Cases and inquiries before the… .

Tabular presentation of the cases considered by the Committee since 1942. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are we there yet? Stasis and progress in forensic psychology.

Progress in forensic psychology has been rapid in some areas and nonexistent in others. By contrasting technological and conceptual scientific progress in three areas--the legal disposition of mentally ill offenders, risk appraisal, and theories of individual differences in antisocial behaviour--I attempt to identify some determinants of progress. Conceptual progress appears to depend even more heavily than technological progress on developments in the more advanced sciences, supporting the idea that consilience plays a vital heuristic role in psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

History of psychology 1900–2000: Uncertain Genesis.

The new discipline of psychology had been established at a number of American colleges and universities by 1900, but it usually existed in a more rudimentary form, as compared with the familiar autonomous department of psychology found today. The current form took quite a number of years to evolve: A century ago, a survey of these schools would have shown psychology programs to have existed mostly at early stages of development. Many of the schools were still teaching some form of moral or mental philosophy or only one or two courses in psychology. A few of the schools had established psychology laboratories. Fewer still were offering the doctor of philosophy degree in psychology, while a mere handful had independent psychology departments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Is clinical psychology a science?": Comment.

Comments on an article by Carlton Berenda titled Is clinical psychology a science? (see record 1959-03759-001). As one who aligns himself firmly with those who hold the view that much of clinical psychology and most of psychoanalysis is "obscure and poetic" fabrication, I should like to suggest that in his discussion Berenda apparently has overlooked and failed to take into account perhaps the most crucial issue upon which is based this negative evaluation: that of empirical verification of predicted consequences. Apart from any other errors and misconceptions that may stem from such an omission, this unfortunate oversight leads Berenda with relentless logic to the inescapable assumption of a rather weird and obviously untenable position of subjective relativism as well as to the promulgation of a strangely naive and equally indefensible rationalism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult attachment security and young adults’ dating relationships over time: Self-reported, observational, and physiological evidence.

This study examined the developmental significance of adult attachment security—as measured by the Adult Attachment Interview—for romantic relationship functioning concurrently and approximately 1 year later in a sample of heterosexual dating couples between the ages of 18 and 25 (115 dyads at Time 1 [T1] and 57 dyads at T2, 74% White). The authors assessed romantic relationship functioning at T1 and T2 using observers’ ratings of emotional tone during a laboratory conflict resolution task and via participants’ self-reports about their relationships, yielding evidence that adult attachment security prospectively predicted the observed and perceived quality of adults’ romantic relationships even after prior levels of interpersonal functioning were controlled. Measures of autonomic responding were also acquired during the interactions, replicating prior evidence that insecurity is concurrently associated with electrodermal reactivity in attachment-relevant contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Institutional affiliations of contributors to scholarly and professional activities in counseling psychology: 1980–1983.

Used presentations at Division 17 programs of the American Psychological Association conventions, affiliations of authors of articles in the Journal of Counseling Psychology and The Counseling Psychologist, and Division 17 leaders to determine that the University of Maryland (College Park), Ohio State University, and the University of Iowa were the most highly active institutions in counseling psychology over the period 1980–1983. The size of the faculty and faculty rewards and pressures appear to be factors in determining ratings. Counseling psychologists in nonacademic settings are disadvantaged in making research contributions by these factors. Since most current counseling and clinical psychology graduate students are trained to be practitioners, it is suggested that research and professional leadership dimensions should be measured on their value to practitioners. It is further suggested that quality of supervision, knowledge of practitioner skills, and capacity to meet credentialing and/or licensing requirements should be included in evaluating graduate education in counseling psychology. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How strong is the case against contemporary social and personality psychology? A response to Carlson.

Discusses a content analysis of the research published in the 1982 volumes of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in which R. Carlson (see record 1985-11991-001) found that Carlson is incorrect in (a) an overly restrictive definition of what constitutes valid social and personality psychology, (b) her negative evaluations of the worth of the current approaches, and (c) an unjustified set of methodological prejudices. (58 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Report of the… .

Asummary of a report containing "information about subdoctoral training programs,… questions the committee deemed relevant and important,… and appropriate recommendations." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Report by the… ; purposes, standards, and procedures.

