Review of Directions in Soviet social psychology.

Reviews the book, Directions in Soviet social psychology, edited by Lloyd H. Strickland (1984). This book is about collectives: not just any organized group that might be so called in the Soviet Union, but groups that have attained (or are in the process of attaining) a genuine collectivity, internal cohesiveness, or solidarity. The editor has put together ten chapters, each by one or more of the Soviet Union's most prominent social psychologists. The contributions were written with a view to giving Western psychologists--in as nonpolemic a manner as possible--an understanding of the various problem areas in Soviet social psychology, of where they have come from historically, of what Soviet psychologists see as the major issues, of how they do research, and of some of their findings and conclusions. The contributions appear diverse. They deal with subjects as varied as the self-concept, communication, cognitive processes, person perception, self-discipline, management, and industrial psychology. Beneath the diversity, however, emerges a common preoccupation with the collective, its development and dynamics. This unity of underlying concern, in turn, lends the book a remarkable coherence. The book is, however, not without its difficulties. The main one is a certain opacity characteristic of English translations of Russian scientific works. The editor acknowledges and discusses this problem in an afterword. He has also provided the reader with an informative preface that explains how the book came about, and each chapter is headed by a brief but helpful introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of social psychology.

Reviews the book "Handbook of social psychology" (Volumes I and II), edited by G. Lindzey (see record 1955-03817-000). This book is a major attempt to present, summarized in handbook fashion, what is known theoretically, methodologically, and substantively in the area of social psychology. The various chapters include contributions by psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and statisticians. Most of the chapters are written carefully and thoughtfully. It is a good and worth-while book to have in print. Many students and research workers will have occasion to refer to it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of social psychology.

Reviews the book, Handbook of social psychology edited by Gardner Lindzey (1954). The reviewer notes that the publication of this two-volume Handbook is a truly signal event in social psychology. The text is comprehensive, up to date, balanced. It gives extensive treatment to theory, to methodology, and to research findings and applications. It is sophisticated in its approach and makes no concession to oversimplified presentation, either in content or in style. The reviewer also reports that the editor has demonstrated a high order of intelligence and judgment in the selection and organization of the various chapters. No main area of social psychology is neglected. As contrasted with the more typical compendiums of material in a large field, this book succeeds remarkably in avoiding unnecessary redundancy. The choice of authors in this text is also excellent. Some of the authors have taken this as an occasion for creating something beyond simply a critical review of an area of social psychology; parts of some of the chapters are original contributions to the theory and method of social psychology. Overall, this Handbook offers convincing evidence that social psychology is indeed a field in its own right, continually growing in the extent to which its methods and findings bear intimate relationship with other areas of psychology, and at the same time contributing a steady stream of methods and data which are uniquely to be found in connection with social behavior of individuals and groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of A textbook of social psychology.

Reviews the book, A textbook of social psychology (5th ed.) by J. E. Alcock, D. W. Carment, and S. W. Sadava (2001). The authors have produced here, for the most part, an example of the social psychology textbook that has dominated the North American academic landscape for more than a generation, which is a social psychology largely under the influence of naive empiricism, generally nonhistorical and nonideological in its approach, and otherwise (and amazingly) undisturbed by over 30 years of debate on the crisis in social psychology or more recent postmodernist and critical approaches based on history, language and discourse, politics, feminism, social/historical constructionism, and notions of community. Indeed, what is most striking about the book is what is missing in it. There is no serious discussion of feminist psychology or feminism. Nor is there any mention of postmodernist influences, critical psychology, symbolic interactionism, community psychology, the analysis of discourse, intersubjectivity, Vygotsky's socio-cultural-historical approach, and so on. But this omission says more about the book's adherence to the mainstream than about its neglect of Canadian psychology; there can be no doubt that much of Canadian psychology is a direct importation from the American mainstream. Alcock, Carment, and Sadava give us a standard North American textbook in social psychology with a Canadian flavour. It provides significant content reflecting what many Canadian social psychologists research, and it offers Canadian examples throughout to illuminate its formal content. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Brain, environment and social psychology.

Reviews the book, Brain, Environment and Social Psychology by J. K. Chadwick-Jones, I.I. Lenzer, J. A. Darley and K. A. Hill (1979). The best chapter in this book is James Darley's on ethology and animal behaviour. This chapter provides a clear exposition of basic ethological concepts, and some excellent examples of how ethology differs from comparative psychology, and some excellent examples of the interaction of hereditary and environmental factors in the control of animal behaviour. Other relatively strong chapters include Irmingard Lenzer's chapter on human neuropsychology and Kenneth Hill's chapters on social perception and communication in children. The weakest chapters in the book are those by Chadwick-Jones on methods in social psychology (Chapter 5), and language and social behaviour (Chapter 6). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Adolescent psychology.

