The Construct Formerly Known as Secondary Control: Reply to Skinner (2007)

摘要

The authors reply to E. A. Skinner (2007, p. 911), who agreed with their distinction between controlfocused rnand fit-focused secondary control (B. Morling & S. Evered, 2006) but who argued that fit-focused secondary control should be renamed accommodation and be liberated from the control domain. The authors agree that their conception of fit-focused secondary control overlaps with accommodation and that researchers should study such psychological processes in their own right—not solely as a backup to primary control. Although the authors can assent to a name change, they argue that the line between control and accommodation is messier than E. A. Skinner's taxonomy suggests. The 2 constructs work together to help people achieve fit between self and context, and in certain cultural contexts, they may overlap. The field might observe a transitional period in which both terms were used, so that accommodation would not prematurely or unreasonably sever its ties to control or to the fit-focused construct described by F. Rothbaum, J. R. Weisz, and S. S. Snyder (1982).