John P. Sabini (1947-2005).

Presents an obituary for John Paulus Sabini. Sabini spent his career, starting in 1976, in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Sabini was fascinated with Milgram's research on obedience. Milgram's imprint is obvious in Sabini's interest in social influence, the psychology of everyday life, and in his style. Sabini's studies of moral reproach, gossip, procrastination, embarrassment, envy, shame, self-deception, and sincerity are simultaneously analyses of causal determinants and of speech acts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Basic theoretical concepts of humanistic psychology.

Presents aspects of the new science of humanistic psychology and distinguishes it from its ideological origins in humanistic philosophy. The following elements of humanistic psychology are identified and briefly discussed: (a) the study and understanding of the person as a whole, (b) the need to understand the full life history of the human being, (c) the role of intentionality in human existence, and (d) the importance of the end goal of life for the healthy person. The individual is seen as attempting to integrate the various motives that drive the person to seek self-realization and fulfillment. The relationship of humanistic psychology to psychotherapy and to the field of education is also discussed. (44 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The changing face of psychology at the dawning of a globalization era.

Societies today are undergoing drastic social, informational, and technological changes. The revolutionary advances in electronic technologies and globalization are transforming the nature, reach, speed, and loci of human influence. These rapidly evolving realities place increasing demands on the exercise of personal and collective agency to shape personal destinies and the national life of societies. There is growing unease about progressive divestiture of different aspects of psychology to biology and subpersonal cognitive science. It is feared that as we give away more and more psychology to disciplines lower on the food chain, there will be no core psychological discipline left. Contrary to divestitive oracles, psychology is the integrative discipline best suited to advance understanding of human adaptation and change. It is the discipline that uniquely encompasses the complex interplay between intrapersonal, biological, interpersonal, and sociostructural determinants of human functioning. With the growing primacy of human agency in virtually all spheres of life, the field of psychology should be articulating a broad vision of human beings—not a reductive fragmentary one. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new Big Five: Fundamental principles for an integrative science of personality.

Despite impressive advances in recent years with respect to theory and research, personality psychology has yet to articulate clearly a comprehensive framework for understanding the whole person. In an effort to achieve that aim, the current article draws on the most promising empirical and theoretical trends in personality psychology today to articulate 5 big principles for an integrative science of the whole person. Personality is conceived as (a) an individual's unique variation on the general evolutionary design for human nature, expressed as a developing pattern of (b) dispositional traits, (c) characteristic adaptations, and (d) self-defining life narratives, complexly and differentially situated (e) in culture and social context. The 5 principles suggest a framework for integrating the Big Five model of personality traits with those self-defining features of psychological individuality constructed in response to situated social tasks and the human need to make meaning in culture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology in America's bicentennial year.

Discusses whether American psychology has flourished in substance as it has in popularity during its century of existence. If one uses William James's Talks to Teachers as a reference point, one finds that contemporary psychology can be more specific about the boundary conditions within which traditional principles of learning are valid. The increasing dominance of cognitive behaviorism in the study of learning and memory is paralleled by cognitive emphases in other areas of psychology, so that the various subspecialties of psychology are once again approaching psychology with concepts that offer hope not only of communication and integration of psychology, but also of understanding the whole person as a cognitive, conative, affective, biological, and social individual. In essence, psychologists now are coming to share a view of human nature that, as compared with earlier stimulus-response views, is more compatible with that of Jefferson and the founders of our republic. (11/2 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Proposals for a second psychology.

During the 19th century, numerous writers including Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, and Wilhelm Wundt called for a 2nd psychology, a psychology to complement laboratory-based psychology. This 2nd psychology would address aspects of human mind and behavior that emerged from cultural life. Different forms of empiricism appropriate to a 2nd psychology were gradually realized in studies of character formation, conduct, personality and culture, and more recently, cognition and culture. This article examines this 2nd psychology that has been slower to mature but has achieved some contemporary realization in personology, cultural psychology, and several of the applied psychologies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

James J. Gibson: An appreciation.

J. J. Gibson (see PA, Vol 29:5103; see also PA, Vol 81:28168) conceived of a perceptual psychology very different from that taken by mainstream research work in vision over the past 30 yrs. Placing psychology in a biological and physical context and avoiding traditional disciplinary definitions, Gibson outlined a physics relevant to animate life. From this flowed his theory of affordances, his preoccupation with surfaces, and his interest in animal locomotion. Visual motion played a decisive role in rounding out these views. His work here was prophetic, anticipating neurophysiological discoveries on motion sensitivity and directly inspiring more recent studies on higher order aspects of motion encoding. Gibson scrupulously avoided mention of internal representation. Yet, those researchers interested in such internal processes remain deeply indebted to his enduring contributions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interest in psychology at the high school level.

