[skumar@UMIAMI.IR.MIAMI.EDU: clinical psychology and dynamic systems]

CSGnet Archive CSG1998
1

------- Start of forwarded message -------
[From John Anderson (981011.1815)]

I ran across this reference to Carver and Scheier (1998) from the
chaopsyc mailing list, and wondered if anyone has checked it out?

Sender: Society for chaos theory in psychology <CHAOPSYC@LIST.UVM.EDU>

carver and scheir (1998) have a very intriguing (cybernetic) model that is
very interesting. they show that personality is oriented towards goal
attainment or avoidance, and is regulated around specific set points.
mischel and shoda also have a very interesting model that theorize
potentialities rather than fixed responses in situations. these
potentialities are mediated by subjective affective meainings for given
cognitions.

I did a MEDLINE and PsycFIRST search for this reference, and only came
up with the following:

ACCESSION NO: 1996-97873-001
DOCUMENT TYPE: Chapter
AUTHOR: Carver, Charles S.; Lawrence, John W.; Scheier, Michael F.
AFFILIATION: U Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA
TITLE: A control-process perspective on the origins of affect.
YEAR: 1996
SOURCE: p. 11-52,
IN: Martin, Leonard L. (Ed); Tesser, Abraham (Ed); et al; Striving and
feeling: Interactions among goals, affect, and self-regulation.
PUBLISHER: Mahwah, NJ, USA : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,Inc, 1996 x, 408
ISSN/ISBN: 0-8058-1629-1 (hardcover); 0-8058-2039-6 (paperback)
LANGUAGE: English
ABSTRACT: introduction: describe a way in which [the author's] control
theory of self-regulation can account for affect / according to
control theory, people engage in a continual process of establishing
goals and intentions, and adjusting current patterns of behavior so as
to more closely match these values, using informational feedback as a
guide to progress / assume that affect is not influenced directly by a
discrepancy between goals and current behavior / rather, it is
influenced by the perceived rate of discrepancy reduction (velocity)
and by perceived changes in rate of discrepancy reduction
(acceleration) / this view of affect implies a mechanism within the
organism that actively prevents the too-frequent occurrence of
negative as well as positive feelings / [present] evidence consistent
with this model / [discuss] implications for goal setting and
different types of emotions (elation-depression, relief-anxiety) ((c)
1997 APA/PsycINFO, all rights reserved):
KEY PHRASE: establishment of goals & intentions & adjustment patterns
of behavioral patterns in control theory of self-regulation of affect
MAJOR DESC: Emotions; Goals; Self Management
MINOR DESC: Feedback; Self Perception; Theories
CLASS. CODE: 2360 Motivation & Emotion
POPULATION: Human
SPEC. FEATURE: References
AUDIENCE: Psychology: Professional & Research
RELEASE DATE: 19970101

I don't know if this is the one the poster on chaopsyc was referring
to, so I will query him and get back to you.

John

···

From: Sameet Kumar <skumar@UMIAMI.IR.MIAMI.EDU>
Subject: clinical psychology and dynamic systems

--
John E Anderson
Department of Natural Sciences
University of North Florida

2

[From John Anderson (981011.1840)]

John Anderson (981011.1815)

Woops. I was not referring to the Mischel and Shoda reference, only
the Carver and Scheier.

John

···

--
John E Anderson
Department of Natural Sciences
University of North Florida

3

John,

C&S have a new book coming out (any day now) titled "The Self-Regulation of
Behavior." I am not sure how involved you are with the discussions on this
list, but the title alone will raise the feathers of several members
(including mine). I heard Carver talk at APA this summer and he gave an
indication of what the book is all about. My reaction was that I could see
spending some time testing some of the more dubious conclusions they make,
while still acknowledging that their work has a "family resemblance" to PCT
(family resemblance was one of Carver's favorite sayings at his talk).
They also discuss some of the major current topics in social psychology
(the approach/avoidance idea is big) in terms of control. The question is
whether their treatment is too glib and thus does more of a disservice to
PCT, or it gets more psychologists interested and looking at the details.
Tough call.

Jeff

Sincerely,

Jeff

4

[From Rick Marken (981012.0800)]

John Anderson (981011.1815) --

AUTHOR: Carver, Charles S.; Lawrence, John W.; Scheier, Michael F.

... people engage in a continual process of establishing goals and
intentions, and adjusting current patterns of behavior so as
to more closely match these values, using informational feedback
as a guide to progress

To an old cynic like me it sounds like Carver et al are saying
that it's "patterns of behavior" that are controlled (made to
match intentions) and that "informational feedback" is used as a
guide to seeing how well one is progressing towards getting these
behavior patterns to match intentions. But I imagine Bruce Abbott
would be able to set me straight and show me that "informational
feedback" is just another name for "controlled variable" so that
Carver et al are really talking about control of perceptual
variables;-)

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken

5

[From John Anderson (981012.1345 EDT)]

Jeff Vancouver:

C&S have a new book coming out (any day now) titled "The Self-Regulation of
Behavior." I am not sure how involved you are with the discussions on this
list, but the title alone will raise the feathers of several members
(including mine). I heard Carver talk at APA this summer and he gave an
indication of what the book is all about. My reaction was that I could see
spending some time testing some of the more dubious conclusions they make,
while still acknowledging that their work has a "family resemblance" to PCT
(family resemblance was one of Carver's favorite sayings at his talk).
They also discuss some of the major current topics in social psychology
(the approach/avoidance idea is big) in terms of control. The question is
whether their treatment is too glib and thus does more of a disservice to
PCT, or it gets more psychologists interested and looking at the details.
Tough call.

Thanks for the info, Jeff, and thanks for your comment, too, Rick. I
also received an email from Carver, after asking Kumar for more info
on the reference he cited, parts of which I include below. He
includes the URL for his website, which contains a detailed table of
contents PCTers may want to check out.

From: "Chuck Carver" <ccarver@miami.edu>

This was forwarded to me. The reference is Carver and Scheier, On the self-
regulation of behavior, Cambridge University Press (published last week). A
full description of the book can be found at the web site below.

Powers is among the sources from which these authors draw.

Charles S. Carver
Department of Psychology
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL

http://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/CCarver/

John Anderson

···

--
John E Anderson
Department of Natural Sciences
University of North Florida