234 Book Reviews

Often an edited book is considerably uneven in writing quality because of the varia-
tion to be expected in the writing abilities of the large number of contributors; however,
in this book, the quality is uniformly high.
In a time of information explosion, the individual must carefully ration the time
given to the reading of the professional articles and books available. When important
psychotherapeutic schools can be described adequately within an average of 65 pages a
school, then such a book should rank high on the psychologist’s reading list.
GRG

HERSEN,M., & BELLACK, A.S. (Eds.) (1981). Behavioral assessment: A practical

handbook (2nd ed.). New York: Pergamon Press, 603 pp., $45.00 (hard cover),
$19.50 (paper).
This is the second edition of Hersen and Bellack’s 1976 handbook. Twelve of the 15
chapters are completely new, and the remaining three have been updated. Two chapters
address fundamental issues in behavioral assessment. Four chapters deal with assessment
strategies, including interviewing, observation, self-report, and psychophysiological
assessment. The remaining nine chapters discuss behavioral assessment for different dis-
orders and subject populations-anxiety, depression, social skills, psychotic behavior,
marital and sexual dysfunction, and two chapters on children.
In keeping with the spirit of behavioral assessment, it seems appropriate to evaluate
the second edition of this book against the “baseline” of the first edition in order to iden-
tify changes in the field. The most obvious changes are that three chapters in the second
edition are about topics not represented by chapters in the first edition. The chapter on
the nature of behavioral assessment is new and is largely concerned with distinguishing
between behavioral and “traditional” (a favorite sneer word of radical behaviorists)
assessment, which, we are told, differ not in their techniques, but in their assumptions.
Apparently, it is no longer possible to distinguish between behavioral assessors and
traditional assessors (who are referred to in the preface as “psychometricians of the
past”) by direct behavioral observations; instead cognitive “assumptions” must be
employed.
At this point it is necessary to comment on the verbal behavior of radical
behaviorists. Terms such as traditional, psychometricians of the past, and the like are
liberally sprinkled through several of the chapters, suggesting incorrectly that psy-
chometrics is no longer current and was (when it existed) a benighted field. Of course,
similar terms are attached to dynamic psychotherapy and psychiatric diagnosis. Another
of their verbal habits is the gratuitous use of the terms science and scientific to exclude all
approaches to psychology except those based on situational causes of behavior. Of
course, any definition of science that excludes the study of stable patterns of individual
differences also will exclude all areas of the natural sciences except mechanics. The rest
of physics, as well as astronomy, chemistry, and biology, will be grouped with individual
differences as nonscientific. Clearly, something is wrong with the radical behaviorists’ use
 Book Reviews 235

of the word science. In fairness, these misleading verbal behaviors are not as prevalent in
this book as they have been in much previous behavioral literature. Perhaps, in this field,
approximations to intellectual honesty should be rewarded.
Cone’s chapter on “Psychometric Considerations’’ also represents a new topic.
Although thoughtful, this chapter presents an unsatisfying resolution to the conflict
(approach-avoidance, of course, not Freudian) that behaviorist assessors have ex-
perienced with regard to psychometrics. Reliability, along with its true and error scores,
is discarded in favor of accuracy, which in practice is interobserver agreement and in-
distinguishable from interscorer reliability. Most forms of validity, as well as Cronbach’s
generalizability theory, are considered and discarded, since they are based on interin-
dividual differences. Of course, norms do not even rate a note in this chapter, presumably
for the same reason.
Fortunately, psychometric considerations are more appropriately considered by the
authors of chapters concerned with the various disorders who typically evaluate the
reliabilities of various techniques and occasionally their validities. By psychometric stan-
dards, some behavioral techniques have adequate interscorer reliabilities and face
validities. Because of the limitations imposed by the paradigm, behavioral techniques are
not usually evaluated against criteria of standardization, temporal stability, internal con-
sistency, construct validity, or criterion-related validity. However, this reviewer is no
more willing to overlook these criteria for behavioral assessment techniques than he is to
overlook them for projective techniques. Special pleading is no substitute for adequate
measurement.
One of the most intriguing changes between the two editions is the inclusion of a
chapter in the second edition on “Behavioral Observation.” Over the years, direct
behavioral observation has declined in status from first being synonymous with
behavioral assessment, to then being the central component of behavioral assessment
supplemented by other techniques, to currently being only one of several techniques of
behavioral assessment such as self-reports, ratings, interviews, and physiological
measurements. As simply one of several techniques, direct behavioral observation must
now be covered in its own separate chapter. The limited use of direct behavioral observa-
tion in behavioral assessment has resulted for the same reasons that it has been used only
on a limited basis by other psychological assessors-that is, high cost, inconvenience,
reactivity, uneconomical use of time, and low information yield compared to other
techniques, especially when used in combination.
Viewed from the other direction, change in the field of behavioral assessment is
reflected by the absence of five topics that appeared in the first edition. Two of these
topics simply did not require repetition-“Historical Perspectives” and “Behavioral
Classification.” There have, however, been important intellectual activities dealing with
both these topics. Particularly, behavioral classification deserves a chapter in a future
edition of this handbook.
A chapter on “Cognitive-Behavior Modification” does not appear in the second edi-
tion for the inverse of the reason that a chapter on direct observation does appear. In the
1970s, cognitive issues were begrudgingly admitted to behavioral assessment under the
pressure of the “cognitive revolution” in psychology. (Haven’t you heard? The
behavioral revolution has come-and gone.) In the 1980s, the behavioral approach is the
cognitive-behavioral approach, and a separate chapter on this topic in a behavioral
assessment handbook makes as little sense as a separate chapter on direct observation
would have made when direct observation was behavioral assessment.
236 Book Reviews

