The rise of qualitative research in psychology.

A study is presented on the rise of qualitative research in psychology over the 20th century. The incidence of qualitative research as indicated by several search terms (i.e., "qualitative research," "grounded theory," "discourse analy*," "empirical phenomenological," and "phenomenological psychology") was traced through the PsycINFO and Dissertation Abstracts International databases. It was found that, with the exception of the search terms having to do with phenomenology, records containing these search terms were basically non-existent until the 1980s, when there was a sharp rise that intensified in the 1990s. The PsycINFO records were sorted according to (1) whether they came from psychology or other social and health science disciplines; (2) region of origin; (3) the types of document to which they referred; and (4) whether they focused on the methodology or the application of qualitative research. A number of interesting differences emerged from this comparative analysis. Implications of the findings for the supposition that a paradigm shift may be underway are discussed. (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)     

Research training in forensic psychology: National survey of forensic facilities.

A survey was sent to the 103 directors of public forensic facilities in the United States. Responses were received from 68, a response rate of 66%. Information on the facilities' involvement in training and research in forensic psychology was obtained. A number of facilities reported involvement in psychology training at different levels; graduate practicum (43%) and predoctoral internship (41%) were among the most common. Forensic psychological research was either "encouraged" or "strongly encouraged" by 59% of responding facilities. Some institutional support was also available for research. Results suggest that forensic facilities have a largely untapped potential for helping to meet the growing research and training needs in forensic psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rorschach water percepts: A study in conflicting results.

The hypothesis that the Rorschach protocols of alcoholics are "frequently overladen with percepts of water" is considered. Early research support of the hypothesis by the author was questioned by later research. Further research data are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis. "As the situation now rests, alcoholics perceive more water in Kentucky; in Massachusetts and in Washington they do not." From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2JK07G. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implementation of neuropsychiatric research programs.

"This paper presents a philosophy of the research service unit's approach toward implementing neuropsychiatric research." The philosophy was developed at the Palo Alto VA Hospital and is being applied at the Chicago VA Research Hospital. A research service unit is an administrative staff developed to serve, train, and encourage the research efforts of the entire professional hospital staff or of a division. A basic rationale is indicated. 8 pressing problems encountered in carrying out psychiatric research are listed. Major topics are "Attitude of Personnel and Time Allotted for Research," "Presentation and Discussion of New Developments," "Methods of Training," "Assistance of Library for Up-To-Date Information," "Expenditures for Personnel and Equipment," "Effective and Efficient Research Design," "Aid of Volunteer Help," and "Preparation and Publication of Research Reports." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypothesis-testing and hypothesis-producing research.

The "primary function served by thesis research is training." Two kinds of research design can be discerned which might be termed: (a) hypothesis testing and (b) hypothesis producing. "The first type is characterized by the testing of tightly formulated hypotheses, the acceptance or rejection of which has meaning in the content of psychology." "The second, and a more advanced stage, is the kind of research study which we think is more suitable for the Ph.D. degree: the hypothesis-producting study." "We believe that there is merit to the idea that graduate students in psychology be given an opportunity to carry out both types of research." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal involvement and the robustness of perceptual salience effects.

Conducted 2 experiments, using a total of 146 undergraduates, to examine the generalizability of perceptual salience effects. Previous research in social cognition established that "top of the head" processing is a robust inferential bias even in involving task situations. It was expected, however, that perceivers who were personally involved in an issue would be more motivated than less-involved perceivers to shift attention from salient cues to attitudinally congruent but nonsalient message cues. In both experiments, salience was manipulated by varying the visual prominence of discussants in a 2-person conversation. In Exp I, involvement was experimentally manipulated by varying whether perceivers would be personally affected by an issue. In Exp II, involvement was operationalized as a subject variable. The results suggest that personal involvement indeed constitutes a boundary condition for salience effects. As expected, ratings of highly involved perceivers reflected more systematic processing of message arguments, regardless of which discussant was visually salient, whereas ratings of less-involved perceivers reflected "top of the head" processing. The analogous influence of personal involvement in persuasion research and the role of individual difference variables in research on inferential biases are discussed. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What we do and don't know about the process of family therapy.

Despite convincing outcome evidence and the popularity of family therapy, little is known about how interpersonal change actually comes about in this context. To synthesize and integrate what is known and to offer recommendations for future, clinically relevant research, all published process studies on family therapy were reviewed. Included were naturalistic studies of conjoint treatment in which the focus was the in-session verbal behavior of the participants or their self-reported perceptions of actual interactions. Dating from 1963, 36 studies met the inclusion criteria. The review was organized according to 3 hierarchically ordered levels of in-session processes (L. S. Greenberg, see record 1986-17811-001): observations of (1) speech acts, followed by studies of (2) important incidents or change episodes and (3) the therapeutic relationship. The implications of what is "known" are followed by a discussion of what is not "known" and suggested directions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Education for research in psychology.

