Eric Klinger

University of Minnesota, Morris, United States · Division of Social Sciences, Psychology Discipline

Alcohol problems tend to run in families. To separate genetic and environmental causes of alcoholism, adoption and twin studies have been conducted. Adoption studies have found that adoptees with a biological alcoholic parent have a higher rate of alcoholism than those whose biological parents were not alcoholic. Twin studies have compared rates of...

People drink alcohol to regulate their emotions—to make themselves feel better or to feel less bad. Regulating emotions entails making decisions about what goals to pursue, both in the shorter term and over a lifetime. Human brains evolved to maximize the pleasure of our emotional states through this decision-making process. In the case of consumin...

When a person drinks alcohol, it enters the stomach and small intestine, where it is absorbed into the bloodstream. The rate of absorption, which is affected by various factors (such as the concentration of alcohol in the drink and characteristics of the drinker and how he or she drinks the alcohol), determines how intoxicated the person becomes. A...

The goals that people are motivated to pursue are guided by their expectancies of what the pursuit is likely to bring them. Research on these have led to a consensus regarding four kinds of motives: (1) social motives, as for engaging with family and friends; (2) enhancement motives, as for activities that lift one’s spirits and provide emotional s...

In this chapter, beverage alcohol is defined, as are the four main categories of it (beer, wine, fortified wine, distilled spirits), which vary in the concentration of alcohol that each contains. Drinking alcohol can induce optimism and euphoria and reduce tension and stress; hence, it is widely used and abused in many countries around the world. W...

The chapter reviews ways in which people can come to control their alcohol consumption. Given the person’s goal choices and pursuits, expectancies, values, and emotions, what needs to happen to control alcohol consumption? Expectancy X Value theory suggests ways to think about how alcohol fits into the drinker’s set of goals and daily activities. T...

There are strong sociocultural and environmental influences on drinking behavior. This is apparent when we observe vastly different drinking patterns across different cultures and within the same culture. One major influence is religion, with some religions prohibiting the consumption of alcohol. Certain geographical areas (e.g., the Mediterranean...

People’s use of alcohol is related in a variety of ways to their personality traits. Such traits include the person’s tendencies to become disappointed or depressed in the face of failures (high neuroticism) and their tendencies to blame themselves, others, or circumstances. Part of depression is rumination, as in involuntarily continuing to think...

Background There have been two kinds of methods for assessing individuals' motivation and their goal-striving behavior. The idiographic method obtains respondents' individual descriptions of their behavior or inner experiences. The nomothetic approach uses a standardized questionnaire in which respondents select from a set of alternatives. Idiograp...

Overconsumption of alcohol is a major problem in western society. Why do people drink excessively despite overwhelming negative consequences? Choosing to drink is determined by the several psychological systems undergirding any motivated behavior. Drinkers’ expectations of stronger positive and weaker negative affect from drinking are the most prox...

Spontaneous thoughts occur by default in the interstices between directed, generally task-oriented thoughts or moments of perceptual scrutiny. Their contents are overwhelmingly related to thinkers’ current goals, either directly or indirectly via associative networks, including to past and tentative future goals. They are triggered by ambient goal-...

Certain people are at risk for using alcohol or other drugs excessively and for developing problems with their use. Their susceptibility might arise from a variety of factors, including their genetic make-up, brain chemistry, family background, personality and other psychological variables, and environmental and sociocultural variables. Moreover, a...

This chapter presents the motivational and goal theory of current concerns in relation to addiction and choice. A current concern is an individual’s motivational state from the point of becoming committed to pursuing a particular goal until the goal is reached or the pursuit is relinquished. During this time, the current concern guides the person’s...

Spontaneous thoughts occur by default in the interstices between directed, task- oriented thoughts or moments of perceptual scrutiny. Their contents are overwhelmingly related to thinkers' current goals, either directly or indirectly via associative networks, including past and future goals. Their evocation is accompanied by emotional responses tha...

There is increasing interest in spontaneous thought, namely task-unrelated or rest-related mental activity. Spontaneous thought is an umbrella term for processes like mindwandering, involuntary autobiographical memory, and daydreaming, with evidence elucidating adaptive and maladaptive consequences. In this theoretical framework, we propose that, a...

