Hello:
I have been off doing some other things, and have been tracking some
of the messages with less than high attention...
I noticed, for example this one..............................
(Piece number 1)
Is this really true? Come on you
>lurkers-surely, SURELY someone somewhere in PCP must be trying to
tackle
>the basic theory or are we all just "running the job" ( I realise I am
>getting
>provocative now in order to try and get more of a response from the
list
>-any
>comments, Devi, Jim ? Others?)
Then I noticed this one:
(Piece Number 2)
I have been doing some reading regarding violence and came across the
following comments by Novaco:
"The notion of cognitive mediation is often misunderstood. The idea does
not
necessarily refer to an intermediary process interposed between exposure
to
stimulus and the resulting physiological and behavioral reactions.
Cognitive mediation should be understood as an automatic and intrinsic
part
of the perceptual process and not simply as explicit thinking or
otherwise
conscious operations that might be involved in an event-thought-reaction
sequence."
This quote, if I have understood it correctly argues that
cognition/construing can be a conscious thinking process as well as a
rapid
process of information processing, eg automatic? This raised the
interesting issue for me, in relation to examining
construing/constructs.
Much PCP research appears to report constructs as if they are entities,
the
above seems to emphasise construing as an ongoing process (which could
include non-verbal construing etc). I don't mean to suggest construing
isn't construed as 'ongoing' in PCP terms, but rather the issue may be a
limitation in how constructs are talked about.
And this one:
(PIece Number 3)
By talking of 'constructs' as if they were entities, is one running the
risk
of (a) reifying an abstraction; (b) increasing the danger of confusing
them
with concepts, and/or (c) concealing a really important/distinctive
aspect of
PCT - the dynamic real-time nature of construct-ions?
So, I make a quick response:
I know of a reasonable set of references in which people have
attempted to elaborate PCP by playing out the insights suggested in
piece number 2. I certainly would regard that effort as a useful
elaboration of PCP.
Why do we worry about things such as "confusing them with
concepts?" Who has told us what "concepts" REALLY ARE? How can we
confuse them (constructs) with "concept" when we understand that the
term concept
signifies a construction, as does the term construct. So long as we
regard our constructions as convenient inventions, why would we worry
about confusing one construction with another.
And, let us make a distinction between our construction of construct
and our construction of construction.
A construct, let us agree ( and there has been much discussion --
implicit and explicit -- of why this construction should gain collegial
warrant), should be regarded as a two-poled judgment scale.... something
a person carries around in some kind of system (what kind? where???)
for use as he/she attempts to anticipates putative events by construing
(building anticipatory constructions relevant to) those putative
events....
Then, let us agree that an object or an event is construed by
locating that object or event on one or more construct -- along lines of
the propositions embodied in
piece number 2.
If we proceed along these lines, I have argued, PCP stands to expand
into the kind of useful theory it deserves to be....
Jim
Mancuso
--
James C. Mancuso Dept. of Psychology
15 Oakwood Place University at Albany
Delmar, NY 12054 1400 Washington Ave.
Tel: (518)439-4416 Albany, NY 12222
Mailto:mancusoj@capital.net
http://www.capital.net/~soialban/index.html
A website dedicated to information on Italian-
American history and heritage.
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Hello:
I have been off doing some other things, and have
been tracking some of the messages with less than high attention...
I noticed, for example this one..............................
(Piece number 1)
Is this really true? Come on you
>lurkers-surely, SURELY someone somewhere in PCP must be trying to
tackle
>the basic theory or are we all just "running the job" ( I realise
I am
>getting
>provocative now in order to try and get more of a response from the
list
>-any
>comments, Devi, Jim ? Others?)
Then I noticed this one:
(Piece Number 2)
I have been doing some reading regarding violence and came across the
following comments by Novaco:
"The notion of cognitive mediation is often misunderstood. The idea
does not
necessarily refer to an intermediary process interposed between exposure
to
stimulus and the resulting physiological and behavioral reactions.
Cognitive mediation should be understood as an automatic and intrinsic
part
of the perceptual process and not simply as explicit thinking or otherwise
conscious operations that might be involved in an event-thought-reaction
sequence."
This quote, if I have understood it correctly argues that
cognition/construing can be a conscious thinking process as well as
a rapid
process of information processing, eg automatic? This raised
the
interesting issue for me, in relation to examining construing/constructs.
Much PCP research appears to report constructs as if they are entities,
the
above seems to emphasise construing as an ongoing process (which could
include non-verbal construing etc). I don't mean to suggest construing
isn't construed as 'ongoing' in PCP terms, but rather the issue may
be a
limitation in how constructs are talked about.
And this one:
(PIece Number 3)
By talking of 'constructs' as if they were entities, is one running
the risk
of (a) reifying an abstraction; (b) increasing the danger of confusing
them
with concepts, and/or (c) concealing a really important/distinctive
aspect of
PCT - the dynamic real-time nature of construct-ions?
So, I make a quick response:
I know of a reasonable set of references in which
people have attempted to elaborate PCP by playing out the insights suggested
in piece number 2. I certainly would regard that effort as a useful
elaboration of PCP.
Why do we worry about things such as "confusing them
with concepts?" Who has told us what "concepts" REALLY ARE?
How can we confuse them (constructs) with "concept" when we understand
that the term concept
signifies a construction, as does the term construct.
So long as we regard our constructions as convenient inventions, why would
we worry about confusing one construction with another.
And, let us make a distinction between our construction
of construct and our construction of construction.
A construct, let us agree ( and there has been
much discussion -- implicit and explicit -- of why this construction should
gain collegial warrant), should be regarded as a two-poled judgment scale....
something a person carries around in some kind of system (what kind?
where???) for use as he/she attempts to anticipates putative events by
construing (building anticipatory constructions relevant to) those putative
events....
Then, let us agree that an object or an event is
construed by locating that object or event on one or more construct --
along lines of the propositions embodied in
piece number 2.
If we proceed along these lines, I have argued,
PCP stands to expand into the kind of useful theory it deserves to be....
Jim Mancuso
--
James C. Mancuso Dept. of
Psychology
15 Oakwood Place University
at Albany
Delmar, NY 12054 1400 Washington
Ave.
Tel: (518)439-4416 Albany, NY 12222
Mailto:mancusoj@capital.net
http://www.capital.net/~soialban/index.html
A website dedicated to information on Italian-
American
history and heritage.
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