A report of a seminar held at Estes Park, Colorado, July 28-August 22, 1958, sponsored by the Education and Training Board of the American Psychological Association. The purpose of the seminar was "to provide information which would aid institutions giving graduate degrees in psychology in examining and improving their programs for training research men." Major sections are: (a) How Research Gets Done; (b) Formal Aspects of Graduate Training (Statistics, Other Tool Subjects, Breadth of Scholarship, Role of Theory in Research, Standardization), (c) Development of the Individual (Selection, Motivation, Apprenticeship); (d) Summing Up. Research is "learned by doing and taught mainly by contagion. Research must first be going on if there is to be research training… . Apprenticeship is, we believe, the most important part of education for research in psychology; the professor who hires a graduate student as a research assistant takes on the primary teaching responsibility for that student, a responsibility which both he and his department must recognize." Opposition is expressed to standardizing training programs for research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A crash research program for peace.

A letter raising questions and requesting information about encouraging nonphysical sciences (social and biological) to solve the problems of "our very survival," about the position of the government represented on a huge research program of a "crash" nature sponsored by the United Nations at a cost of several billions of dollars "for the purpose of scientifically investigating the phenomenon of war," and an indication of reasons that would favor an affirmative vote on the research proposal was sent to head representatives of each of the 81 nations in the United Nations. 26 replies were received. Replies were classified as negative (6), favorably inclined (2), favorable (3), "can not evaluate" (5), and "being considered" (10). Statements excerpted from the replies are presented. A major reason for not supporting the proposed program was "a skepticism concerning the value of its outcome." Results are briefly discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dominance-contiguity theory of the acquisition of classical conditioning.

The purpose of this article is to present a formulation of the "dominance-contiguity" theory of the acquisition of classical conditioning in the light of a new treatment of old research and the large amount of new research relevant to the theory. One of the conclusions drawn was "that contiguity is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for classical CR acquisition and that drive reduction is neither necessary nor sufficient for it." 668 item bibliography. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contributions of psychology to health research: Patterns, problems, and potentials.

Presents the report of the American Psychological Association 's (APA) Task Force on Health Research which was established by APA's Board of Scientific Affairs to survey the nature and extent of contributions by psychologists to basic and applied research on behavioral factors in physical illness and health maintenance. A survey and analysis of the research literature is presented, and psychologists active in health research are identified, together with their areas of interest. Funding resources for behavioral science research on health and illness are also described. Areas of neglect are examined, together with the special training needs for the "health care" researcher. (11/2 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Microgenetic analysis of word associations in schizophrenic and brain-damaged patients.

Associations to the Kent-Rosanoff list of words were categorized as being "mature" or "immature" following the schema outlined by previous research (see 33: 8338). In that research, some support was found for the hypothesis that schizophrenics respond in a more "immature" manner than normals. The present study repeats the former one, adding a second group for comparison (a group of organics) in addition to the control group of normals. The results did not support the former study. Organics were found to be perseverative in "meaningful" responses to the word stimuli, but not to repeat irrelevant ones. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4JQ64M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A course in human engineering.

"In 1955 we offered an undergraduate course, 'Experimental Industrial Psychology: Human Engineering.' " "As a text we selected Applied Experimental Psychology by Chapanis, Morgan, and Garner… ." A number of collateral reading sources were also utilized. "The course consisted of formal lectures on experimental methodology and the analysis of the relevant data of perceptual, learning, and physiological psychology." In the lectures "… emphasis was given in the lectures to various methodological techniques and controls as they might arise in applied research." An individual research project was required of each student. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological research within the armed services.

"The Army, Navy, and Air Force are currently investing approximately twelve to fifteen million dollars a year in psychological research. The bulk of this money is expended upon in-service personnel and facilities with roughly 25 per cent going into contracts with civilian universities and research agencies." Military organizations concerned with psychological research and the areas of research are discussed. Psychology was formerly concerned with personnel selection and classification problems; now is also concerned with training and equipment design. "Psychological research is firmly established in the military services." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

To what relevance is research relevant?

Considers the distinction between "applicable" and "relevant" research, suggesting that most psychological research is "relevant" in that it is directed only toward issues in which behavior can be described as a function of specifiable (and created or manipulated) conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Openness and honesty versus coercion and deception in psychological research.

Classified approximately 1,000 studies published in American Psychological Association (APA) journals with regard to characteristics of the Ss and of the context of research. Ss were volunteers in only a minority of studies. Approximately 20% of the studies involved a condition where false or misleading information was given to Ss. The incidence of debriefing was considerably less than 50%. It is doubtful that researchers can follow APS's call for "openness and honesty" between investigators and research participants unless these characteristics of psychological research are altered. (18 ref) (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)     

Research survey: State mental health programs.

"In preparation for the 1959 meeting of chief psychologists in state mental health programs a questionnaire on research was prepared and sent to 77 psychologists who were either functioning as chief psychologists in state programs" or in similar positions. Replies were received from 39 individuals, representing 30 states. "Evaluation of treatment was listed most frequently as an area in need of research." At least 45 different types of ongoing research projects were listed. "Three factors were emphasized as the main obstacles to research in the state programs: lack of personnel… lack of funds… emphasis on service, with subsequent lack of time for research." Psychologists were "seen as the individuals most involved in mental health research in state programs." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)