If a person expects that (a) drinking alcohol or using another addictive substance will enhance positive affect or reduce negative affect, and (b) there is a strong likelihood that these desirable consequences will occur if the substance is used, that person is likely to form a goal of using the substance. The theoretical framework presented here p...

When a person has a goal of drinking alcohol or using another addictive substance, the person appears to be automatically distracted by stimuli related to the goal. Because the attentional bias might propel the person to use the substance, an intervention might help modify it. In this article, we discuss techniques that have been developed to help...

Subjects’ moods of accomplishment or frustration were induced nonhypnotically by varying their goals on a pursuit rotor task. Immediately after mood induction, subjects learned a word list. After a second mood induction, subjects learned a second word list. Later they were asked to recall both word lists after a third mood induction. The results sh...

A few empirically supported principles can account for much of the thematic content of waking thought, including rumination, and dreams. (1) An individual's commitments to particular goals sensitize the individual to respond to cues associated with those goals. The cues may be external or internal in the person's own mental activity. The responses...

Ss were instructed to think out loud while engaged in solving manual puzzles, solving logic problems, revery, and quasihypnagogic thought. During the manual puzzle and logic problem activity, they produced significantly more utterances in which they evaluated their previous problem-solving thoughts or acts and in which they indicated that they were...

During extinction of a runway response, the activity levels of normal rats rise above, fall below, and finally return to baseline values in a regular sequence. In the present experiment amygdaloid lesions abolished these sequential activity changes. The results suggest that amygdaloid lesions abolish both the frustrational and depressional componen...

IntroductionAlcohol Use from a Motivational PerspectiveThe Motivational ModelThe Motivation to ChangeReferences

Alcohol Use from a Motivational PerspectiveThe Motivational ModelThe Motivation to ChangeReferences

Theoretical Bases for Motivational CounselingAssessing MotivationIntervention Techniques for Motivational CounselingTechniques Supplementary or Alternative to SMCFuture DirectionsReferences

Revised and updated to reflect the most recent developments in the field, the second edition of the Handbook of Motivational Counseling presents comprehensive coverage of the development and identification of motivational problems and the most effective treatment techniques. Equips clinicians with specific instructions for enhancing clients' motiva...

Alcohol Abuse and DependenceUsing Systematic Motivational Counseling with Alcohol-Dependent Clients: Initial Steps and OverviewPreliminary Counseling ComponentsGoal-Setting ComponentsSubsequent Counseling ComponentsLife Enhancement and Advancement ProgramOther Experiences Using SMCReferences

This commentary explores a number of issues raised by Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel (2007) in 'Describing Inner Experience'. The commentary argues for expanding the definition of mental imag-ery, by which it is a virtually universal human attribute; reintroduces a theory of response organization, the meaning complex, to conceptu-alize unsymbolized thin...

Motivation is a pervasive force that can affect well-being in a variety of life situations, from the more minor through to the ability to overcome addictions and other serious psychological problems. This book presents empirically supported theories (featuring current concerns theory), questionnaires based on these theories (highlighting the Motiva...

Studies of “fantasy-proneness” have suggested a modest relationship with psychopathology, contradicting previous findings of daydreaming as a normal part of human consciousness. To resolve this inconsistency, principal-components analyses of the chief fantasy-proneness measure, the Inventory of Childhood Memories and Imaginings (ICMI), produced 18...

Measuring offenders’ motivation for treatment is important, yet few measures exist. The Personal Concerns Inventory (PCI), a goal-based assessment, was adapted for offenders by including items relating to offending and prison. The psychometric properties of the resulting Personal Concerns Inventory: Offender Adaptation (PCI-OA) were examined with 1...

This commentary provides an evolutionary framework for the argument that motivation—goal striving—is central to animal and human life and governs most psychological processes, with implications for clinical practice. Neglect of clients’ goals may seriously misdirect treatment; Systematic Motivational Counseling systematizes treatment of clients’ mo...

Measuring offenders' motivation for treatment is important for selection and monitoring treatment engagement, yet few psychometrically robust measures of motivation exist. The Personal Concerns Inventory (PCI) was developed to assess motivation to change in people with addictive behaviours. It focuses on identifying goals in a wide variety of life...

ABSTRACT Previous research has found that subjects rate words that are closely related to their current concerns as affectively more arousing than other words. This investigation inquires whether a similar relationship occurs when arousal is measured electrodermally, and whether nonspecific (spontaneous) electrodermal activity is associated with se...

