Hans Kreitler

The Theory of Cognitive Orientation: Widening the Scope of Behavior Prediction

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the theory of cognitive orientation. The chapter reviews that most people would like to know how other persons will behave, and many people are in need of this knowledge to fulfill their tasks as planners in one or another domain of life. On the other hand, the deterministic notion, so frequently associated with behavior prediction, is an anathema to the majority of people living in what is presently called the western world. They cherish the idea of free will and, are afraid that an instrument enabling behavior prediction could be misused for controlling and manipulating their lives and, thus, curtailing their individual freedom. Nevertheless, even these behavior predictions would not be perfect, partly because one out of the myriads of involved meaning values or beliefs could pop up in the last instant and modify the predicted constellation, but mainly because of the same hurdle that has ultimately shattered the traditional determinism of classical physics, that is, the unavoidable interference of the observing system with the function of the system to be observed.

Life satisfaction and health in cancer patients, orthopedic patients and healthy individuals

Life satisfaction (LS) is one of a set of constructs defining quality of life. Previous studies showed that LS was sometimes related to health and sometimes not. The study was designed to examine the relation of LS as a general construct to satisfaction in specific domains. We assumed that there is a tendency to maintain an acceptable level of LS even under stressful and threatening conditions, that it is related to optimism and that the likelihood of attaining satisfaction in a particular domain affected the selection of domains on which LS is based. We expected that in cancer patients LS would be related to more domains but not to health. The study was done with 55 head-and-neck cancer patients, of all stages and grades of tumor; 51 orthopedic patients, victims of accidents with good recovery chances; and 55 healthy individuals. The healthy individuals and orthopedic patients were matched (in terms of group values) to the cancer patients in age, gender and education. Single-item measures of LS and optimism, and a questionnaire with 49 multiple-choice items assessing adjustment in 13 domains were administered to all subjects. The results showed that in cancer patients LS was related to most domains but not to health and not to optimism, whereas in the other groups it was related to few domains including health, and also to optimism. The findings support the tendency to maintain LS with the materials available to the individual, and show that health is related to LS only if its maintenance or attainment are realistic goals. Thus, both bottom-up and top-down theories of LS are supported.

Cognitive orientation as predictor of pain relief following acupuncture

&NA; The study investigated the role of beliefs concerning pain relief after treatment. Following the cognitive orientation theory, we hypothesized that beliefs concerning goals, norms, oneself, and general beliefs would predict the extent of improvement following acupuncture. Subjects were 30 Israeli chronic‐pain patients (22 women, 8 men; mean age 41.6 years). They were administered a questionnaire assessing the 4 belief types, and control measures assessing personality traits, demographic variables, and pain characteristics. All underwent 4–6 acupuncture sessions. Improvement was determined by patient and physician ratings, and an index based on medication, subjective evaluations, and duration of resting. There were two follow‐ups. Three improvement groups were defined: none (n = 8), slight (n = 12), and high (n = 10). These groups did not differ on any of the variables tested except the 4 belief types. A discriminant analysis with belief types as predictors enabled correct classification of the patients in 83% of the cases. A stepwise regression analysis showed that beliefs accounted for 85% of the variance. Discussion focuses on the nature of pain relief and the role of beliefs in disease.

The nature of curiosity in children

Abstract This study examined several behaviors claimed to reflect curiosity in order to determine whether there are one or more types of curiosity. A secondary purpose was to examine the relations between the one or more types of curiosity and sex, social class, intelligence, achievement level, and ratings of personality traits. In two individual sessions 84 American first-grade boys and girls were administered five tasks which measured observation of complex and simple stimuli, preference of complex and simple stimuli, preference for the unknown, structure of meaning, and object exploration. A normalized Varimax factor analysis allowed the extraction of five factors: manipulatory curiosity, perceptual curiosity, conceptual curiosity, curiosity about the complex, and adjustive-reactive curiosity. Only the first factor was related to a demographic variable, sex. The nature of the factors and their theoretical and practical significance are discussed.

Trauma and anxiety: The cognitive approach

The purpose was to show how anxiety, the perception of the input and predisposing personality factors are interrelated in the generation of the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After a review of the role of each of these elements in regard to the PTSD, a new conception of anxiety, the core element of trauma, is introduced, grounded in an innovative system of meaning assessment. Two experiments are summarized demonstrating that anxiety is a pattern of meaning assignment tendencies of the individual and that changing these tendencies brings about the expected changes in the level of anxiety and of cognitive performance. The findings are applied to the treatment and prevention of the PTSD by showing how changing the meaning of specific inputs and of the relevant meaning assignment tendencies of individuals suffering from PTSD or at risk may help to reduce anxiety and increase coping abilities.

