Professional Psychology: Research and Practice1990, Vol. 21, No. 4, 264-270

Copyright 1990 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0735-7028/90/$00.75

The Scientist-Practitioner Connection:A Bridge in Need of Constant Attention

Frederick H. KanferUniversity of Illinois

Recent criticisms of the methods and mission of science and the sufficiency of an empiricallybased epistemology extend to the scientist-practitioner model of practice because of its foundationin the traditional view of science. Applied psychology should draw on basic research, but it mustblend this knowledge with technology and heuristics that relate it to the practical problem at hand.The development of guidelines translating robust implications of scientific knowledge into heuris-tics for professional use has been much neglected. Bonding of science and practice, from bothdirections, requires support of an organized group of specialists whose primary tasks are (a) toexplore the utility of basic theories and research for practice and to develop rules of when to usewhich theory or data set for specified situations and (b) to formulate research questions arising frompractice-based observations and speculations.

The practice of professional psychology in the United Stateshas been heavily influenced by various training models. Thedominant training model for clinical and counseling psychol-ogy was first proposed at a conference on training in Boulder,Colorado, in 1949. It was a sketch of a world in which profes-sionals trained in scientific methodology and in assessmentand intervention methods would simply apply the concepts anddata of psychological science to solve the problems encounteredin their daily practice. At a time when logical positivism was thedominant philosophy and "the standard view" of science(Schemer, 1967), there was little question that only scientificknowledge could be trusted. This view focused attention ondata derived from observations of person-environment interac-tions, rather than intrapersonal events. During the days of thegrowing dominance of behavioral approaches in clinical psy-chology, this view made the practice of psychotherapy appearscientific and respectable.

Recently, psychologists have increased the debate about themission of psychology as a science in its own right or an enter-prise in the service of society (Bevan, 1980). Manicas and Se-

FREDERICK. H. KANFER received his PhD from Indiana University in1953. He is currently Professor and Director of the Clinical/Commu-nity Training Program at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Ur-bana. His research interests include self-regulatory and motivationalprocesses and their role in clinical and social interventions. He re-cently co-authored Guiding the process of therapeutic change (1988)with B. Schefft and co-edited Helping people change (4th edition, inpress) with A. P. Goldstein.BECAUSE OF the author's area of specialization, examples are takenfrom clinical and counseling psychology. The same principles, how-ever, should be equally useful in most other specialties of applied psy-chology.THE AUTHOR THANKS Howard Berenbaum and Ruth Kanfer for theircritical reading of an earlier version of this article.CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THIS ARTICLE should be addressed toFrederick H. Kanfer, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois,603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820.

cord (1983) proposed a distinction between the task of the scien-tist and the professional: "The former practices science bycreating at least partially closed systems; the latter uses thediscoveries of science, but . . . also employs a great deal ofknowledge that extends beyond science" (p. 412). Psychologistshave also criticized the scientific method as an infallible ap-proach to the accumulation of knowledge. The standard viewof science has come under attack from different quarters. Inparticular, the utility of natural science methodology for coun-seling and psychotherapy has been challenged on variousgrounds (Frank, 1987; Koch, 1981). Frank (1987) suggested thatthe main power of any scientific approach to psychotherapyhas been derived less from its contents and methods than fromits strong position that any enterprise labeled science has in theAmerican culture. The development of alternative views con-cerning the rules for obtaining empirical knowledge, the in-creased emphasis on the impact of values and ethics in theapplied enterprise, and the role of observer bias in distortion ofpresumably objective data have further weakened the image ofcounselors and therapists as applied scientists. The scientist-practitioner model thus has been questioned by attack on bothits scientific foundation and the suitability of its roots in sciencefor everyday application.