Reviews the book, Adolescent Psychology by John J. Mitchell (1979). In this book, John Mitchell aims to summarize the major developmental, psychological, and social phenomena of the adolescent years. The body of the book is organized into three sections. In the first, adolescence is approached developmentally and is sequenced into three stages, child adolescence, middle adolescence, and adult adolescence. A survey of the psychological needs, strains, and coping strategies of adolescence makes up the second section of the book. The concluding section of the book comprises seven editorials on what Mitchell views as the myths of adolescence. The treatment of these myths is personal and designed to stimulate discussion. Adolescent Psychology is readable and straightforward in its exposition, and would be suitable for lower-level undergraduate courses. Given the amount of material covered, it would probably not be comprehensive enough to serve as the sole text for an adolescence course, but might be more appropriately used as an adjunct to other readings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Abnormal psychology.

Reviews the book, Abnormal psychology by Thomas F. Oltmanns, Robert E. Emery, and Steven Taylor (2001). Oltmanns, Emery, and Taylor have kept their current text within the mainstream. In the first edition of the text (Oltmanns & Emery, 1995), they followed an integrative systems approach, similar to that adopted by Sarason and Sarason in 1989, in which evidence on biological, psychological, and social influences was combined in the discussion of the aetiology of the different disorders. Their major claims to uniqueness in the Canadian edition reside in the retention of their integrative systems approach; the integration of scientific methodology into every chapter; and an emphasis on multicultural issues in which, as the name of the text indicates, Canadian research and issues predominate. With this text, Oltmanns, Emery, and Taylor have answered the plea for Canadian content and, within the contemporary style of text, have done it well. Personally, however, I continue to lament the passing of the era of the psychopathology text, when abnormal psychology actually referred to an aspect of psychology, rather than psychiatry, and the presentation of material lacked the hegemony of a particular--that is, North American--cultural perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Cognitive psychology.

Reviews the book, Cognitive Psychology by Guy Claxton (1980). This is a bold attempt to provide a well-integrated review of the problems and prospects of modern cognitive psychology. In general, the book succeeds although one may disagree with the directions that are foreseen. The book consists of nine papers by eight authors. Six chapters plus an overview cover traditional topics within cognition while two excellent chapters extend the discussion to motor control and cross-cultural perspectives. Together the chapters are '... meant to be a guidebook to organizing one's thoughts, and a life-raft to cling on to when in danger of drowning in the sea of detail'. This is an excellent overview for graduate students or scientists in related fields; it will prove difficult for all but the brighter undergraduates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Social psychology.

Reviews the book, Social psychology by Daniel Perlman and P. Chris Cozby (1983). In agreeing to co-edit a text sponsored by The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Daniel Perlman and P. Chris Cozby accepted the challenge of producing a non-traditional text aimed at a very traditional market. Their self-described "most salient goal" was "to focus attention on social issues and problems." They recognized, however, that that goal could only be achieved by meeting "the needs of students." The co-editors additionally accepted the implicit task of counterbalancing social psychology's tradition of presenting the discipline as being almost exclusively laboratory-based. As a result, Social Psychology--in its accuracy and completeness of the literature surveyed--represents on of the better books in the field. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of A textbook of social psychology, second edition.

Reviews the book, A textbook of social psychology, second edition by J. E. Alcock, D. W. Carment, and S. W. Sadava (1991). The volume under review is quite typical in its coverage of various topics. Its introduction and sixteen chapters deal with methods; social perception and cognition; attitudes and values; attitude change; social influence; prejudice, discrimination and sexism; inter-personal attraction and inter-personal relationships; aggression and violence; pro-social behaviour; communication; social categorization, groups, and leadership; conflict and its resolution; collective behaviour; social psychology of justice and the law; social psychology and the physical environment; health and illness. The current second edition is quite similar in coverage to the first. But it is substantially brought up-to-date and expanded, so that the book grew from 678 pages in the first edition to 824 pages in this second edition. In terms of its contents, then, this text does a very good job in covering what are now considered the major topics in social psychology. Instructors who select this volume as a text for a first course in social psychology arc well served. Not only do they get a treatment of social psychology that is comprehensive and up-to-date, but also has the additional benefits of being interesting, well-written, and relevant to the Canadian context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of A critical psychology.

