity

that could be chosen under 100 percent

constancy; the ratio equals zero when there

is no perceptual constancy, and 1.00 when

there is perfect constancy; and the Thouless

ratio [named after the English psychologist

Robert H Thouless (1894-1984)] which is

a modification of the Brunswik ratio, taking Fechner’s law (i.e., S=k log I) into account, where the perceptual constancy ratio becomes: (log R – log S)/(log A – log S) The constancy hypothesis hold up well with

changing conditions if the observer has information about the changing conditions but, when one’s ability to judge the total situation is reduced (e.g., as by a “reduction screen” such as looking at the object through the small peep hole made in your hand when you make a fist), then the con-

stancy is reduced The constancy ena have been known for a long time (cf., Boring, 1957) Color constancy was known

phenom-to Ewald Hering in the 1860s, and ness constancy was known to David Katz in the early 1900s The idea of size constancy

bright-was known to the natural philosopher P

Bouguer before 1758, to the chemist J

Priestley in 1772, to the cist/physiologist H Meyer in 1842, to the physiologist C F W Ludwig in 1852, to P

physi-L Panum in 1859, to G Fechner in 1860,

to E Hering in 1861, to E Emmert in 1881,

to G Martius in 1889, to F Hillebrand in

1902, to W Poppelreuter in 1911, to W Blumenfeld in 1913, and to W Kohler in

1915 - all of whom described or mented on the phenomenon See also BRUNSWIK’S PROBABALISTIC FUNC-TIONALISM THEORY; CONDILLAC’S THEORY OF ATTENTION; CON-STANCY, PRINCIPLE OF; EMMERT’S LAW; FECHNER’S LAW; GESTALT THEORY/LAWS

experi-REFERENCES

Brunswik, E (1929) Zur entwicklung der

albedowahrnehmung Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 109, 40-115

Thouless, R H (1931) Phenomenal

re-gression to the real object I., II

British Journal of Psychology,

21, 339-359; 22, 1-30

Leibowitz, H (1956) Relation between the

Brunswik and Thouless ratios and functional relations in experimen-tal investigations of perceived

shape, size, and brightness ceptual and Motor Skills, 6, 65-

Per-68

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Boring, E G (1957) A history of

experi-mental psychology New York:

Apple-ton-Century-Crofts

Myers, A K (1980) Quantitative indices

of perceptual constancy

Psycho-logical Bulletin, 88, 451-457

CONSTANCY, PRINCIPLE OF This

general principle has at least two important

meanings in psychological theory In one

case, for the areas of physiology, cognition,

emotion, and motivation, the notion of

con-stancy derives from the first law of

thermo-dynamics (dealing with “conservation of

energy”) in physics and may be considered

as a basis for the principle of homeostasis

where organisms are motivated to maintain

biological constancy of bodily functions

and mechanisms (such as temperature

regu-lation and hunger reduction), and

psycho-logical balance among mental/cognitive

mechanisms In another case, in the area of

psychoanalysis, the principle of constancy

refers to the proposition that the amount of

“psychic energy” within the person’s

men-tal processes remains constant so that

regu-lation of mental stability may be achieved

either through discharge of excess energy

(as via “abreaction” or release of emotional

energy following the recollection of a

pain-ful memory that has been repressed), or

through avoidance of an increase of excess

energy (as via “ego defense mechanisms”

or patterns of thought, behavior, or feeling

that are reactions to a perception psychic

tension or danger which enable the person

to avoid conscious awareness of cognitive

conflicts or anxiety-arousing wishes/ideas)

In the latter usage, however, psychoanalysts

have been suspect in their employment of

the principle of constancy as being

contra-dictory or ambiguous (cf., quota of affect -

a quantity of instinctual energy that remains

constant despite undergoing displacement

and various qualitative transformations; in

mental functions, a quota of affect, or “sum

of excitation,” possesses all the

characteris-tics of a quantity which is capable of

in-crease, dein-crease, and

dis-charge/displacement and which,

theoreti-cally, is spread over the memory-traces of

ideas, similar to an electric charge that

spreads over the surface of the body) For example, Sigmund Freud (1920/1953) ap-parently confuses the reduction and extinc-tion of psychic energy with its regulation;

thus, in his application of the nirvana ciple to psychoanalysis (that is, the ten-

prin-dency for the amount of energy in one’s mental apparatus to reduce to zero), Freud defined this psychic-economy principle (derived from Buddhist/Hindu philosophy where “nirvana” is a psychic state achieved

by the extinction of all earthly desires) in an ambiguous way as the principle of the men-tal apparatus for extinguishing - or at least

of maintaining it at a low level - the amounts of excitation flowing into the men-tal apparatus See also CONSTANCY HY-POTHESIS; FESTINGER’S COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY; FREUD’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY; GEN-ERAL SYSTEMS THEORY; HOMEO-STASIS, PRINCIPLE OF; HUNGER, THEORIES OF; HYDRAULIC THEORY; LIFE, THEORIES OF; SOLOMON’S OP-PONENT-PROCESS THE-ORY OF EMOTIONS/FEELINGS/MOTIVA-TION; THERMODYNAMICS, LAWS OF

REFERENCES

Freud, S (1894/1964) The

neuro-psychoses of defence In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud London: Hogarth Press

Freud, S (1920/1953) Beyond the pleasure

principle In The standard edition

of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud Lon-

don: Hogarth press

CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES OF PERSONALITY See KRETSCHMER’S

THEORY OF PERSONALITY; ON’S TYPE THEORY

SHELD- PREDISPOSITION THEORY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA See SCHIZOPHRE-

CONSTITUTIONAL-NIA, THEORIES OF

CONSTRUCTIVISM, THEORIES OF

The doctrine/theory of constructivism refers

to the way in which memories, perceptions,

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cognitions, and other complex mental

struc-tures are assembled actively (or “built”) by

one’s mind, rather than merely being

ac-quired in a passive manner Two prominent

versions of constructivist theory are the

radical constructivism of the Swiss

psy-chologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) and the

social constructivism of the foreign-born

American sociologists Peter L Berger

(1929- ) and Thomas Luckmann (1927- )

Piaget’s theory is based on the assumption

that children construct mental schema and

structures by observing the effects of their

own actions on the environment (e.g., in

“adaptive accommodation” and

“assimila-tion,” the psychological

struc-tures/processes of the child are modified to

fit the changing demands of the situation, as

when an infant in a crib reaches out and

attempts to get a toy from outside the crib

to the inside through the crib’s vertical slats

by simply turning the toy slightly

side-ways/vertically to get it past the slats and

into the crib) Social constructivist theory

emphasizes the manner in which people

come to share interpretations of their social

milieu (cf., doctrine of liberal pluralism -

asserts that the individual is at the center of

efforts to improve human welfare, and

states that societies are to be created where

people of diverse backgrounds may pursue

their personal welfare and coexist with a

minimum of conflict; and doctrine of

situ-ated knowledge - an approach that arose

from cultural studies and feminist criticisms

of science, as a challenge to the objectivity

of scientific knowledge, on one hand, but

aiming to avoid complete relativism, on the

other hand; this doctrine represents a

per-spective of “positioned rationality,”

whereby knowledge allegedly may emerge

only from multiple- and partial-positioned

viewpoints; it is opposed to the notion of

“transcendence” which asserts that

knowl-edge is “universal;” the doctrine states that

knowledge must be seen from the

perspec-tive of the knower, the relationships among

knowers, and the relationship between the

knower and the object of knowledge)

Gen-erally, social constructivists argue for rather

extreme positions, including the idea that

there is no such thing as a knowable

objec-tive reality - but, instead, maintain that all knowledge is derived from the mental con-structions of the members of a particular

social system [cf., social-exchange theory -

first enunciated by the American gist George Caspar Homans (1910- ), who presented a model of social structure based

sociolo-on the notisociolo-on that most social behavior is founded on the individual’s expectation that one’s actions, with respect to others, will result in some degree of commensurate

(“rewards” and “costs”) return; social winism theory - first described by the Eng-

Dar-lish philosopher Herbert Spencer 1903), and proposes that social and cultural development may be explained by analogy

(1820-with the Darwinian theory of biological evolution; thus, the theory suggests that

society functions primarily through conflict and competition where the “fittest” survive and the “poorly adapted” are eliminated;

social identity theory - formulated by the

English-born Polish social psychologist Henri Tajfel (1919-1982), where this “so-cial categorization” theory is based on the notion of “social identity” (i.e., the compo-nent of the “self-concept” that derives from group membership) and where social cate-gories (including large groups such as na-tions, and small groups such as fraternal clubs) provide their members with a sense

of one’s “essential being” and even scribes appropriate personal and social behaviors; also, members in such “social identity” groups view their groups as being

pre-superior to other groups; the minimal group paradigm/situation - studied by H Tajfel

and his colleagues in the early 1970s, refers

to an experimental procedure in which the mere presence of social categorization pro-

duces intergroup discrimination; theory of situated identities - the suggestion that an

individual will take on different social roles

in different social settings and

environ-ments; the aristocracy theory - the notion

that the social rank of some humans and animals is determined by their parents’

rank; and the minimal social situation effect

- studied by the American psychologist Joseph B Sidowski (1925- ), refers to an interactive decision in which each decision-maker is unaware of the interactive nature

