Psychological preemployment screening for police candidates: Seeking consistency if not standardization.

The psychological screening of police candidates is a hotly debated topic. The type of measures used lacks consistency and standardization. This often can lead to a candidate “shopping” for a psychologist who will eventually agree to his or her mental fitness for policing. More recently, the field of police psychology has received attention as a viable field of psychology, part of which involves the assessing of candidates for police employment. A possible hypothesis is that there would be consistency among police psychologists, who would differ from clinical psychologists, as to what measures should be used and why for assessing such candidates. Recent research suggests there is no consistency or differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of social psychology.

Reviews the book "Handbook of social psychology" (Volumes I and II), edited by G. Lindzey (see record 1955-03817-000). This book is a major attempt to present, summarized in handbook fashion, what is known theoretically, methodologically, and substantively in the area of social psychology. The various chapters include contributions by psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and statisticians. Most of the chapters are written carefully and thoughtfully. It is a good and worth-while book to have in print. Many students and research workers will have occasion to refer to it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Directions in Soviet social psychology.

Reviews the book, Directions in Soviet social psychology, edited by Lloyd H. Strickland (1984). This book is about collectives: not just any organized group that might be so called in the Soviet Union, but groups that have attained (or are in the process of attaining) a genuine collectivity, internal cohesiveness, or solidarity. The editor has put together ten chapters, each by one or more of the Soviet Union's most prominent social psychologists. The contributions were written with a view to giving Western psychologists--in as nonpolemic a manner as possible--an understanding of the various problem areas in Soviet social psychology, of where they have come from historically, of what Soviet psychologists see as the major issues, of how they do research, and of some of their findings and conclusions. The contributions appear diverse. They deal with subjects as varied as the self-concept, communication, cognitive processes, person perception, self-discipline, management, and industrial psychology. Beneath the diversity, however, emerges a common preoccupation with the collective, its development and dynamics. This unity of underlying concern, in turn, lends the book a remarkable coherence. The book is, however, not without its difficulties. The main one is a certain opacity characteristic of English translations of Russian scientific works. The editor acknowledges and discusses this problem in an afterword. He has also provided the reader with an informative preface that explains how the book came about, and each chapter is headed by a brief but helpful introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 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 Annals of theoretical psychology, Volume 4.

Reviews the book, Annals of theoretical psychology, Volume 4 edited by Leendert P. Mos (1986. Like the earlier volumes of this series this is a collection of five articles, three or four commentaries on each of them, a reply to these by the author of the original essay, and a book review. Besides being theoretical all chapters deal in some way with the mind rather than with observable behaviour. It is evident that the reader of this volume who expects to find in it some new psychological theory, or even only the end to some dispute about an old theory, will be disappointed. On the positive side--at least from the reviewer's perspective--this volume shows that on both sides of the Atlantic there are a number of psychologists within academia who are interested in the mind/psyche which they discuss not merely as the hyphen between "stimulus" and "response". (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Qualitative health psychology: Theories and methods.

Reviews the book, Qualitative health psychology: Theories and methods by Michael Murray and Kerry Chamberlain (1999). Qualitative research in health psychology is relatively new but already displays considerable vigour. The 15 chapters of the present book offer wide-ranging examples of the contributions that qualitative research can make to the field of health psychology; they also encourage reflection and debate on the positivist, quantitative perspective that has traditionally dominated health psychology and underpins its epistemological alliance with biomedicine. The editors and authors are to be commended on the overall clarity of the writing, given the many contributors and the plethora of specialized terms introduced in the presentation of diverse methodologies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Applications of personal construct theory.