Clinical observations and anecdotal reports suggest that many people are more reluctant to disclose daydreams than thematically similar real past events. Two studies of daydream disclosures examined choices to disclose daydreams versus real experiences, imagined emotional and attitudinal reactions to such disclosures, the effects on these of experi...

The motivational theory of current concerns accounts for attentional focus on stimuli related to a person's goal pursuits. When people actively pursue a goal of using addictive substances in order to regulate their affective states, they have a current concern for procuring and using the substance. A current concern is a latent, time-binding, goal-...

The chapter considers the use of individualized versus generalized stimuli to assess implicit cognitive processes in addictive behaviors. Most studies have used generalized stimuli that were not specifically selected for each participant. A major advantage of doing so is that compiling the stimuli is straightforward. A uniform set of addiction-rela...

Motivation Formally DefinedThe Centrality of Motivation in Brain and MindImportant Distinctions Regarding MotivationGoal Pursuits and the Concept of Current ConcernGoals and EmotionsHow Goal Pursuits BeginHow Goal Pursuits UnfoldHow Goal Pursuits EndMotivational StructureIncentives, Goals, Well-Being, and the Sense that One's Life is MeaningfulRefe...

Motivational Measurement in Historical PerspectiveMotivational Structure QuestionnairePersonal Concerns InventoryPersonal Aspirations and Concerns InventoryConclusions References

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Challenges and Solutions in Assessing Reliability of THEMSQFactor Structure of MSQ and PCI ScalesEvidence on the Validity of MSQ-Like InstrumentsSummaryAcknowledgmentsReferences

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The effects of Systematic Motivational Counseling (SMC) on adults following traumatic brain injury (TBI) were assessed. The sample comprised 40 participants in the SMC Group who received 12 individual SMC sessions and 54 participants in the Comparison Group who received no motivational or substance-abuse treatment. Both groups received rehabilitati...

The motivational model stresses that substance misuse occurs in the context of the satisfactions and frustrations that people derive from incentives in other areas of their lives. Therefore, it is important to assess substance users' motivational structure, that is, the patterns by which they strive for these incentives. This article presents a tec...

The ability of motivational structure and other variables to predict alcohol consumption was assessed in university students (N = 370; 244 women) in the Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Norway and the United States. Motivational structure was assessed with the Motivational Structure Questionnaire (MSQ), which inquires about respondents' individual...

To assess relationships between alcohol consumption and two dimensions of drinking restraint (temptation and restriction), American and German college students were given the Khavari Alcohol Test (KAT) and the Temptation and Restraint Inventory (TRI). As hypothesized, drinking temptation was a positive predictor of students' alcohol consumption in...

In previous research, presleep suggestions influenced nocturnal dream content. It was hypothesized that suggesting topics associated with participants' current concerns would influence dream content more than suggesting other topics. Ten students spent 4 nights in a sleep laboratory: an adaptation night, a baseline night, and 2 nights under suggest...

This investigation examined the motivational structures of 26 patients diagnosed with alcoholism in comparison to 30 demographically similar technical university students. Responding to the Motivational Structure Questionnaire, the clinical group listed 40% fewer goals, responded as if they needed richer incentives to form strong commitments to goa...

In previous research, presleep suggestions influenced nocturnal dream content. It was hypothesized that suggesting topics associated with participants’ current concerns would influence dream content more than suggesting other topics. Ten students spent 4 nights in a sleep laboratory: an adaptation night, a baseline night, and 2 nights under suggest...

The investigation examines the Motivational Structure Questionnaire in Czech (n = 112) and American (n = 112) student groups. Besides the MSQ itself some other personality measures, stress measure and screening methods for alcohol use and related problems were employed. Results revealed significant inter-group differences in these complementary mea...

The article surveys recent developments in theories of motivation and volition. It describes current-concerns theory as principally a theory of latent time-binding states, the current concerns, that extend from the initiation of commitment to a goal pursuit to its termation. Evidence confirms that these concerns account for the control of attention...

H. Heckhausen served as director of the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research and was active in bridging American and German psychological traditions. Heckhausen's research interests were in achievement motivation, investigating the path from wishes to goal attainment.