Cognitive orientation and physical disease or health

This paper deals with a new approach to physical disease and health based on the theory of cognitive orientation (CO) (Kreitler and Kreitler, 1976, 1982). It presents an outline of the theory which is a comprehensive cognitive‐motivational model of behaviour describing how cognitive contents and processes bring about the elicitation of behaviour. The theory generated a methodology for the prediction of behaviour that has been applied in different domains ofhealth psychology. Studies are described dealing with behaviours affecting health (quitting smoking, smoking, overeating, undergoing examinations for the early detection of breast cancer), behaviours of the individual in the role of sick person (hospitalization for safeguarding pregnancy, getting information on a cancer ward), aetiologies of physiopathologies (coronary heart disease, diabetes, vaginal infections) and disorders (menstrual and sexual disorders, and infertility in women), recovery and rehabilitation (from chronic pain, and following MI), and general health orientation. Finally, the outlines of an emergent CO model of physiopathology are presented, specifying how cognitions affect health, and in which sense the processes involved in physiopathology resemble and differ from those involved in the elicitation of overt behaviours.

The psychological profile of women attending breast-screening tests.

Though the benefits of early detection of breast cancer are generally known, only few women attend breast-screening examinations. The study was designed to gain insight into the problem by exploring the psychological profile of clinic attenders. In order to find out whether there is such a profile, 210 self-referred women were compared with 210 nonattending women, from the same working and social environments, matched in age, education and occupational level. All subjects were administered 10 tests in 7 domains. The tests were administered as part of a health survey. The results showed that clinic attenders scored higher on negative emotions and total emotions and lower on positive emotions; higher on repression; lower on daydreams; lower on range of self-concept, references to others and negative self-references but higher on positive self-references; scored higher on self-references describing oneself in a functional and in a passive way and scored lower on those describing oneself in terms of ones attitudes, body and appearance; scored lower on neuroticism; scored lower on different somatic complaints and health orientation but higher in alexithymia. No differences were found in authoritarianism, locus of control and self-complexity. Conclusions are that there is a psychological profile of clinic attenders, that it is focused on dysphoric emotions, psychological disease promotion and defensiveness and that it includes characteristics of the construct that is sometimes called the cancer-prone personality.

The role of the experiment in science education

The article focuses on defining the role of demonstration in general and experiments in particular in science education at the high school level, on the basis of psychological data and recent conceptions about the nature of science. It is argued that experiments play a restricted role in transmitting knowledge, but may be used as deductions demonstrating concepts; they are useless or harmful in teaching problem-solving but important as aids in testing alternative solutions and in training specific scientific skills; and finally, they are not the best means for evoking and maintaining curiosity in adolescents. Special consideration is paid to the role of concepts and concretizations in science, adolescent thinking and science instruction.

The psychological profile of the health-oriented individual

This study was designed to explore the psychological characteristics of individuals who score high on a measure assessing health orientation. The measure was constructed in the framework of the cognitive orientation theory and consists of beliefs of four types (about goals, rules and norms, oneself, and general) referring to themes such as trusting people, control, and enjoyment. The subjects were 176 healthy adults (88 men, 88 women) in the age range 31‐50 (M = 39.4 years) examined in the framework of a health survey. They were administered the Cognitive Orientation of Health Questionnaire and other measures assessing emotions, authoritarianism, locus of control, daydreaming, repressiveness, neuroticism, somatic complaints, somatization, and alexithymia. The main results obtained by ANOVA and multiple regression analyses were that high‐scorers on health orientation also scored higher on love, joy, contentment, hostility, jealousy (men only), emotional reactions, positive daydreams, internal control, repressiveness, neuroticism, functional‐actional self‐descriptions, and negative selfreferences. High‐scorers on health orientation scored lower on depression, anxiety, fear, jealousy (women only), negative daydreams, poor attentional control, somatic complaints, somatization, alexithymia, positive self‐references, and self‐descriptions that capitalize on body parts, weight, and appearance. The major conclusions refer to the conception of a psychological general health orientation and its manifestations.

Repression and the anxiety-defensiveness factor: Psychological correlates and manifestations

Abstract The study deals with the nature of repression as currently defined by low anxiety (Taylors MAS) and high defensiveness (Marlowe-Crownes Social Desirability Scale), and the psychological reality of the 4-group partition based on anxiety and defensiveness. The subjects, 227 men and women about 40 yr old, were administered questionnaires as part of a health survey. Analyses of variance showed that repressors scored low on Eysencks neuroticism; low on negative emotions but high on positive emotions (MAACL, MACL); low on negative daydreams and low attentional control (Imaginal Processes Inventory); low on references to others and negative self descriptions but high on positive self descriptions and on experimental and actional contents (“Who-Am-I?”); low on somatic complaints (e.g. SUNYA checklist) but high on the motivation for physical health (Cognitive Orientation of Health, Kreitler & Kreitler). There were no differences in positive daydreaming, alexithymia, locus of control, authoritarianism, and somatization. Analyses of variance with anxiety and defensiveness as separate factors showed the two factors were involved in about half of the cases, but only one factor, mostly anxiety, in the other half. Major conclusions are that repression is a coping mechanism directed selectively against negative or unpleasant aspects and that the four groups have a broad-based psychological reality.