Review of Human behavior in industry.

Reviews the book Human behavior in industry by W. W. Finlay, A. Q. Sartain and W. M. Tate (see record 1955-03154-000). This book was written to assist executives, supervisors, and foremen in human relations problems. It covers a conglomeration of subjects including motivation, attitudes, public relations, wages, communication, labor relations, American ideology, and industrial organization. The greatest asset of the book is the authors' skill in phrasing concepts in such a way as to be acceptable to industrial readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Human developmental neuropsychology.

Reviews the book, Human developmental neuropsychology by Otfried Spreen, David Tupper, Anthony Risser, Holly Tuokko, and Dorothy Edgell (1984). The authors accepted a formidable challenge when they undertook this volume. The goals were first to review developmental psychology, pediatric neurology, and developmental neurobiology and, second, to integrate the information from these fields, attempting to make it understandable for the nonspecialist. They succeeded at the first and failed at the second. As a survey and catalogue of information, the book is truly impressive. It summarizes some 1600 references from very diverse fields and includes many goldmines of little-known material for the specialist. The volume is worth the price for this alone and I expect to use it often as a reference source. Finally, the book will serve as a good companion to Gaddes' book, Learning Disabilities and Brain Function. What is most important about this combination is that both books are from the psychology department at the University of Victoria and serve to underscore the fact that this department is developing into an important center for neuropsychological study in Canada. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The uncertain mind: Individual differences in facing the unknown.

Reviews the book, The uncertain mind: Individual differences in facing the unknown by Richard M. Sorrentino and Christopher J. R. Roney (see record 2000-07377-000). The book under review is located within an important intellectual tradition in psychology, one that speaks to something about human nature. Sorrentino and Roney approach this topic through the study of individual differences in whether people seek out certainty or uncertainty in their lives. While some of us find meaning in terms of the familiar and predictable, others search for meaning in the novel uncertainties of life. This scholarly monograph describes a 15-year program of research, theoretically grounded in both earlier paradigms (e.g., Atkinson's motivational model) and contemporary social cognition. This monograph merits attention by researchers and students interested in social cognition, individual differences, and societal change. The writing is technical, and one would wish for chapter summaries. However, the book is clearly written, well-organized and at times thought-provoking; it is well worth the effort. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Psychology of Sex Differences.

Reviews the book, The Psychology of Sex Differences by Hilary M. Lips and Nina Lee Colwill (1978). This small book covers a lot of territory. In 300 pages Lips and Colwill, along with five collaborators, provide a broad summary of the available theory and research on the psychology of sex differences. After an introductory chapter on the problems of studying the topic, the book has orienting chapters on theories of female and male nature, sexual differentiation, hormones, the social process of learning sex roles, and the concepts of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny. Then the areas of ability, achievement, aggression and power are systematically examined for the presence and the correlates of sex differences. Finally, the issues of marriage, family and sexuality are considered. The book is an excellent starting point for the novice who is willing to give 300 pages of reading effort to the current work on sex differences. It is a good book for a psychologist or psychology student who wants a quick overview of what is being done and thought about in a rapidly expanding area of psychological research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Individuality in Pain and Suffering.

Reviews the book, Individuality in Pain and Suffering by Asenath Petrie (see record 1968-13362-000). One might expect from the title of this book that the author was going to supply the reader with new insights, or new theories, or new findings, or new ways of looking at the problems of pain and suffering. Instead it became increasingly obvious to the reviewer that the author is merely supplying us with new words for talking about the way people react to painful stimuli. Petrie's book is little involved (except for the reader) in pain and suffering. Her discussion of pain would probably require less than ten pages altogether. What the author appears to have done is written a book advocating her particular personality theory and reviewing all of the research that has been done relevant to that theory. This reviewer feels that, as far as any contribution to the literature on pain and suffering is concerned, the signal to noise ratio of this book does not match the price to usefulness ratio. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Loneliness: A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy.

Reviews the book, Loneliness: A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy edited by Letitia Anne Peplau and Daniel Perlman (1982). In 1979, a conference was held at UCLA on the topic "loneliness." The papers presented there formed a nucleus for the volume edited by Peplau and Perlman, although a considerable amount of new material has been added. The book is divided into six sections, each preceded by an introductory chapter by the co-editors. Various definitions of loneliness and different approaches to studying it are surveyed, and a brief history of academic interest in this topic is provided. The editors should be commended for their thoroughness in covering this young, developing field of investigation, which already abounds with an almost bewildering variety of approaches and "schools of thought." It is clearly too early to write a conclusive chapter about the essence of loneliness or the likely path that research on this topic will take in the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Human engineering guide for equipment designers.

