Multilevel integrative analyses of human behavior: Social neuroscience and the complementing nature of social and biological approaches.

Social and biological explanations traditionally have been cast as incompatible, but advances in recent years have revealed a new view synthesized from these 2 very different levels of analysis. The authors review evidence underscoring the complementing nature of social and biological levels of analysis and how the 2 together can foster understanding of the mechanisms underlying complex behavior and the mind. Specifically, they review the utility of considering social influences on biological processes that are often viewed as outside the social domain including genetic constitution, gene expression, disease, and autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immune activity. This research underscores the unity of psychology and the importance of retaining multilevel integrative research that spans molar and molecular levels of analysis. Especially needed in the coming years is more research on the mechanism linking social and biological events and processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological study of whole families.

Analysis of whole families is delineated as a field of psychological study. Relevance to psychology of personality and social psychology is shown. Emergence of the field is traced, and major current approaches are examined. A general conceptual framework, growing out of and integrating data from psychology and other behavioral sciences, is shown to be developing. Evidence suggests that a great range of psychological phenomena, including, illustratively, social attitudes, psychosomatic symptoms, cognitive functioning, identity formation, affiliative behavior, can be illuminated by psychological study of whole families. Principal current research methods are briefly discussed. (3-p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thomas K. Srull.

Presents an overview of the career of Thomas K. Srull and his contributions to the field of psychology. For theoretical, empirical and methodological contribution to knowledge about the cognitive underpinnings of social behavior and personality; for major advances in our understanding of the mental representations of individuals and groups, the cognitive processes that underlie their construction, and the use of these representations in making judgments; for ground-breaking research on the role of concept accessibility in the interpretation of social information; and for contributing to the interfaces among cognitive, social and personality psychology. His research, has provided important insights into the dynamics of social memory and the relation between memory and judgment. His areas of influence range from basic cognitive and social psychology to applied research in consumer behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social outcomes in childhood brain disorder: A heuristic integration of social neuroscience and developmental psychology.

The authors propose a heuristic model of the social outcomes of childhood brain disorder that draws on models and methods from both the emerging field of social cognitive neuroscience and the study of social competence in developmental psychology/psychopathology. The heuristic model characterizes the relationships between social adjustment, peer interactions and relationships, social problem solving and communication, social-affective and cognitive-executive processes, and their neural substrates. The model is illustrated by research on a specific form of childhood brain disorder, traumatic brain injury. The heuristic model may promote research regarding the neural and cognitive-affective substrates of children's social development. It also may engender more precise methods of measuring impairments and disabilities in children with brain disorder and suggest ways to promote their social adaptation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Network models contribute to cognitive and social neuroscience.

Cognitive neuroscience emerged to integrate cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Social cognitive neuroscience has recently emerged to integrate social psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. This article comments on these theoretical integration efforts because they help reverse psychology's long history of division and disunification. The second point of this article notes that network theories and models are also helping to unify cognitive and social neuroscience. Throughout this article the author refers to the burgeoning parallel distributed processing-connections neural network literature that includes social cognitive neuroscience in addition to most other fields of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why the studies of science need a psychology of science.

As I have argued elsewhere (Feist, 2006a; Feist & Gorman, 1998), the psychology of science is a discipline that incorporates all the major subdisciplines in psychology, in particular the neuroscientific, developmental, cognitive, personality, and social perspectives. The empirical investigations that psychologists have contributed to the study of scientific thought, interest, and achievement have substantially altered and added to our understanding of the nature of science. Moreover, psychologists of science bring unique methodological and theoretical tools to the studies of science. Only psychologists, for instance, can bring a true experimental design to the study of scientific thought and behavior. The contributions by Simonton, Gorman, Brewer and Schommer-Aikins, Runyan, and myself in this current special issue exemplify some of uniqueness and diversity that psychology has to offer the studies of science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

John A. Bargh.

Presents an overview of the career of John A. Bargh. For outstanding and original research on the forefront of cognitive approaches to social psychology. His use of innovative methodologies for studying social information processing has illuminated the role of knowledge accessibility and automatic processing in social perception. Using elegant experimental designs, he has made seminal discoveries of the interactions between conscious and unconscious processing and between prior expectancies and stimulus input. His theoretical distinctions among varieties of automatic and controlled processing have made a significant contribution to psychology. An exceptional scientist and scholar, he has set the agenda for future research on the role of the unconscious in social behavior (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Social psychology, an interdisciplinary approach.

