Essay
Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of
Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer's Block
Mike Rose
Mike Rose is a lecturer in English at the University of California, Los Angeles,
and a member of that university's interdisciplinary Writing Research Project. He
has training in both English and counseling psychology.
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Ruth will labor over the first paragraph of an essay for hours. She'll write a
sentence, then erase it. Try another, then scratch part of it out. Finally, as the
evening winds on toward ten o'clock and Ruth, anxious about tomorrow's
deadline, begins to wind into herself, she'll compose that first paragraph only to
sit back and level her favorite exasperated interdiction at herself and her page:
"No. You can't say that. You'll bore them to death.'
Ruth is one of ten UCLA undergraduates with whom I discussed writer's
block, that frustrating, self-defeating inability to generate the next line, the right
phrase, the sentence that will release the flow of words once again. These ten
people represented a fair cross-section of the UCLA student community: lower-
middle-class to upper-middle-class backgrounds and high schools, third-world
and Caucasian origins, biology to fine arts majors, C+ to A- grade point averages,
enthusiastic to blasé attitudes toward school. They were set off from the
community by the twin facts that all ten could write competently, and all were
currently enrolled in at least one course that required a significant amount of
writing. They were set off among themselves by the fact that five of them wrote
with relative to enviable ease while the other five experienced moderate to nearly
immobilizing writer's block. This blocking usually resulted in rushed, often late
papers and resultant grades that did not truly reflect these students' writing ability.
And then, of course, there were other less measurable but probably more serious
results: a growing distrust of their abilities and an aversion toward the composing
process itself.
What separated the five students who blocked from those who didn't? It
wasn't skill; that was held fairly constant. The answer could have rested in the
emotional realm—anxiety, fear of evaluation, insecurity, etc. Or perhaps blocking
in some way resulted from variation in cognitive style. Perhaps, too, blocking
originated in and typified a melding Of emotion and cognition not unlike the
relationship posited by Shapiro between neurotic feeling and
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neurotic thinking. 1 Each of these was possible. Extended clinical interviews and
testing could have teased out the answer. But there was one answer that surfaced
readily in brief explorations of these students' writing processes. It was not
profoundly emotional, nor was it embedded in that still unclear construct of
cognitive style. It was constant, surprising, almost amusing if its results weren't so
troublesome, and, in the final analysis, obvious: the five students who experienced
blocking were all operating either with writing rules or with planning strategies
that impeded rather than enhanced the composing process. The five students who
were not hampered by writer's block also utilized rules, but they were less rigid
ones, and thus more appropriate to a complex process like writing. Also, the plans
these non-blockers brought to the writing process were more functional, more
flexible, more open to information from the outside.
These observations are the result of one to three interviews with each
student. I used recent notes, drafts, and finished compositions to direct and hone
my questions. This procedure is admittedly non-experimental, certainly more
clinical than scientific; still, it did lead to several inferences that lay the
foundation for future, more rigorous investigation: (a) composing is a highly
complex problem-solving process2 and (b) certain disruptions of that process can
be explained with cognitive psychology's problem-solving framework. Such
investigation might include a study using "stimulated recall" techniques to
validate or disconfirm these hunches. In such a study, blockers and non- blockers
would write essays. Their activity would be videotaped and, immediately after
writing, they would be shown their respective tapes and questioned about the
rules, plans, and beliefs operating in their writing behavior. This procedure would
bring us close to the composing process (the writers' recall is stimulated by their
viewing the tape), yet would not interfere with actual composing.
In the next section I will introduce several key concepts in the problem-
solving literature. In section three I will let the students speak for themselves.
Fourth, I will offer a cognitivist analysis of blockers' and non-blockers' grace or
torpor. I will close with a brief note on treatment.