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of the decision and even of the existence of

another decision-maker whose behaviors

influence the outcomes] See also

CON-STRUCTIVIST THEORY OF

PERCEP-TION; DARWIN’S EVOLUTION

THE-ORY; EXCHANGE/SOCIAL

EX-CHANGE THEORY; INGROUP BIAS

THEORIES;

PIAGET’S THEORY OF

DEVELOP-MENTAL STAGES

REFERENCES

Spencer, H (1891) The study of sociology

New York: Appleton

Homans, G C (1950) The human group

New York: Harcourt, Brace

Piaget, J (1954) The construction of

real-ity in the child New York: Basic

Books

Sidowski, J B (1957) Reward and

pun-ishment in a minimal social

situa-tion Journal of Experimental

Psychology, 54, 318-326

Berger, P L., & Luckmann, T (1966) The

social construction of reality

New York: Doubleday

Tajfel, H., Billig, M., & Bundy, R (1971)

Social categorization and

inter-group behavior European

Jour-nal of Social Psychology, 1,

149-178

Tajfel, H (Ed.) (1982) Social identity and

intergroup relations New York:

Cambridge University Press

CONSTRUCTIVIST THEORY OF

PERCEPTION This approach toward

explaining perceptual phenomena and

proc-esses focuses on how the mind constructs

perceptions Constructivist theory takes a

number of different forms, including

re-search on the connection between

percep-tion/neural processing and re-search on

how perception is determined by mental

processing The idea of approaching

per-ception by asking what the mind does

dur-ing the perceptual process is an old notion

whose roots go back to the 19th century,

when the German physicist/physiologist

Hermann L F von Helmholtz (1821-1894)

proposed the likelihood principle: one

per-ceives the object that is “most likely” to

occur in “that particular situation.” Also,

the English psychologist Sir Frederic

Charles Bartlett (1886-1969) used tivist concepts to explain results he ob-

construc-served in his studies on memory Modern

descendants of Helmholtz’s likelihood principle are the English psychologist

Richard Langton Gregory’s (1923- ) notion that perception is governed by a mechanism

he calls hypothesis testing, and by the

American psychologist Ulrich Neisser’s

(1928- ) notion of perceptual cycle pothesis testing refers to a function of sen-

Hy-sory stimulation as providing data for potheses concerning the state of the exter-

hy-nal world Hypothesis testing does not

al-ways occur at a conscious level, and ceivers are usually not aware of the com-plex mental processes that occur during a

per-perceptual act Perceptual cycle, also called the cyclic model of perception, refers to the

set of cognitive schemata that direct tual processes, and the perceptual responses and feedback mechanisms through which perceptual information is sampled The idea that mental operations occur during the perceptual process is illustrated by an early study by the German psychologist Oswald Kulpe (1862-1915): displays of various colors were presented to participants who were asked to pay attention to a particular aspect of the display (such as the positions

percep-of certain letters), but when they were asked, subsequently, to describe another aspect of the display (such as the color of a particular letter), they were not able to do it This indicates that even though all of the information from the stimulus display reached the observer’s eye, a selection process took place somewhere between the reception of this information and the per-son’s perception so that only part of the information was actually perceived and remembered Thus, perception seems to depend on more than simply the properties

of the stimulus, and the observer/participant makes a contribution to the perceptual

process Another way that the tive/constructivist aspect of processing has been approached is by considering the eye movements that people make when observing an object According to eye movement theory (e.g., Hochberg, 1971), as an ob-

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server looks at a scene, information is taken

in by a series of “fixations” (i.e., pauses of

the eye that occur one to three times per

second as the person examines part of the

stimulus) and “eye movements” that propel

the eye from one fixation to the next Such

eye movements are necessary in order to

see all of the details of the scene, because a

single fixation would reveal only the details

near the fixation point Also, eye

move-ments have another purpose: the

informa-tion they take in about different parts of the

scene is used to create a “mental map” of

the scene by a process of “integration” or

“piecing together.” Thus, Helmholtz’s

like-lihood principle, Gregory’s idea of

hy-pothesis testing, and Hochberg’s eye

movement theory all treat perception as

involving an active, constructing observer

who processes stimulus information The

constructivist approach also assumes that

perception of a whole object is constructed

from information taken in from smaller

parts The essence of all constructivist

theo-ries is that perceptual experience is viewed

as more than a direct response to

stimula-tion (cf., direct percepstimula-tion theory); it is,

instead, viewed as an elaboration or

“con-struction” based on hypothesized cognitive

and affective operations and mech-anisms

See also HOROPTER THEORY; PANUM

PHENOMENON/EFFECT

REFERENCES

Hubel, D H., & Wiesel, T N (1959)

Re-ceptive fields of single neurones

in the cat’s striate cortex Journal

of Physiology, 148, 574-591

Hubel, D H., & Wiesel, T N (2000)

Re-ceptive fields and functional

ar-chitecture of monkey striate

cor-tex In S Yantis (Ed.), Visual

perception: Essential readings

New York: Psychology Press

CYNICS, LAW OF See MURPHY’S

LAWS

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D

DALE’S LAW/PRINCIPLE See NEURON/

NEURAL/NERVE THEORY

DALTONISM See YOUNG-HELMHOLTZ

COLOR VISION THEORY

DARWIN-HECKER HYPOTHESIS OF

LAUGHTER/HUMOR This proposition -

named after the English naturalist Charles

Darwin and the German physiologist Ewald

Hecker - states that humor and laughter

(laughter induced by tickling) have common

underlying mechanisms In one test of the

Darwin-Hecker hypothesis (Harris &

Chris-tenfeld, 1997), participants were tickled

be-fore and after viewing comedy videotapes;

results showed that those who exhibited more

pronounced laughter to comedy also laughed

more vigorously to being tickled However,

there was no evidence that comedy-induced

laughter increased subsequent laughter to

tickle, nor that ticklish laughter increased

laughter to comedy Thus, it is suggested that

humor and tickle are related only in that the

two behaviors share a final threshold for

elici-tation of their common behavioral response

(smiling and laughing), and the possibility is

not ruled out that humor develops

ontogeneti-cally from tickling - but that after such a

de-velopment has taken place, the two behaviors

may share only a final common pathway It

may be possible, also, that tickle shares an

internal state with other emotions (such as

social anxiety), and that ticklish laughter

might be more similar to nervous, rather than

to mirthful, laughter See also BEHAVIORAL

THEORIES OF HUMOR AND LAUGHTER;

DARWIN’S THEORY OF LAUGHTER

AND HUMOR; HUMOR, THEORIES OF

REFERENCES

Darwin, C (1872/1965) The expression of the

emotions in man and animals

Lon-don: Murray

Hecker, E (1873) Die physiologie und

psy-chologie des lachens und des

komi-schen Berlin: Dummler

Harris, C., & Christenfeld, N (1997)

Hu-mour, tickle, and the Darwin-Hecker

hypothesis Cognition and Emotion,

theory of evolution, which was first publicly

presented in 1858 at a meeting of the naean Society (named in honor of the Swedish botanist and taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus, 1707-1778) In 1859, Darwin firmly establish-

Lin-ed the theory of organic evolution known as Darwinism, and his name is better known than

Wallace’s today in connection with the

origi-nation of evolutionary theory However, both

men were exceptionally modest concerning

“ownership” of the theory At first, Wallace held that human evolution could be explained

by his and Darwin’s theory, but he later parted from Darwin on this point, asserting instead that a guiding “spiritual force” was necessary to account for the human soul Wal-lace also considered “sexual selection” to be less important in evolution than did Darwin, holding that (unlike Darwin) it had no role in

de-the evolution of human intellect The de-theory of evolution holds that all naturally occurring

populations are gradually and constantly

changing as a result of natural selection that

operates on individual organisms and varies

according to their biological fitness

Accord-ing to the theory, the process of evolution led

to an enormous diversity in animal and plant forms where one of these lines evolved into hominids and, eventually, into humans The

implication of this biological theory for the

discipline of psychology is that the human mind and behavior are as subject to natural

law as is animal behavior (cf., pangenetic theory - Darwin’s theory of heredity which

holds that personal traits are transmitted from parents to the next generation via particles of each body organ, or part hidden in the sper-matozoon and ovum of the parents; also, pos-its that mental traits, as well as physical char-

acteristics, are inherited by pangenesis; thus,

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Darwin viewed mental processes in humans

and animals as products of evolution and a

proper subject for scientific investigation)

