Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest: Urie Bronfenbrenner.

The Awards for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest recognize persons who, in the opinion of the Committee on Psychology in the Public Interest Awards, have advanced psychology as a science and/or profession by a single extraordinary achievement or a lifetime of outstanding contributions in the public interest. Urie Bronfenbrenner, a 1987 winner, is cited for his notable contributions to human welfare as a leading student of child development, an effective advocate of humane public policy toward children and families, and a sensitive participant in Soviet-American relations and perceptive interpreter of them. His attention to the complexity of the social context of childhood transformed perspectives in developmental psychology and greatly enriched psychological inquiries into child and family policy, including his own pioneering cross-cultural research on day care and child care policies. In addition to the citation, a biography and selected bibliography of his works are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Awards for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest: 1987.

Announces the winners of the 1987 Awards for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest. These awards recognize persons who, in the opinion of the Committee on Psychology in the Public Interest Awards, have advanced psychology as a science and/or profession by a single extraordinary achievement or a lifetime of outstanding contributions in the public interest. This year's recipients are Michael J. Saks and Urie Bronfenbrenner. For each recipient a citation, biography, and selected bibliography are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The times, they are a changing: A review of Raising children in a socially toxic environment.

Reviews the book, Raising children in a socially toxic environment by J. Gabarino (1995). In this book, Garbarino sets out to offer his views on what childhood ought to be, how children map their own worlds (thus define, themselves), what their basic needs are, the levels in which those needs are being met, as well as offer suggestions for ways in which readers can change the "toxic environment" to aid in the healthy development of children and youth. The book is challenging to read because it is true. Although the pages are not replete with "hard data," they are filled with factual accounts that paint a discouraging, in fact depressing picture of the life of children in our communities. The book is powerful because, if successful, we are forced to accept the fact that this is American society today. There is no question that the issues articulated by Garbarino in this book, such as teenage homicide, gang warfare, domestic violence, and child abuse, are real. The influences of Urie Bronfenbrenner (1977) and ecological systems theory provide the conceptual framework for this book. Accordingly, development is the result of complex interactions among child and family systems and the social environment in which they function. Related to the ecological orientation is the notion that "it takes a village" to effect change. In other words, there is an implicit message that successful, healthy childrearing is the shared responsibility of individuals, groups, communities, external forces, and broad-based sanctions and regulations. As such, readers who take this book seriously will be forced to look at it not only as a professional resource with "good information," but as a call to accept a role for working within their individual and community contexts to influence change. Although the book falls short in providing concrete directives for change, it sends a strong message that we are all responsible, and a more subtle message that change is possible. If each and every reader could make one or two changes in their own behaviors and priorities as an outcome of reading this book, it will have served an invaluable service. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Howard E. Gruber (1922-2005).

This article presents an obituary for Howard E. Gruber. Howard Ernest (Howie) Gruber, who died on January 25, 2005, in New York City, was a wide-ranging cognitive psychologist. Although born in the United States, he was deeply influenced by European currents of thought: Indeed, his work blended the theoretical ambition of the most influential European psychologists with the experimental ingenuity and scrupulous attention to data that have distinguished American psychology at its best. Gruber was among the most important scholars of human creativity in recent decades; his pioneering study of the notebooks of Charles Darwin was catalytic in reorienting an entire area of research. In addition to his important scholarship, Gruber believed fervently in the responsibility of scholars to address social and political issues, and he devoted much of his later life to those contemporary issues that he considered paramount. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Jerome D. Frank (1910-2005).

Presents an obituary for Professor Emeritus Jerome D. Frank, distinguished psychiatrist and clinical psychologist, who died March 14, 2005, at age 95 in Baltimore, Maryland. World renowned, he made major contributions in his multiple roles as psychotherapist, researcher, educator, social scientist, and political activist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Kurt Lewin as filmmaker and methodologist.

K. Lewin made films for 3 often interchangeable purposes: as a methodological tool for analyzing human (social) behavior, as a rhetorical device for illustrating his presentations and aiding the dissemination of his theoretical concepts, and as personal records of family and friends. The linkage of these films to key concepts such as life-space is described. A recently re-discovered feature-length documentary, "Das Kind und die Welt" (1931), whose production Lewin supervised, dramatizes the development of the child, in keeping with Lewinian concepts and the broader contextual concerns at the time for the world of the child in a big city such as Berlin. Finally, Lewin's meetings with Russian filmmaker S. Eisenstein while this film was in production are detailed, along with a discussion of their mutual influences in psychology and filmmaking. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Ecological research with children and families: From concepts to methodology.

