Leonard M. Horowitz

How Interpersonal Motives Clarify the Meaning of Interpersonal Behavior: A Revised Circumplex Model

Circumplex models have organized interpersonal behavior along 2 orthogonal dimensions-communion (which emphasizes connection between people) and agency (which emphasizes one persons influence over the other). However, many empirical studies have disconfirmed certain predictions from these models. We therefore revised the model in 4 ways that highlight interpersonal motives. In our revision: (a) the negative pole of communion is indifference, not hostility; (b) a given behavior invites (not evokes) a desired reaction from the partner; (c) the complement of a behavior is a reaction that would satisfy the motive behind that behavior; (d) noncomplementary reactions induce negative affect. If the motive is unclear, the meaning of the behavior is ambiguous. This ambiguity helps explain failures in social support, miscommunications in everyday life, and features of most personality disorders. The model emphasizes measurable individual differences: Reactions that are complementary for one person need not be complementary for another.

Attributional Style of Lonely and Depressed People

This article examines the attributional style of lonely and depressed people. Previous studies have suggested that both lonely and depressed individuals ascribe failure to characterological defects in themselves. However, the prototype of a lonely person and the prototype of a depressed person suggest that this characteristic attributional style should mainly hold for interpersonal failures. A questionnaire was formed, consisting of 20 hypothetical situations. Half of the situations were interpersonal, and half were not; half described successful outcomes, and half described failures. The subject selected an attributional alternative that best explained the outcome. The questionnaire was administered to 304 students, along with the Beck Depression Inventory and the UCLA Loneliness Scale. The results showed that lonely and depressed people ascribe interpersonal failures to unchangeable characterological defects in themselves (e.g., a lack of ability). Because the prototype of a lonely person is more singularly interpersonal than is the prototype of a depressed person, we hypothesized that loneliness would show higher correlations with the attributional style. This hypothesis was also confirmed. The findings were replicated using a modified version of the questionnaire.

A priming methodology for studying self-representation in major depressive disorder

The authors investigated processing of self-descriptive emotional information in depression using a modified Stroop color-naming task. Depressed (n = 58) and nondepressed control (n = 44) participants were required to name the color in which positive and negative adjectives, differing in the degree to which they described the person, were presented. These target adjectives were primed by emotional phrases that also varied according to degree of self-reference. Analyses indicated that depressed participants showed slower color-naming latencies for self-descriptive negative targets primed by self-descriptive negative phrases than for any other prime-target condition. No effect of prime-target relation was found for positive material with depressed participants, and nondepressed controls showed no effect of prime-target relation for material in either valence. These results support the hypothesis that negative information about the self is highly interconnected in the cognitive system of depressed patients.

The interpersonal basis of psychiatric symptoms

This paper concerns the kinds of complaints that are commonly identified and treated when psychiatric patients receive psychotherapy. Most patients in a first interview report both psychiatric symptoms’ (like anxiety, depression, and tension) and interpersonal problems (like problems with assertiveness, independence, and intimacy). Some investigators have emphasized the high frequency of symptoms (e.g., Siegel & St. Clair, 1977), while others have emphasized the high frequency of interpersonal problems (e.g., Horowitz, 1979). These two kinds of complaints, however, have different roles in treatment. Therapists seem to classify disorders and evaluate the severity of disorders in terms of symptoms (APA, 1980),2 but the actual work of treatment usually focuses on interpersonal events, conflicts, and goals (Weissman & Klerman, 1973). Researchers have been able to measure the severity of symptoms (Derogatis, Lipman, & Covi, 1973), but not that of interpersonal problems. Part of the problem is that instruments that help patients systematically describe specific interpersonal

Satisfaction in Interpersonal Interactions as a Function of Similarity in Level of Dysphoria

This study compared dysphoric and nondysphoric male and female undergraduates as they conversed with dysphoric or nondysphoric undergraduates of the same sex. Subjects rated their satisfaction with the conversation after each turn. The results showed that people in homogeneous dyads (i.e., both partners were dysphoric or both partners were nondysphoric) were more satisfied with the interaction, and their satisfaction increased as the conversation proceeded. People in mixed dyads were less satisfied, perceived each other as colder, and spoke about increasingly negative topics. Thus, in accord with other research showing that similarity leads to liking, the crucial determinant of interactional satisfaction was neither the mood of the subject nor the mood of the partner, but their similarity in mood.

Self-derogations and the interpersonal theory.

The interpersonal theory of personality has been applied to explain depressed peoples dilemma: The depressed persons submissive behavior invites dominating reactions from other people, and those reactions sustain the depressed persons depression. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that self-derogations connote submissiveness but are generally judged to be neutral in affiliation. Experiment 3 tested implications for the behavior of dysphoric and nondysphoric Ss as they interacted with a self-derogating, other-derogating, or nonderogating confederate partner. Ss selected a topic from a list and talked about it for 1 min: the confederates script was fixed. The Ss judgments of the confederate, choice of topics, satisfaction with the interaction, and actual responses were analyzed. Self-derogators were judged to be submissive, elicited dominating reactions, and selected more topics with negative content.