The nonappearance of chapters on self-control and mental retardation in the second

edition can be explained in one word-disappointment. Particularly in the intellectual
and academic areas, behavioral techniques have failed to improve on or add to the assess-
ment information available from the major intelligence and achievement tests. In fact,
the trend seems to be simply to incorporate these measures into behavioral assessments
with appropriate philosophic disclaimers. Behaviorists, too, extinguish when their efforts
are not rewarded.
Of particular interest to readers of this journal are the last two chapters on children
in outpatient and inpatient settings. These chapters present very useful assessment infor-
mation and are a marked improvement on the children’s chapters in the first edition,
which were organized around behavioral excesses and deficits. Clearly, empirical
research has had a great influence on assessment of children in the behavioral paradigm,
as well as in the “medical model” (another whipping boy of the behavioral assessors).
Both behavioral assessment and the “medical” DSM-111 are converging to similar trait-
like views of child disorders. The behavioral assessors have gradually rediscovered that
specific behavioral excesses and deficits covary in familiar trait-like continua such as con-
duct disorders and anxiety/withdrawal that have been known for decades to readers of
Guilford, Cattell, and Eysenck.
In summary, this book should be read by any professional involved in assessment,
whether a “behaviorist” or not. While the radical behaviorists are gradually rediscover-
ing the psychometric wheel in the areas of reliability and behavioral traits and the prac-
tical assessment wheel in the economical use of available assessment techniques, they
have, in the process, contributed to psychological assessment. In fact, the behavioral and
psychometric approaches to assessment are quite compatible. The strengths of one com-
plement the weaknesses of the other. Human behavior is not as completely stable as the
early psychometrists had expected, but stable enough that consistent problem areas (as
well as assets) can be detected. Neither is human behavior as readily changed as the early
behaviorists had hoped, but changeable enough that affective treatment can be brought
to bear on many problems, or, failing that, at least effective management. By cataloging
a variety of useful assessment techniques and demonstrating the convergence of the psy-
chometric and behavioral approaches (from the behavioral side, of course), this book
makes a substantial contribution to psychological assessment, whether it is called
behavioral or otherwise.
James A. Wakefield, Jr.
California State College, Stanislaus

SERBAN, G . (1982). The tyranny of magical thinking: The child’s world of belief and
adult neurosis. New York: Dutton, 256 pp., $17.95.
George Serban, a practicing psychiatrist and academician, finds the roots of adult
neurosis firmly planted in children’s prelogical thought and experience. In the case of an
adult solving problems by fabrication instead of fact, Serban calls this nonrational, affec-
tive reasoning, “magical” thinking. Preoperational children fortuitously cluster events
and, welding them together in the heat of childhood emotional happenstance, confuse