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The final, common pathway to alcohol use is motivational. A person decides consciously or unconsciously to consume or not to consume any particular drink of alcohol according to whether or not he or she expects that the positive affective consequences of drinking will outweigh those of not drinking. Various factors (e.g., past experiences with drin...

Describes a motivational counseling technique, derived from the motivational model of alcohol use, that helps alcohol-dependent veterans find compelling nonchemical incentives to pursue as an alternative to drinking alcohol. The counselor assesses the alcoholic's motivational structure with the Motivational Structure Questionnaire for Alcoholics (E...

This study tested the effect of ethanol on activity levels following a downshift in the magnitude of food reward. During the 10 days of Phase 1, four groups of 10 female albino rats drank a nonalcoholic fluid and then received conditioning trials in an operant chamber for a large (two groups) or small (two groups) reward. During the 10 days of Phas...

We animals have our drastic differences, but almost all of us — from amoe-bas to humans — have at least one behavioral imperative in common: We almost all have to go out and get the things we need in order to survive and procreate. We have to identify them, reach out or ambulate towards them, and bring them to those of our organs that can make use...

Previous research has demonstrated that the emotional properties of words and their imaginability affect their recallability and that verbal material is recalled better when it is related to subjects' current concerns. This study investigates the extent to which this effect of emotion on recall varies as a function of cognitively controllable infer...

Motivational patterns of 60 alcoholic inpatients were assessed by use of the Interview Questionnaire (IntQ) and were related to staff judgments regarding patients' success or failure in completing an inpatient treatment program. The IntQ was administered soon after intake, one month later, and at the end of treatment. It elicits patients' idiograph...

In order to evaluate cognitive-interference, reassertion, and reaction-to-performance models of test anxiety, 82 students completed the Test Anxiety Scale, provided state measures of anxiety just before and after a course examination, described their preparation for the test, and reported thought content and state anxiety up to six times during the...

The usability of near beer as a carrier beverage for research that varies alcoholic content is supported because, in a beer-sampling experiment, light beer was not significantly discriminated from regular beer, and near beer without ethanol was not significantly discriminated from near beer with 3.2% ethanol.

Every coach and experienced athlete knows the importance of maintaining "concentration" for good performance, and every coach and athlete knows that performance tends to be uneven. Both within games and within seasons, players and teams go into slumps and, with any luck, come out of them again. There is no firm a priori basis for believing that con...

The hypothesis that cues related to Ss' current concerns can control attentional and cognitive processes during sleeping and dreaming was examined by presenting concern- and nonconcern-related verbal stimuli to 7 male undergraduates during sleep Stages 2 and REM. The taped dream reports were judged for stimulus incorporation by 2 independent raters...

This paper presents three broad propositions regarding imagery. First, imagery partakes of processes central to human functioning. Second, control over imagery constitutes control over a large part of a person’s total psychic apparatus. Third, intervention methods based on imagery therefore have great power. The paper is not intended as a comprehen...

The stream of our consciousness contains an almost unceasing parade of sensation-like experiences, even in the absence of any external stimulation to produce them. We experience picture-like things, sound-like things, and more; our experiences can resemble any of our sense modalities. These experiences are what we refer to by the phrase "mental ima...

Following evidence that cues related to Ss' current concerns control cognitive processing, this investigation probes the concern attributes that determine concern influence on thought content. The hypothesis—based on theory implicating affect in the initiation of thought segments, in determining incentive value, and in disengagement—predicted that...

It is uncannily fitting that the first annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Mental Imagery took place on the centennial of Wilhelm Wundt’s founding of his Leipzig laboratory; but at the same time it is somewhat eerie that this meeting was only the first gathering of an American association for the study of mental imagery. The...

This brief comment begins with a general highly favorable critique of the preceding chapter, considers some omissions and some implications of the way imagery is viewed, and suggests outlines of general principles concerning imaginai processes that appear to emerge from the material reviewed by Anderson as well as from some not reviewed.

The psychology of thought flow and response organization bears on literary communication — both its reception and creation — in a number of important ways. Listeners pay extra attention and are much more likely to recall and have thoughts related to literary passages that touch most closely on the listeners' current concerns — especially, perhaps,...

When we speak of consciousness we are referring to the sum total of events in awareness. The term by no means exhausts the realm of things psychological, but it does encompass all of an individual’s direct experience. When we speak of the flow of consciousness we are referring to the changes that take place in consciousness over time. The events of...