Review of The cultural psychology of the self.

Reviews the book, The cultural psychology of the self by Ciaran Benson (see record 2001-00374-000). This is a book rich in insight, deep in significance and, inevitably, marked by assumptions and interpretations subject to gentle disagreement. It is precisely because of its manifest assets that points of disagreement need to be highlighted. In this review I will address criticism only to the first half of the book, the criticism being more by way of an introduction to the issue than the suggestion of a settled position on it. I confine criticism to the first half not because of limited space. Rather, the foundational chapters on which the balance of the book's arguments depend are given in Part I. Part II then stands as an elevated and elevating "applied psychology of the self" resting on these very substantive and theoretical foundations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Motivation and explanation: An essay on Freud's philosophy of science.

Reviews the book, Motivation and explanation: An essay on Freud's philosophy of science by Nigel Mackay (1989). The book under review is not only an essay on Freud's philosophy of science (as the subtitle has it) but more particularly, a determined attack on the "separate-domain" thesis. This thesis asserts that psychoanalysis belongs to "a domain of explanation separate from explanations of nonhuman phenomena." In refuting this claim, Mackay argues that psychoanalysis falls clearly within the domain of normal science and, by implication, deserves all the rights and privileges of other established disciplines. We hear the echo of Freud when he wrote that "I have always felt it as a gross injustice that people have refused to treat psycho-analysis like any other science." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The disorder of things: Metaphysical foundations of the disunity of science.

Reviews the book, The disorder of things: Metaphysical foundations of the disunity of science by John Dupré (1993). The book is carefully woven around two central and interrelated theses. First is the denial that "science constitutes, or could ever come to constitute, a single, unified project," and the second is an "assertion of the extreme diversity of the contents of the world." Ultimately, Dupré wishes to contend that the second of his theses "shows the inevitability of the first." Overall, Dupré seeks to refute "one particularly notorious founding metaphor of modern science, the idea that the universe should be considered as a gigantic machine." In order to accomplish such a daunting task, he engages the reader in a lengthy and critical examination of three of the philosophical theses most closely associated with the mechanistic metaphor: Essentialism, Reductionism, and Determinism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The psychology of human possibility and constraint.

Reviews the book, The psychology of human possibility and constraint by Jack Martin and Jeff Sugarman (see record 1999-02336-000). The way to read this little book is to share in the authors' concern for understanding individuals and for vindicating psychology as a discipline concerned with the psychological development of individuals. Apart from its unsettling philosophical overexcitability, there is a notable distortion in the authors' efforts to understand individual transcendence, namely, a near total failure to deal with values, moral growth, and individual freedom. Human development is understood procedurally, in historical context of course, but as culminating in a "theory" of self and others. This lingering rationalist bias is in part due to their philosophical borrowings, but it also betrays the functionalist stance so characteristic of our contemporary focus on usefulness. For all that, this is an engaging book, one I recommend for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The psychology of human possibility and constraint.

Reviews the book, The psychology of human possibility and constraint by J. Martin and J. Sugarman (see record 1999-02336-000). This wide-ranging, compact, dense, yet very readable little book presents many of the key elements of a badly needed, more credible philosophy of social science for academic and professional psychologists. The book gives no specific examples of theories or research findings that might illustrate what is meant by a better kind of knowledge or theory in psychology, so the reader is left somewhat high and dry concerning this question. Perhaps it is simply the case that these questions about what might be the best kind of social and psychological inquiry and what sense to make of the plethora of theories and findings to date, are difficult, murky, and on the frontier of a hermeneutic reenvisioning of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Readings in the philosophy of social science.

Reviews the book, Readings in the philosophy of social science, edited by Michael Martin and Lee C. McIntyre (1996). This is a large and comprehensive anthology in the philosophy of the social sciences. It offers not only well-selected readings but also three specially commissioned articles by Michael Martin, Daniel Little, and Alison Wylie. The book is divided into eight major sections that address topics such as: Prediction, Reductionism, Interpretation and Meaning, Rationality, Objectivity and Values, Individualism and Holism, and Functional Explanation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The psychology of science and the origins of the scientific mind.

Reviews the book, The psychology of science and the origins of the scientific mind by Gregory Feist (see record 2006-02942-000). In this book, Gregory Feist sets out to show two things: that psychology of science can be its own field and that this field has been growing along side of humanity ever since its inception. Feist divides the book into two parts. First, he argues for the legitimacy of the field of psychology of science, addressing relevant research from many sub fields and their applications for the future. Part two delves into the origins and future of the scientific mind. Overall, this book makes one logically consider what science is and is not. It brings about contemplation about how science developed and how humans embraced it. Feist says he wants to take on the applied implications for the formalized study of both the psychology and science and the properties of the scientific mind. His goal is to move the psychology of science from its implicit methods scattered across domains of psychology and make them explicit. He wants to unite researchers scattered across the world to make up a new psychology of science that actively meets, has its own journal, and can educate future researchers. This is all very interesting and indeed possible, as long as the meetings would follow the same integrative genius that is displayed in this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of An objective psychology of music.

