Skeletal 3-D CT: advantages of volume rendering over surface rendering

By means of an allometric relation between the oxygen consumption rate and the body mass of an animal a metabolic coefficient is derived that can be used as a measure of standard metabolism in different animal species. This coefficient increased in the course of evolution corresponding to the time of appearance of each class of animal. It reached its highest values in Primates and passerine birds. A further increase across an energetic threshold was only possible with human civilization. A similar approach to evolution is performed through an encephalization coefficient showing that in all phases of evolution, species existed with a much larger relative brain volume than the other members of their class. These species might have established a non-human civilization on Earth if evolution would have taken another path. Finally, social activities of insects and the use of external energy sources by animals are discussed to show further implications of this bioenergetic approach to evolution.     

The friendship network as a decision-making resource: Dispositional moderators of social influences on organizational choice.

The patterns of interview choices of 170 MBA students were tracked unobtrusively over 5 mo. Two personality variables, self-monitoring (SM) and social uniqueness, were used to partition the sample. The results confirmed that personality types hypothesized to differ in their preferences for social comparison information did differ significantly both with respect to how much their decision patterns resembled those of their friends and with respect to the criteria they used in the decision-making process. In contrast to recent critiques of the SM construct, the research provides evidence in support of an SM typology assessed by a unitary factor underlying responses to the Self-Monitoring Scale. In general, the results suggest that the social network, as a decision-making resource, may be as much an expression of personality as it is a constraint on individual choice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quelles histoires?

The author wonders about the merits of historical interrogations, given the risk that so much energy will be devoted to such work, ending in sheer loss. Only a gourmet usage of history is legitimate. The author seeks to change social psychology, to put it back in touch with its object and its past, through the pursuit of different scientific concepts and and practices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

SOCIAL: An integrative framework for the development of social skills.

Despite significant advances in the field of social neuroscience, much remains to be understood regarding the development and maintenance of social skills across the life span. Few comprehensive models exist that integrate multidisciplinary perspectives and explain the multitude of factors that influence the emergence and expression of social skills. Here, a developmental biopsychosocial model (SOCIAL) is offered that incorporates the biological underpinnings and socio-cognitive skills that underlie social function (attention/executive function, communication, socio-emotional skills), as well as the internal and external (environmental) factors that mediate these skills. The components of the model are discussed in the context of the social brain network and are supported by evidence from 3 conditions known to affect social functioning (autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, and traumatic brain injury). This integrative model is intended to provide a theoretical structure for understanding the origins of social dysfunction and the factors that influence the emergence of social skills through childhood and adolescence in both healthy and clinical populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Case management: an American's observations of community care in Britain

The United States faces a rapidly growing aging population, government reforms, and policy shifts to give primary responsibility to the states for programs of community-based care for the elderly. At the same time, increasing concern is being given to the more effective use of home and community-based services, and particularly what role case management might play. Given these changes, much may be learned from the 1993 reforms to the British system of community care, which made case management the cornerstone of the system and gave primary responsibility for community care programs to local social service departments. This examination of the programs in Britain, conducted largely through site visits and personal interviews with social service staff, describes the successes and shortcomings of the implementation of the community care reforms with recommendations for program development in the United States.     

[Review of Who shall survive? Foundations of sociometry, group psychotherapy and sociodrama and Group dynamics: Research and theory].

Reviews the books, Who shall survive? Foundations of sociometry, group psychotherapy and sociodrama (Rev. Ed.) by J. L. Moreno (1953); and Group dynamics: Research and theory Edited by Dorwin Cartwright and Alvin Zander (1953). In the Foreword to his book, Personality: a Biosocial Approach to Origins and Structure, Gardner Murphy described the volume as somewhat like "an explorer's kit, containing, to be sure, some standard tools, and also some maps. Some of the maps are sober, some eccentric, no doubt; but all are drawn in the belief that any map of a far country encourages more travel than an architect's finished representation of the doorway as it is here and now" (p. x). Imbued with this philosophy, the present reviewer welcomes the appearance of the revised edition of Who Shall Survive? and of Group Dynamics. Each is an important volume which has much to contribute to improving our understanding of the social nature of man and the nature of man's social behavior. To those of us searching for a "world" view in the field of social psychology, the special projections of the cartography of these volumes must be properly identified before the maps can be redrawn and integrated. Moreno offers us a complete theoretical globe. "Sociometry cuts through all social sciences as it deals with social phenomena at a deep level where they merge or more precisely before they 'e'merge into 'psychological', 'sociological', 'anthropological', or 'economic' phenomena" (p. 54). Cartwright and Zander, on the other hand, offer us half a dozen illustrations of the cartographer's art without too clear an indication of how they are interrelated, what the contiguous areas may be like, on what basis they were chosen--but each does depict a large and rich terrain, and the maps are beautiful. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social psychology and counseling psychology: The history, products, and promise of an interface.