Comments on the apparent low interest in psychology among bright high school students as being attributed to the absence of contact with psychologists or psychology as a science in the usual high school curriculum. The author reports that during the past three years at the annual Southern Appalachian Science Fair sponsored by the local Scripps-Howard newspaper and the University of Tennessee, exhibits and studies dealing with psychology have received their due share, if not more, of the awards. This interest in psychology is noteworthy on several accounts. These are expounded upon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rorschachbound: A 50-year memoir.

Originally introduced into America in the early 1920s, the Rorschach attracted students from many disciplines who revolted against the "trait" psychology that pervaded the psychological scene at the time. For 30 yrs, Rorschach students enthusiastically viewed the technique as a global method that could study the human personality as a whole and in depth. In the late 1960s, the Rorschach was challenged because of repeated failures in validating research, and interest declined in its development and application. Since 1970, however, it has emerged with more strength and vigor and on firmer theoretical foundations and sounder methodology. Greater prominence must be given to clinically oriented research, notably to the idiographic and interactional aspects of the method, so that the Rorschach can reach its ultimate goal of complete scientific validity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychology department and society.

The current crisis for departments of psychology arises from (a) cuts in research and training grants; (b) rising costs, (c) level-off of public appropriations; and (d) attacks on the efficiency and relevance of higher education by students, alumni, legislators, and the public. Pressures toward greater involvement in society and greater attempts to relate research and teaching to social problems are blocked by the need for retrenchment resulting from the budgetary crisis and anxiety about lack of skills. However, responsiveness to society is made much more feasible than in the past by (a) increasing interest in tackling problems of human psychology with experimental methods; and (b) the upsurge of interest in developmental psychology, experimental social psychology, and other areas relating formerly applied areas to the more scientific aspects of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychologie au Quebec: Present et avenir.

An attempt has been made to evaluate the current state of both pure and applied psychology in the Province of Quebec. The recent academic and professional recognition of this newly developing science and its impact and implications for the future growth have been analysed. Basing his observations on the contributions of Wright and Pinard, the author has attempted to present an image of the contemporary Quebec psychology. The actual difficulties with respect to research, teaching and practice of psychology as a profession in the province have been highlighted. Some general suggestions with a view towards making some improvements in the current state of affairs have been made. Diversity in specialization, better utilization of human resources, more and more specialization by French-Canadian psychologists and greater exchange of information between the French and the American psychology have been proposed as some of the starting points to accelerate the growth of Quebec psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Watching for light: Spiritual psychology beyond materialism.

Spiritual psychology is well poised to contribute to the field of psychology by extending a map of human experience beyond materialism. We can expand scientific inquiry to explore consciousness as it pertains to states other than matter. Several of our sibling fields in science have moved well beyond strict materialism, such as academic physics, which includes a branch of quantum physics reliant on consciousness. The great majority of people around the world express an awareness and dialogue with the powerful nonmaterial presence that surrounds us and is in us and view the nonmaterial presence as sacred. Understanding this more fully would seem to be our work as psychologists. In this special section, we consider the vast possibility of the science of psychology to explore, develop theories and models, and generate new methods beyond materialism. Three rigorous and innovative articles are presented by Len Sperry, Kari O’Grady and Scott Richards, and Bruce Greyson, all leading scholars and psychotherapists, who together offer fertile ground for starting to build a spiritual psychology beyond materialism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Light from the ashes.

Reviews the book, Light from the ashes by Peter Suedfeld (see record 2001-18284-000). "How does a child of twelve experience this upheaval?" asks Gerda Lederer, in Peter Suedfeld's Light from the ashes. "This upheaval" is the Nazi persecution culminating in the Shoah. The contributors to this volume explore the way in which childhood experience of the Shoah affected their careers in psychology and other social sciences. This book will be of interest to researchers in trauma, narrative psychology, and history of psychology. It shows the creation of productive lives out of a history of loss. These memoirs are moving examples of the making of meaning in human life and the resilience that Suedfeld has clearly described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Realms of value: A critique of human civilization.