Reviews the book, Social psychology, an interdisciplinary approach by Hubert Bonner (1953). According to the reviewer, it has been argued that most textbooks in the social sciences are really written from other textbooks in the same area. Bonner's text seems singularly invulnerable to this complaint. The author has brought together materials from an unusually wide variety of sources and organized them into a book which shows definite signs of some original thinking about how a text in social psychology should be put together, and what should go into it. The reviewer states that in general, Bonner's theoretical position is, for today, not an especially distinctive one. The extent of his concern with the social and cultural context within which behavior occurs, however, is unusual and can be conveyed only in part by the headings of the three main divisions of his book: Social Interaction, the social matrix of behavior; Culture and Behavior, cultural values and personal-social adjustment; Group Dynamics, social change and collective behavior. The reviewer states that this book is particularly useful for students who are interested in getting an understanding of social behavior within the scope of a single course, and who do not intend to do advanced work in the social sciences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dark side of social encounters: Prospects for a neuroscience of human evil.

This article discusses how findings from social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience might contribute to our understanding of human evil. Integrating theories of personality and social psychology as well as the notions of deindividuation and dehumanization with recent neuroscientific insight, the authors elaborate on the nature of human evil and its potential roots in brain systems associated with affective processing and cognitive control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a general theory for the behavioral sciences.

Since 1949 specialists in various social and biological sciences including "… history, anthropology, economics, political science, sociology, social psychology, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, physiology, and mathematical biology" have met in the attempt to develop a theory "… embracing all aspects of behavior." A number of terms useful in the consideration of theory including "system," "boundary," "subsystems," and "coding" are discussed. Formal models of behavior and homologies with electronic systems are considered. The paper is concerned with specifying and elaborating 19 propositions "… each empirically testable at the levels of cell, organ, individual, small group, and society… ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Situations matter: Teaching the Lewinian link between social psychology and rehabilitation psychology.

A little-recognized fact is that social psychology and rehabilitation psychology share a common theoretical ancestry in the situation perspective of Kurt Lewin. Theory and research in both fields assumes that situational influences often override the impact of personal factors, including dispositions. Situational analyses led to the development of a variety of cognitive explanations capturing people's phenomenal accounts for the causes of behavior and concomitant interpretation of social problems. Teachers can explore reasons why, despite the fields' having a shared theoretical perspective and topics of common interest (e.g., attitudes, prejudice, discrimination), little scholarly intradisciplinary contact currently occurs between them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Just because you're imaging the brain doesn't mean you can stop using your head: A primer and set of first principles.

Developments within the neurosciences, cognitive sciences, and social sciences have contributed to the emergence of social neuroscience. Among the most obvious contemporary developments are brain-imaging procedures such as functional magnetic resonance imaging. The authors outline a set of first principles designed to help make sense of brain-imaging research within the fields of cognitive and social neuroscience. They begin with a principle few would debate--that social cognition, emotion, and behavior involve the brain--but whose implications might not be entirely obvious to those new to the field. The authors conclude that (a) complex aspects of the mind and behavior will benefit from yet a broader collaboration of neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and social scientists, and (b) social psychologists bring important theoretical, methodological, and statistical expertise to this interdisciplinary enterprise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive neuroscience: A field with increasing interest to school psychologists.

Reviews the book, Cognitive neuroscience: The biology of the mind by M. Gazzaniga, R. B. Ivry, and G. R. Mangun (1998). This excellent book on cognitive neuroscience provides an exposition of the key areas concerned in cognitive neuroscience for the advanced student in adult neuropsychology and/or biological psychiatry. The authors' aim to balance theory with neuropsychology utilizing neuroscientific evidence to support a theoretical basis is a major contribution of this text. In this book there has been a concerted effort to provide a theoretical basis for cognitive neuroscience in addition to a list of empirical evidence. Such an effort provides a backdrop for future research as well as linking various cognitive functions into an understandable whole. This volume provides an excellent overview of brain anatomy and function. The book is highly readable and provides excellent illustrations of complex material. The main weakness of this volume for school psychologists is the emphasis on adult disorders with no real discussion of the most common childhood disorders. Although the text assumes some familiarity with neuroanatomy, it is useful for practitioners who desire more up-to-date information in this exciting field. This volume would be an excellent textbook for courses in biological bases of behavior for doctoral-level school psychologists, provided there is accompanying information on child neuropsychology. (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)     

The spontaneous use of a group typology as an organizing principle in memory.