Selected Concepts in Problem Solving: Rules and Plans
As diverse as theories of problem solving are, they share certain basic
assumptions and characteristics. Each posits an introductory period during which
a problem is presented, and all theorists, from Behaviorist to Gestalt to
Information Processing, admit that certain aspects, stimuli, or "functions" of the
problem must become or be made salient and attended to in certain ways if
successful problem-solving processes are to be engaged. Theorists also believe
that some conflict, some stress, some gap in information in these perceived
"aspects" seems to trigger problem-solving behavior. Next comes a
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processing period, and for all the variance of opinion about this critical stage,
theorists recognize the necessity of its existence—recognize that man, at the least,
somehow "weighs" possible solutions as they are stumbled upon and, at the most,
goes through an elaborate and sophisticated information-processing routine to
achieve problem solution. Furthermore, theorists believe—to varying degrees—
that past learning and the particular "set,” direction, or orientation that the
problem solver takes in dealing with past experience and present stimuli have
critical bearing on the efficacy of solution. Finally, all theorists admit to a solution
period, an end-state of the process where "stress” and "search" terminate, an
answer is attained, and a sense of completion or “closure" is experienced.
These are the gross similarities, and the framework they offer will be
useful in understanding the problem-solving behavior of the students discussed in
this paper. But since this paper is primarily concerned with the second stage of
problem-solving operations, it would be most useful to focus this introduction on
two critical constructs in the processing period: rules and plans.
Rules
Robert M. Gagné defines "rule" as "an inferred capability that enables the
individual to respond to a class of stimulus situations with a class of
performances."3 Rules can be learned directly 4 or by inference through
experience.5 But, in either case, most problem-solving theorists would affirm
Gagné's dictum that "rules are probably the major organizing factor, and quite
possibly the primary one, in intellectual functioning." 6 As Gagné implies, we
wouldn't be able to function without rules; they guide response to the myriad
stimuli that confront us daily, and might even be the central element in complex
problem-solving behavior.
Dunker, Polya, and Miller, Galanter, and Pribram offer a very useful
distinction between two general kinds of rules: algorithms and heuristics. 7
Algorithms are precise rules that will always result in a specific answer if applied
to an appropriate problem. Most mathematical rules, for example, are algorithms.
Functions are constant (e.g., pi), procedures are routine (squaring the radius), and
outcomes are completely predictable. However, few day-to-day situations are
mathematically circumscribed enough to warrant the application of algorithms.
Most often we function with the aid of fairly general heuristics or "rules of
thumb," guidelines that allow varying degrees of flexibility when approaching
problems. Rather than operating with algorithmic precision and certainty, we
search, critically, through alternatives, using our heuristic as a divining rod—"if a
math problem stumps you, try working backwards to solution"; "if the car won't
start, check x, y, or z," and so forth. Heuristics won't allow the precision or the
certitude afforded by algorithmic operations; heuristics can even be so "loose" as
to be vague. But in a world where tasks and problems are rarely mathematically
precise, heuristic rules
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become the most appropriate, the most functional rules available to us: "a
heuristic does not guarantee the optimal solution or, indeed, any solution at all;
rather, heuristics offer solutions that are good enough most of the time. "8
Plans
People don't proceed through problem situations, in or out of a laboratory,
without some set of internalized instructions to the self, some program, some
course of action that, even roughly, takes goals and possible paths to that goal into
consideration. Miller, Galanter, and Pribram have referred to this course of action
as a plan: "A plan is any hierarchical process in the organism that can control the
order in which a sequence of operations is to be performed" (p. 16). They name
the fundamental plan in human problem-solving behavior the TOTE, with the
initial T representing a test that matches a possible solution against the perceived
end-goal of problem completion. O represents the clearance to operate if the
comparison between solution and goal indicates that the solution is a sensible one.
The second T represents a further, post-operation, test or comparison of solution
with goal, and if the two mesh and problem solution is at hand the person exits (E)
from problem-solving behavior. If the second test presents further discordance
between solution and goal, a further solution is attempted in TOTE-fashion. Such
plans can be both long-term and global and, as problem solving is underway,
short-term and immediate. 9 Though the mechanicality of this information-
processing model renders it simplistic and, possibly, unreal, the central notion of a
plan and an operating procedure is an important one in problem-solving theory; it
at least attempts to metaphorically explain what earlier cognitive psychologists
could not—the mental procedures (see pp. 390-391) underlying problem-solving
behavior.