Reviews the book "Human engineering guide for equipment designers," by W. E. Woodson (see record 1955-01705-000). The purpose of the book, as expressed in the Introduction, is "to aid the designer in making optimum decisions whenever human factors are involved in man-operated equipment." The author states that the book will provide a central source for information about the human operator, will point up the relative importance of variables which make a difference, and will indicate solutions for typical design problems. The book represents a commendable effort to fulfill this purpose. An outstanding feature of this guide is the application of basic psychological and physiological data to specific problem areas. The Human Engineering Guide for Equipment Designers represents a major step in the effort of human engineers to make their information meaningful to equipment designers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Binding and Inhibition in Working Memory: Individual and Age Differences in Short-Term Recognition.

Two studies investigated the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC), adult age, and the resolution of conflict between familiarity and recollection in short-term recognition tasks. Experiment 1 showed a specific deficit of young adults with low WMC in rejecting intrusion probes (i.e., highly familiar probes) in a modified Sternberg task, which was similar to the deficit found in old adults in a parallel experiment (K. Oberauer, 2001). Experiment 2 generalized these results to 3 recognition paradigms (modified Sternberg, local recognition, and n back tasks). Old adults showed disproportional performance deficits on intrusion probes only in terms of reaction times, whereas young adults with low WMC showed them only in terms of errors. The generality of the effect across paradigms is more compatible with a deficit in content-context bindings subserving recollection than with a deficit in inhibition of irrelevant information in working memory. Structural equation models showed that WMC is related to the efficiency of recollection but not of familiarity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Personality: Current Theory and Research.

Reviews the book, Personality: Current Theory and Research by Janet Beavin Bavelas (1978). Personality is not the easiest topic to teach well. Even the question of what content to include and emphasize is problematic. The majority of introductory texts adopt a stance whereby the study of personality largely becomes identified with the study of personality theories. A problem with the theory based approach to personality is that many such theories are of declining importance in contemporary psychology. In this text, Janet Bavelas adopts a theory oriented perspective. However, she is not content merely to describe and evaluate the various theories selected for inclusion. She places the theories within a historical context and attempts to show how critical and empirical appraisal led to the decline of one class of theory and the elevation of another class. The book possesses many positive features. Introductory students find personality theories interesting and the historical context adds to the interest. The coverage is broad and zeros in on many central issues that preoccupy the present generation of personologists. Whether or not to adopt the Bavelas book for an introductory personality course would depend on the orientation of the instructor. For those who teach a traditional course, which emphasizes balanced evaluation and/or comparative analysis of the major theories, other texts might serve better. But for instructors concerned primarily with developments on the level of metatheory, the text probably has no equal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The IQ game: A methodological inquiry into the heredity-environment controversy and Intelligence, Heredity and Environment.

Reviews the books, The IQ Game. A Methodological Inquiry into the Heredity-Environment Controversy by Howard F. Taylor (1980); and Intelligence, Heredity and Environment by Philip E. Vernon (1979). A fundamental issue in psychology is the relation between differences in heredity and differences in human behaviour and mental characteristics. The history of vigorous debate on this question is ancient, and two recent books show that it is far from being resolved. The approaches and conclusions by the two authors are so different that they are best presented as a study of contrasts. In doing so, I have chosen three specific topics for discussion which are addressed explicitly by both authors. Taylor reviews Burt's publications as well as critiques by Kamin (1974), Dorfman (1978), Hearnshaw (1979) and others, concluding that the data 'obviously cannot be used in this analysis.' Vernon, on the other hand, reprints many of Burt's correlations for IQ scores of relatives in several tables and relies heavily on Sir Cyril's analyses. He notes there are reasons to doubt the accuracy of some of the figures, but he vigorously defends Burt against charges of fraud and accuses Leon Kamin, who first exposed Sir Cyril, of being 'a good deal more one-sided than Burt.' Both authors make extensive use of the concept of 'heritability,' but only Taylor explains it clearly and correctly. Of these two books, only the one by Taylor adds anything positive to the extensive discussions of heredity and intelligence during the last decade. The IQ Game is a major contribution, being thorough, critical and thought-provoking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Human abilities in cultural context.

Reviews the book, Human abilities in cultural context by S. H. Irvine and J. W. Berry (see record 1988-98683-000). The three main sections of this book provide a contemporary and historical survey of theory and research in the three areas that have dominated the study of the nature and measurement of intelligence; namely, the cognitive information-processing, Piagetian, and psychometric perspectives. Readers have become accustomed to books which express cither the biological or the sociocultural point of view on intelligence. Although the present volume is on human abilities in cultural context, the editors should be congratulated tor attracting authors who represent both the biological and sociocultural perspectives. This comprehensive collection of reviews will be a basic reference for students and researchers in cognition for many years to come. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Self-esteem: Research, theory, and practice.