ASSOCIATIVE MATCHING AND INTRALIST SIMILARITY

In a recent srudy the present author (1961) analyzed the serial anticipation method into two component tasks, response learning and ordering. As a response learning task, S was presented with 12 randomized 3-consonant (CCC) trigrams, and he recorded as many items as he could remember on each of 10 trials. As an ordering task, S was shown the same items in a standard order of presentation for 10 trials, and after each presentation he received a packet of 12 2X 2-in. cards. Each card contained one item of the list. S re-ordered these cards to reconstruct the original order of presentation. This procedure is a variation of the reconstruction method used by Gamble ( 1909) and by Luh ( 1922). With ir high intralist similarity facilitated response learning early in learning, but uniformly hindered ordering (Horowitz, 1961 ). It was further suggested that the paired-associate method could also be analyzed into at least two component tasks: response learning, when the responses of the paired-associate task become recallable as units, and associative learning, when each response becomes paired with a particular stimulus. Since response learning is facilitated by high incralist similarity (Horowitz, 1961; Underwood, Runquist, & Schulz, 1959), only the influence of intralist similarity on associative learning still needs to be assessed. Associative learning, like ordering, seems to place a premium on the discriminability of items, and it would not be surprising to discover that high intralist similarity hinders associative learning. If so, the response learning component of a paired-associate task would be facilitated by high intralist similarity, while the associative learning component would be hindered. Thus, as a net result, the importance of intralist similarity could be underestimated when the paired-associate method is used. Other authors (e.g., Underwood, et al., 1959) have proposed this kind of analysis, though no technique has been available to study associative learning directly. Bower (1961 ) has minimized the response learning component of paired-associate learning by using a very few well-learned responses (the integers 1 and 2 ) paired repeatedly with different stimuli. In some respects his procedure makes the paired-associate task formally resemble a concept formation task with somewhat unique characteristics (Garner, 1961), and results so obtained may have limited generality. Thus, a technique is needed to srudy associative learning directly in order to understand the role of variables like intralist similarity. The present study

Interpersonal and Noninterpersonal Interactions, Interpersonal Motives, and the Effect of Frustrated Motives

A new circumplex model of interpersonal interaction emphasizes the motives that drive interpersonal behaviors and the negative affect (such as anger) that occurs when a strongly activated motive is frustrated. This study examined the model experimentally by varying conditions designed to activate and frustrate interpersonal motives. One hundred twenty-nine students engaged in text-based discussions using a computer. Three factors were varied: (a) activation of interpersonal motives— participants believed the interaction was interpersonal (with a human) or noninterpersonal (with a computer); (b) individual differences in motive activation—assertive and nonassertive participants were compared (strong vs. weak motive to influence others); and (c) level of frustration of activated motives—the “partners” messages contained dominating or nondominating language. Participants who believed their interaction was interpersonal produced more interpersonal behaviors of various types. Assertive participants who interacted with a dominating and apparently human partner produced a disproportionate amount of hostility, indicating anger ascribed to frustrated motives.

The child's memory for unitized scenes ☆

Abstract This article shows that the nursery school child remembers a set of pictures or objects better if the items are unitized. For example, a shoe, key, and box are better remembered if the key is in the shoe and the shoe is in the box. Even arbitrary units are better remembered than a series of items. In Exp. I, the child was first shown a display of pictures or objects. He named each item and the items were then hidden; then one was removed and the remaining items were exposed. The S was then asked what was missing. Different groups of S s were tested in different conditions. The unitized condition showed a clear superiority. Experiment II replicated this result with a simpler procedure and with each S as his own control. Experiments III and IV then examined the role of verbal descriptions and verbalization in producing the effect.

Pschemas, Psychopathology, and Psychotherapy Research

This paper examines the concept of a schema as a theoretical construct that is relevant to the goals of psychotherapy researchers. It first differentiates between the terms identity diffusion and identity confusion, phenomena that have been portrayed by artists but have not been accessible to empirical research. A schema is defined as a collection of interassociated mental representations that function together as a unit. Implications of the concept are illustrated with results from the literature on depression. Then the concept is applied to peoples descriptions of the self and other people. Identity diffusion seems to involve a vague schema, whereas identity confusion seems to involve a shifting between contrasting schemas. A study is described in which an attachment in terview was administered to grief-stricken adults, who were then classified as autonomous, detached, or enmeshed. People with a detached attachment style generally avoid intimate engagement, so their descriptions of themselves and other...