For 3 decades, counseling psychologists have drawn ideas from social psychology about the social process of counseling, integrated the ideas into counseling theories, and assessed them in research. This article traces the history of this interface, examines its products, and projects its future. Three propositions have guided and have been supported by much of the research: (1) Successful counseling relationships generate psychological convergence between counselor and client through a systematic developmental process; (2) ideas counselors introduce that are discrepant from clients' understandings stimulate change; and (3) clients' responsiveness to counselors is a function of their dependence on the counselors. These social influence dynamics underlie the processes and outcomes of counseling relationships regardless of the clinical theory that guides the counselors' work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Community violence exposure and children's social adjustment in the school peer group: The mediating roles of emotion regulation and social cognition.

This study reports a cross-sectional investigation of the relation between community violence exposure and peer group social maladjustment in 285 inner-city children in Grades 4–6 (mean age?=?10.3 years). Children completed an inventory assessing exposure to community violence through witnessing and through direct victimization. A peer nomination inventory was then administered to assess social adjustment with peers (aggression, peer rejection, and bullying by peers). In addition, social-cognitive biases and emotion regulation capacities were examined as potential mediators. Analyses indicated that violent victimization was associated with negative social outcomes through the mediation of emotion dysregulation. Witnessed violence was linked only to aggressive behavior. Social information processing, rather than emotion dysregulation, appeared to mediate this association. These results demonstrate that violence exposure is linked to multiple levels of behavioral and social maladjustment and suggest that there are distinct patterns of risk associated with different forms of exposure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between psychology and cognate fields.

"The listing in the university catalogues which were examined indicated that psychology was most often listed as a social science and next most frequently listed as a biological science. In several universities the psychology department was classified as both a biological and social science. In terms of specific departmental recommendations of courses, it was indicated that there was an interdependence between psychology and the various social sciences. Psychology was found to depend much more heavily on the biological sciences, physical sciences, and mathematics than those areas depended upon psychology. On the other hand, the social sciences, humanities, and service areas were found to depend much more heavily on psychology than the psychology departments depended upon them." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The process of empowerment: A model for use in research and practice.

In this article, we propose a model of the process of empowerment. The notion of empowerment is compelling and much employed across many subfields inside and outside of psychology, but the lack of consistency in the ways prior literature has defined it is an obstacle to meaningful synthesis of findings and consistent application in practice. Our empowerment process model builds on prior work in taking the following steps: articulating empowerment as an iterative process, identifying core elements of that process, and defining the process in a way that is practically useful to both researchers and practitioners with terms that are easily communicated and applied. The components of the model are personally meaningful and power-oriented goals, self-efficacy, knowledge, competence, action, and impact. Individuals move through the process with respect to particular goals, doubling back repeatedly as experience promotes reflection. We make specific recommendations for research and practice and discuss applications to social justice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social science research in law: A new paradigm.

The law is hampered in using social science research by the obsolete notion that research used to change a legal rule is "legislative fact" and research in which only the parties to a case have an interest is "adjudicative fact." In important ways, however, social research is more akin to law itself than to "fact." We suggest a paradigm in which law-changing research is "social authority," case-specific research is "social fact," and a newer hybrid combination of these two is "social framework." In each of these areas, we propose that judges treat aspects of empirical studies much as they treat legal precedents under the common law. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of peer ratings to assess sociability among inpatients with severe psychiatric disorders

OBJECTIVE: A critical component of inpatient treatment for persons with severe psychiatric disorders is an evaluation of their social impairments. Most existing methods for such evaluations involve staff input and can be both time-consuming and expensive. This paper reports on the use of peer ratings as a method for assessing sociability, an aspect of social functioning in this clinical population. METHODS: Thirty-two inpatients with severe psychiatric disorders who had spent an average of 18 months on an inpatient unit in a state facility rated the popularity of their inpatient peers by completing a 7-point scale measuring how much they enjoyed visiting with each patient. The reliability of peer ratings and their association with staff ratings of patients' behavior on the unit were assessed. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The peer ratings had excellent test-retest reliability and were highly associated with staff members' independent evaluations of patients' behavior. Peer ratings appear to have promise as a measure of social functioning among inpatients with severe psychiatric disorders.     