Before concluding this section, a distinction between heuristic rules and
plans should be attempted; it is a distinction often blurred in the literature, blurred
because, after all, we are very much in the area of gestating theory and
preliminary models. Heuristic rules seem to function with the flexibility of plans.
Is, for example, "If the car won't start, try x, y, or z" a heuristic or a plan? It could
be either, though two qualifications will mark it as heuristic rather than plan. (A)
Plans subsume and sequence heuristic and algorithmic rules. Rules are usually
"smaller," more discrete cognitive capabilities; plans can become quite large and
complex, composed of a series of ordered algorithms, heuristics, and further
planning "sub-routines." (B) Plans, as was mentioned earlier, include criteria to
determine successful goal-attainment and, as well, include "feedback"
processes—ways to incorporate and use information gained from "tests" of
potential solutions against desired goals.
One other distinction should be made: that is, between "set" and plan. Set,
also called "determining tendency" or “readiness”10 refers to the fact that people
often approach problems with habitual ways of reacting, a pre-
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disposition, a tendency to perceive or function in one way rather than another. Set,
which can be established through instructions or, consciously or unconsciously,
through experience, can assist performance if it is appropriate to a specific
problem 11 but much of the literature on set has shown its rigidifying,
dysfunctional effects. 12 Set differs from plan in that set represents a limiting and
narrowing of response alternatives with no inherent process to shift alternatives. It
is a kind of cognitive habit that can limit perception, not a course of action with
multiple paths that directs and sequences response possibilities.
The constructs of rules and plans advance the understanding of problem
solving beyond that possible with earlier, less developed formulations. Still,
critical problems remain. Though mathematical and computer models move one
toward more complex (and thus more real) problems than the earlier research,
they are still too neat, too rigidly sequenced to approximate the stunning
complexity of day-to-day (not to mention highly creative) problem-solving
behavior. Also, information-processing models of problem-solving are built on
logic theorems, chess strategies, and simple planning tasks. Even Gagné seems to
feel more comfortable with illustrations from mathematics and science rather than
with social science and humanities problems. So although these complex models
and constructs tell us a good deal about problem-solving behavior, they are still
laboratory simulations, still invoked from the outside rather than self-generated,
and still founded on the mathematico-logical.
Two Carnegie-Mellon researchers, however, have recently extended the
above into a truly real, amorphous, unmathematical problem-solving process—
writing. Relying on protocol analysis (thinking aloud while solving problems),
Linda Flower and John Hayes have attempted to tease out the role of heuristic
rules and plans in writing behavior. 13 Their research pushes problem-solving
investigations to the real and complex and pushes, from the other end, the often
mysterious process of writing toward the explainable. The latter is important, for
at least since Plotinus many have viewed the composing process as unexplainable,
inspired, infused with the transcendent. But Flower and Hayes are beginning,
anyway, to show how writing generates from a problem-solving process with rich
heuristic rules and plans of its own. They show, as well, how many writing
problems arise from a paucity of heuristics and suggest an intervention that
provides such rules.
This paper, too, treats writing as a problem-solving process, focusing,
however, on what happens when the process dead-ends in writer's block. It will
further that, as opposed to Flower and Hayes' students who need more rules and
plans, blockers may well be stymied by possessing rigid or inappropriate rules, or
inflexible or confused plans. Ironically enough, these are occasionally instilled by
the composition teacher or gleaned from the writing textbook.
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"Always Grab Your Audience"—The Blockers
In high school, Ruth was told and told again that a good essay always
grabs a reader's attention immediately. Until you can make your essay do that, her
teachers and textbooks putatively declaimed, there is no need to go on. For Ruth,
this means that beginning bland and seeing what emerges as one generates prose
is unacceptable. The beginning is everything. And what exactly is the audience
seeking that reads this beginning? The rule, or Ruth's use of it, doesn't provide for
such investigation. She has an edict with no determiners. Ruth operates with
another rule that restricts her productions as well: if sentences aren't
grammatically "correct," they aren't useful. This keeps Ruth from toying with
ideas on paper, from the kind of linguistic play that often frees up the flow of
prose. These two rules converge in a way that pretty effectively restricts Ruth's
composing process.