Reviews the book, Realms of value: A critique of human civilization by Ralph Barton Perry (1954). According to the reviewer, of all the many philosophical treatises on the subject, it is doubtful that any could possibly be more clarifying to the psychologist or more congenial to this author's taste. The author's pivotal concept is interest: "A thing--any thing--has value when it is the object of an interest--any interest" (p.3). Interest is anchored in the solid soil of motivation, cognition, and organization of personality, and conceptually is a close cousin of what most psychologists call attitude. The reviewer states that to a large degree, this author is forced to write his own psychology, since he finds relatively little illumination of "the architecture of interests" in current texts. He reviews what he calls "motoraffective psychology" (not a very happy label) in search of an adequate theory of interest, and finds the outcome mostly negative. The reviewer recommends this book for graduate instruction in psychology because the author's system lies close to the silent presuppositions with while psychologists ordinarily work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Alfred J. Marrow (1905-1978).

Alfred J. Marrow's career as a psychologist was just starting when Kurt Lewin came to the United States in 1934. From then until his death on March 3, 1978, Marrow exerted a continuous influence on American psychology that reflected his admiration for and identification with Lewin. Marrow was attracted to Lewin's approach to psychology because it encompassed two poles, ranging from the most abstract mathematical theory to the most active concern for the solution of social problems. And although Marrow appreciated the significance of Lewin's theory, he clearly identified more strongly with Lewin's passion for using psychology to improve the quality of life. He was first and foremost a man of action who was most successful in applying the Lewinian methods of action research to problems of managing organizations and reducing prejudices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metatheoretical Shifts and Extraclinical Data: Comment on Langs (2005).

R. Langs's (see record 2005-01622-004) strong adaptive approach (SAA) represents an important contribution to psychoanalysis, with noteworthy theoretical and clinical implications. In delineating and evaluating the SAA, Langs incorporated findings from outside of psychology and from studies of analytic sessions. This response argues that a rigorous assessment of the SAA requires attention to research findings from other areas of psychology (e.g., cognitive, social) as well. Implications of these studies for Langs's conceptualization of conscious and unconscious information processing and the role of death anxiety in human mental life are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introducing survival analysis to organizational researchers: A selected application to turnover research.

Survival analysis, a powerful set of statistical techniques, is introduced. These methods can be useful for turnover research and other behavioral studies with a binary dependent variable and multiple independent variables, any or all of which may be measured over time. Because survival analysis explicitly incorporates time as a variable of interest, it is more flexible and better able to extract and use information from longitudinal studies than methods more commonly used in applied psychology. In this article, we present survival analysis in an intuitive and applications-oriented manner. An application to turnover research is presented for purposes of illustration. With survival analysis, turnover may be viewed as a process whose intensity (rate) is allowed to vary over time rather than remain fixed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Growth, scope, and direction of current Soviet psychology: The 1963 All-Union Congress.

A comparison of papers delivered at the 1959 and 1963 Union Congresses indicates that "research in the discipline known as psychology in the Soviet Union… more than doubled in quantity in the last 4 yr. As of 1963, using a paper-read index and also a publication index, Soviet psychological research" is almost equally divided between (a) applied educational action research and (b) research that might be called basic." The basic research is almost equally divided among 3 areas: (1) engineering and information psychology, (2) traditional experimental human psychology, (3) comparative psychology engaged mostly in the study of "higher" functions in primates and in psychopathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Humanistic psychology: A new breakthrough.

A "major break-through is occurring at the present time in psychology." 8 parameters traditionally accepted as given in psychology but now increasingly questioned are examined: (a) The model of man as a composite of part functions. (b) The model of science taken over from physics. (c) The model of a practitioner taken over from medicine. (d) The pattern of compartmentalized subdivided graduate school faculty and curriculum as the appropriate agency for preparing students for psychological careers. (e) The criterion of statistical frequency as a demonstration of truth or reality. (f) The illusion that research precedes practice. (g) The myth of the "clinical team." (h) The fallacy that diagnosis is basic to treatment. A tremendously exciting development in psychology is its returned to consideration of "the functioning and experience of a whole human being." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contribution by a Psychologist in the Public Interest Gold Medal Award: Kenneth B. Clark.

Kenneth B. Clark is recognized for his long and distinguished career in promoting the public interest. He has been a pioneer in defending the civil rights of his fellow man, as well as a renowned analyst of the human condition. It is also noted that he has the distinct honor of being chosen a second time to receive the Psychological Public Interest Award. In addition to the citation, a biography is presented of Clark's life, as well as his contributions to psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)