Awards for Distinguished Scientific Contributions.

Discusses contributions of Ursula Bellugi and Edward S. Klima, Walter Kintsch, and K. Warner Schaie, the 1992 recipients of the Awards for Distinguished Scientific Contributions presented by the American Psychological Association. Bellugi and Klima are awarded for their contributions to the neuropsychology of language. Kintsch is recognized for his contributions to the analysis of text memory. Schaie is recognized for enlarging the conception of developmental psychology to include the entire life span and for empirical contributions to adult development and aging. Biographies for each recipient are given. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

K. Warner Schaie.

K. Warner Schaie is cited for enlarging our conception of developmental psychology to include the entire life span and for outstanding empirical contributions to the study of adult development and aging. As a developmental methodologist, Schaie's creative formulation of cohort-sequential longitudinal designs has inspired a new approach to the study of the dynamics between ontogenetic development and cultural (cohort) change. As a theoretician and researcher, he has made a landmark contribution to our understanding of the conditions that determine and surround the variations in the nature of aging. Along with the citation, a biography is presented for Schaie, as well as a bibliography of his work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Health needs of women with mental retardation and developmental disabilities.

Comments that the Women's Health Initiative described by K. A. Matthews (see record 1997-02873-001) should be expanded to include research on underserved populations, especially women with mental retardation and developmental disabilities. It is stated that the goal should be to study the health care needs of this population across the life span, not just in the postmenopausal phase of life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do APA journals play professional favorites?

Investigated possible favoritism in the publication policies of 4 American Psychological Association (APA) journals and 6 non-APA journals. While none of the APA journals had editors who were in private practice, retired or otherwise unaffiliated, all the non-APA journals had at least 2 editors in this category. Individual journals varied in the degree of professional favoritism shown, but this was not related to APA membership. Most journals devoted less than 10% of articles to editors' contributions, up to 33% to contributions from professional colleagues, and the remainder to sources outside immediate affiliations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Management of work and personal life: Problems & opportunities.

Reviews the book, Management of work and personal life: Problems & opportunities edited by Mary Dean Lee and Rabindra N. Kanungo (1984). Management of work and personal life is a timely book that breaks new ground in a much neglected but increasingly important area for research and problem solving. This book represents a distillation of selected symposium contributions from several participants from various disciplines. The purpose of this symposium, held at McGill University in April 1983, was "to stimulate, develop, and diffuse new ideas that might help individuals and organizations adapt to a changing society in which the traditional idealized models for coordinating work and personal life are passé." This book will also be of considerable interest to professionals involved in such activities as life-style counselling and career planning. In general, the editors have selected symposium contributions that attempt to summarize what is known in six different areas related to management of work and personal life, and then suggest directions for future research. The six areas are work and family roles, work and leisure, quality of life, occupational stress, career and adult development, and behavioural patterns of structuring daily life. Overall, the reviewer feels that this book is important reading for scholars who wish to study or do research in the general area of improving quality of life through integrated management of different life facets. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Harriet Lange Rheingold (1908-2000): Obituary.

Reports the death of Harriet Lange Rheingold (1908-2000). The author discusses her contributions to the field of developmental psychology citing some of her life accomplishments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Robert J. Havighurst (1900–1991): Obituary.

Robert J. Havighurst was a professor of education and human development at the University of Chicago for more than 4 decades. He was a researcher, educator, administrator, and author who made contributions in life span developmental psychology and related fields. His work produced the 1st major books on the sociology and psychology of aging. Havighurst belonged to Divisions 7, 15, and 20 of the American Psychological Association, received the Thorndike Award in Educational Psychology from Division 15 in 1969, and was founder and president of Division 20. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The existential concept of death.

Comments on B. Vandenburg's (see record 1992-12211-001) article on epistemology and an existentialist consideration of development. If the existentialist prospects of death are to be included in a beyond-epistemic consideration of developmental issues, it is necessary to examine the status of the concept of death as an existential given, not subject to developmental changes over the life span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Converging methods for understanding reading and dyslexia.