Reviews the book, A critical psychology by Edmund V. Sullivan (1984). Sullivan examines three metaphors as the basis for developing a proper psychology. He rejects the mechanical and the organic metaphors as reductionistic and too limiting as a basis for understanding man, and advances what he calls the personal metaphor. By this he means personhood-Iness embedded in culture. This has to do with I, the agent and my projects, embedded in a determining social structure in the background. Although there is much discussion about this metaphor, its meaning is never made as explicit as the two he rejects. This book will be difficult for the typical psychologist to read because the author introduces a lot of strange terminology, and he doesn't communicate in the usual way. He writes more like an old-time philosopher or a theologian, or one of the other humanities experts--like someone dealing with the ineffable, which may well be the case. While the reviewer is in agreement with most of the author's criticisms of contemporary psychology, such as it is not a coherent discipline, not enough attention is paid to methodology other than experimental, and more attention should be paid to philosophical issues, the reviewer sees no reason to adopt his alternative. The trouble with critics such as Sullivan is that they don't demonstrate how we should go about the business of doing psychology--they merely talk about it. And until those who want an alternative clearly demonstrate what their alternative looks like, nothing will change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Occupational health psychology.

Reviews the book, Occupational health psychology edited by Stavroula Leka and Jonathon Houdmont (see record 2010-10988-000). Leka and Houdmont describe their book as the first textbook devoted to occupational health psychology intended for undergraduate instruction in the field. Leka and Houdmont have chosen an interesting strategy in creating an edited textbook with individual chapters written by established experts in the field. In doing so, they have in many cases gotten “the best” people in a particular area to write chapters in their area of expertise. Despite their reliance on multiple authors, the editors have maintained a consistent style throughout the volume—each chapter begins with a chapter outline and ends with a chapter summary. Textboxes throughout are used to highlight individuals prominent in the field (e.g., Tom Cox) or to highlight applications and research issues and to provide definitions of key terms. I would expect that students will appreciate such pedagogical features in addition to the depth of expertise that underlies each chapter. Although not divided into sections, one can intuit a structure to the book that begins with a broad perspective on occupational health psychology and then progressively adopts a narrower focus. When I first heard of this book, I was pleased at the prospect of being able to assign a single textbook that would offer a survey of occupational health psychology. Although the authors met their explicit goal of covering the core education curriculum defined by the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology, I am not convinced that they have produced a “stand-alone” text that provides an adequate coverage of the field. In particular, issues of workplace safety are strikingly absent from the text. Personally, I would feel the need to supplement this text with specific readings on issues of occupational safety and occupational disease in order to cover the major topics that comprise the field of occupational health psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Approaches to psychology.

Reviews the book, Approaches to Psychology by John Medcof and John Roth (Eds.) (1979). The preface of Approaches to Psychology states that standard psychology texts do not meet the needs of instructors teaching one-semester courses to students taking psychology as an adjunct to their own field of study. According to Medcof and Roth, standard texts do not fill these needs because they are too long and students often perceive the information as a disjointed collection of conflicting theories and findings. In addition, they claim that students who are taking Psychology as an adjunct to their own field are not interested in rats and other non-human organisms. To correct what they perceived as deficiencies in standard texts they chose to write this book as a text that was brief, stressed human behavior and was coherent. Although the individual chapters are well written, the reviewer feels that Approaches to Psychology fails to meet its goals. It is not necessarily brief nor does it present a coherent picture of psychology. He recommends that professors who are selecting a text for a one semester course in general psychology would be wise to consider some of the short versions of standard texts. These texts, in spite of their difficulties, would provide students with a better overall picture of the field of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Philosophy of psychology.

Reviews the book, Philosophy of psychology by Daniel N. Robinson (see record 1985-97596-000). In this book, Robinson offers what might be considered to be four essays in the philosophy of mind. In these essays he has set out to clarify some rather fundamental concepts operative within the mainstream of psychology, and he brings to bear on these the conceptual machinery of philosophical psychology proper. That is, he asks foundational, or meta-psychological, questions about the reigning assumptions in the field. These questions fall into four general areas, or sub-themes, within psychology as a whole, each topic being taken in a separate chapter. These topics will be explored briefly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of Indian psychology.

Reviews the book, Handbook of Indian psychology, edited by K. Ramakrishna Rao, Anand C. Paranjpe, and Ajit K. Dalal (see record 2008-09634-000). The importance and development of indigenous perspectives in psychology are well-documented in recent years, and many volumes have appeared that focus on specific cultural regions. The present volume is a welcome addition to this line of work, particularly as it is just the inaugural volume in a series entitled the “Indian Psychology Book Project.” After an introductory chapter, the volume is organised into three general parts devoted to “Systems and Schools,” “Topics and Themes,” and “Applications and Implications”. The first part is largely concerned with broad cultural and theological influences on Indian psychology. The second part includes topics that are typical of western psychological approaches, including motivation, personality, cognition, emotion and consciousness, all cast within an Indian cultural perspective. In the third part, authors seek to apply specific knowledge from these domains of Indian psychology to areas of practise such as meditation and health, and organisational effectiveness. This volume presents an exceedingly rich set of materials. Those interested in comprehending human beings in all their diversity should be prepared to spend hours with this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Methods of theoretical psychology.