Darwin recognized that the evolutionary

proc-ess is characterized by constant divergence

and diversification where it could be likened

to an enormously elaborate branching tree

with living species represented by the tip of

the branches, whereas the remainder of the

tree denotes extinct species; it is estimated

that as many as 98% of all species that ever

existed are now extinct One ramification of

the branching tree analogy is that it is

mean-ingless to place different species in an ordinal

sequence from lower to higher For instance,

birds evolved from a line of reptiles different

from those that evolved into mammals, and

carnivores evolved along a different branch of

the mammals than did primates Therefore,

birds, cats, monkeys, and humans do not form

a continuum of evolution; they are distinct

types of animals Evolution has not been an

orderly process that produced organisms of

consistently increasing subtlety and

complex-ity that culminated in the appearance of

hu-mans Rather, the line of organisms leading to

humans is only one branch among numerous

other branches, and the human species,

per-haps, does not deserve the universal

evolu-tionary importance often given to it Evolution

is assumed, generally, to account for the

vari-ety of species on the earth today where (over

millions of years) changes have taken place

that are due to variation in the genes of a

population and to survival and transmission of

certain variations by natural selection The

law of natural selection is defined as the

elimination of those individual organisms that

are least well-adapted to the environment,

with the survival and greater proportionate

increase of those that are better adapted The

operative factor, according to evolutionary

theory, is competition (or struggle) for

exis-tence where the result is survival of the fittest

(cf., optimal foraging theory - refers to an

organism’s searching for food using strategies

that are most efficient or cost-effective in

terms of minimizing metabolic energy or

maximizing Darwinian fitness) The phrase

“survival of the fittest” was devised by the

English philosopher/psychologist/sociologist

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) to describe the

results of biological competition and is equivalent to the phrase “survival of the best adapted organisms.” Darwin (1859) postulated

that natural selection interacts with genetic

variation so that the fittest members of the population contribute most significantly to the gene pool of subsequent generations Rate of evolutionary change is determined by rate of advantageous mutations and intensity of selec-tion pressures The process of evolution pro-

duces new species (called speciation) when

two or more populations of a species become separated and isolated from each other in dif-ferent environments; such populations evolve differently and, thus, become different spe-

cies The process of adaptation occurs when

the environment remains fairly constant, and the entire species becomes better suited to the

environment through natural selection and,

thus, behaviors as well as anatomical

struc-tures evolve through the mechanism of ral selection [cf., competitive exclusion principle, also called Gause’s principle - named

natu-after the Soviet biologist Georgyi F Gause (1910- ) - refers to the proposition that two distinct, but similar, species cannot occupy the

same ecological niche indefinitely; the Red Queen hypothesis - named after the logic ex-

pressed by the character of the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s 1872 book “Through the Looking Glass” - is the proposition that any evolutionary advance by one species is neces-sarily detrimental to other species in the same ecosystem, so that species are viewed as in-volved in a competitive evolutionary race whereby they must evolve continually just to

survive and maintain their positions; gent evolution - the development of similari-

conver-ties, not based on communality of descent, in two or more groups of organisms; a tendency

of unrelated animals in a particular ment to acquire similar body structures that enable them to adapt optimally to the habitat;

environ-convergence theory - holds that individuals

begin with hereditary givens or traits that are modified subsequently by environmental

stimuli; and neural Darwinism theory - states

that groups of neurons are selected by ence to form the foundation of cognitive op-erations - such as learning and memory - and

experi-where such selectionism is viewed as an

ex-planation for the brain’s functioning; also, it is

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the proposition that synaptic connections in

the nervous system are shaped by competition

where only those that are relatively useful are

the ones that survive] Evolutionary change

does not need to be slow, gradual, and

con-tinuous, and there are not necessarily any

“missing links” in the fossil record of the

evo-lution of humans Although evoevo-lution is a

theory, it is a well-established one; it is not a

hypothesis but a theory that is the end product

of an empirical science that rests on masses of

accumulated data The terms evolution,

evolu-tionary theory, and theory of evolution are

used by most people as though they were

synonyms and all indicating the Darwinian

position However, this pattern of usage tends

to be misleading Evolution is not theory but a

fact; the gradualist position of origin of

spe-cies by natural selection advanced by Darwin

(Darwinism) is one attempt to explain that fact

(cf., catastrophism/neo-catastrophism - the

theory that gradual processes of evolution

have been modified by the effects of great

natural cataclysms) Defenders of

creation-ism/creation theory (i.e., the doctrine that all

things, including organisms, owe their

exis-tence to God’s creation and not to evolution)

often mistake disputes over the best

charac-terization of the evolutionary process as

indi-cations that biologists themselves regard

evo-lution as merely a “theoretical” concept (cf.,

transformation theory - states that one

bio-logical species becomes changed into another,

basically different, species over the course of

time) The influence of evolutionary doctrine

in psychology has been both powerful and

productive; it encouraged the study of

indi-vidual differences, helped establish the fields

of comparative psychology and behavior

ge-netics, provided the useful concepts of

adap-tation, purpose, and function in 20th century

psychology, and advanced the scientific study

of developmental psychology It is interesting

to note that the theory of evolution is the only

theory that is referenced and described in John

Dewey’s (1898) introductory psychology

textbook A comprehensive theory of

evolu-tion, called the modern synthesis or

neo-Darwinism, was forged in the early 1940s and

emphasizes the integration of the concepts of

natural selection, gradualism, and population

genetics as the fundamental units of

evolu-tionary change [cf., evolutionarily stable strategy - described by the English biologist

John M Smith (1920- ) and the American chemist/physicist George R Price (1922-1975), refers to any hereditary pattern of be-havior that is fixed where - when most indi-viduals in a population adopt it - no alternative behavior pattern has greater “Darwinian fit-ness” and so none other is favored over it by

natural selection; evolutionary bottleneck -

refers to a sudden decrease in the size of a population, typically due to an environmental catastrophe, and results in a loss or decrease in genetic variability and adaptability - even if the population is able to recover its original

size; and non-Darwinian evolution - refers to

changes in the relative frequencies of genes in

a population resulting from “neutral mutation” and not from natural selection; also called

random/genetic drift] The relatively new area

of study called animal sociobiology, which is

the application of principles from evolutionary and population biology to animals’ social

behavior, has invoked the modern synthetic theory of evolution This approach has stimu-

lated scientists from various disciplines to reexamine the evolution of social behavior

and to reconsider how the principle of natural selection works in this context See also

DOLLO’S LAW; EMPATHY-ALTRUISM HYPOTHESES; HAWK-DOVE/CHICKEN GAME EFFECTS; LAMARCK’S THEORY; MENDEL’S LAWS/PRINCIPLES; NATUR-

AL SELECTION, LAW OF; PARSIMONY, LAW/PRINCIPLE OF; WEISMANN’S THEORY

REFERENCES

Darwin, C (1859) On the origin of species by

means of natural selection London:

Murray

Wallace, A R (1870) Contributions to the

theory of natural selection London:

Macmillan

Darwin, C (1871) The descent of man and

selection in relation to sex London:

Murray

Spencer, H (1892) The principles of

psychol-ogy New York: Appleton

Dewey, J (1898) Psychology New York:

Harper & Bros

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Fisher, R A (1929/1958) The genetical

the-ory of natural selection New York:

Dover

Hodos, W., & Campbell, C (1969) Scala

naturae: Why there is no theory in

comparative psychology

Psycho-logical Review, 4, 337-350

Gruber, H (1974) Darwin on man: A

psycho-logical study of scientific creativity

New York: Dutton

Wilson, E (1975) Sociobiology: The new

synthesis Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press

Denny, M (1980) Comparative psychology:

An evolutionary analysis of animal

behavior New York: Wiley

Stanley, S (1981) The new evolutionary

time-table New York: Basic Books

DARWIN’S THEORY OF EMOTIONS

Charles Darwin speculated that in prehistoric

times - before communication that used words

was common - one’s ability to communicate

with facial expressions increased an

individ-ual’s chances of survival Facial expressions

could convey the various important messages

of threat, submission, happiness, anger, and so

on Darwin’s theory of emotions holds that the

basic emotions demonstrated by facial

expres-sions are a universal language among all

hu-mans no matter what their cultural setting

Today, however, it is an accepted belief that

although cultures share a universal facial

lan-guage, they differ in how, and how much, they

express emotion For example, as found in

experimental studies, Americans grimace

when viewing a film of someone’s hand being

cut off, whereas Japanese viewers tend to hide

their emotions, especially in the presence of

others See also EKMAN-FRIESEN

THE-ORY OF EMOTIONS; EMOTIONS,

THEO-RIES/LAWS OF; FACIAL-FEEDBACK

HYPOTHESIS; IZARD’S THEORY OF

EMOTIONS

REFERENCES

Lon-don: Appleton; Chicago: University

of Chicago Press

Markus, H., & Kitayama, S (1991) Culture

and the self: Implications for

cogni-tion, emocogni-tion, and motivation chological Review, 98, 224-253

Psy-Ekman, P (1993) Facial expressions and

emotion American Psychologist,

gener-laughter is experiencing something ous or unaccountable that excites surprise and

incongru-a sense of superiority in the lincongru-augher Dincongru-arwin

asserted that one may not understand why the sounds expressive of pleasure take the particu-lar reiterated form of laughter, but it may readily be assumed that they should be as different as possible from the screams that express fear or distress In Darwin’s view, the physiological expression of distress takes the form of cries in which the body’s expirations are continuous and prolonged (and the inspira-tions are short and interrupted), whereas pleasure is expressed by sound production in which short and broken expirations, together with prolonged inspirations, are observed Concerning the specific physical features and shape of the mouth in laughter, Darwin notes that it must not be opened to its utmost extent and the retractions of the corners of the mouth are due to the necessity for a large orifice through which an adequate amount of sound may be issued; thus, because the mouth cannot

be opened sufficiently in the vertical plane, the retraction of the corners of the mouth oc-

curs According to Darwin’s theory of ter, a physical/physiological continuum exists

laugh-in laughter ranglaugh-ing from the most excessive laughter, through moderate laughter, to the broad smile, and finally to the faintest smile, where all these series of movements are ex-pressions of pleasure to differing degrees Darwin observes that the smile is the first stage in the development of the laugh, and suggests the following origins: the loud reiter-ated sounds of a certain type are the original expression of pleasure in which the utterance

of these sound involves the retraction of the corners of the mouth; this smile reaction may, thus, have become a conditioned expression of