Five studies investigated the spontaneous use of group typology in encoding information about various social groups. Participants saw faces or behaviors along with a label indicating the group membership of the face or the behavior. Labels corresponded to 2 groups each of 3 group types (i.e., 2 intimacy groups, 2 task-oriented groups, and 2 social categories). Recognition results showed more within-group-type errors than between-group-types errors. A free-recall task replicated these results, as the sequence of remembering items showed that memory organization reflected the group typology. A final study investigated the effects of group typology on the speed and accuracy of category membership verification. Results demonstrate the spontaneous use of an implicit group typology and its influence on the cognitive organization of information about groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Four routes of cognitive evolution.

Four routes of cognitive evolution are distinguished: phylogenetic construction, in which natural selection produces qualitative change to the way a cognitive mechanism operates (language); phylogenetic inflection, in which natural selection biases the input to a cognitive mechanism (imprinting and spatial memory); ontogenetic construction, in which developmental selection alters the way a cognitive mechanism operates (face recognition and theory of mind); and ontogenetic inflection, in which developmental selection changes the input to a cognitive mechanism (imitation). This framework integrates findings from evolutionary psychology (i.e., all research on the evolution of mentality and behavior). In contrast with human nativist evolutionary psychology, it recognizes the adaptive significance of developmental processes, conserves the distinction between cognitive and noncognitive mechanisms, and encompasses research on human and nonhuman animals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A personal encounter with psychology (1937-2002).

An undergraduate assistantship with Maslow, research with S. Asch, and an indirect exposure to E. Nagel's philosophy of science encouraged H. H. Kendler to become involved with methodological issues in psychology. Graduate training with K. Spence led to an active research career that was initially immersed in the latent learning controversy and later, with the collaboration of his wife T. Kendler, in the extension of the Hull-Spence model of cognitive development. Methodological concerns from a variety of sources encouraged Kendler to express his ideas on the methodology and history of psychology as well as its role in ethical and social policy issues. A productive symbiotic relationship is created from the interaction of democracy, natural-science psychology, and moral pluralism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a Boundaryless Psychology.

This series of papers argue for the integrating of psychology as a core discipline. They show the benefit to the science and practice of psychology, of psychologists being aware of and building upon theory and research outside their subspecialty. Specifically, the three respective papers examine potential advances in industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology through knowledge of clinical, social, and neuroscience psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prominent schools or other active specialties? A fresh look at some trends in psychology.

Past studies investigating trends in psychology have reported some conflicting and surprising results. This article critiques and reevaluates these reports, with a particular focus on those related to the cognitive revolution and the place of neuroscience in psychology. Based on a wide variety of indicators, the following trends are demonstrated: (a) Although cognitive psychology has grown in importance, it has not come to dominate psychology; (b) contrary to prior findings, attention to neuroscience in psychology has grown in a pattern similar to that of cognitive psychology; and (c) there are many signs that cognitive neuroscience is in the process of emergence. Trends are interpreted in light of the argument that psychology is a disunified discipline allowing for many different interests, schools, and approaches. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The middle way: Charles Taylor on knowledge and the self.

Reviews the books, Philosophical papers, volume I: Human agency and language by Charles Taylor (1985) and Philosophical papers, volume II: Philosophy and the human sciences by Charles Taylor (1985). Professor Taylor of McGill University is one of a number of thinkers who are attempting the difficult and important task of taking the social sciences "beyond objectivism and relativism." One of the foremost philosophers of his generation, Taylor has long devoted himself to study of the foundations of the social sciences, especially psychology and political science. Now the Cambridge University Press has issued, in a two-volume set, a selection of Taylor's essays written over the last twenty years. The essays cover a wide variety of topics. Some are focussed critiques—of mainstream cognitive psychology, of Piagetian developmental psychology, and of Michel Foucault's social studies of knowledge and power, for example. Others are historical studies which trace the development of theories of language and meaning from the Renaissance to the present day. Several essays discuss the nature of the self, and seek to show the incoherence of positions which fail to take into account the human capacity for self-consciousness, choice and responsibility. "Interpretation and the Sciences of Man," perhaps the best-known essay in the collection, is a closely argued demonstration of the irreducability of human meanings and the consequent necessity for a "hermeneutic" social science. Despite their historical range and disciplinary breadth, not to mention their casual familiarity with the Anglo-Saxon, French and German philosophical traditions, Taylor's essays form an organic, if sprawling whole. No psychologist interested in the epistemological foundations of his science should neglect these stimulating and cogent articles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)