Reviews the book, Applications of personal construct theory edited by Jack Adams-Webber and James C. Mancuso (1983). Jack Adams-Webber and James Mancuso have edited a book well worth studying. Almost any psychologist will derive some benefit from the research methods used and the results reported. Most psychologists will also be encouraged to discover that there is renewed hope for a successful experimental approach to a number of research questions in personality and abnormal psychology. Applications of personal construct theory is a collection of papers presented at the Fourth International Congress on Personal Construct Psychology held at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, in the summer of 1981. For this volume the editors have chosen all five invited addresses and nineteen selected papers from the more than eighty items of the complete Congress programme. The selection that they have made is varied and contains some excellent chapters. The book's title is somewhat misleading, however, in that there are chapters dealing with theoretical questions and historical material, as well as those that can properly be regarded as applications of personal construct theory. Apart from its general interest, this book would be a possible text for a senior undergraduate course. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Psychology as a profession: Foundations of practice.

Reviews the book, Psychology as a profession: Foundations of practice by W. B. Pryzwansky and R. N. Wendt (see record 1987-98014-000). Pryzwansky and Wendt provide a guidebook on professional issues addressed to both applied psychologists and those in training. The book begins with a general introduction to the topic of psychology as a profession, which is followed by a chapter on each of the following issues: credentialing in psychology, ethics and standards, legal impact in practice, professional development and accountability (including internships), and professional organizations. Many important professional issues are presented by the authors. It is clear that this book is directed to an audience of applied psychologists in general, but school psychologists will find a number of relevant areas not well covered. Psychology as a profession is a handy, small book to supplement a professional practices course. However, its size and purpose limit the depth with which specific topics can be elaborated, resulting in a number of gaps in coverage. In addition, given the vulnerability of several of the topics in this book to ongoing change, the reader needs to be reminded of the possibility that some information will become outdated. However, the book does provide a useful introduction to topics that seem to impact increasingly on the lives of professional psychologists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Social Psychology: An Applied Approach.

Reviews the book, Social Psychology: An Applied Approach by Ronald J. Fisher (1982). In what is probably the first of a new generation of social psychology textbooks, Ronald Fisher has attempted a very ambitious intergration of basic, theoretical and applied social psychology. My overall feeling about the book is very positive, since there is much to recommend in it. Some of the chapters, such as those dealing with social issues and social change, program development and evaluation, and organizational development, are outstanding. They are scholarly, well written and contain information that traditional social psychologists should be aware of but rarely teach. Indeed, these chapters are so comprehensive, that they could serve as good introductions to these topics for graduate students. In addition, while not being a truly "Canadian" textbook, there are considerably more Canadian examples and anecdotes contained in this book than can be found in any of the other current textbooks. My hope as an instructor of an advanced undergraduate course in applied social psychology is that if there is a second edition of this text that the author might amend it by broadening the coverage of current topics in applied social psychology while retaining those chapters that are unique to the book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychologists and psychological services in urban police departments--A national survey.

The purpose of the present study was to survey urban police departments and determine the amount and type of psychologist involvement. The major aims of the study were to ascertain the number of psychologists employed, the characteristics of these psychologists, and the services they provided. One hundred seventy-four copies of a questionnaire were sent to cities throughout the nation. The survey assessed, in broad terms, the role that psychologists and psychological services have in police departments today. A 74% return (N = 130) of the questionnaires was obtained within 3 months of the initial mailing. Results show that the more populated an area, the more psychologists employed: Only 11% and 10%, respectively, for the two smaller urban groups, but 18% and 39% for the two larger groups (in ascending order). Full-time and part-time psychologists are employed in approximately equal numbers, but, on a national scale and for all population groups, neither is used as frequently as consultants. The majority (74%) of psychologists employed are at the PhD level. Most have a clinical background, though training in counseling or industrial psychology was significantly involved. Two points represent major findings of the study: the use of consultants rather than full-time employees, and the relatively great amount of time spent in applicant screening. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Personology: Method and content in personality assessment and psychobiography.