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pleasure when this was not sufficient to excite

the more violent reaction of laughter In the

animal realm, on the phylogenetic scale, vocal

laughter-like sounds are used either as a call

or a signal by one sex for the other; and they

may be employed, also, as the means for a

joyful meeting between parents and their

off-spring or between the affiliated members of

the same social unit Darwin’s

“instinct-physiological” theory of humor assumes that

the reaction of laughter is universal and

wide-spread throughout the world as an expression

of satisfaction, although other expressions of

this same feeling exist as well Darwin

main-tains, also, that laughter may be used in a

forced way to conceal other emotions such as

derision, contempt, shyness, shame, or anger

(e.g., in derision, a real or feigned smile or

laugh is blended with an expression of

con-tempt whose function is to show the offending

person that he or she evokes only amusement)

Thus, Darwin’s theory of laughter/humor

contains several elements, including

incongru-ity, superiorincongru-ity, physical/physiological

fea-tures, instinctive behavior, and emotional or

psychological behavior See also

DES-CARTES’ THEORY OF HUMOR/

LAUGH-TER; HUMOR, THEORIES OF;

MCDOU-GALL’S THEORY OF HUMOR

REFERENCE

Lon-don: Murray

DEATH/DYING See LIFE, THEORIES OF

DECAY THEORY OF MEMORY See

FORGETTING/MEMORY, THEORIES OF

DECISION-MAKING THEORIES =

ra-tional choice theory Decision-making

re-search, generally regarded as a subarea within

the field of cognitive psychology, investigates

the issue of how organisms make choices

between alternatives where the major focus is

on human decision-making Decision theories

and choice behavior theories seek to explain

decision-making and vary from the highly

formal mathematical approaches based on

game theory [i.e., the decision-making process

that takes account of the actions, and options

for action, of another individual whose

deci-sions are in conflict with one’s own; tions on the basic theory have been directed at studies of interpersonal interactions, econom-ics, labor-management negotiations/disputes, and international diplomacy, and involves

varia-terms such as maximin - a game strategy that

insures the best of the worst possible payoffs, thereby maximizing the minimum possible

payoff; minimax - a game strategy that

mini-mizes the maximum payoff to a co-player;

zero-sum game - a two-person game, or

com-petitive game, containing a scenario in which the sum of the players’ payoffs is equal to

zero in every outcome of the game; minimax theorem/principle - a basic game theory result

which posits that every finite, competitive game has an “equilibrium point” or “Nash equilibrium,” whereby a “best reply” strategy gives the player choosing it at least as good a

payoff as any other strategy; and mixed egy - for each of two players, the game-

strat-theoretic solution is a randomized 50-50 mixed strategy in a two-alternative situation that assigns equal probabilities to each alterna-

tive); probability theory (i.e., the discipline

within mathematics that deals with probability and forms the basis for all the statistical tech-niques of psychology where, given a relatively small number of observations in an experi-mental setting, one needs to make decisions about the likelihood of such observations in

the long run); classical strength theory (cf., Neimark & Estes, 1967); and utility theory

(i.e., utility is taken as the value to an ual of arriving at a particular decision, playing

individ-a gindivid-ame individ-according to individ-a pindivid-articulindivid-ar strindivid-ategy, or making a particular choice, such as reflected

in subjective expected utility situations where

the utility of any choice between alternatives

is given by the sum of the person’s subjective probability estimates of each alternative mul-

tiplied by the utility value of each one; and extending to the more informal or intuitive theories that deal with beliefs, attitudes, and

other subjective factors] In the framing effect,

described by the Israeli psychologists Amos Tversky (1937-1996) and Daniel Kahneman (1934- ), examination is made of the influ-ence of the description, labeling, or fram-ing/presentation of problems on decision-

makers’ responses; in prospect theory, as an alternative to expected utility theory, Tversky

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and Kahneman examine a theory of

prefer-ences among outcomes involving risks;

ac-cording to prospect theory, people tend to

evaluate outcomes as gains or losses relative

to their current situation or the status quo

rather than in terms of absolute value, and

they tend to overweight very small

probabili-ties and underweight moderate and high

prob-abilities; also, they tend to attach greater

weight to losses than to corresponding gains,

and they tend to show “risk aversion” for

gains by “risk seeking” for losses In the

en-dowment effect, people show the tendency to

demand much more in order to give up an

object than they are willing to pay to acquire

it Tversky and Kahneman also describe the

conjunction fallacy/effect - as pervasive error

in decisions and judgments whereby a

combi-nation of two or more attributes is judged to

be more probable than either attribute when

taken alone In psychological decision theory,

which is a normative and descriptive approach

to decisions and judgments, the work of

Tver-sky and Kahneman is complemented by the

research of the American psychologists Sarah

C Lichtenstein (1933- ), Baruch Fischhoff

(1946- ), and the American-based Israeli

psy-chologist Paul Slovic (1938- ); the latter two

researchers define the overconfidence effect as

an unwarranted belief in the correctness of

one’s judgments or beliefs, and is assessed via

confidence ratings indicating one’s own

esti-mates of the probability of being correct on

testing materials; and the preference reversal

effect, which is the tendency, when facing a

choice between gambles of nearly equal

ex-pected values, to prefer one gamble but to

place a higher monetary value on the other;

such reversals occur when one gamble offers a

high probability of winning a small prize and

the other offers a low probability of winning a

large prize The American psychologist Clyde

Hamilton Coombs (1912-1988) formulated

portfolio theory that is a conjecture of

deci-sion-making under risk based on the

“unfold-ing technique” (i.e., a method of scal“unfold-ing a set

of stimuli without relying on any presupposed

scale of measurement) The rational

decision-making viewpoint assumes that people

calcu-late the costs and benefits of various actions

and choose the best alternative in a fairly

logi-cal and reasoned way [cf., the bounded

ra-tionality principle, described by the American

economist/decision theorist Herbert A Simon (1916-2001), and refers to the human cogni-tive capacities and decision processes that are

not strictly rational in nature and are not

guar-anteed to produce optimal results; and the

sure-thing principle, first described by the

American decision theorist Leonard J Savage (1917-1971), and refers to a situation in which

an alternative X is judged to be as good as another alternative Y in all possible states of the world, and better than Y in at least one, then a rational decision-maker will prefer X to Y] Rational or normative/prescriptive deci-sion-makers choose the alternative that gives them the greatest benefit at the least cost

Typical of this approach is the behavioral decision theory or the expectancy-value theory

(cf., W D Edwards, 1954) which argues that decisions are made on the basis of the product

of two factors: the value of the various ble outcomes of the decision and the probabil-ity or likelihood that each outcome will actu-

possi-ally result from the decision (cf., cordance decision-making method - this approach consists of three features: inclusion in

con-which the decision is made by people who know the most about it in order to guarantee quality, and those who are most affected by it

in order to guarantee proper implementation; control where everyone has equal power and

everyone has a veto vote; and openness where

everyone is open and honest to each other and

to themselves) Theories of decision-making

in the area of political psychology include

conflict theory that emphasizes the

emotion-laden decisional conflicts, the various patterns

of coping behavior common in such conflicts, the antecedents of coping patterns, and the various consequences for decisional rational-ity Group decision-making may sometimes

lead to the phenomenon called groupthink,

first introduced by the American psychologist Irving L Janis (1918-1990), which is an im-pairment in decision-making and sound judg-ment that may occur in highly cohesive groups with a strong, dynamic leader, and where group members isolate themselves from outside information, try to please the group leader, and agree on a decision even if it is

irrational (cf., Delphi method/technique,

named after the ancient Greek Delphic oracles

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who prophesized the future, is an approach

developed in modern times by the Rand

Cor-poration, and is employed in evaluation

re-search for group decision-making where

ex-perts individually are presented with as much

information as possible about a target issue;