Award for Distinguished Contributions of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training: Roger P. Weissberg.

Roger P. Weissberg received the 2000 Award for Distinguished Contributions of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training. He was given this award for inspiring work that is changing the core of education. Over a distinguished career and now through the Collaborative to Advance Social and Emotional Learning, he has put social and emotional learning and emotional intelligence indelibly on the agenda of educators. With much integrity, he has championed primary prevention in the schools. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social interaction modifies learned aversions, sodium appetite, and both palatability and handling-time induced dietary preference in rats (Rattus norvegicus).

Four studies examined whether socially transmitted diet preference could counteract the effects of a learned aversion, a palatability-based diet preference, a polyethylene glycol 20,000-induced sodium appetite, and a handling time-induced dietary preference. Results indicate that (a) Ss poisoned after eating a novel diet ate substantial amounts of the averted diet following interaction with conspecifics that had eaten the averted diet. (b) Following interaction with conspecifics that had eaten an unpalatable diet, Ss offered a choice between palatable and unpalatable diets ate more than twice as much unpalatable diet as did controls lacking social experience. (c) Sodium-deficient Ss offered a choice between sodium-enriched and sodium-adequate diets ate less than half as much sodium-enriched diet, following interaction with conspecifics that had eaten sodium-adequate diet as did controls lacking social experience. (d) Ss offered a choice between isocaloric, roughly equipalatable foods with long and short handling times chose the food having the longer handling time after interacting with conspecifics eating that food. It is suggested that social influence is a major factor in guiding diet selection by rats. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alone in the crowd: The structure and spread of loneliness in a large social network.

The discrepancy between an individual’s loneliness and the number of connections in a social network is well documented, yet little is known about the placement of loneliness within, or the spread of loneliness through, social networks. The authors use network linkage data from the population-based Framingham Heart Study to trace the topography of loneliness in people’s social networks and the path through which loneliness spreads through these networks. Results indicated that loneliness occurs in clusters, extends up to 3 degrees of separation, is disproportionately represented at the periphery of social networks, and spreads through a contagious process. The spread of loneliness was found to be stronger than the spread of perceived social connections, stronger for friends than family members, and stronger for women than for men. The results advance understanding of the broad social forces that drive loneliness and suggest that efforts to reduce loneliness in society may benefit by aggressively targeting the people in the periphery to help repair their social networks and to create a protective barrier against loneliness that can keep the whole network from unraveling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The potential role of theory in the training of applied social psychologists.

There are a number of deficiencies in contemporary social-psychological theory as both a knowledge base and a guide for research and practice in applied social psychology. In principle, theory should be integrated with research and practice and should serve both a knowledge building and a guiding function for the discipline. In practice, much contemporary theory, based on laboratory experiments on intra- and interpersonal processes, is limited in its capacity to explain complex, real-world social behaviour. This paper discusses the actual and potential role of social-psychological theory in applied social psychology in relation to graduate training. A graduate programme offering the M.A. and Ph.D. is described in terms of objectives, requirements, and job placements. A survey of graduates is also reported. The role of theory in training M.A. students is problematic: theses are often atheoretical with an emphasis on research methodology, particularly programme evaluation. The Ph.D. programme requires the integration of theory with research and consultation activities and is attempting to increase the use of theory in the development of social programmes, the amelioration of social problems, and the formation of social policy. It is proposed that social-psychological theories covering several levels of analysis are necessary to understand social behaviour and to provide an adequate base for applied training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Putting time in perspective: A valid, reliable individual-differences metric.

Time perspective (TP), a fundamental dimension in the construction of psychological time, emerges from cognitive processes partitioning human experience into past, present, and future temporal frames. The authors' research program proposes that TP is a pervasive and powerful yet largely unrecognized influence on much human behavior. Although TP variations are learned and modified by a variety of personal, social, and institutional influences, TP also functions as an individual-differences variable. Reported is a new measure assessing personal variations in TP profiles and specific TP "biases." The 5 factors of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory were established through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and demonstrate acceptable internal and test-retest reliability. Convergent, divergent, discriminant, and predictive validity are shown by correlational and experimental research supplemented by case studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rural Greeks and illness: an anthropologist's viewpoint

Traditionally, the ill in Greece are supported by kin and neighbors, who often provide diagnosis, medication and the social support required by an invalid. In Australia, the Greek patient is likely to be faced with impersonal efficiency rather than the highly personalized sympathy he is used to. The absence of supporting kin and friends may combine with lack of familiarity in the Australian system to make illness in Australia an extremely anxious experience, perhaps much more anxious than it should ever be.