The first two papers I received from Laurel were weeks overdue. Sections
of them were well written; there were even moments of stylistic flair. But the
papers were late and, overall, the prose seemed rushed. Furthermore, one paper
included a paragraph on an issue that was never mentioned in the topic paragraph.
This was the kind of mistake that someone with Laurel's apparent ability doesn't
make. I asked her about this irrelevant passage. She knew very well that it didn't
fit, but believed she had to include it to round out the paper. "You must always
make three or more points in an essay. If the essay has less, then it's not strong."
Laurel had been taught this rule both in high school and in her first college
English class; no wonder, then, that she accepted its validity.
As opposed to Laurel, Martha possesses a whole arsenal of plans and rules
with which to approach a humanities writing assignment, and, considering her
background in biology, I wonder how many of them were formed out of the
assumptions and procedures endemic to the physical sciences. 14 Martha will not
put pen to first draft until she has spent up to two days generating an outline of
remarkable complexity. I saw one of these outlines and it looked more like a
diagram of protein synthesis or DNA structure than the time-worn pattern offered
in composition textbooks. I must admit I was intrigued by the aura of process (vs.
the static appearance of essay outlines) such diagrams offer, but for Martha these
"outlines" only led to self-defeat: the outline would become so complex that all of
its elements could never be included in a short essay. In other words, her plan
locked her into the first stage of the composing process. Martha would struggle
with the conversion of her outline into prose only to scrap the whole venture when
deadlines passed and a paper had to be rushed together.
Martha's "rage for order" extends beyond the outlining process. She also
believes that elements of a story or poem must evince a fairly linear structure and
thematic clarity, or—perhaps bringing us closer to the issue—that analysis of a
story or poem must provide the linearity or clarity that seems to be
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absent in the text. Martha, therefore, will bend the logic of her analysis to reason
ambiguity out of existence. When I asked her about a strained paragraph in her
paper on Camus' "The Guest," she said, "I didn't want to admit that it [the story's
conclusion] was just hanging. I tried to force it into meaning.
Martha uses another rule, one that is not only problematical in itself, but
one that often clashes directly with the elaborate plan and obsessive rule above.
She believes that humanities papers must scintillate with insight, must present an
array of images, ideas, ironies gleaned from the literature under examination. A
problem arises, of course, when Martha tries to incorporate her myriad "neat little
things," often inherently unrelated, into a tightly structured, carefully sequenced
essay. Plans and rules that govern the construction of impressionistic,
associational prose would be appropriate to Martha's desire, but her composing
process is heavily constrained by the non-impressionistic and non-associational.
Put another way, the plans and rules that govern her exploration of text are not at
all synchronous with the plans and rules she uses to discuss her exploration. It is
interesting to note here, however, that as recently as three years ago Martha was
absorbed in creative writing and was publishing poetry in high school magazines.
Given what we know about the complex associational, often non-neatly-
sequential nature of the poet's creative process, we can infer that Martha was
either free of the plans and rules discussed earlier or they were not as intense. One
wonders, as well, if the exposure to three years of university physical science
either established or intensified Martha's concern with structure. Whatever the
case, she now is hamstrung by conflicting rules when composing papers for the
humanities.