Numerous surveys have suggested that the Boulder trainingmodel has not been successful in creating persons who practicetheir profession on a scientific basis (Swan & MacDonald,1978). For example, clinicians are not avid readers of researchpublications. Barlow, Hayes, and Nelson (1984) concluded thatmost practitioners are not influenced by research. Rather, theytypically use strategies that are based on individual choice of anapproach, on personal experience, and on persuasiveness ofcolleagues and teachers. Strupp (1981) attributed the educa-tional shortcomings partly to the lack of appropriate role mod-els. He asked, "How many supervisors are intimately familiarwith the frontiers of current research?" (p. 218). He deploredthe fact that students are not trained "to become thinking clini-cians who c^> effectively apply quality control in their dailypractice" (p. 218). The most common distortion of the Boulder

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Model has been the focus on science in graduate school and onpractice in later professional activity. In other words, a succes-sive rather than a simultaneous adherence to the scientist-prac-titioner concept is frequently adopted. Nevertheless, theachievements in psychotherapy and other areas of applied psy-chology during the past 40 years, in which the Boulder Modelwas dominant, suggests that it would be a pity if the recentincrease in criticism of the scientist-practitioner model led to areturn to reliance on appealing but untested theories and plau-sible but unfounded explanatory constructs as a basis for profes-sional operations. In this article, the problem is re-evaluatedthrough the question "What are some inherent limitations inthe use of psychological science for practice?" I then suggest theneed for training some psychologists as "translators" who (a)devote systematic attention to research and dissemination ofpractical implications and methods derived from various do-mains of the social sciences and/or (2) formulate professionalproblems in "basic science" language and collaborate with (oract as) scientists whose expertise encompasses the domain inwhich these researchable questions are phrased.

Science-Based Resources for Clinical Action

We consider applied psychology a problem-solving activity.In counseling and clinical work (D'Zurilla & Goldfried, 1971;E H. Kanfer & Schefft, 1988; Urban & Ford, 1971), the profes-sional assists the client to assess a problematic situation, todefine intervention goals, and to find ways that would remedythe client's distress by altering ineffective behaviors, thoughts,emotional reactions, or environmental factors. To formulate aproblem and select treatment strategies, individual case param-eters (eg., resources or settings) must be taken into consider-ation. But, in addition, the practitioner must skillfully blendthree major cognitive components:

1. A framework for organizing knowledge about the relation-ships between psychological events, their settings, their corre-lates, and their antecedents. There are two central questionsassociated with this component: (a) Which of the many beliefsystems about human nature do we choose? This involves achoice of a general philosophy, a perspective that gives priorityto some dimensions and phenomena over others in explainingthe major forces that shape and maintain human actions, emo-tions and attitudes, (b) How do we know for sure? More ele-gantly put, which data can we accept as a basis of our knowl-edge, and what rules do we follow in developing reliable andvalid operations for obtaining such data and for translatingthem into general guidelines?

2. A technology—that is, a series of guidelines for action toachieve specific outcomes within the limits of the existing con-ditions and implements. The main concerns relate to the justi-fication for the use of various techniques for effective diagnosisand treatment. In contrast to the theoretical domain, utilityrather than validity is the essential criterion in this area. Issuesin this and the first components are closely related. Choice of atheoretical framework sets limitations and provides guidelinesfor selection and organization of observations and tools.

3. A set of guidelines on how to relate the theoretical modelsand substantive knowledge about human behavior to decisionsand actions in work with individual clients. This third compo-

nent has been given much too little attention. Which minithe-ory, what body of scientific knowledge, and which treatmentmethod are relevant to the problem at hand? What data domainand which level of analysis should be selected for the client'spresenting problem? Barber (1988) phrased this as the lack ofguidelines on how to use models and how to map problems.Boehm (1980) stressed the "real world" problem as the startingpoint for research and knowledge utilization in a conceptualmodel for organizational practice. Maher (1983), in a cogentformulation of the relationship between a parent theory of hu-man beings and a theory of practice, emphasized the reliance ofthe latter on principles of the former in developing operationalguidelines for dealing with data that are gathered in therapysessions.

The movements of integrative and eclectic psychotherapyhave advocated and advanced the combination of methods (andeven theoretical constructs) from different schools of therapy(e.g, Norcross, 1986). However, only sporadic efforts have beendevoted to relate limited science subdomains and clinical prac-tice (e.g, Brewin, 1988; Fbrsterling, 1988, among others).