Reviews the book An objective psychology of music by (see record 1954-00590-000). The reviewer notes that this book is a noteworthy addition to the psychology of music, especially for classroom use with the undergraduate student. Its style is clear and simple, its coverage is unusually comprehensive, and its range is wide. It will truly facilitate the learning process for the student, an advantage which has often been lacking in this field. The psychology of music demands an understanding of two very different disciplines, one of them a science, the other an art. The vocabulary and style employed by the artist has often proved baffling to the scientist, and vice versa. Lundin has shown a special talent as an interpreter, and has made his material thoroughly clear to both. His occasional oversimplifications will prove justifiable in terms of the student who seeks competency in two fields. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Psychotherapy as a human science.

Reviews the book, Psychotherapy as a human science by Daniel Burston and Roger Frie (see record 2006-12980-000). In this book, the authors show how philosophical assumptions pervade therapeutic praxis. "In our view, philosophy is inherent to the very practice of psychotherapy" (p. 2). There is a "common ground that unites the therapists of today with the philosophers of the past" (p. 17). Their effort succeeds brilliantly in reconnecting psychology and philosophy and, by that homecoming, to ground psychotherapy (including contemporary psychoanalysis) as a "human science." The book begins by sketching ideas about truth we inherit from the Greeks, then shows how Descartes and Pascal helped launch the Enlightenment with their thinking about truth and the limits of reason. Kant, Hegel, and Marx broaden the scope to include reason, the unconscious, and the course of history. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche interject angst and authenticity. Dilthey proposes a human science neither scientistic nor irrational. Husserl launches phenomenology as the proper study of experience; Scheler, Jaspers and Heidegger react in their particular ways. Freud and Jung come to loggerheads over the unconscious. Buber, Binswanger, and Boss further develop existential-phenomenological perspectives in terms of human interrelatedness. Confrontation with the other and the limits of reciprocity engage Sartre, Lacan, and Laing. Psychoanalysis grows intersubjectively through the work of Sullivan, Fromm, Merleau-Ponty, Benjamin, and Stolorow. Postmodernism's excess, Frie and Burston conclude, requires acknowledgment of an authentic self answerable for choices in life: '...[W]e are both determined by, and exercise our agency in determining, the communicative contexts in which we exist" (p. 262). Psychotherapy from this existential-phenomenological perspective becomes "a rigorous exploration of our ways of making meaning--both consciously and unconsciously" (p. 263). The book ends, then, with an affirmation of life and a call to action. All these thinkers, all these generations of lives lived, all this seeking of meaning and purpose, explanation and doubt, all this is our human lot, inherited equally. Each of us must choose, consciously or not, what to do about it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The social psychology of reading.

Reviews the book, The Social Psychology of Reading by John Edwards (Ed.) (1981). This volume, unlike many edited books, consists of original papers. Unlike many current volumes in reading, this one addresses broad socio- and psychological correlates of reading achievement. This book is a unique collection of data-based chapters, surveys and reviews. If the aim of the volume was to provide a perspective within which reading can be better understood, the authors have achieved success. It is an excellent reference and has good potential for senior undergraduate or early graduate required reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The psychology of successful selling.

Reviews the book, "The psychology of successful selling," by Richard W. Husband (see record 1954-03433-000). The reviewer notes that this book is directed to all salesmen to aid them in their daily work. Its emphasis is on sales tactics, from finding your prospects through approaching him and overcoming his resistance to closing the sale. There is also a short section concerning the selection of salesmen, helping him to compare his traits with those of successful salesmen. This book is not intended to be a professional book for psychologists; rather it is deliberately designed to be easy, informal reading without technical language or reference to experiments or statistics. In general, there is little in the book to recommend it even to sales managers or salesmen over the many other volumes written in this field. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Reconsidering psychology: Perspectives from Continental philosophy.

Reviews the book, Reconsidering psychology: Perspectives from Continental philosophy edited by James E. Faulconer and Richard N. Williams (1990). Reconsidering Psychology: Perspectives from Continental Philosophy, which raises some new issues, takes a look at some old issues from fresh perspectives, and examines avenues of Continental philosophy and psychology that have not yet received adequate attention. This is a remarkable text that not only takes the reader on a journey through new and exciting intellectual domains of post-Cartesian psychology, but invites the reader to share in some rather compelling visions of psychology's place in history from the ten brilliant minds responsible for the individual chapters of the text. (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 The psychology of humor: An integrative approach.