Mike's difficulties, too, are rooted in a distortion of the problem-solving
process. When the time of the week for the assignment of writing topics draws
near, Mike begins to prepare material, strategies, and plans that he believes will
be appropriate. If the assignment matches his expectations, he has done a good
job of analyzing the professor's intentions. If the assignment doesn't match his
expectations, however, he cannot easily shift approaches. He feels trapped inside
his original plans, cannot generate alternatives, and blocks. As the deadline draws
near, he will write something, forcing the assignment to fit his conceptual
procrustian bed. Since Mike is a smart man, he will offer a good deal of
information, but only some of it ends up being appropriate to the assignment. This
entire situation is made all the worse when the time between assignment of topic
and generation of product is attenuated further, as in an essay examination. Mike
believes (correctly) that one must have a plan, a strategy of some sort in order to
solve a problem. He further believes, however, that such a plan, once formulated,
becomes an exact structural and substantive blueprint that cannot be violated. The
plan offers no alternatives, no "sub-routines." So, whereas Ruth's, Laurel's, and
some of Martha's difficulties seem to be rule-specific ("always catch your
audience," "write grammatically"), Mike's troubles are more global. He may
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have strategies that are appropriate for various writing situations (e.g., "for this
kind of political science assignment write a compare/contrast essay"), but his
entire approach to formulating plans and carrying them through to problem
solution is too mechanical. It is probable that Mike's behavior is governed by an
explicitly learned or inferred rule: "Always try to 'psych out' a professor." But in
this case this rule initiates a problem-solving procedure that is clearly
dysfunctional.
While Ruth and Laurel use rules that impede their writing process and
Mike utilizes a problem-solving procedure that hamstrings him, Sylvia has trouble
deciding which of the many rules she possesses to use. Her problem can be
characterized as cognitive perplexity: some of her rules are inappropriate, others
are functional; some mesh nicely with her own definitions of good writing, others
don't. She has multiple rules to invoke, multiple paths to follow, and that very
complexity of choice virtually paralyzes her. More so than with the previous four
students, there is probably a strong emotional dimension to Sylvia's blocking, but
the cognitive difficulties are clear and perhaps modifiable.
Sylvia, somewhat like Ruth and Laurel, puts tremendous weight on the
crafting of her first paragraph. If it is good, she believes the rest of the essay will
be good. Therefore, she will spend up to five hours on the initial paragraph: "I
won't go on until I get that first paragraph down." Clearly, this rule—or the
strength of it—blocks Sylvia's production. This is one problem. Another is that
Sylvia has other equally potent rules that she sees as separate, uncomplementary
injunctions: one achieves "flow" in one's writing through the use of adquate
transitions; one achieves substance to one's writing through the use of evidence.
Sylvia perceives both rules to be "true," but several times followed one to the
exclusion of the other. Furthermore, as I talked to Sylvia, many other rules,
guidelines, definitions were offered, but none with conviction. While she is
committed to one rule about initial paragraphs, and that rule is dysfunctional, she
seems very uncertain about the weight and hierarchy of the remaining rules in her
cognitive repertoire.
"If It Won't Fit My Work, I'll Change It"—The Non-blockers
Dale, Ellen, Debbie, Susan, and Miles all write with the aid of rules. But
their rules differ from blockers' rules in significant ways. If similar in content,
they are expressed less absolutely—e.g., "Try to keep audience in mind." If
dissimilar, they are still expressed less absolutely, more heuristically—e.g., "I can
use as many ideas in my thesis paragraph as I need and then develop paragraphs
for each idea." Our non-blockers do express some rules with firm assurance, but
these tend to be simple injunctions that free up rather than restrict the composing
process, e.g., "When stuck, write!" or "I'll write what I can." And finally, at least
three of the students openly shun the very textbook rules that some blockers
adhere to: e.g., "Rules like 'write only
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what you know about' just aren't true. I ignore those. " These three, in effect, have
formulated a further rule that expresses something like: "If a rule conflicts with
what is sensible or with experience, reject it.'
On the broader level of plans and strategies, these five students also differ
from at least three of the five blockers in that they all possess problem-solving
plans that are quite functional. Interestingly, on first exploration these plans seem
to be too broad or fluid to be useful and, in some cases, can barely be expressed
with any precision. Ellen, for example, admits that she has a general "outline in
[her] head about how a topic paragraph should look" but could not describe much
about its structure. Susan also has a general plan to follow, but, if stymied, will
quickly attempt to conceptualize the assignment in different ways: "If my original
idea won't work, then I need to proceed differently." Whether or not these plans
operate in TOTE-fashion, I can't say. But they do operate with the operate-test
fluidity of TOTEs.