Reviews the book, Converging methods for understanding reading and dyslexia edited by Raymond M. Klein and Patricia A. McMullen (see record 2000-07104-000). In the preface to this volume, the editors Raymond Klein and Patricia McMullen promise a book that will "illustrate different approaches used by scientists to understand the complex skill of reading and its breakdown" (p. xi). As long as readers of this volume understand that Klein and McMullen are referring to "the reading of single words" (p. 1), and not the reading of sentences or paragraphs or whole texts, they will not be disappointed by this book. Indeed, Klein and McMullen have put together an impressive collection of state-of-the-art chapters by scientists who address the issue of single-word reading from a variety of standpoints and disciplines. The coverage is both extensive and intensive, and the quality of the contributions is uniformly high. Klein and McMullen have lived up to their promise of delivering a book that illustrates different approaches to understanding single-word reading and its breakdown. But have they succeeded in putting together a volume "to stimulate thought about how converging evidence from these approaches can lead to new insights and advances" (p. xi)? Of course, it is too early to tell whether researchers will be able to draw on the converging evidence in a positive way. However, I think the editors could have done more to facilitate such a process. Most readers will be struck by the fact that the volume reveals as many divergences of evidence and opinion as it does convergences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Biocultural orchestration of developmental plasticity across levels: The interplay of biology and culture in shaping the mind and behavior across the life span.

The author reviews reemerging coconstructive conceptions of development and recent empirical findings of developmental plasticity at different levels spanning several fields of developmental and life sciences. A cross-level dynamic biocultural coconstructive framework is endorsed to understand cognitive and behavioral development across the life span. This framework integrates main conceptions of earlier views into a unifying frame, viewing the dynamics of life span development as occurring simultaneously within different time scales (i.e., moment-to-moment microgenesis, life span ontogeny, and human phylogeny) and encompassing multiple levels (i.e., neurobiological, cognitive, behavioral, and sociocultural). Viewed through this metatheoretical framework, new insights of potential interfaces for reciprocal cultural and experiential influences to be integrated with behavioral genetics and cognitive neuroscience research can be more easily prescribed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The time of our lives: Life span development of timing and event tracking.

Life span developmental profiles were constructed for 305 participants (ages 4-95) for a battery of paced and unpaced perceptual-motor timing tasks that included synchronize-continue tapping at a wide range of target event rates. Two life span hypotheses, derived from an entrainment theory of timing and event tracking, were tested. A preferred period hypothesis predicted a monotonic slowing of a preferred rate (tempo) of event tracking across the life span. An entrainment region hypothesis predicted a quadratic profile in the range of event rates that produced effective timing across the life span; specifically, age-specific entrainment regions should be narrower in childhood and late adulthood than in midlife. Findings across tasks provide converging support for both hypotheses. Implications of these findings are discussed for understanding critical periods in development and age-related slowing of event timing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Donald R. Lynam: Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology.

Announces Donald R. Lynam as a recipient of the Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology for 2002. A biographical statement is included, along with major works and contributions for the field. Lynam received this award for contributions to psychopathology research. His contributions span adult psychopathology, personality, clinical child psychology, sociology, developmental psychology, and criminology. His research interests include fledgling psychopathology, the contribution of individual differences to a variety of negative outcomes, and the use of the Five Factor Model of personality to understand psychopathy and other personality disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child psychology in Canada: Review of Child development: Selected readings.

Reviews the book, Child Development: Selected Readings by L. Brockman, J. Whiteley, and J. Zubek (Eds.) (1973). In their attractive paperback, University of Manitoba psychologists Lois Brockman, John Whiteley, and John Zubek have wisely not chosen Canadianism at all costs, but instead have compiled a good collection of standard readings with some Canadian extras. The articles are predominantly individual research reports, accompanied by a few research reviews and theoretical or historical papers, and the student is introduced to the giants of the field regardless of nationality--Piaget, Terman, Harlow, Kagan, and others. Beyond this, where it is possible to illustrate major types of developmental work with Canadian-based literature, this has been done. Over 1/2 of the 41 selections have Canadian authors or subjects. Articles by Hebb, Walters, Laurendeau and Pinard, Melzack, and Lambert leave no doubt as to the major contributions Canada's psychologists have made to the field of developmental psychology. A great deal of effort has gone into creating a worthwhile textbook of readings, and on the whole, the work of the editors is excellent. In addition to providing good introductions to each selection, they have included six completely new papers, and have excerpted, summarized, combined, or otherwise reworked several articles to make them more suitable for student readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Normality and the life cycle: A critical integration.