Reviews the book, Ecological research with children and families: From concepts to methodology, edited by Alan R. Pence (see record 1988-98395-000). This book had its origin in a workshop at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and both book and workshop took as their motto Bronfenbrenner's well-known call for an ecological approach to the study of children's development. Although only one study in this collection meets all of Bronfenbrenner's criteria for ecological research (namely Cochran's study of an intervention programme established in collaboration with Bronfenbrenner himself), all of the chapters convey a sense of the authors' strong social conscience and manifest concern with malfunctioning families--the human ecology gone awry. Their emphasis is on interventions with or on behalf of such families and on adverse contextual variables that affect child care. Such reports are worthwhile in themselves. But what is notably absent from this round-up of ecological research are investigations of the child's growing up in the family in relation to parents and siblings without any kind of intervention, such as Belsky or Barker has carried out. The book is interesting for another, unexpected reason: It shows how "ecological" research has been misunderstood by some and has been equated with "phenomenological, holistic, not objective, qualitative, uncontrolled" research. Bronfenbrenner, in a very perceptive Foreword, points this out diplomatically, attributing the misunderstanding to a one-sided emphasis in his original work on the importance of studying the way the environment is perceived by the participant in the research, that is, the meaning it has for him or her. Overall, The book is a worthy endeavour to bring together diverse approaches to social engineering and to examine the reception they were accorded by the targeted beneficiaries and by the community at large. Of the eight chapters reporting actual or proposed investigations, five are of Canadian origin. At times the chapters tantalize us with their promise of future achievements or with incomplete reporting of past achievements. But the work made interesting reading for me and will do so for many social scientists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The mental health and adjustment of immigrant and refugee children

Although parents may make decisions to leave their homes, either willingly in the hope of improving their lives or involuntarily to escape danger and seek safety for themselves and their families, it is never a voluntary decision for the child. The economic, political, social, and other contextual issues associated with migration are as significant in predicting the child's adjustment to his or her new circumstances as his or her physical and psychological endowment. This article addresses these issues and suggests that particular consideration be given to children whose migration was punctuated by life-threatening danger or whose families were overwhelmed by the stresses of migratory experiences. Child and adolescent psychiatrists and other well-trained mental health professionals can further the understanding of the interactions among the child, family, and new community, which can promote or hinder the process of adaptation to the new setting.     

Albert Israel Rabin (1912–2010).

Albert Israel Rabin, professor emeritus of psychology at Michigan State University (MSU), died on October 24, 2010, at age 98. Over six decades, Al published nearly 200 empirical reports, reviews, books, and chapters on personality, child development, psychopathology, and the use of the Rorschach and other projective and measurement techniques, including the first review of research on the Wechsler–Bellevue Scales (Psychological Bulletin, 1945) and comprehensive reviews of psychological studies on schizophrenia. In illuminating works, Al showed the kibbutz to be a natural laboratory for studying personality development in unconventional family settings.Rabin also received many awards and honors for his work. Al was a brilliant, warm, and generous friend, colleague, teacher, husband, and father. He filled his long life with honor and lasting accomplishments. He could have rested on his laurels, but he never did. Those who knew him remember him with love and respect. Everyone can learn much about his remarkable life from his essay, published at age 93, in the Journal of Personality Assessment (2005). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

James Garbarino.

Presents an overview of the career of James Garbarino and his contributions to the field of psychology. James Garbarino has wade an important contribution to public service by translating fundamental issues in psychology into practice, and by making this information available to new audiences, both professional and lay. For example, he has helped child welfare, law enforcement, legislative bodies, and the medical community develop programs and public policies to prevent child abuse and promote child safety. He continues, on a broader scale, to call attention to environmental conditions and societal actions which thwart or promote healthy family functioning. A prolific writer, lecturer, and researcher, he is not only a committed child and family advocate, but has a unique ability to precipitate social change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comment: Makarenko's The Road to Life.