"The American Board for Psychological Services was incorporated to accomplish one fundamental purpose: to serve the public interests by providing a directory of agencies judged to be capable of providing competent psychological services to the public." Means by which ABPS intends to achieve its functions, the definition of "psychological service," criteria for evaluation of psychological services, evaluation procedures, means of appeal from ABPS judgments, reevaluations, and current fees and charges of ABPS, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem and "if…then" contingencies of interpersonal acceptance.

The degree to which an individual perceives interpersonal acceptance as being contingent on successes and failures, versus being relatively unconditional, is an important factor in the social construction of self-esteem. The authors used a lexical-decision task to examine people's "if…then" expectancies. On each trial, participants were shown a success or failure context word and then they made word-nonword judgments on a second letter string, which sometimes was a target word relating to interpersonal outcomes. For low-self-esteem participants, success and failure contexts facilitated the processing of acceptance and rejection target words, respectively, revealing associations between performance and social outcomes. Study 2 ruled out a simple valence-congruency explanation. Study 3 demonstrated that the reaction-time pattern was stronger for people who had recently been primed with a highly contingent relationship, as opposed to one based more on unconditional acceptance. These results contribute to a social-cognitive formulation of the role of relational schemas in the social construction of self-esteem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Advancing “the boldest model yet”: A commentary on psychology, religion, and spirituality.

Following O’Donahue’s (1989) consideration of the psychologist as metaphysician-scientist-practitioner, Jones (1994) proposed, “the boldest model yet” in which “religion could participate as an active partner with psychology as a science and as an applied discipline” (p. 184). Lisa Miller goes a step farther in her call for a spiritual psychology, which extends “a map of human experience beyond the material” and offers “the vast possibility of the science of psychology...to generate new methods beyond materialism” (see record 2010-09501-001). Each of the articles in this section illustrates what can be gained in reaching beyond materialism to meaning. Len Sperry (see record 2010-03251-006) advocates for a holistic, postmaterialist perspective to health, which de-emphasizes pathology and symptom reduction as the singular focus. Embedded in his thesis is the intricate connection between mind and body, yet he resists the unified model of scientific naturalism on the grounds that it “represents a biologization of spirituality.” The final article in this special section calls into question the fundamental assumptions of materialist psychology. Bruce Greyson’s study (see record 2010-03251-005) of near-death experiences challenges the assumption that the mind and the brain are identical and that psychological phenomena can be readily explained by existing physiological models. Will such challenges be embraced and will more fundamental questions be taken up, though it means that certain truth claims may need to be put aside? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Who talks? The social psychology of illness support groups.

More Americans try to change their health behaviors through self-help than through all other forms of professionally designed programs. Mutual support groups, involving little or no cost to participants, have a powerful effect on mental and physical health, yet little is known about patterns of support-group participation in health care. Why do groups form? Do people seek support at comparable levels across illness categories? Are patterns of support seeking similar for real-world support groups and computer-based virtual support groups? In an effort to observe social comparison processes with real-world relevance, support-group participation was measured for 20 disease categories in 4 metropolitan areas (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas) and on nationwide on-line discussion groups. Support seeking was highest for diseases viewed as most stigmatizing (e.g., AIDS, alcoholism, breast and prostate cancer) and was lowest for less embarrassing but equally devastating disorders, such as heart disease. The authors discuss implications for social comparison theory and the use of Internet support groups for research and treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The triumph of the segregationists? A historiographical inquiry into psychology and the Brown litigation.

Psychologists testified at the trials of Brown v. Board of Education and helped write briefs that were submitted to the Supreme Court on appeal. Psychologists were once proud of what they did in Brown but are now seen as liberal reformers who masked their political wishes in the guise of social science. The argument that psychologists involved with Brown were social reformers rather than objective scientists dates to the segregationist critique of Brown. The author traces the history of the critique of the Brown psychologists from its segregationist origins to its acceptance by mainstream social scientific and historical scholars. The author concludes that the critique is based on a misreading of what the Brown psychologists did during the litigation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Publication trends in American psychology—a five year extrapolation.

Analysis of amount of publication by Associates of the APA between 1946 and 1953 indicates an increasing rate which by 1958 would require at least a doubling in size of the journals published by the Association. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)