Procedures and knowledge from any research domain maybe transformed into professional interventions if they have rele-vance for the problem to be solved. But they must also be trans-posable to operations with variables that realistically can bemodified and that have a sufficiently large effect to make adifference in the person's day-to-day activities and experiences.Monitoring the effects of the operations is informative withregard to the utility of the transformation. Furthermore, practi-cal experiences can feed back to generate research toward re-finement of the underlying theory and improvement of tech-niques, which would yield greater ecological validity of thetheory and increased or differentiated effectiveness of meth-ods. The continuing interplay between attribution theory andcognitive-behavioral treatments of depression (Alloy, Abram-son, Metalsky, & Hartlage, 1988; Beck, 1967,1983; Heider,1958; Weiner, 1980,1986) nicely illustrated this reciprocal anditerative cross-fertilization between theory and practice.

The current cognitive-behavioral approach to depression isamong the best examples of the productive interplay betweenresearchers and practitioners. The exaggerated self-blame, lackof positive goals, low belief in one's ability to control events, andlow expectation of positive outcomes have long been observedin depressed patients (Beck, 1967). The development of labora-tory-based paradigms of helplessness (Peterson & Seligman,1984; Seligman, 1975), insufficiency of positive reinforcement(Lewinsohn, 1975; Lewinsohn, Sullivan, & Grosscup, 1980),and self-regulation (E H. Kanfer, 1970) was enriched by theclinically based approaches such as those of Beck and his co-workers (eg. Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979; Beck & Young,1985) and Rehm (1977) and his co-workers (eg, Rehm, Kaslow,& Rabin, 1987). In turn, the clinical observations resulted inrefinement of the paradigms, such as inclusion of attributionalfactors (E H. Kanfer & Hagerman, 1981). Studies by these andother researchers yielded a more differentiated explanation ofthe psychopathological mechanisms of depression that morereadily fit clinical observations and enlarged the practitioner'sstore of therapeutic operations. These integrations necessitateboth the practitioner's familiarity with research-based modelsand the researcher^ sensitivity about which factors in clinical

266 FREDERICK H. KANFER

populations must be considered to guarantee appropriatenessand sufficiency of the theoretical model.

The recent literature on empirically based counseling andpsychotherapy has many examples of this translation from labo-ratory procedures and theoretical generalizations to profes-sional practices. What is lacking is a generic road map on howto mine the treasures of basic research for the compact wis-doms: the principles that have wide utility for professionalpractices. Specific guidelines and examples on how to selectwell-established experimental paradigms and robust general-izations for particular clinical events would substantially aidthe practitioner and encourage utilization of research. It is bysuch a process, though not deliberately organized, that variousparadigms (e.g., conditioning, attribution, self-regulation, self-efficacy, information-processing, and problem solving) are in-creasingly being incorporated into applied psychology. Theseubiquitous principles of human activities and experiences arenot limited to the few characteristics that are often referred toas the common elements in all therapies (Frank, 1985; Gold-fried & Newman, 1986). They occur in most human interac-tions and can be systematically employed in pursuit of differentpractical goals.

Examples of specific robust findings that have been incorpo-rated in clinical and counseling tactics are the consequences ofmood states on memory (Bower, 1981), actions (Isen, 1984), orevaluative judgments (Schwarz & Clore, 1988); the conditionsmost favorable for developing intentions to act (Azjen & Fish-bein, 1980; Fazio, 1986; E H. Kanfer & Karoly, 1972; Petty &Cacioppo, 1986); the motivational effects of emotional arousal(Greenberg & Safran, 1987); the effects of automatic versus con-trolled processing on action (E H. Kanfer & Schefft, 1988; E H.Kanfer & Stevenson, 1985; Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977); or therelationship of current concerns to goal-directed action(Klinger, 1977,1987). Some findings suggest that the profes-sional's activities may be influenced by common biasing effectsin making judgments about clients or reacting to a client's be-havior (e.g, Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982; Turk & Salovey,1988). They must be noted as well.