Reviews the book, Personology: Method and content in personality assessment and psychobiography by Irving E. Alexander (see record 1990-97879-000). The subtitle accurately specifies the scope of this volume, and the title, Personology, identifies the book with the tradition of Henry A. Murray and the Harvard Psychological Clinic, which focused on idiographic, holistic, psychodynamic personality assessment. The book is relevant to modern psychoanalysis in two distinct ways. On one hand, it attempts, with unusual success, to systematize the principles of psychodynamic interpretation that are common to many versions of psychoanalysis ("method" in "personality assessment," in the book's title). On the other hand, it applies these principles to illuminate salient ways in which the inner lives of major contributors to psychoanalytic theory (Freud, Jung, and Sullivan) may have shaped their theoretical contributions (i.e., "content" and "psychobiography" in the title). The psychobiographical chapters should fascinate readers already familiar with biographical studies of these Olympian innovators, and because of the general familiarity of the terrain, the chapters serve very well the didactic purpose of illustrating how personological inference is done. Recent polemics have made much of the hermeneutic approach to human psychology, as alternative to scientistic positivism, but not very much is being written on how to do hermeneutics, and little has been produced to show that it is worth doing. Personology is therefore a rare contribution that deserves to be widely read and pondered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Forensic psychology opportunities in Canadian graduate programs: An update of Simourd and Wormith's (1995) survey.

Forensic psychology has gained momentum in North America in recent decades, and Canadian psychologists have made considerable contributions to the field. Strong student interest and a high demand for professionals, however, have not been sufficiently matched with the availability of formal forensic psychology graduate training, nor with sufficient scholarly discussion of this issue. The purpose of the current study was to update Simourd and Wormith's (1995) survey of forensic psychology training available in Canadian psychology graduate programs. Of the 39 universities with psychology graduate programs, 36 (92%) responded to the survey. Twenty-four universities (67%) offered some forensic opportunities for students, although there was considerable variability in the number of courses, students, and faculty members in the forensic psychology programs. Since Simourd and Wormith's (1995) survey, forensic training is available at 10 new universities. Of the 14 programs with forensic psychology content in 1995 and in the current study, however, more than half of them reported a decrease in the number of faculty and students working with forensic issues. Considering the continued demand for trained forensic psychologists in applied settings, further attention to the availability of both education and training in forensic psychology is therefore still needed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Law and mental health: International perspectives. Volume 1.

Reviews the book, Law and mental health: International perspectives. Volume 1 by David N. Weisstub (1984). This is the first volume in a series designed to provide an international perspective on central issues in law and mental health. The editor, David N. Weisstub, is a professor of law at Osgoode Hall and was the founding editor of the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. He is well qualified to accomplish his stated goal of establishing an international network of scholars and increase communication between countries. The first volume, however, focuses primarily on American jurisprudence. Weisstub argues that this is appropriate because the United States "has been a forerunner and, indeed, has functioned as a testing ground in the field." Subsequent volumes will include research reviews and examinations of legislative and judicial trends in other countries, focusing on topics such as malpractice, deinstitutionalization, guardianship, and competency. The present volume is comprised of six chapters, each on a different topic with the exception of two chapters on criminal responsibility. Few readers will be interested in all the chapters, but anyone interested in mental health law will find something of interest. The chapters are of uniformly high quality and the book is an excellent reference work. Since there are only six chapters, it may be of use to potential readers to have a brief overview of each. This volume (and the ones to follow) should prove to be a valuable reference for psychologists interested in legal issues. It may also be put to good use in graduate seminars in law and psychology because of the breadth of issues covered in the volume. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Psychology: Pythagoras to present.

Reviews the book, Psychology: Pythagoras to present by John C. Malone (see record 2009-06783-000). This book has a very ambitious agenda, announced in its title: to trace the history of psychology from Pythagoras to the present. The book is thus a good introduction to the standard history of psychology for those new to the discipline. Overall, the book provides an interesting overview of the standard history of psychology, with many nuances not found in basic history of psychology textbooks. It must be said, however, that the specialist will find that the book lacks fine-grained detail in some chapters. Although some key debates in the history of science are discussed in the opening chapter, the author could have draw more extensively on that literature. Despite this complaint, one of the strengths of the book is that Malone makes a serious effort to dispel misconceptions about founding figures in psychology. The strength of this book is clearly as a history written for young scholars entering the discipline today. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Multiculturalism in Canada: Social and educational perspectives.

