Jones and Nisbett proposed that actors are inclined to attribute their behavior to situational causes, while observers of the same behavior are inclined to attribute it to dispositional qualities-stable attitudes and traits-of the actor. Some demonstrational studies consistent with this hypothesis were described. College student observers were found to (a) assume that actors would behave in the future in ways similar to those they had just witnessed (while actors themselves did not share this assumption); (b) describe their best friend's choices of girlfriend and college major in terms referring to dispositional qualities of their best friend (while more often describing their own similar choices in terms of properties of the girlfriend or major); and (c) ascribe more personality traits to other people than to themselves.

Two recent postmodern movements, constructivism and deconstruction, challenge the idea of a single meaning of reality and suggest that meanings result from social experience. We show how these postmodern approaches can be applied to the psychology of gender. Examining gender theories from a constructivist standpoint, we note that the primary meaning of gender in psychology has been difference. The exaggeration of differences, which we call alpha bias, can be seen in approaches that focus on the contrasting experiences of men and women. The minimizing of differences, beta bias, can be seen in approaches that stress the similarity or equality of men and women. From a deconstructivist position, we examine previously hidden meanings in the discourse of therapy that reveal cultural assumptions about gender relations. Paradoxes in contemporary constructions of gender impel us to go beyond these constructions. The Construction of RealityConstructivism asserts that we do not discover reality, we invent it (Watzlawick, 1984). Our experience does not directly reflect what is "out there" but is an ordering and organizing of it. Knowing is a search for "fitting" ways of behaving and thinking (Von Glaserfeld, 1984). Rather than passively observing reality, we actively construct the meanings that frame and organize our perceptions and experience. Thus, our understanding of reality is a representation, that is, a "re-presentation," not a replica, of

The number of psychologists whose work crosses cultural boundaries is increasing. Without a critical awareness of their own cultural grounding, they risk imposing the assumptions, concepts, practices, and values of U.S.-centered psychology on societies where they do not fit, as a brief example from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami shows. Hermeneutic thinkers offer theoretical resources for gaining cultural awareness. Culture, in the hermeneutic view, is the constellation of meanings that constitutes a way of life. Such cultural meanings – especially in the form of folk psychologies and moral visions – inevitably shape every psychology, including U.S. psychology. The insights of hermeneutics, as well as its conceptual resources and research approaches, open the way for psychological knowledge and practice that are more culturally situated.

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Recent work on the psychology of gender is pluralistic, stemming from varied specialty areas within psychology, grounded in several intellectual frameworks, and reflecting a spectrum of feminist perspectives. This article is a critical appraisal of diverse approaches to the study of women and gender. it first describes prefeminist or "womanless" psychology, then analyzes four coexisting frameworks that have generated recent research. The four frameworks are: Exceptional Women, in which empirical research focuses on the correlates of high achievement for women, and women's history in the discipline i s reevaluated; Women as Problem (or Anomaly), in which research emphasizes explanations for female "deficiencies" (e.g., fear of success); the Psychology of Gender, in which the focus of inquiry shifts from women to gender, conceived as a principle of social organization that structures relations between women and men; and a (currently relatively undeveloped) Transformation framework that reflexively challenges the values, assumptions, and normative practices of the discipline. Examples of research programs within each a p proach are described, and the strengths and limitations of each approach are critically examined.

Historically, ethical codes for therapists were drawn up to protect the professions from regulation by external agencies. Implicit in the ethical codes, however, is a model for the client-therapist relationship that fosters the goals of mental health. Just as ethical codes have been given specific content in standards for providers of psychological services in human service facilities, ethical codes can be given specific content in the client-therapist relationship. Therapists need to take responsibility for incorporating ethical standards into their practices so that clients' rights will be an integral part of therapy. We present four illustrative situations: providing clients with information to make informed decisions about therapy, using contracts in therapy, responding to clients' challenges to therapists ' competence, and handling clients' complaints.

Along the borders of psychology, a quiet but steady stream of qualitative research has gradually been gaining momentum. Social psychology, developmental psychology, cultural psychology, psychology of women and gender, clinical and counseling psychology, and personality psychology: In all these fields, psychologists are trying qualitative approaches. The qualitative umbrella is a large one, sheltering many ways of working and many different traditions, lexicons, and pretheoretical assumptions. Qualitative workers value creativity and innovation and so they have embraced novel forms of data, new means of gathering data, experimental forms of writing, and unorthodox and even playful ways of disseminating results. Their stance is a counterpoint to the strict codification (sometimes verging on fetishization) of methods, statistics, and scientific writing that marks mainstream American psychology.At the heart of the movement toward qualitative inquiry in psychology are three intertwined elements. First, qualitative inquiry embeds the study of psychology in rich contexts of history, society, and culture. Second, it resituates the people whom we study in their life worlds, paying special attention to the social locations they occupy. Third, it regards those whom we study as reflexive, meaning-making, and intentional actors. Qualitative psychology concerns itself with human experience and action. It examines the patterned ways that we have come to think about and act in our life worlds and that sustain the social structure of those worlds (Kleinman, 1984). I use the term qualitative stance rather than qualitative methods to indicate that qualitative work involves more than different techniques of collecting and analyzing data. A qualitative stance is grounded in a different epistemology.Qualitative inquiry has a long history in psychology that goes back to Wilhelm Wundt's Vo ¨lkerpsychologie. Drawing on earlier philosophical traditions stretching back to Vico, Wundt (1921) envisioned a system of psychology with two branches. One, familiar to most readers, was devoted to the laboratory I would like to thank the editors and Eva Magnusson for their thoughtful comments and criticisms. 49

Although positive psychology now promotes itself globally, its American roots are evident in its persistent though unacknowledged attachment to an Americaninspired brand of individualism. That attachment is evident in the movement's endorsement of self-fulfillment as the ultimate life goal, its promotion of selfimprovement via personal effort, and its narrow sense of the social. We maintain that the bounded, autonomous self that strides through a positive life is an illusion, as is the notion that human flourishing and happiness are readily available to all. We also take issue with the individualistic vision that pervades positive psychologists' descriptions of society and social institutions. Taking as an example A Primer in Positive Psychology (a recent textbook written by one of the founding fathers of positive psychology and highly praised by the others), we argue that positive psychology's rendering of social institutions is fundamentally asocial and neglects gender, class, ethnicity, and power relations.