To date, practitioners have tended to select and directly applyprocedures that have been described for broadly equivalentcomplaints or diagnostic categories, without much consider-ation of other parameters. In current practice, for example,counselors often use the initial complaint to select a theory (e.g,about the etiology or mechanisms in alcoholism) and thensearch for data in an individual case to match the theory. Someeven proceed without such a search. Prescriptive treatments forobsessive-compulsive clients, for withdrawn clients, for agora-phobic clients, and for clients with other syndromes have beenreported in the literature. Although such standard procedurescertainly are among the possible interventions for a client, itmakes little sense to apply a priori one method to all.

In bridge building, as an example of another applied science,an engineer does not design a bridge by appealing solely togeneral principles of physics. Whether the bridge is to be builtin an arctic climate or in the tropics, is to be built over a wideand slowly moving river or a swift and narrow stream, is ex-posed to heavy truck traffic or occasional pedestrian traffic,and has to withstand strong winds or not will determine thebody of knowledge and the special technology applicable in the

individual case. In the social sciences, self-constructing anddevelopmental aspects (Ford, 1987) and self-regulatory func-tions of human beings (E H. Kanfer, 1984) enlarge the bridgemodel to include the constant shifts in the "terrain" that are dueto cultural differences (Draguns, 1985; Triandis & Draguns,1980), such new trends as the use of pharmacological agents toalter treatment procedures and even life-styles, and advances intelecommunication to alter employment patterns and job re-quirements.

With these changes, old theories and even robust principlesrequire reassessment to test their sufficiency and appropriate-ness for the application to a current problem situation. Thus thepath from theory and research to practice has serious limita-tions in many situations. Therefore, the heuristic that I suggestfor the application of scientific principles to practice proceedsin exactly the opposite direction. The first step begins with theclient. A critical assessment is made of societal, psychological,and biological processes that are operating in the present situa-tion. The specification of critical variables in the individualcase should then direct the professional to search for theoriesand data that are relevant to the specific psychological, social,or biological processes and parameters that constitute the prob-lem components rather than to the contents of the complaintalone.

The translation from theory to application must be enrichedby consideration of the realities of the context in which therapyoccurs because reliance on a unidimensional, person-focusedmodel, be it a conditioning paradigm or a psychodynamic per-sonality theory, is simply inadequate and unrealistic. Contraryto common graduate training, this perspective suggests thatstudents not only be taught in didactic courses but also be tu-tored to analyze actual cases in terms of psychological pro-cesses and contextual parameters first and then to select theor-ies and methods from the relevant subdomains of psychology.

Steps in Relating Practice to Basic Science

A sequence of steps can be outlined to assist the psychologistin utilizing available scientific knowledge for intervention in aparticular case. The professional must begin with a formula-tion of the problem. Having ascertained what factors may berelevant, what hypotheses can be derived from extant theories,and what variables can be manipulated, the professional canselect appropriate strategies and techniques. The approach canbe summarized by the following heuristic:

1. Obtain a statement of the current complaint and the fac-tors that seem to contribute to it.

2. Translate this information into the language of psychologi-cal, biological, or social processes and structures.

3. Scan the field for principles, literature, and research rele-vant to the problem as it has been reformulated in the languageof science. Examine the relevance of variables in adjacent datadomains, such as those related to the social, cultural, or ethniccontext and the biological or sociopolitical factors, as noted inthe individual case.

4. Describe, at the conceptual level, the desired outcomesand the psychological processes that need to be influenced.Formulate an intervention strategy that is based on these con-siderations, defining the level (size of unit) of intervention.

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5. Search for a technology and define specific parame-ters that may limit or enhance the feasibility and utility of themethods.

6. Apply the method. Monitor the effects and compare themagainst outcome criteria.

7. If desired effects are not obtained, recourse to Steps 1,4, or5, as needed.

This heuristic is iterative in that it needs to be followed notonly for the overall intervention strategy but also for smallersegments of the intervention process, ranging from brief inter-actions to the span of several sessions.

Bridge Building Requires Knowledge ofHow the Shores Differ in Terrain

There are a number of differences between the worlds ofscience and practice that need to be understood in any attemptto build bridges across these worlds (E H. Kanfer, 1985,1989).Only when we consider the scientific domain as a resource inselecting problem-solving strategies and techniques and not asthe stage on which the intervention is played can laboratoryresearch and generic principles contribute to solving real-lifeproblems. To facilitate the translation, it helps to note someimportant differences in orientation and demand characteris-tics of experimental and applied settings.