subsequently, the experts’ recommendations

are collected by a group facilitator who

dis-closes them and attempts to achieve a group

consensus concerning what is likely to occur

in the future regarding the target issue) In the

area of consumer purchasing behavior, and in

regards to potentially irrational decisions, the

iceberg principle, formulated by the

Austrian-American motivational researcher and applied

psychologist Ernest Dichter (1907-1992),

re-fers to the notion that people - in purchasing

merchandise - make some of their decisions

based on unconscious goals and motives; the

metaphor of the iceberg here is reminiscent of

the Freudian dynamics regarding the

pre-sumed relationship between a person’s

con-scious (rational) and unconcon-scious (irrational)

domains where a majority of the iceberg’s

mass is below the water line/surface (i.e., is

mostly unconscious) Another group

decision-making phenomenon is called the risky-shift

or choice-shift effect, which reflects a more

general process of “group polarization,” and is

defined as situations where people are more

willing to support riskier decisions after taking

part in a group discussion than they were

be-fore the discussion Risky-shift may lead either

to riskier or to more cautious decisions,

de-pending on the initial views of group

mem-bers The risky-shift effect has been explained

by the social comparison effect which is a

cultural tendency for individuals to consider

themselves at least as willing to take risks as

their peers; and the persuasive argumentation

effect which is a tendency in people to admire

riskiness rather than caution, causing group

members to be more willing to advance

pro-risk than pro-caution persuasive arguments

during group discussions [cf., risk aversion

effect - a pervasive characteristic of human

preferences, first noted by the Swiss

mathe-matician/physicist Daniel Bernoulli

(1700-1782) in 1738, whereby most people tend to

value gains involving risk less than they do

certain gains of equivalent monetary

expecta-tion; the corollary risk seeking effect - a

ten-dency among human decision-makers to fer “risk-involvement losses” over “sure-thing losses” of equivalent monetary expectation;

pre-the winner’s curse effect - a tendency for pre-the

highest bid at an auction to exceed the real or true market value of the auctioned object or

prize, and is due, theoretically, to risk sion among bidders where the average bid is

aver-usually less than the value of the auctioned

object, but the winning bid usually exceeds the

value of the object and illustrates the ner’s curse” such that “the winner is actually a

“win-loser;” and covariation theory - posits that

when people attempt to determine the point or location of causality for a behavior, they seek

to acquire information about the factors of consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus

(cf., Kelley’s covariation theory)] In personal

decision-making situations, the process

fre-quently arouses postdecision dissonance or cognitive dissonance, which is the theoretical

approach that assumes people have a drive toward consistency in their attitudes, beliefs,

and decisions (cf., hindsight bias effect - the

tendency for people, who know that a specific event has occurred, to overestimate, in hind-sight, the probability with which they would have predicted the event in foresight) Accord-

ing to the cognitive dissonance approach,

whenever one must decide between two or more alternatives, the final choice is, to some extent, inconsistent with some of the decision-maker’s beliefs That is, after the decision is

made, all the good aspects of the unchosen alternative and all the bad aspects of the chosen alternative are dissonant with the person’s

decision Theoretically, dissonance may be reduced by improving one’s evaluation of the chosen alternative, because everything posi-tive about it is consonant with the decision; dissonance may be reduced, also, by lowering the evaluation of the unchosen alternative, so that the less attractive it is, the less dissonance

is aroused by rejecting it Therefore, after people make decisions, there is a tendency for

them to increase their liking for what they chose and to decrease their liking for that they did not choose See also CONFLICT, THE-

ORIES OF; EXPECTED UTILITY ORY; FESTINGER’S COGNITIVE DISSO-NANCE THEORY; HAWK-DOVE/CHICK-

THE-EN GAME EFFECTS; KELLEY’S

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CO-149

VARIATION THEORY;

ORGANIZATION-AL, INDUSTRIORGANIZATION-AL, AND SYSTEMS

THE-ORY; PASCAL’S PROPOSITION/WAGER;

PROBABILITY THEORY AND LAWS;

THURSTONE’S LAW OF COMPARATIVE

JUDGMENT; UTILITY THEORY

REFERENCES

Knight, R H (1921) Risk, uncertainty, and

profit Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Cartwright, D., & Festinger, L (1943) A

quantitative theory of decision

Psy-chological Review, 50, 595-621

Neumann, J von & Morgenstern, O (1947)

Theory of games and economic

be-havior Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press

Edwards, W D (1954) The theory of

deci-sion-making Psychological

Bulle-tin, 51, 380-417

Festinger, L (1957) A theory of cognitive

dissonance Evanston, IL: Row,

Pe-terson

Luce, R (1959) Individual choice behavior:

A theoretical analysis New York:

Wiley

Luce, R., & Suppes, P (1965) Preference,

utility, and subjective probability In

R Luce, R Bush, & E Galanter

(Eds.), Handbook of mathematical

psychology Vol 3 New York:

Wiley

Neimark, E., & Estes, W (1967) Stimulus

sampling theory San Francisco:

Holden-Day

Simon, H A (1967) Motivational and

emo-tional controls of cognition

Tversky, A (1967) Utility theory and

additiv-ity analysis of risky choices Journal

of Experimental Psychology, 75,

27-36

Lichtenstein, S., & Slovic, P (1971)

Rever-sals of preference between bids and

choices in gambling decisions

Jour-nal of Experimental Psychology, 89,

46-55

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D (1974)

Judg-ments under uncertainty: Heuristics

and biases Science, 185,

1124-1131

Coombs, C H (1975) Portfolio theory and

the measurement of risk In M F

Kaplan & S Schwartz (Eds.), man judgment and decision processes New York: Academic Press

Hu-Slovic, P., Fischhoff, B., & Lichtenstein, S

(1977) Behavioral decision theory

Annual Review of Psychology, 28,

1-39

Feather, N T (1982) Expectations and

ac-tions: Expectancy-value models in psychology Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Janis, I (1982) Groupthink: Psychological

studies of policy decisions and coes Boston: Houghton Mifflin

fias-Isenberg, D (1986) Group polarization: A

critical review and meta-analysis

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 1141-1151

Cooper, W S (1987) Decision theory as a

branch of evolutionary theory: A biological derivation of the Savage

axiom Psychological Review, 94,

395-411

DECISION TREES See CONCEPT

LEARNING AND CONCEPT TION, THEORIES OF

FORMA-DECLARATIVE MEMORY See

SHORT-TERM AND LONG-SHORT-TERM MEMORY, THEORIES OF

DECLINE EFFECT See PARANORMAL

PHENOMENA/THEORY

DEFECT AND DEVELOPMENTAL ORISTS See DEVELOPMENTAL THE-

THE-ORY

DEFENSE MECHANISMS See

CON-STANCY, PRINCIPLE OF; FREUD’S ORY OF PERSONALITY

THE-DEFENSIVE TECHNIQUES THEORY

See GOOD BREAST/OBJECT AND BAD BREAST/OBJECT THEORY

DEFINITIONAL THEORY See

CON-CEPT LEARNING AND CONCON-CEPT MATION, THEORIES OF; PROTOTYPE THEORY

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150

DEGENERACY THEORY See SEXUAL

ORIENTATION THEORIES

DEGENERACY THEORY OF GENIUS

See LOMBROSIAN THEORY

DEGRADATION, LAW OF See WEBER’S

LAW

DEGREES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

THE-ORY See HERBART’S DOCTRINE OF

APPERCEPTION

DEINDIVIDUATION THEORY The term

deindividuation refers to the loss of one’s

sense of individuality during which the person

behaves with little or no reference to personal

internal values or standards of conduct

Dein-dividuated states are characterized as

pleasur-able wherein the person feels free to act on

impulse and without regard to consequences

However, they can also be extremely

danger-ous in that they can result in violent and

anti-social behavior In the late 1800s, the French

sociologist Gustave LeBon (1841-1931)

pos-tulated the phenomenon of a group mind and

asserted that people in a crowd may lose their

sense of personal responsibility and behave as

if governed by a primitive, irrational, and

hedonistic mind that seems to belong more to

the group as a whole than to any one

individ-ual [cf., shared autism theory - holds that

members of groups may have shared beliefs

(“delusions”) that have no foundation or

valid-ity in realvalid-ity] Thus, the state of

deindividua-tion seems to be brought on by a combinadeindividua-tion

of “reduced accountability” that comes from

being a relatively anonymous member of a

crowd and “shifting attention” away from the

self and toward the highly arousing external

stimulation associated with the mob’s actions

Various theoretical approaches have been

developed concerning the phenomenon of

deindividuation Festinger, Pepitone, and

Newcomb (1952) suggest that the person’s

focus on the group (which is associated with

their attraction to the group) lessens the

atten-tion given to individuals Thus, the members

of the group are deindividuated by their

sub-mergence and moral subordination to the

group Therefore, according to this view,

deindividuation lowers the person’s

inhibi-tions toward exercising counternormative actions In another viewpoint, R C Ziller argues that persons learn to associate indi-viduation with rewarding conditions and dein-dividuation with potentially punishing condi-tions Thus, whenever the person expects pun-ishment, there will be tendency to diffuse responsibility by submerging oneself into a group, whereas when one learns to expect rewards for jobs well done, she or he wants to appear uniquely and solely responsible for