Reviews the book, The psychology of humor: An integrative approach by Rod A. Martin (see record 2006-21361-000). This book is not a particularly funny read--though it has its moments--but it is a very well-written, well-organized, comprehensive reference guide to the psychology of humor. The Introductory chapter provides a nice overview of the rest of the book. Here Martin defines what is meant by the broad term humor, discusses the many forms and functions of humor, and provides a concise, informative history of thinking about humor. Martin then includes two chapters that address five theoretical approaches: psychoanalytic, superiority/disparagement, arousal, incongruity, and reversal theory. The second part of the book is organized into different psychological subtopics, which makes it very easy to navigate. This part includes sections on the cognitive, social, psychobiological, personality, and developmental approaches to the study of humor. The book concludes with chapters on the link between humor and both mental and physical health, and presents research on the application of humor in psychotherapy, education, and the workplace. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Persistent Problems of Psychology.

Reviews the book, The Persistent Problems of Psychology by Robert B. MacLeod (see record 1976-25095-000). This book demonstrates the relevance of historical inquiry to the contemporary study of psychological issues. The exposition is direct enough to make this book an excellent introduction for those who are new to the history of psychology. The depth of MacLeod's scholarship makes this relevant and interesting reading for people already acquainted with the subject. The book is organized so as to elaborate on persistent substantive and methodological themes as they have emerged in successive historical periods. The persistent problems of psychology provides a sensitive and scholarly introduction to the history of psychology. More important, it gives an intellectual framework within which to think about historical and systematic psychological issues. Above all, MacLeod believed in dialogue and debate. This book is his invitation to reconsider and re-examine current fashionable conceptions of psychology against the views and perspectives of the past. This is most practical advice. The persistent problems of psychology transcend any particular manifestation. In the study of these past forms, we glimpse something of psychology's inevitable intellectual future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Oxford history of Western philosophy.

Reviews the book, The Oxford history of Western philosophy edited by Anthony Kenny (2000). Written by a team of some of the most distinguished scholars, this authoritative and finely detailed compendium traces the history of Western philosophy from its earliest beginnings among the Presocratics to the current era. This paperback volume should no doubt be a welcome addition to the reference library of all theoretical/philosophical psychologists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of A history of modern experimental psychology: From James and Wundt to cognitive science.

Reviews the book, A history of modern experimental psychology: From James and Wundt to cognitive science by George Mandler (see record 2007-05052-000). George Mandler, a longtime researcher in the area of memory and cognition, has gathered together his notes and selected bits from previous publications to assemble a new book cast as a brief history of the emergence of cognitive psychology. Mandler draws us to the positive impact Behaviourism had on the development of Cognitive Psychology. Mandler's book stands as an outline of the past, not a history. Its value rests with the perspective that comes from someone who has been thinking, researching and writing about topics central to Cognitive Psychology for over 40 years. He has been a witness to change, someone who has even participated in them, so his insights are valuable and directive. I would have enjoyed Mandler's book to a greater extent if, rather than chronologically reporting events, he had attempted to provide a gestalt of the emergence of cognitive psychology, one that would have located the articulate in the inarticulate of research practise and concept development in societies caught in the rift of redefinition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The psychology of personnel selection.

Reviews the book, The psychology of personnel selection by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Adrian Furnham (see record 2010-05140-000). The authors have written an interesting and engaging book that focuses on personnel selection. This book would be a valuable resource for student training in industrial/organizational psychology. The overall organization of the book was appropriate. The methods of selection and constructs of selection provided a useful organizing framework. The information in each chapter was well organized and was presented clearly and succinctly. Introductory and concluding chapters would be helpful for the reader to identify the themes that are addressed in the book and to provide integration and future directions respectively. The authors’ enthusiasm for employee selection is evident throughout the book. It is my opinion that adding chapters on job analysis and the psychology of human behavior (i.e., individual differences) would help effectively establish the context for the selection tools to follow. It would also be helpful to review the criteria that organizations use to assess their selection tools and the organizational performance criteria that these tools have been designed to predict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The essential Sternberg: Essays on intelligence, psychology, and education.

Reviews the book, The essential Sternberg: Essays on intelligence, psychology, and education edited by James C. Kaufman and Elena L. Grigorenko (see record 2009-00687-000). For years, Robert Sternberg has produced renowned, groundbreaking work, and now some of it is captured in one volume: The Essential Sternberg. The book gathers in one place Sternberg’s major publications. From a repertoire of more than 1,000 journal articles, book chapters, and books, the editors have chosen 20 seminal works, spanning 30 years from 1977 to 2006. Although not organized chronologically, the ordering of the chapters reflects the progression of Sternberg’s work. In reading the book, one gains a sense of how a theory (and a career) of one of psychology’s major thinkers has evolved. The book presents five arcs of Sternberg’s research and theory on intelligence and education. No book, of course, can cover all the areas of a scholar’s research, so readers wanting to learn more about, for example, Sternberg’s work on love will need to look elsewhere. However, Sternberg’s central ideas and work are certainly on display in this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)