Source of Data Inputs

In contrast to the scientist, the practitioner can neitherchoose in advance what events to observe nor limit the range ofresponses that a client can make. Without the filtering of infor-mation that occurs in the laboratory, the relevance of variouscomponents of the total input must be determined on the spotby the professional. Although a professional psychologist maymake some a priori decisions about what he or she will attend toor disregard, unexpected information may seduce him or her toshift attention. Furthermore, in contrast to laboratory re-searchers, practitioners attend and respond not only to externalsources of information but also to their own reactions. Aware-ness of these biases can aid a practitioner, not to eliminate thosereactions but to recognize their effects, neutralize disturbingbiases, and accept those biases that can expedite an effectiveintervention process (Arkes, 1981; Kahneman et al, 1982; Turk&Salovey,1988).

Purpose and Focus

The scientist starts with a testable hypothesis. The constructsare anchored to data by operationalization and by a clear state-ment of measures to be taken. The scientist can freely select aproblem and predict the implications of a particular outcomefor support or refutation of a hypothesis. Data collection fol-lows hypothesis generation. Post hoc hypotheses are occasionalby-products of research, but personal experiences and experi-mental data are clearly separated. In practical situations, thecontexts tend to blend. Observations precede hypothesis for-mation, and tests are then set up to verify the reliability andvalidity of these observations. Furthermore, the purpose of theintervention is dictated by the nature of the client^ problem,the context, and practical constraints on both client and practi-

tioner. Indeed, the development of a goal and purpose of theenterprise is in itself part of the problem-solving process. Inaddition, in clinical interventions the very change that occursearly in therapy will frequently result in successive re-evalua-tions and alterations of the purpose of therapy and its goals. Inindustrial settings, early assessment of common practices andfunctions of the organizational components often leads to mod-ification of the project's original mission.

Success Criteria

Well-established criteria are used for evaluating the outcomeon an experiment. Use of statistical methods guards againstbiases and chance occurrences that may distort the conclu-sions. The concurrence with predicted outcomes and the fit ofresults with an underlying theory are the criteria for the successof an experiment. In practical situations, different criteria havebeen applied. But in all cases, the utility of the intervention, inaccordance with its goals and theories, is the main criterion. Anintervention that has a statistically significant effect may un-questionably demonstrate a relationship in the laboratory. Butit may be trivial in actual practice if it does not result in attain-ment of the desired goal. Kazdin (1977) suggested social valida-tion as a means of evaluating utility. When outcome is the onlycriterion, there is little opportunity for improvement of themethods because the entire complex of the underlying theoreti-cal framework, case formulation, and implementation of pro-cedures remains unanalyzed. These ingredients must be stud-ied separately to yield improvement. Furthermore, utility is of-ten determined not only by the practitioner's activities and theclient's behavior but also by the client's social environment andits reaction to any change. As a result, utility may change duringthe course of an intervention and therefore needs to be contin-ually defined with respect to methods, goals, and subgoals. Al-though utility is the ultimate criterion, it must be applied dy-namically to processes and components, rather than to thewhole intervention package.

Language

A characteristic of scientific communication is the unequivo-cal definition of terms so that an object or an event can beclearly identified or replicated, regardless of the person's theo-retical persuasion or personal characteristics. Authors of scien-tific theories coin terms unique to the theories' domain. Themeaning of terms and their objective referent are shared by allworkers in the area. Furthermore, technical terms are used toavoid misinterpretation or surplus meaning often found in pop-ular terminology.

Professionals tend to describe events at a data level in whichthey use everyday popular language because client inputs aregiven in everyday language. They are often equated with de-scriptions of psychological processes and psychological con-structs, even though it is usually only the words but not themeaning that is common to the two languages. Careful trans-formation of the client's report or actions into technical lan-guage or theoretical terms is frequently needed to handle thestatements in a form that is usable and compatible with a scien-tific framework. But these translations involve personal judg-

268 FREDERICK H. KANFER

ments and biases of the professional because no general ruleshave been developed for such transformations. Similarly, trans-lations of psychological concepts and of the practitioner's frame-work into the client's language are needed. These efforts at es-tablishing a common conceptual base in early meetings areregarded by some as a prerequisite for an effective collaboration(Beck et al, 1979; E H. Kanfer & Grimm, 1980; Meichenbaum,1977).