Reviews the book, Self-esteem: Research, theory, and practice by Chris Mruk (1995). Historically, attempting to define self-esteem has been a lot like defining love, often tried and ever elusive. When one aspect was grasped, others remain out of reach. Dr. Mruk, in his book Self- Esteem: Research, Theory, and Practice acknowledges that self-esteem is both a popular and elusive construct. It is used as both cause and effect, as explanation and outcome, as a factor and as a goal to be attained. It is a construct currently invoked by educators and politicians, clinicians and sociologists, columnists and critics, the authors of popular self-help books and talk show hosts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Issues in the study of talent.

Reviews the book "Issues in the study of talent," by Douglas W. Bray (see record 1955-04716-000). It is pointed out that the unusually talented person has always attracted the attention of many groups of individuals but that similar study has not been given to the people who range through the whole spectrum of human abilities. In considering the part played by the hereditary potential in general intelligence the author concludes, in briefest terms, that individuals differ in intellectual potential at birth, but that differences in IQ among children from different socioeconomic cultural groups may be clue to differences in cultural opportunity. Much emphasis is given to an analysis of two basic motives, the desire of the individual to do well in school and his desire to reach a particular socioeconomic goal. The present small book will be of interest to those who are concerned with the fundamental question of the causal factors that underlie the individual differences which characterize those who make up our present day society. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Personality through perception.

Reviews the book, Personality through perception by H. A. Witkin, H. B. Lewis, M. Hertzman, K. Machover, P. B. Meisnner, and S. Wapner (1954). Some years ago the senior author conducted a series of experiments which revealed rather substantial variability in the capacity of subjects to detect experimentally induced deviations from their own vertical position and in that of their visual field. The studies reported in the present volume comprise an extensive and painstaking investigation of this observation and of its implications. Personality through Perception is, in short, an exploration of individual differences in the recognition of which way is up. The reviewer states that it is a substantial if uneven book. There appear in sequence an exceptionally sanguine and approbative introduction by Gardner Murphy ("...I believe that the work...signalizes a new step toward the maturity of American Psychology"), a brief preface by Witkin, 22 chapters of text, three appendixes, a heavily psychoanalytic and Gestalt bibliography of 101 entries, and an exceptionally serviceable index. The body of the report includes 20 figures and 106 tables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of implicit social cognition: Measurement, theory, and applications.

Reviews the book, Handbook of implicit social cognition: Measurement, theory, and applications edited by Bertram Gawronski and Keith B. Payne (see record 2010-13147-000). The comprehensive overview of theoretical models, empirical findings, and practical applications of research in implicit social cognition provided within this book is timely and warranted. The editors were successful in clearly outlining that implicit social cognition theory and measurement. A primary strength of this volume is the way in which seemingly divergent areas of research have been organized into five distinct sections, each of which builds upon the previous sections to provide a comprehensive understanding of implicit social cognition. Even the novice researcher may benefit from the practical guides to implicit theory and measurement. This book would be especially interesting and useful for active researchers across a variety of domains who are interested in understanding how implicit processes can influence human behaviour. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Memory, consciousness, and the brain: The Tallinn conference; and The Oxford handbook of memory.

Reviews the books, Memory, consciousness, and the brain: The Tallinn conference edited by Endel Tulving (see record 2000-07362-000) and The Oxford handbook of memory edited by Endel Tulving and Fergus M. Craik (see record 2000-00111-000). Memory, consciousness, and the brain (MCB) is an outgrowth of a conference organized by the editor and his wife, and held in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The organization of the book, accurately described by the editor as largely illusory (p. xv), blocks the 25 topic chapters into sections labeled Memory (11 chapters), Consciousness (7 chapters), and The Brain (7 chapters). The editor's hope is that the book will be useful as an introduction to representative research currently being conducted at the boundaries of memory, consciousness, and the brain. To what extent has this objective been achieved? The book certainly serves up a broad menu of topics. The reader looking for something intriguing in the way of research on memory and consciousness in the brain is likely to find it in this volume. What are MCB's weaknesses? The main sin is something that comes with the territory of all conference volumes: uneveness in quality, readability, and organizations, and uncertainty about the audience to be reached by each of the chapters. Regarding The Oxford handbook of memory (OHM), this book describes the growth of memory research from its nadir in the 1950s to the present, and presents summaries of contemporary scientific knowledge about a variety of memory topics. The focus is human memory (although the discussion of brain-memory relations is sometimes based on research with nonhuman primates) as studied from the perspectives of experimental cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, neuroscience, developmental psychology, theory and modeling, and the ecology of memory. Within this compass, the editors have attempted to ensure coverage of the current major theories, findings, and methods of memory. In the editors' words, the volume is intended to be a major reference source for people who want to get started in the field, or who wish to check things outside their own regional area (p. vii). Not only does the book hit its target, we expect that even specialists will benefit from the coverage of subjects in which they have expertise. For now, the OHM is the gold standard and all memory professionals are in the debt of the editors and authors for its existence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)