Reviews the book, Methods of theoretical psychology by André Kukla (see record 2001-18914-000). This comprehensive survey of the tools of theoretical psychology is the culmination of the author's previous writings (e.g., Kukla 1989, 1995) wherein he tried to "convince psychologists that our discipline had suffered from a gross and systematic underestimation of the scope, variety, and import of theoretical work" and "persuade my colleagues that there are many important theoretical issues the resolution of which does not call for empirical research" (p. xi). This is not a book in theoretical psychology (the author cites as examples the volumes by Marx and Hillix, and Wolman), but a book about theoretical psychology, the "types of theoretical activities" that "require nothing but thinking" (p. xi). Notable is the book's epigraph, a quotation from Jerry Fodor claiming that the distinction between psychological and philosophical theorizing is merely heuristic, and issuing the moral challenge for a plurality of argument styles that transcends disciplines. For Kukla has written a book about the logic of science, or what was traditionally referred to as the philosophy of science, and, as might be expected, examples are strewn throughout from the natural sciences as well as some classic theoretical problems in psychology, most notably, cognitive science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Aristotle’s psychology.

Reviews the book, Aristotle's psychology by Daniel N. Robinson (see record 1989-98377-000) . Daniel Robinson has provided an excellent introduction to an overview of Aristotle's psychology, giving background necessary for understanding that psychology, teasing a psychology out the variety of Aristotle's work, and placing Aristotle's psychology sympathetically within the broader scope of his scientific inquiry. Robinson takes on difficult issues such as the relation between Plato and Aristotle, Aristotle's theory of causation, and what Aristotle meant by soul, and he deals with them lucidly and deftly. His writing is clean and to the point, never requiring one to become a philologist or classicist, but at the same time dealing with the issues with sufficient depth and sophistication not to caricature Aristotle's work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Current topics in rehabilitation psychology.

Reviews the book, Current topics in rehabilitation psychology edited by Charles J. Golden (1984). Every few years an edited volume of chapters on rehabilitation psychology is published. The latest contribution, Current Topics in Rehabilitation Psychology, edited by Charles Golden, is written for students, professionals, and educated lay people who want to learn about some of the recent advances in the field. Golden makes clear, and quite correctly so, that the volume is not a comprehensive coverage of all the areas of research, training, and service that are in the domain of rehabilitation psychology. Instead, after two chapters giving an overview of the field, several specific areas are addressed. They include management of chronic pain, cognitive retraining in brain damaged patients, rehabilitation and aging, adjustment of people with spinal cord injury, vocational training of people with severe developmental disabilities, biofeedback, and the role of personality in attitudes toward those with physical disabilities. The book would have profited greatly from more careful editing. Although the quality of writing varies from author to author, the grammatical errors, misspellings, and garbled sentences are uniformly so numerous that they sometimes distract the reader from the valuable content of the chapters. Nevertheless, the book is worthwhile as one that gives an overview of several specific topics and supplies rich bibliographies to those wishing to learn more. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The body and psychology.

Reviews the book, The body and psychology by Henderikus J. Stam (see record 1998-06784-000). Considering this collection as a whole, it is striking how many of the authors, some of whom have been proponents of social constructionist thinking, feel social constructionism is unable to articulate an adequate theory of the psychological body. This refreshingly critical edge will no doubt lead to more sophisticated debates on the psychological body. Overall, this book is probably best read by graduate students and scholars who have some familiarity with social constructionist theory (e.g., Harré), as well as poststructuralism (e.g., Derrida, Lacan) and social theory (e.g., Bourdieu). Moreover, since the authors rely on other disciplinary discourses, this will be an excellent text for graduate courses on the body in cultural studies and sociology. Teaching this book would be interesting as it contains some analytical contrasts; for example, one could turn Malone and Bayer on Baerveldt and Voestermans, Parlee on Kempen, or the thematic analysis of Frank on the book itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Problems of theoretical psychology.

Reviews the book, Problems of theoretical psychology edited by Charles W. Tolman, Frances Cherry, René van Herzewijk, and Ian Lubek (see record 1997-97223-000). This is the sixth volume of selected, edited proceedings of the biennial conferences of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP). All of the contributions to the current volume have been drawn from symposia and papers presented at the sixth conference held at Carlton University, May 21-26,1995. The 40 papers published in this book are grouped into seven sections, the first two of which were presented as symposia at die Carleton conference. The papers in the remaining five sections are grouped thematically under the headings: Language, Discourse, and Meaning; Cognition and Cognitive Science; Social Psychology, Personality, Self, and Identity; and Methodological and Historical Issues. According to the reviewer, overall, the quality of the papers was uniformly high; the issues under discussion will interest anyone with even a modicum of conceptual or theoretical concern; the writing and presentation are engaging and mostly accessible; and the diversity and multiplicity of perspectives are decidedly stimulating. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)