True, our non-blockers have their religiously adhered-to rules: e.g., "When
stuck, write," and plans, "I couldn't imagine writing without this pattern," but as
noted above, these are few and functional. Otherwise, these non-blockers operate
with fluid, easily modified, even easily discarded rules and plans (Ellen: "I can
throw things out") that are sometimes expressed with a vagueness that could
almost be interpreted as ignorance. There lies the irony. Students that offer the
least precise rules and plans have the least trouble composing. Perhaps this very
lack of precision characterizes the functional composing plan. But perhaps this
lack of precision simply masks habitually enacted alternatives and sub-routines.
This is clearly an area that needs the illumination of further research.
And then there is feedback. At least three of the five non-blockers are an
Information-Processor's dream. They get to know their audience, ask professors
and T.A.s specific questions about assignments, bring half-finished products in
for evaluation, etc. Like Ruth, they realize the importance of audience, but unlike
her, they have specific strategies for obtaining and utilizing feedback. And this
penchant for testing writing plans against the needs of the audience can lead to
modification of rules and plans. Listen to Debbie:
In high school I was given a formula that stated that you must write a thesis
paragraph with only three points in it, and then develop each of those points.
When I hit college I was given longer assignments. That stuck me for a bit, but
then I realized that I could use as many ideas in my thesis paragraph as I needed
and then develop paragraphs for each one. I asked someone about this and then
tried it. I didn't get any negative feedback, so I figured it was o.k.
Debbie's statement brings one last difference between our blockers and non-
blockers into focus; it has been implied above, but needs specific formulation: the
goals these people have, and the plans they generate to attain these goals, are quite
mutable. Part of the mutability comes from the fluid way the goals and plans are
conceived, and part of it arises from the effective impact of feedback on these
goals and plans.
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Analyzing Writer's Block
Algorithms Rather Than Heuristics
In most cases, the rules our blockers use are not "wrong" or "incorrect"—it
is good practice, for example, to "grab your audience with a catchy opening" or
"craft a solid first paragraph before going on." The problem is that these rules
seem to be followed as though they were algorithms, absolute dicta, rather than
the loose heuristics that they were intended to be. Either through instruction, or
the power of the textbook, or the predilections of some of our blockers for
absolutes, or all three, these useful rules of thumb have been transformed into
near-algorithmic urgencies. The result, to paraphrase Karl Dunker, is that these
rules do not allow a flexible penetration into the nature of the problem. It is this
transformation of heuristic into algorithm that contributes to the writer's block of
Ruth and Laurel.
Questionable Heuristics Made Algorithmic
Whereas "grab your audience" could be a useful heuristic, "always make
three or more points in an essay" is a pretty questionable one. Any such rule,
though probably taught to aid the writer who needs structure, ultimately
transforms a highly fluid process like writing into a mechanical lockstep. As
heuristics, such rules can be troublesome. As algorithms, they are simply
incorrect.
Set
As with any problem-solving task, students approach writing assignments
with a variety of orientations or sets. Some are functional, others are not. Martha
and Jane (see footnote 14), coming out of the life sciences and social sciences
respectively, bring certain methodological orientations with them— certain sets or
"directions" that make composing for the humanities a difficult, sometimes
confusing, task. In fact, this orientation may cause them to misperceive the task.
Martha has formulated a planning strategy from her predisposition to see
processes in terms of linear, interrelated steps in a system. Jane doesn't realize that
she can revise the statement that "committed" her to the direction her essay has
taken. Both of these students are stymied because of formative experiences
associated with their majors—experiences, perhaps, that nicely reinforce our very
strong tendency to organize experiences temporally.
The Plan that Is Not a Plan
If fluidity and multi-directionality are central to the nature of plans, then
the plans that Mike formulates are not true plans at all but, rather, inflexible and
static cognitive blueprints. 15 Put another way, Mike's "plans" represent a re-
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stricted "closed system" (vs. "open system") kind of thinking, where closed
system thinking is defined as focusing on "a limited number of units or items, or
members, and those properties of the members which are to be used are known to
begin with and do not change as the thinking proceeds," and open system thinking
is characterized by an "adventurous exploration of multiple alternatives with
strategies that allow redirection once 'dead ends' are encountered. "16 Composing
calls for open, even adventurous thinking, not for constrained, no-exit cognition.