Reviews the book, Normality and the life cycle: A critical integration by Daniel Offer and Melvin Sabshin (1984). In 1966 and 1974, Basic Books published the first and second editions of Offer and Sabshin's Normality: Theoretical and Clinical Concepts of Mental Health. These volumes generated the proposal that a new field, called normatology, be established. It would focus on normality, normal behavior, and normal development. This still more recent volume develops the proposal and is an attempt to fill the need to "examine concepts of normality and definitions of normal behavior through time and across cultures". Both of the editors (and most of the contributors) are medically trained, and their professional orientation is apparent throughout the book. Although claims are made that the approach to normatology should be interdisciplinary, and four different concepts of normality are offered, the main concern of most of the chapters seem to be that of differentiating the healthy from the unhealthy. The editors even note that the terms "normality" and "mental health" are used interchangeably. Several chapters have a developmental orientation, but these too are typically concerned with distinguishing normal from abnormal developmental processes. Individual papers are scholarly, but in some cases seem directionless. The most seminal ideas in the book are presented by Mandell and Salk, whose chapter proposes a theory of emergent patterns that could have implications in the future both for general developmental theory and for specific theories of learning that might influence rehabilitation psychology. A previous reviewer has judged that this chapter alone is worth the price of the book, and this judgment may well be correct. Those who purchase this book should do so primarily for its reviews of the literature, which are generally complete and competent. Purchasers will probably be disappointed if they expect to find much that is of direct value to rehabilitation or that contributes in a substantive to the founding of a new science of normality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eriksonian lifespan theory and life history theory: An integration using the example of identity formation.

Furthering the cause of consilience in the social sciences a model is proposed in which Eriksonian life span theory and life history theory are integrated. The model explains individual differences in the Eriksonian developmental stages as a function of the individual differences in developmental trajectories of life history theory as conceptualized by Belsky, Steinberg, and Draper (1991). Erikson's fifth stage of identity formation is used to examine the model, with the results of three studies presented to illustrate the viability of the model. Future research should examine other aspects of the model and the relationship between the developmental trajectories in life history theory and the Eriksonian stages in greater detail. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual Search Across the Life Span.

Gains and losses in visual search were studied across the life span in a representative sample of 298 individuals from 6 to 89 years of age. Participants searched for single-feature and conjunction targets of high or low eccentricity. Search was substantially slowed early and late in life, age gradients were more pronounced in conjunction than in feature search, and all age groups were uniformly affected by eccentricity manipulations. However, developmental and aging trends were distinctly asymmetrical: Children's performance was particularly affected by the mere presence of distractors; whereas in late life, performance was particularly impaired on target-absent trials and with increasing numbers of distractors. The implications for life span theories of cognitive and attentional development and for cognitive-speed and inhibitory-control accounts are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nancy Bayley: American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award.

Notes that Nancy Bayley is one of the recipients of the 1966 American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. Her citation reads: "For the enterprise, pertinacity, and insight with which she has studied human growth over long segments of the life cycle. With consummate skill in the use of available but imperfect instruments and with respect and sensitiveness for her subjects, she has rigorously recorded their physical, intellectual, emotional, and social development from birth to middle life. Her studies have enriched psychology with enduring contributions to the measurement and meaning of intelligence, and she traced important strands in the skein of factors involved in psychological development. Her participation in a number of major programs of developmental research is a paradigm of the conjoint efforts which are essential in a field whose problems span the generations." A personal biography is also included, along with a listing of her scientific writings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A singular career: Nancy Bayley.

Attempts to cover the major contributions of N. Bayley (1899–????) to developmental psychology. Her concern with measurement and methodology and her work on androgyny and body build, growth, and skeletal maturation are summarized briefly. Motor development is discussed separately from mental development, which is given more detailed treatment. The Revised Bayley Scales are included, as is the research using the circumplex models for looking at continuities and for relations between maternal and child behaviors and IQ. Emphasis is given to her early anticipation of a number of current topics, including behavior genetics, motor development, timing of maturation in adolescence, life span approaches to cognitive development, and parental attitudes and beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Paul Meehl: Past and future lessons for the field.

Paul Everett Meehl (1920-2003) was an intellectual giant who made important contributions to several fields of thought. The present special section focuses on his contributions to psychopathology, personality, and methods of psychological inquiry. The editors identified six specific topic areas within these broad domains and invited a specialist on each topic to write a discussion. These authors were invited to review Meehl's contributions and clarify their historical significance and current relevance. In addition, two authors contributed personal perspectives on Meehl, revealing that Meehl profoundly affected psychological science by routes other than his publications and formal talks. Rather, his voluminous correspondence and his personal relationships allowed him to engage numerous colleagues in his passionate pursuit of ideas and insights. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Esther Halpern (1929–2008).

Presents an obituary for Esther Halpern who was best known for her innovative contributions to clinical training, her developmental and cross-cultural research, and her organizational leadership. Provided is a summary of her life history, educational background, and contributions to the research and teaching of child development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)