Size of Data UnitsIn the laboratory, specific events and their determinants are

deliberately isolated and divided into small components so thata microanalysis of psychological processes can be undertaken.In fact, a specific response is observed during a short time inter-val in order to reduce contamination by noise and extraneousfluctuations in the person's activity. In contrast, the practitionerdeals mostly with macro-units of behavior. Analysis of interper-sonal relationships, family systems, or symptoms include behav-ioral patterns that extend over a wide domain, over differentsituations, and over an extended period of time. Except for tech-niques in which strict laboratory analogs are used, such as clas-sical or operant conditioning, chunking of responses is a rulerather than an exception in clinical and counseling practice.

Research is guided by a conceptual framework in which oneexamines phenomena that are bounded in their extent andtime. The subject matter of an experiment may be an emotionalprocess, a memory process, a social interactional process, andso forth. In each case, the domain is limited by the minitheorythat covers some small portion of human behavior. By contrast,psychotherapy deals with not only the richness, diversity, andcomplexity of the individual but also with subject matters suchas conflicts with sociocultural environments, intrapersonalconflicts, and emotional reactions to biological changes,among myriads of other areas. What may be a central event inan experiment may be only a tiny component in the total pat-tern presented to the professional. Some psychotherapy theo-ries present a single, central mechanism to account for thechanges during the intervention process. Even in such theories—for example, those based on the conditioning paradigm—theinterplay between conflicting intra- and interpersonal vari-ables, the irrationality of a client's thinking, and the relation-ship context (with a therapist or others) by necessity transcendthe domain in which the simple model has been developed andsubstantiated by research.

EthicsIn experimentation, the paramount ethical concern is the

scientist's faithful report of his or her operations. Ethical princi-ples include the societal rules for dealing with live subjects andthe concern that no harm be done by the experiment. In theapplication of science to everyday life, a different set of ethicalproblems arises (Hutchinson, 1983). The practitioner's primaryobligation to assist clients often conflicts with personal inter-ests and with institutional or societal rules of conduct (Keith-Spiegel & Koocher, 1985). Long-term benefits or harm must beweighted against the expenditure of effort and other resourcesin the enterprise. As Perrez (1989) pointed out, a therapeuticenterprise requires justification for use of a method in terms ofexpected outcome, acceptability of the method itself, possibleside effects, and cost. Legitimatization of an intervention pro-cedure is often based not on its immediate effect but on a com-

parison to what is given up, either in the use of other ap-proaches or in treatment of other persons, when a commitmentis made to the specific procedure. Although basic research mayultimately have some utility in everyday life, justification forthe practitioner's methods is demanded even as their applica-tion is contemplated.

Static Versus Dynamic Nature

Basic psychology has often been faulted for its disregard ofone of the most critical variables in human behavior: time(McGrath, 1988). Whereas most psychological models are rela-tively static, frameworks for psychotherapy and for educational,industrial, or sociopolitical interventions extend along a histori-cal time dimension. The dynamic aspect further involves thecontinuous change in interrelationships among components ofthe person-environment system. In contrast to the laboratorysetting, the everyday world is not fixed. Historical accidents,predispositions, cultural changes, and just the mere passage oftime affect the client and the intervention process. Change be-gets further change. As a result, static models, linear predic-tions, and cross-sectional analyses of processes and relation-ships are limited tools for research and practice in psychother-apy (F H. Kanfer & Busemeyer, 1982) and most other appliedfields.