such behaviors P G Zimbardo’s tion theory postulates that the expression of

deindividua-normally inhibited behavior may include tive and loving behavior as well as negative or counternormative behaviors Zimbardo pro-poses that a number of factors may lead to

crea-deindividuation, in addition to focus on the

group and avoidance of negative evaluation of moral responsibility: anonymity, group size, level of emotional arousal, altered time per-spectives, novelty/ambiguity of the situation, and degree of involvement in group function-ing Such factors lead to a loss of identity or a loss of self-consciousness which, in turn, causes the person to become unresponsive to external stimuli and to lose cognitive control over motivations and emotions Consequently,

the deindividuated person becomes less

com-pliant to positive or negative sanctions posed from influences outside the group E Diener’s theoretical approach emphasizes the

im-association of deindividuation with awareness: deindividuated persons do not

self-attend to their own behavior, and lack ness of themselves as entities distinct from the group With such little awareness of self, the individual is more likely to respond to imme-diate stimuli, motives, and emotions Accord-

aware-ing to Diener, the term deindividuation is a

construct referring to a set of circumstances or relationships among emotional states, cogni-tive processes, situations, and behavioral reac-tions In such circumstances, various antinor-mative behaviors - such as drug abuse, riots, lynchings, mob violence, and even reactions involving loss of inhibition in marathon, en-counter, and other noncognitive therapy

groups - are associated with a state of viduation See also ALLPORT’S CONFOR-

deindi-MITY HYPOTHESIS; ASCH MITY EFFECT; BYSTANDER INTER-

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CONFOR-151

VENTION EFFECT; DECISION-MAKING

THEORIES; SELF-CONCEPT THEORY;

SOCIAL IMPACT, LAW OF

REFERENCES

LeBon, G (1896) The crowd: A study of the

popular mind London: E Benn

Festinger, L., Pepitone, A., & Newcomb, T

(1952) Some consequences of

deindividuation in a group Journal

of Abnormal and Social Psychology,

47, 382-389

Ziller, R C (1964) Individuation and

sociali-zation Human Relations, 17,

341-360

Singer, J., Brush, C., & Lublin, S (1965)

Some aspects of deindividuation and

conformity Journal of Experimental

Social Psychology, 1, 356-378

Zimbardo, P G (1970) The human choice:

Individuation, reason, and order

ver-sus deindividuation, impulse, and

chaos In W Arnold & D Levine

(Eds.), Nebraska Symposium on

Mo-tivation Lincoln: University of

Ne-braska Press

Diener, E (1980) Deindividuation: The

ab-sence of awareness and

self-regulation in group members In P

Paulus (Ed.), The psychology of

group influence Hillsdale, NJ:

Erl-baum

DE JONG’S LAW See TOTAL TIME

HY-POTHESIS/LAW

DELAY OF GRATIFICATION

HYPO-THESIS This hypothesis states that

individu-als may renounce, or choose to delay,

imme-diate satisfaction or reward in order to obtain a

larger reward or gratification on some future

occasion For example, a child may choose to

delay her present response that would be

in-strumental in achieving a small toy now in

favor of obtaining a larger toy that is promised

to her for responding at a later time; also, an

adult may choose to invest his money now and

reap a larger benefit later, instead of spending

the money immediately See also

MOTIVA-TION, THEORIES OF; REINFORCEMENT

THEORY

REFERENCE

Ross, M., Karniol, R., & Rothstein, M (1976)

Reward contingency and intrinsic motivation in children: A test of the delay of gratification hypothesis

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33, 442-447

DELAYED AUDITORY FEEDBACK FECT See APPENDIX A; AUDITION AND

EF-HEARING, THEORES OF

DELAYED-REACTION

MODEL/PARA-DIGM The delayed-reaction

model/para-digm was introduced into experimental

psy-chology by the American psychologist Walter

S Hunter (1889-1953) in 1913 In this proach, a human or infrahuman organism is presented with a limited number of behavior choices, such as three open compartments in one of which a reward (such as food) is placed The organism is trained to find food in the one compartment that is lighted; after a pretest training period, the light is turned off, and the organism’s choice is delayed forcibly

ap-for a number of seconds The goal of the layed-reaction/response procedure is to find out how long the animal or human can delay

de-its behavioral reaction without forgetting where the light had been turned on In other similar studies, Hunter used more “direct” methods where, for instance, immediate sight

of food being placed into the compartment is substituted for the “indirect” method involv-ing a light signal This modified procedure apparently places less strain on the organism’s symbolic processing capacities and indicates that much longer delays are obtainable with the “direct” than the “indirect” methods The

delayed-reaction paradigm is to be

distin-guished from the so-called “delayed-reward” procedure: in the former, the response is de-layed but the reward immediately follows the appropriate response; in the latter (e.g., Wolfe, 1934), the correct response may be made promptly but time elapses before the reward is delivered Other historical psychological paradigms and models in the experimental study of animal and human learning processes

include the following: habituation/negative adaptation (i.e., learning not to respond to a repeated stimulus); habit reversal/reversal

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152

learning (i.e., learning situations in which an

organism choosing repeatedly between two

alternatives, X and Y, is initially rewarded for

choosing X rather than Y until a preference

for X is established, and then reversing by

rewarding it for choosing Y rather than X until

its preference for Y is established, etc.; in such

a reversal paradigm, there is a species

differ-ence where birds and mammals show

progres-sive improvement in switching from X to Y

and back again, but fishes show little or no

improvement); non-reversal shift (i.e., a form

of serial learning in which the set of task

stimuli is changed, but the rewarded and

non-rewarded items are not merely interchanged;

for example, the organism is trained to choose

the red rather than the black objects,

irrespec-tive of their shapes, and are then presented

with stimulus sets in which the reward is

asso-ciated with the round rather than the square

objects, irrespective of their colors; in this

model, also called transposition, the organism

demonstrates “insight” or its ability of

“learn-ing how to learn;” Spence, 1937; Harlow,

1949); classical conditioning (i.e., organisms’

responses that are established originally by

natural selection come under the control of

novel stimuli; Pavlov, 1927); instrumental or

operant conditioning (i.e., responses of an

organism that produce reinforcing effects;

Skinner, 1938); puzzle/problem boxes (i.e.,

discovery of an appropriate movement to lead

to release from confinement or to resolve a

problematic situation; Thorndike, 1911);

crimination box/apparatus (i.e., testing

dis-criminatory capacities of organisms; Spence,

1937); probability learning/matching (a type

of discrimination learning in which the

posi-tive stimulus is rewarded on a randomized

proportion of trials; Humphreys, 1939); alley

and temporal mazes (i.e., an obstacle - that is

interposed between the organism and the

de-sired goal - must be traversed; Tolman, 1932);

T-maze/labyrinth maze (i.e., a simple

two-choice T-shaped maze, or a more complex

network of passages and blind alleys in a

maze, used originally to study the “mental

processes” of the rat; the laboratory labyrinth

maze is often constructed to be an exact

rep-lica in miniature of the famous large-size

maze for humans at Hampton Court in

Eng-land; Small, 1900/1901); detour/insight

prob-lems (i.e., use of an indirect or circumventing

path, or use of manipulable objects, to arrive

at the solution of the organism’s experimental

problem; Kohler, 1925); reasoning problems

(i.e., the organism is required to combine given segments/elements in novel ways to

solve a problem; Kohler, 1925); social ing paradigm (i.e., study of the influence of

learn-one learner upon another observing individual, and may include copying or imitating re-sponses, as well as competitive, cooperative, dominant, or submissive behaviors; Bandura, 1971) See also HABITUATION, PRINCI-PLE/LAW OF; LEARNING THEORIES AND LAWS; OBJECT PERMANENCE PARADIGM/MODEL; PAVLOVIAN CON-DITIONING PRINCIPLES, LAWS, AND THEORIES; TRANSPOSITION, THEORY OF; WORKING MEMORY, THEORY OF

REFERENCES

Small, W S (1900/1901) An experimental

study of the mental processes of the

rat I and II American Journal of Psychology, 11, 133-165; 12, 206-

239

Thorndike, E L (1911) Animal intelligence

New York: Macmillan

Hunter, W S (1913) The delayed reaction in

animals and children Behavior Monographs, 2, No 6

Kohler, W (1925) The mentality of apes

New York: Harcourt, Brace & World

Pavlov, I (1927) Conditioned reflexes

Lon-don: Clarendon Press

Tolman, E C (1932) Purposive behavior in

animals and men New York:

Ap-pleton-Century-Crofts

Wolfe, J B (1934) The effect of delayed

reward upon learning in the white

rat Journal of Comparative chology, 17, 1-21

Psy-Spence, K W (1937) The differential

re-sponse in animals to stimuli varying

within a single dimension logical Review, 44, 430-444

Psycho-Skinner, B F (1938) The behavior of

organ-isms: An experimental analysis

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Hall

Prentice-Humphreys, L G (1939) The effect of

ran-dom alternation of reinforcement on

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153

the acquisition and extinction of

conditioned eyelid responses

Jour-nal of Experimental Psychology, 25,

141-158

Harlow, H F (1949) The formation of

learn-ing sets Psychological Review, 56,

51-65

Bandura, A (1971) Social learning theory

New York: General Learning Press

DELBOEUF/UZNADZE ILLUSIONS See

APPENDIX A

DELPHI METHOD/TECHNIQUE See

DECISION-MAKING THEORIES

DELTA MOVEMENT EFFECT See

AP-PARENT MOVEMENT, PRINCIPLES AND

THEORIES OF

DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE

SITUATION See EXPERIMENTER

EF-FECTS

DEMBER-EARL THEORY OF CHOICE/

PREFERENCE = complexity discrepancy

theory = theory of stimulus complexity The

American psychologists William N Dember

(1928- ) and R W Earl formulated a theory

of choice and preference that concerns the

influence of stimulus complexity on

organ-isms’ behaviors The theory holds that every

stimulus object has a certain complexity value

that is, also, its information value One

as-sumption behind the theory of choice and

preference is that every individual (both

hu-man and nonhuhu-man) has its own “ideal level”

of complexity, that is, the level of stimulation

for which it has a preference Individuals seek

out objects containing their ideal level of

complexity, will choose them from among

other objects, will work for them, and will

learn what needs to be done in order to obtain

them Additionally, individuals will explore

objects of a somewhat higher complexity level

called “pacer stimuli.” As organisms master

the new level of complexity of the pacer

stim-uli, their own ideal level rises, and they are

now ready to deal with new pacers and, again,

raise their own ideal level Thus, according to

the Dember-Earl theory of choice, the need

for stimulus variability in an individual’s

ex-perience provides a basis and reinforcement for increasingly complicated kinds of learning The results of several experiments confirm the predicted relation between complexity and

preference in accordance with the theory of choice and preference, and attest to its gener-

ality over a wide range of stimulus materials and types of participants For an account of

choice behavior in a “foraging” and operant

conditioning context, see Fantino and Abarca

(1985); and for accounts of the preference reversal phenomenon (i.e., the effect in a

gambling situation where people who choose

gamble A over gamble B often ask for less money to sell A than B) and the expression theory (i.e., a postulate which assumes that the

basic evaluation of a gamble is expressed on various scales via a subjective interpolation process), see Goldstein & Einhorn (1987) See also CHOICE THEORIES; DECISION-MAKING THEORIES; EXEMPLAR THE-ORY OF BEHAVIORAL CHOICE; PER-CEPTION (I GENERAL), THEORIES OF

REFERENCES

Dember, W N (1956) Response by the rat to

environmental change Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 49, 93-95

Dember, W N., & Earl, R W (1957)

Analy-sis of exploratory, manipulatory,

and curiosity behaviors cal Review, 64, 91-96

Psychologi-Dember, W N., Earl, R W., & Paradise, N

(1957) Response by rats to

differen-tial stimulus complexity Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 50, 514-518

Hoben, T (1971) Discrepancy hypotheses:

Methodological and theoretical

con-siderations Psychological Review,

78, 249-259

Coombs, C., & Avrunin, G (1977)

Single-peaked functions and the theory of

preference Psychological Review,

84, 216-230

Fantino, E., & Abarca, N (1985) Choice,

optimal foraging, and the

delay-reduction hypothesis Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8, 315-330

Goldstein, W M., & Einhorn, H J (1987)

Expression theory and the

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ence reversal phenomenon

DEMING MANAGEMENT THEORY See

ORGANIZATIONAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND

SYSTEMS THEORY

DEMORALIZATION HYPOTHESIS See

DODO HYPOTHESIS

DENERVATION, LAW OF This principle,

formulated by the American physiologist

Wal-ter Bradford Cannon (1871-1945) and the

Mexican physiologist Arturo Rosenblueth

(1900-1970), states that the denervation (i.e.,

the removal of the nerve supply to an organ or

other tissue, where removal is either actual or

“functional”) results in a progressive

sensiti-zation of sites higher in the nervous system

The law of denervation has been cited in the

contexts of sensory deprivation (SD) and

per-ceptual deprivation (PD) experiments where

the latter employ research formats and

meth-ods that lead to a “functional” form of

dener-vation A potential explanation for SD and PD

is that they may sensitize the individual’s

sensory system and act to lower thresholds for

subsequently presented stimuli (as well as

resulting in the attribution of activity within

higher sites) to an external stimulus affecting

the unstimulated receptor Also, the phantom

limb phenomenon, occasionally observed in

amputees, may be accounted for by

neuro-physiological theories that invoke the law of

denervation See also HABITUATION,

PRINCIPLE/LAW OF; PHANTOM LIMB

PHENOMENON

REFERENCES

Cannon, W B., & Rosenblueth, A (1949)

The supersensitivity of denervated

structures New York: Macmillan

Zubek, J (Ed.) (1969) Sensory deprivation:

Fifteen years of research New

York: Appleton-Century-Crofts

DEPRESSION, THEORIES OF In general,

depression is a mood state characterized by a

sense of inadequacy, feelings of despondency,

sadness, pessimism, and decrease in activity

or reactivity Depressive disorders involve a

spectrum of psychological dysfunctions that

vary in frequency, duration, and severity At

one end of the continuum is the experience of normal depression (a transient period, usually lasting no longer than two weeks), consisting

of fatigue and sadness, and precipitated by identifiable stressors At the other end of the spectrum is the longer-lasting period of de-pressed mood approaching clinical depressive disorders, which is accompanied by difficul-ties in sleeping, onset of eating problems, and growing thoughts of despair and hopelessness

In psychotic depression, the individual suffers

deep despair and sadness and may lose contact with reality and develop delusions, hallucina-tions, and severe motor and psychological retardation In this sense, depression may be a symptom of some other psychological disor-der, a part or syndrome of related symptoms that appears as secondary to another disorder,

or a specific disorder itself A major difficulty

in studying depression is that the term is often used indiscriminately for an entire spectrum of experiences where it has come to describe a mood, a symptom, and a syndrome The the-ory and terminology of depression includes

dualistic systems where the concepts of

“reac-tive versus autonomous,” “neurotic versus psychotic,” “primary versus secondary,” “ex-ogenous versus endogenous,” “unipolar versus bipolar,” and “justified versus somatic” de-

pression have been used Pluralistic systems

of depression classification describe many types of disorders For example, Grinker, Miller, Sabshin, Nunn, and Nunnally (1961) propose four patterns of depression based on a factor analysis of moods, behaviors, and treatment responses: empty-, angry-, anxious-,

and hypochondriacal-depression Other ralistic classification systems of depression

plu-are provided in the American Psychiatric

As-sociation’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

(2000), which lists more than a dozen ent kinds of depressive disorders, including various depressive personality types, as well

differ-as schizoaffective and psychotic depressive

disorders Concerning the diagnosis of sion, the American psychiatrist Aaron Temkin

depres-Beck (1921- ) designed the depres-Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), which is based on observa-tions of attitudes and symptoms characteristic

of depressed patients The BDI contains 21 categories of symptoms and attitudes, such as sense of failure, dissatisfaction, guilt, sense of

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punishment, self-accusations, and sleep

dis-turbance The various theories of depression

may be grouped, generally, into biological or

psychological types The biological theories

include the genetic theories, in which it is

assumed that genetic factors interact with

environmental factors and where heredity

influences emotional lability, cellular

func-tioning, basic arousal levels, stimulus

thresh-old levels, and other physiological substrates

of behavior; and the biochemical theories,

which are further subdivided into biogenic

amine (neurotransmitters) theories, including

catecholamine, indoleamine, and permissive

amine hypotheses; the electrolyte metabolism

theories, which focus on sodium and

potas-sium in the brain; and the pituitaryadrenal

axis theories, which argue that the primary

problem in depression disorders rests in the

hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis The

psy-chobehavioral theories may be subdivided

into the reconposre theory, where the term

reconposre stands for “response contingent

positive reinforcement” and which argues that

depression develops when individuals receive

inadequate amounts of positive reinforcement

in their lives; the learned helplessness theory,

which proposes that when humans or animals

are trapped in situations in which they cannot

avoid threat or harm, and where

uncontrolla-ble aversive events produce an expectancy

that one cannot control stressors, they develop

a sense of helplessness, resignation, or

hope-lessness and act “depressed;” the cognitive

theories/models (cf., the cognitive

vulnerabil-ity hypothesis - states that negative cognitive

styles confer vulnerability to depression when

people confront negative life events), which

emphasize the role of one’s faulty thought

processes, including factors such as logic

er-rors, selective abstraction, arbitrary

infer-ences, overgeneralizations, excessive

magnifi-cation, and dichotomous/distorted thinking;

and psychoanalytic theory, which argues that

depression results from the loss of an

ambiva-lently loved person or loss of a “love object,”

which leads to a self-directed hostility and

constitutes the depressive experience; this

approach suggests that the self-punishment

that accompanies depression may actually be

an unconscious effort to regain maternal love

and support, or that in cases of traumatic

ex-periences in childhood, there is resultant faulty ego and libido development with fixa-tion at an earlier stage of insecurity and help-lessness The most current theories and per-

spectives of depression focus on the tion of biological, psychological, and socio-

interac-logical levels of functioning Such new proaches integrate the older theories and offer the promise of new insights into depression, its manifestations, diagnosis, and treatment See also LEARNED HELPLESSNESS EF-FECT/THEORY; PSYCHOPATHOLOGY, THEORIES OF

ap-REFERENCES

Grinker, R., Miller, J., Sabshin, M., Nunn, R.,

& Nunnally, J (1961) The ena of depressions New York: Hoe-

phenom-ber

Schildkraut, J (1965) The catecholamine

hypothesis of affective disorders: A review of supporting evidence

American Journal of Psychiatry,

122, 509-522

Beck, A T (1967) Depression: Clinical,

experimental, and theoretical pects New York: Harper & Row Masserman, J H (Ed.) (1970) Depressions:

as-Theories and therapies New York:

Grune & Stratton

Lewinsohn, P (1974) A behavioral approach

to depression In R Friedman & M

Katz (Eds.), The psychology of pression Washington, D.C.: Win-

de-ston

Seligman, M (1975) Helplessness: On

de-pression, development, and death

San Francisco: Freeman

Akiskal, H (1979) A biobehavioral approach

to depression In R Depue (Ed.),

The psychobiology of the depressive disorders New York: Academic

Press

Abramson, L Y., Metalsky, G I., & Alloy, L

B (1989) Hopelessness depression:

A theory-based subtype of

depres-sion Psychological Review, 96,

358-372

Segal, Z V., & Dobson, K S (1992)

Cogni-tive models of depression logical Inquiry, 3, 219-224, 278-

Psycho-282

Trang 36

156

American Psychiatric Association (2000)

Diagnostic and statistical manual of

mental disorders 4th Ed Revised

Washington, D.C.: American

Psy-chiatric Association

DEPRESSION/NEGATIVE CONTRAST

EFFECT See CRESPI EFFECT

DEPRESSIVE REALISM

PHENOME-NON/THEORY The American

psycholo-gists Lauren B Alloy (1953- ) and Lyn Y

Abramson (1950- ) suggest the existence in

individuals diagnosed with depression a

re-duction or absence of overconfidence and

unrealistic optimism, with the result that such

depressed people are more accurate (across

situations and domains) in their processing of

information related to themselves, as

com-pared to nondepressed individuals who are

typically positively biased regarding

self-related information Alloy and Abramson’s

depressive realism theory also has been

la-beled the “sadder but wiser” theory, where

mental health is associated with

overestimat-ing personal control over successes (havoverestimat-ing an

“illusion of control”), and where judging

con-trol accurately is associated with dysphoria

(feelings of discomfort, sadness, anguish, or

anxiety) See also DEPRESSION, THEORIES

OF; OVERCONFIDENCE EFFECT

REFERENCES

Alloy, L B., & Abramson, L Y (1979)

Judgment of contingency in

de-pressed and nondede-pressed students:

Sadder but wiser? Journal of

Ex-perimental Psychology: General,

108, 441-485

Schwartz, B (1981) Does helplessness cause

depression, or do only depressed

people become helpless? Comment

on Alloy and Abramson Journal of

Experimental Psychology: General,

110, 429-435

Cohen, D M (1998) The illusion of control

revisited: A test of alternative

ex-planations Dissertation Abstracts

International, 58 (11-B), 6230

DER KLUGE HANS EFFECT See

CLEVER HANS EFFECT/PHENOMENON

DERIVED PROPERTIES, POSTULATE

OF See GESTALT THEORY/LAWS DESCARTES’ THEORY OF HUMOR/ LAUGHTER The French mathematician and

philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is regarded by many researchers to be the first

writer to deal with laughter from the logical, as well as from the psychological,

physio-point of view [however, other researchers attribute this honor to the French physician Laurent Joubert (1529-1582); cf., Roeckelein,

2002, p 131] Descartes’ theory of laughter

begins with a physiological account of what causes the audible explosion in laughter (the blood passes from the right cavity of the heart

to the lungs, filling them, and drives out the air) According to Descartes, psychologically there are only six basic emotions (wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy, and sadness), and laughter is found to accompany three of them (wonder, mild hatred, and joy) Descartes asserted that derision is a kind of joy that is mixed both with surprise and hate, and when laughter is natural (and not feigned or artifi-cial), it seems to be due partially to the joy derived from that which one recognizes as incapable of being injured by the malice that has excited an indignation, and partly to sur-prise at the novelty of that malice in such a manner that joy, hatred, and admiration are all contributory causes to the laughter In his theoretical approach to humor, Descartes broke away from the literary tradition that had led all previous thinkers (following the classi-cal writers) to deal with comedy as a literary form rather than with the wider issue of laugh-ter, and although Descartes’ account is inaccu-

rate in physiological terms, it is nonetheless of interest because of the incidental psychological aspects contained in his theory See also

HUMOR, THEORIES OF; JOU-BERT’S THEORY OF LAUGHTER AND HUMOR

Uni-Descartes, R (1649/1909) Les passions de

l’ame Paris: Le Gras

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157

Roeckelein, J E (2002) The psychology of

humor Westport, CT: Greenwood

Press

DESCARTES’ THEORY OF INNATE

IDEAS/DESCARTES’ THEORY See

CONDILLAC’S THEORY OF ATTENTION;

LEARNING THEORIES/LAWS

DETERMINING TENDENCY,

PRINCI-PLE OF See ACH’S LAWS/PRINCIPRINCI-PLES/

THEORY; WUNDT’S THEORIES,

DOC-TRINES, AND PRINCIPLES

DETERMINISM, DOCTRINE/THEORY

OF The doctrine of determinism assumes that

every event has causes, and is the theory or

working principle according to which all

phe-nomena are considered as necessary

conse-quents of antecedent conditions (cf.,

architec-tural determinism - the notion that building

design affects behavior, for instance, some

building designs increase the possibility that

people will congregate and meet with each

other; moral determinism - the doctrine that

the world is basically good because God made

it so; and moral nihilism - the doctrine that

there are no reasons for morals and that

abso-lute pleasure at the expense of others is

justi-fied) The concept of determinism is central to

science because it maintains that if one knew

all the factors involved in a forthcoming

event, it could be predicted exactly

Determin-ism implies a chain of events, each following

the other, to produce a necessary conclusion

where every thing and every event in the

world (and the universe) is the result of

natu-ral laws that can be ascertained by the use of

the scientific methods A distinction is made

often between hard determinism (or

“no-mological” laws, not allowing room for

free-dom of choice or indeterminism) and soft

determinism (that is, attempts to reconcile

determinism and free choice or

inism) For instance, concerning hard

determin-ism, in classical mechanics in physics, it was

assumed that if one knew the position and

momentum of every particle of matter at one

instant in time, then one could know its

posi-tion and momentum at any other point in

fu-ture time This viewpoint, however, was

“soft-ened” somewhat with the development of

quantum mechanics, where the levels of cause

and effect are probabilistic in nature and which, consequently, shift the idea of perfect (“hard”) prediction to probabilistic (“soft”)

prediction In psychology, the issue of minism generally revolves around the human- ist’s and existentialist’s advocacy of “free

deter-will.” However, if one wishes to study

behav-ior and the mind in scientific terms, it must be

assumed that there are deterministic and cause-effect relationships to take into serious consideration Scientific psychology assumes

a degree of determinism in behavior where

three categories of determinants are studied, usually, as they interact to influence behavior:

biological factors (includes heredity, bodily

constitution, and physiological health and

disease), psychological factors (includes

emo-tions, drives, attitudes, learning experiences, and conscious and unconscious conflicts), and

social/cultural factors (includes economic

status, customs and mores, social status, and social conflicts) Deterministic relationships,

or laws, are discovered in various ways For example, the early Greek philosopher Aris-totle (384-322 B.C.) first observed a phe-nomenon and then followed up by thinking about the event, classifying it, and putting it into a category so that predictions could be

made (cf., doctrine of ethical determinism - a

philosophical doctrine advanced by Socrates, but opposed by Aristotle, which suggests that humans will seek out automatically the good

if they know that is “good”) Many methods

of basic scientific inquiry are available, cluding observation, interpretation, conclu-sions, and hypotheses-testing, but they all

in-depend on the fundamental notion of nistic causality [cf., psychical determinism doctrine - the assumption made by psycholo-

determi-gists that no psychological phenomena cluding dreams, parapraxes, and symptoms; e.g., Freud, 1901) occur by chance, but they always have definite causes; on the other hand, Carl Jung (1953/1965) asserts that no psychological fact can ever be explained in

(in-terms of causality alone; and the doctrine of particularism - states that any human behavior

needs to be understood in the context of that person’s total history, including both heredity

and environment] The doctrine of dialectical materialism (i.e., the speculation that the ulti-

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