Feedback
The above difficulties are made all the more problematic by the fact that
they seem resistant to or isolated from corrective feedback. One of the most
striking things about Dale, Debbie, and Miles is the ease with which they seek
out, interpret, and apply feedback on their rules, plans, and productions. They
"operate" and then they "test," and the testing is not only against some
internalized goal, but against the requirements of external audience as well.
Too Many Rules—"Conceptual Conflict"
According to D. E. Berlyne, one of the primary forces that motivate
problem-solving behavior is a curiosity that arises from conceptual conflict— the
convergence of incompatible beliefs or ideas. In Structure and Direction in
Thinking, 17 Berlyne presents six major types of conceptual conflict, the second of
which he terms "perplexity'’:
This kind of conflict occurs when there are factors inclining the subject
toward each of a set of mutually exclusive beliefs. (p. 257)
If one substitutes "rules" for "beliefs" in the above definition, perplexity becomes
a useful notion here. Because perplexity is unpleasant, people are motivated to
reduce it by problem-solving behavior that can result in "disequalization”:
Degree of conflict will be reduced if either the number of competing…
[rules] or their nearness to equality of strength is reduced. (p. 259)
But "disequalization" is not automatic. As I have Martha and Sylvia hold to rules
that conflict, but their perplexity does not lead to curiosity and resultant problem-
solving behavior. Their perplexity, contra Berlyne, leads to immobilization. Thus
"disequalization" will have to be effected from without. The importance of each
of, particularly, Sylvia's rules needs an evaluation that will aid her in rejecting
some rules and balancing and sequencing others.
A Note on Treatment
Rather than get embroiled in a blocker's misery, the teacher or tutor might
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interview the student in order to build a writing history and profile: How much
and what kind of writing was done in high school? What is the student's major?
What kind of writing does it require? How does the student compose? Are there
rough drafts or outlines available? By what rules does the student operate? How
would he or she define "good" writing? etc. This sort of interview reveals an
incredible amount of information about individual composing processes.
Furthermore, it ofen reveals the rigid rule or the inflexible plan that may lie at the
base of the student's writing problem. That was precisely what happened with the
five blockers. And with Ruth, Laurel, and Martha (and Jane) what was revealed
made virtually immediate remedy possible. Dysfunctional rules are easily
replaced with or counter-balanced by functional ones if there is no emotional
reason to hold onto that which simply doesn't work. Furthermore, students can be
trained to select, to "know which rules are appropriate for which problems." 18
Mike's difficulties, perhaps because plans are more complex and pervasive than
rules, took longer to correct. But inflexible plans, too, can be remedied by
pointing out their dysfunctional qualities and by assisting the student in
developing appropriate and flexible alternatives. Operating this way, I was
successful with Mike. Sylvia's story, however, did not end as smoothly. Though I
had three forty-five minute contacts with her, I was not able to appreciably alter
her behavior. Berlyne's theory bore results with Martha but not with Sylvia. Her
rules were in conflict, and perhaps that conflict was not exclusively cognitive. Her
case keeps analyses like these honest; it reminds us that the cognitive often melds
with, and can be overpowered by, the affective. So while Ruth, Laurel, Martha,
and Mike could profit from tutorials that explore the rules and plans in their
writing behavior, students like Sylvia may need more extended, more affectively
oriented counseling sessions that blend the instructional with the psychodynamic.
Notes
1. David Shapiro, Neurotic Styles (New York: Basic Books, 1965).
2. Barbara Hayes-Ruth, a Rand cognitive psychologist, and I are currently developing an
information-processing model of the composing process. A good deal of work has
already been done by Linda Flower and John Hayes (see p. 393 of this article). I have just
received—and recommend—their "Writing as Problem Solving" (paper presented at
American Educational Research Association, April, 1979).