Thoughts on Continued Bridge Maintenance

In a recent development in the physical sciences, attentionhas been called to the possibility that orderly processes maylead to discontinuity or chaos and that these processes can bestudied for better understanding and prediction of apparentlyspontaneous phenomena (Glass & MacKey, 1988; Gleick,1987). When nonlinearity at a microlevel of a system continuesover time, it can eventually affect observations at the macro-level and make them appear inexplicable, unpredictable, andchaotic. Tiny differences in input can quickly become over-whelming differences in output. Chaos theory highlights therelativistic position of a behavioral analysis: namely, that theobserver's description of a phenomenon will depend not onlyon his or her perspective but also on the distance from thephenomenon and the scope or unit size selected for analysis.Chaos theory seems to be particularly appropriate to the task ofthe professional psychologist in predicting what seem to beunique events. For example, a sudden outburst of violence by anapparently quiet, stable person might be understood better byanalysis of small but consistent behavioral, emotional, and cog-nitive reorganizations and inputs, noticeable only when theirtotal effect emerges at a higher level of analysis. The research onhassles has suggested that an analysis of major life events is lesspredictive of some stress reactions than the analysis of small butconsistent daily hassles (DeLongis, Coyne, Dakof, Folkman, &Lazarus, 1982).

To complete our Utopian scenario of the scientist-practi-tioner, I point out that the other side of the coin is the need toencourage researchers to focus attention on phenomena andproblems encountered by practitioners. To illustrate: Cacioppo,Petty, and Stoltenberg (1985) examined the implications of theirelaboration likelihood model for clinical operations, hypothe-sizing that high motivation and ability to think about an issueresults in relatively more enduring attitudes (the central route toattitude change) than do low motivation and low ability to think

THE SCIENTIST-PRACTITIONER CONNECTION 269

about a professional's recommendation (processed by the pe-ripheral route). Moreover, a poorly motivated client would ini-tially respond more to environmental and ostensible cues, suchas the superficial features of the therapist. Attitudes induced bythe peripheral route, however, are less enduring. Cacioppo et al.made several suggestions for effective communication in ther-apy, which were based on their model and laboratory researchof other variables such as the communicator's credibility andthe client's prior information. Schneider (1985) offered sugges-tions for training high performance skills (e.g., aviation control)on the basis of his research on automatic and controlled process-ing. R. Kanfer and Ackerman (1989) and R. Kanfer (in press)discussed the implications of their research on ability-motiva-tion interactions for training skills on complex jobs. Basic re-search in decision theory has helped psychologists to under-stand and improve practical decision processes and problem-solving strategies in applied psychology, medicine, andindustry (e.g, Elstein, Shulman, & Spraf ka, 1978; Kahneman etal, 1982; Turk & Salovey, 1988). Such continued attempts byscientists to sketch the implications of their work for practicalsituations would encourage better and more research on ap-plied problems, testing, and improving the ecological validityof laboratory-based theories. They would also offer guidelinesfor continuous improvement of practice. Perhaps such an im-plication statement (ideally developed by the author after ob-servations of current practices and discussions with practi-tioners) should accompany any major theoretical paper, muchlike research proposals, if we believe in the obligations ofscience to contribute to society's welfare.

The spirit of the Boulder Model would be best maintained ifa group of psychologists would set as their primary tasks (a)posing research questions on the basis of their observationsmade during their professional activities and (b) exploring andcontinuously testing the utility of various "basic" minitheoriesand research data for potential practical operations. These activ-ities are already carried out by some individuals. However, incontrast to the organizational structures that facilitate commu-nication and collaboration of large groups of researchers invarious subfields of applied psychology, there is currently onlyminimal support for groups that devote themselves systemati-cally and primarily to strengthening the bonds between prac-tice and scientific knowledge. Formal graduate programs andinternships or apprenticeships for research that specialize in anapplied area would strengthen the cadre of "bridge builders" bygiving them both (a) the skills, the perceptivity, and the pragma-tism of the professional and (b) training in the methods andexposure to the skeptic-empiric attitude of the researcher. Byindividual contributions, researchers and practitioners who be-lieve that effective practice must firmly rest on the data andtheories of psychological science have already changed thepractice and the thinking of psychologists in all applied areas.A failure to resolve the "scientist-practitioner crisis" not onlywould lessen the potential impact of advances in psychologicalscience on practice but would also endanger the credibility of apsychological profession by dismantling its most substantialfoundation.

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Received October 9,1989Revision received March 5,1990

Accepted March 9,1990 •