Reviews the book, Multiculturalism in Canada: Social and educational perspectives edited by Ronald J. Samuda, John W. Berry, and Michel Laferriere (1984). The editors have managed to put together an impressive collection of contributors and contributions. Their stated aim is "to cover the entire spectrum of potential factors related to multiculturalism" and they "feel sure that this volume will meet the needs of teacher educators...inservice training...and teacher training in the foundations of multicultural education" (p. vii). The volume is divided into five parts. Part one contains chapters under the rubric of Policies of Multiculturalism. Part two contains five chapters under the rubric of Attitudes toward Multiculturalism. Part three contains six chapters under the rubric of Language in a Multicultural Society. Part four contains eight chapters under the rubric of Adaptation to a Multicultural Society. Part five contains six chapters under the rubric of Assessment and Counselling in Multicultural Society. In sum, this volume contains many fine individual chapters. Students and professors can pick through them and find the ones best suited for their unique purposes. When taken as a whole, however, the volume represents an ethos which is probably irreconcilable with a genuine multiculturalism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of social psychology.

Reviews the book, Handbook of social psychology edited by Gardner Lindzey (1954). The reviewer notes that the publication of this two-volume Handbook is a truly signal event in social psychology. The text is comprehensive, up to date, balanced. It gives extensive treatment to theory, to methodology, and to research findings and applications. It is sophisticated in its approach and makes no concession to oversimplified presentation, either in content or in style. The reviewer also reports that the editor has demonstrated a high order of intelligence and judgment in the selection and organization of the various chapters. No main area of social psychology is neglected. As contrasted with the more typical compendiums of material in a large field, this book succeeds remarkably in avoiding unnecessary redundancy. The choice of authors in this text is also excellent. Some of the authors have taken this as an occasion for creating something beyond simply a critical review of an area of social psychology; parts of some of the chapters are original contributions to the theory and method of social psychology. Overall, this Handbook offers convincing evidence that social psychology is indeed a field in its own right, continually growing in the extent to which its methods and findings bear intimate relationship with other areas of psychology, and at the same time contributing a steady stream of methods and data which are uniquely to be found in connection with social behavior of individuals and groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Qualitative Research Methods for Psychologists: Introduction through Empirical Studies.

Reviews the book, Qualitative Research Methods for Psychologists: Introduction through Empirical Studies edited by Constance T. Fischer (2006). This book is intended as an introductory textbook for psychology students and psychologists who have been trained in traditional psychological research methods with the goal of providing an orientation to qualitative research frameworks and how they are applied to the many research questions that might be considered by psychologists. The book begins with a useful introductory chapter by the editor that provides a historical overview of the emergence of psychology as a science concerned primarily with determining causal relationships. There are 13 chapters in the body of the book and they are gathered into three parts: Clinical Practices, Affective and Cognitive Processes, and Life Situations. The book ends with a Question and Responses chapter by the editor that covers many of the questions novice qualitative researchers often have about qualitative research. The last section is a detailed Glossary of terms that are significant in understanding qualitative research. There is much in this book to recommend it as an introductory book on qualitative research for graduate students and beginning qualitative researchers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Revue de Psychotherapies attention!

Psychotherapies attention! is a file of Quebec Science, by a group of mental health professionals--five psychologists, a social worker and a psychiatrist. The seven authors of this volume wonder about certain fundamental questions to which is confronts all psychotherapy: why? which? how? The book is divided into ten chapters. One chapter demonstrates how psychology is often used as instrument of domination; subjectivism in psychology is also addressed. The various schools of psychotherapy are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)