Letter comments that both Bronfenbrenner ("Soviet Methods of Character Education," Amer. Psychologist, 1962, 17, 550-564), (see record 1963-04110-001), and Berman (Amer. Psychologist, 1963, 18, 251), (see record 2005-11487-011), comment on the importance of Makarenko in Soviet educational thinking, but they mention only his "Book for Parents." The author of the letter then goes on to recommend Makarenko's earlier writing and a related 16-mm film. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Conducting child custody evaluations: A comprehensive guide.

Reviews the book, Conducting child custody evaluations: A comprehensive guide by Philip Michael Stahl (see record 1994-98484-000). In this book, the author details how the courts benefit from custody evaluations, how the family benefits, when evaluations could actually be harmful, and offers some particularly unique and useful suggestions on evaluator biases. He brings up the interesting issue of who is the real client/consumer. He understands that the client really cannot be the child independent of his/her family, even though we all mourn the cliche, "best interests of the child," as if this phrase were some operationally clear "guideline." A main author bias is "the best parenting is achieved with two parents" (p. 25). There is at least some research evidence (and clinical experience) that would dispute this in more cases than the author might care to acknowledge. A second bias is that children must perceive that their parents can develop a post-divorce relationship free of hostility in which each parent is a champion for the other. Stahl displays a keen understanding of the dynamics of the post-divorce world. In his heart, he seems more a therapist than an "objective evaluator" and harbors a strong bias to help people move productively through the crises that are everywhere in evidence in post-divorce situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Boys will be girls, girls will be boys: Children affect parents as parents affect children in gender nonconformity.

There are transformational possibilities in the family when presented with a child who is transgender or gender nonconforming. Challenging orthodox psychoanalytic thinking that these children's gender presentations are a consequence of poor parental rearing, trauma, or attachment disruptions, it is proposed that gender nonconformity is healthy rather than pathological and that typically these children initially just show up in their families, rather than being shaped by them. Looking at the metabolism of transphobia and the transformational possibilities within the family when boys will be girls and girls will be boys, 3 family types that either support or impede their children's creative gender development are presented: the transformers, the transphobic, and the transporting, with case material to illustrate each of the family types. A psychological construct is developed to explain the feedback loop between family and child: The transgender or gender nonconforming child who transgresses binary gender norms may face culturally imbued transphobia and psychological trauma within the family while simultaneously facilitating the family's transcendence of transphobia through transformative experiences with the child as he or she transitions from the gender assigned at birth to his or her authentic and affirmed gender identity or expression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conduites abusives et négligentes envers les enfants: Réalités canadienne et américaine.

Conducted 2 studies in Montreal on the correlation between economic and social poverty of neighborhoods and the incidence rate of family violence and neglect against children. In the 1st study, an incidence rate of 4.95 per 1,000 families was computed. The best predictors of child maltreatment were the percentage of families under the poverty level in a given area and the percentage of families in which the woman was the only breadwinner. A 2nd study was conducted among 291 mothers living in equally poor neighborhoods that dramatically differed in their rates of child abuse and neglect. Mothers of high-rate neighborhoods described more centripetal, conflictual, and specialized social support networks than mothers of low-rate areas. Results confirm the strong association between economic deprivation and family suffering and underline the important role played by psychosocial, political, and cultural factors in parent–child relationships. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Leon J. Yarrow (1921–1982).

Presents an obituary for Leon J. Yarrow. Yarrow was born on September 30, 1921, in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. His father died when Leon was very young, and he experienced some of the transitions in attachments and care that may well have influenced his life-long research interest in the importance of early experience for the developing child. At age 15 Leon entered the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in psychology. In 1951 Leon accepted the first research position that was made available in the old U.S. Children's Bureau. He initiated a longitudinal investigation of adopted children that focused on the consequences of the infant's transition from foster care to the adoptive parents. As his findings became known, social work practice was modified to favor adoption at the earliest ages. Leon spent a major part of his career at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His associates there were uniformly touched by his personal warmth, his unrelentingly high standards for developmental studies, and the conceptual elegance with which he grasped problems. Leon died July 28, 1982, of a heart attack, the day before he planned to embark on a summer vacation with his family. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Who will help prevent sexual violence: Creating an ecological model of bystander intervention.