3. The Conditions of Learning (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), p. 193.
4. E. James Archer, "The Psychological Nature of Concepts," in H. J. Klausmeier and C.
W. Harris, eds., Analysis of Concept Learning (New York: Academic Press, 1966), pp.
37-44; David P. Ausubel, The Psychology of Meaningful Verbal Behavior (New York:
Grune and Stratton, 1963); Robert M. Gagné, "Problem Solving," in Arthur W. Melton,
ed., Categories of Human Learning (New York: Academic Press, 1964), pp. 293-317;
George A. Miller, Language and Communication (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951).
5. George Katona, Organizing and Memorizing (New York: Columbia Univ. Press,
1940);Roger N. Shepard, Carl l. Hovland, and Herbert M. Jenkins, "Learning and
Memorization of
[page 401]
Classifications," Psychological Monographs, 75, NO. 13 (1961) (entire NO. 517); Robert
S. Woodworth, Dynamics of Behavior (New York: Henry Holt, 1958), chs. 10212.
6. The Conditions of Learning, pp. 190-91.
7. Karl Dunker, "On Problem Solving," Psychological Monographs, 58, No. 5 (1945)
(entire No. 270); George A. Polya, How to Solve It (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1945); George A. Miller, Eugene Galanter, and Karl H. Pribram, Plans and the
Structure of Behavior (New York: Henry Holt, 1960).
8. Lyle E. Bourne, Jr., Bruce R. Ekstrand, and Roger L. Dominowski, The Psychology of
Thinking (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971).
9. John R. Hayes, "Problem Topology and the Solution Process," in Carl P. Duncan, ed. ,
Thinking: Current Experimental Studies (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967), pp. 167-81.
10. HuldaJ. Rees and Harold E. Israel, "An Investigation of the Establishment and
Operation of Mental Sets," Psychological Monographs, 46 (1925) (entire NO. 210).
11. Ibid. ; Melvin H. Marx, Wilton W. Murphy, and Aaron J. Brownstein, "Recognition
of Complex Visual Stimuli as a Function of Training with Abstracted Patterns," Journal
of Experimental Psychology, 62 (1961), 456-60.
12. James L. Adams, Conceptual Blockbusting (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1974);
Edward DeBono, New Think (New York: Basic Books, 1958); Ronald H. Forgus,
Perception (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), Ch. 13; Abraham Luchins and Edith Hirsch
Luchins, Rigidity of Behavior (Eugene: Univ. of Oregon Books, 1959); N. R. F. Maier,
"Reasoning in Humans. I. On Direction,” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 10 (1920),
115-43.
13. "Plans and the Cognitive Process Of Writing," paper presented at the National
Institute of Education Writing Conference, June 1977; "Problem Solving Strategies and
the Writing Process," College English, 39 (1977), 449-61. See also footnote 2.
14. Jane, a student not discussed in this paper, was surprised to find out that a topic
paragraph can be rewritten after a paper's conclusion to make that paragraph reflect what
the essay truly contains. She had gotten so indoctrinated with Psychology's (her major)
insistence that a hypothesis be formulated and then left untouched before an experiment
begins that she thought revision of one's "major premise" was somehow illegal. She had
formed a rule out of her exposure to social science methodology, and the rule was totally
inappropriate for most writing situations.
15. Cf. "A plan is flexible if the order of execution of its parts can be easily interchanged
without affecting the feasibility of the plan…. the flexible planner might tend to think of
lists of things he had to do; the inflexible planner would have his time planned like a
sequence of cause-effect relations. The former could rearrange his lists to suit his
opportunities, but the latter would be unable to strike while the iron was hot and would
generally require considerable 'lead-time' before he could incorporate any alternative sub-
plans" (Miller, Galanter, and Pribram, p. 120).
16. Frederic Bartlett, Thinking (New York: Basic Books, 1958), pp. 74-76.
17. Structure and Direction in Thinking (New York: John Wiley, 1965), p. 255.
18. Flower and Hayes, "Plans and the Cognitive Process of Writing," p. 26.
Rose, Mike. “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist
Analysis of Writer's Block.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 31,
no. 4, Dec. 1980, pp. 389-401. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/356589
Copyright 1980 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights
reserved.