Given the prevalence of sexual and relationship violence in communities, innovations in prevention are sought. One promising line of inquiry directs efforts not at victims or perpetrators but at community members who are potential witnesses to high-risk events along the continuum of violence or who may need to support victims after an assault. To date, the main organizing framework for understanding bystander behavior is the work of Latane and Darley (1970), who described a series of stages that lead to an individual's decision to intervene or not when someone needs help. Yet this model focuses mainly on factors within the individual or his or her immediate context. In the current review, I use ecological models by Bronfenbrenner (1977, 2005) and Kelly (2006) to expand our view of key factors that help promote and may serve as barriers to helpful bystander intervention. For example, ecological theories suggest important community-level variables, such as campus size or cultural values, that may influence the degree of helping and may, in some instances, be leverage points for creating change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Holocaust trauma reconstructed: Individual, familial, and social trauma.

Psychic trauma is characterized by ego damage, regression, and relative helplessness. Following a historic catastrophe, psychic trauma with ego damage is frequently encountered as cumulative trauma. Reconstruction was essential to the understanding of an adult patient initially unaware of his holocaust trauma. When the patient was a child, he and his parents were simultaneously traumatized. Intrapsychic intergenerational psychosocial and neurobiological factors were adverse codeterminants of his cumulative trauma. Isolated affects and fragmented memories required sequential connection in the context of family, identity, and society. Reconstruction importantly contributed to ego reintegration of a lost, lacerated childhood, and to adaptive mastery of trauma and conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: William A. Owens (1914-2005).

Presents an obituary for William A. Owens (1914-2005). Bill received his bachelor's degree in mathematics at Winona State University in 1935. He started his graduate studies at the University of Chicago but switched to the University of Minnesota early on. Under the guidance of Paterson, he received his doctorate in differential psychology in 1940, with minors in statistics and counseling. Bill then took a position in the psychology department at Iowa State University in 1940, but he left to enlist in the U.S. Navy after Pearl Harbor was attacked. When the war ended, Bill returned to Iowa State University, where he rose to full professor and head of the psychology department. After 13 years at Iowa State University, he went to Purdue University and, in 1968, moved to the University of Georgia to start a program in measurement and human differences. He subsequently became director of the Institute for Behavioral Research and split his time between teaching, research, and administration. Bill took the post of acting provost in 1976-1977 and helped reorganize the higher levels of administration at the University of Georgia. During his teaching career, he supervised over 100 theses and dissertations. He retired in 1984 at age 70. Bill consulted extensively, frequently with the firm of Richardson, Bellows, and Henry. He published over 80 articles, books, and chapters, as well as seven tests, during his outstanding research career. Bill's most prominent work was on biodata, much of it supported over an 18-year period by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Come here: A man overcomes the tragic aftermath of childhood sexual abuse.

Reviews the book, Come here: A man overcomes the tragic aftermath of childhood sexual abuse by Richard Berendzen, with Laura Palmer. Berendzen, former president of American University in Washington, D.C. was both the perpetrator and the victim of a psychosexual tragedy. This autobiography, however, focuses only on his own tragedy: his mother's sexual abuse of him. It completely ignores the tragic consequences of his own frightening, obscene phone calls which he admits making to 10-15 women who had placed ads in newspapers to provide child care. Although Berendzen states in his book that the fact that he was a victim of childhood sexual abuse does not excuse his crimes, he nonetheless repeatedly describes the terroristic phone calls as the result of a "compulsion" and "impulse." One of the women to whom Berendzen made repeated calls cooperated with the police to catch him, and his world fell apart. The rest of the book describes his resultant trials, humiliation, and grief as he faced his family, members of the American University community, the press and, briefly noted, the criminal justice system. Berendzen agonizes throughout much of this book with self-pitying, but moving, pathos over the consequences of his detection to his own life and career, as well as his family's and university's well-being. But nowhere does he agonize about the effect that terrorizing phone calls detailing child sexual abuse could have on women charged with watching children, women who may have vulnerable children themselves. This book may have been therapeutic for Berendzen, but it has left one of his victims, who says she "was doing pretty well until this came up," shaken again. Still, the book is significant and valuable, for therapists and the general public, for the lessons learned between the lines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)