The Need for Experimental Evidence in Applied Psychology.

Article on the experimental evidence in applied psychology. It seems to the writer that applied psychologists must forego the understandable temptation to supply answers which are not based on solid experimental findings. If such a position were adopted there would be little difficulty in pointing out to the general public the difference between scientifically accepted psychological facts and common-sense opinions. While limiting ourselves to experimentally verified conclusions may temporarily restrict our sphere of operations, the alternative would seem to be the relegation of applied psychology to the limbo of astrology, numerology, etc. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Force Four Psychology: Interactionism.

Notes that the three previous major forces setting the direction of applied psychology have been psychoanalytic, behavioral, and humanistic. All of them have been blended to some extent, but all, over time, have retained their basic flavors. The persons today most closely associated with each of the three forces are S. Freud, B. F. Skinner, and A. Maslow, respectively. Behaviorism was an attempt to make psychology more scientific. Humanistic psychology, the third force, is a reaction or really the antithesis to the first two. The current author describes "interactionistic psychology" or "force four psychology" as a possible synthesis of the previous three forces. A working definition of interactionism, taken from a quote by S. Chess (1979), is proposed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coping behavior and personal responsibility as factors in the perception of disabled persons by the nondisabled.

Two variables—Coping or Succumbing orientations toward one’s disability and being Responsible or Not Responsible for becoming physically disabled—were manipulated to determine their effects upon evaluation by the nondisabled of someone with a disability. Four experimental groups of 24 each, none of whom were disabled, were exposed to all combinations of the two independent variables. Subjects saw one of four videotaped interviews of a person in a wheel chair assuming one of the combined roles (e.g., Coping-Responsible). Dependent measures were a semantic differential, a rating scale of the person with a disability, and affect expressed in a written communication about the disabled person. Results of all measures using two-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were the same. Being portrayed as Coping and Not Responsible resulted in most favorable evaluations, with coping being more potent than responsibility. The order of favorability is Coping-Not Responsible, Coping-Responsible, Succumbing-Not Responsible, Succumbing-Responsible. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Experimental Psychology of Sensory Behaviour.

Reviews the book, The Experimental Psychology of Sensory Behaviour by John F. Corso. The evaluation of John Corso's book depends to a great extent upon the use for which it is intended. As a text for an experimental psychology course, this book unfortunately has some serious limitations. This is of considerable value for some types of courses; however, for a course in experimental psychology it would seem desirable to give students a broader range of methodologies than those used in sensory psychology. This is a good, but somewhat limited, experimental psychology text that would need considerable supplementation from other sources in order to be adequate for general experimental courses in psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Manual of Child Psychology": Erratum.

Reports an error in the review by Roger G. Barker of the L. Carmichael edited book, Manual of Child Psychology (Psychological Bulletin, 1955, Vol 52[3], 263-267). The sentence on page 266, right-hand column, should read "However, this reader found intriguing the world view so boldly sketched." (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 2005-10141-002). This book is a good picture of child psychology in 1954. The weaknesses of the Manual are largely the weaknesses of the science it surveys. A good manual of child psychology awaits a more mature science of child behavior. In the meantime this book and, it is to be hoped, its future editions provide an important aid in achieving this maturity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology.

This article reports on the Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology, which is presented to a person who, in the opinion of the Committee on Scientific Awards, has made distinguished theoretical or empirical advances leading to the understanding or amelioration of important practical problems. This year's winner is Harold Stevenson, for pathbreaking contributions to the understanding of how children learn. A citation, biography, and selected bibliography of Stevenson's work are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Book review: Psychology: The Science of Behaviour.

Review of the book, Neil R. Carlson, William Buskist, Michael E. Enzle, and C. Donald Heth (authors) Psychology: The Science of Behaviour. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Education Canada Ltd., 2002, 701 pp., ISBN 0-13-0393606-6. Reviewed by: George Alder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems.

Reviews the book, Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems edited by Frank W. Schneider, Jamie A. Gruman, and Larry M. Coutts (see record 2005-02098-000). Though I think the appeal of this text ought to extend well beyond the intended audience, Schneider et al. are marketing their book as an undergraduate level introductory text. It thus contains much of the pedagogy that instructors have come to expect in textbooks. Of course, the typical undergraduate text is written by a single author or group of authors. Schneider et al. opted for a different approach; Theirs is an edited volume, a collection of chapters written by specialists in a wide range of topic areas. Whereas it might have been natural in this case to expect problems with lack of consistency in style, organization, and content across the chapters, I was impressed by the effectiveness with which the editors maintained consistency throughout. One of the main strategies by which they achieved this level of success seems to have been by encouraging authors to use several classic theories and studies, where appropriate, in discussing the content relevant to their own areas of expertise. In total, there are 16 chapters. The first four chapters, which include an introductory chapter and chapters on theory, research methods, and intervention and evaluation, serve largely to set the context for the more focused, topic-driven material that comes later. Because this book is intended as a broad introduction to applied social psychology and because the chapters are rather short in length (20 to 25 pages on average), the coverage within any given chapter is selective rather than comprehensive in nature. I think Applied Social Psychology will make a substantial contribution as an undergraduate text--useful both as an introductory text in courses on applied social psychology and, where time will permit, as a secondary text to complement the main text in introductory or junior graduate-level survey courses on social psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Ya Gotta School of Psychology.

Author questions to what extent, if any, has psychology undercut old fashioned self-reliance and personal accountability through the popularization of "adjustment" to others, to the environment; of "understanding" (excusing?) failure; of adjusting standards to "conditions"? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Folk Psychology and Moral Evaluation.

Assessments of an action done intentionally, as we might expect, influence judgments of moral responsibility. What we don't expect is the converse--judgments of moral responsibility influencing assessments of whether an action was done intentionally. Yet this is precisely how people decide, according to Knobe (2003, 2004) and Mendlow (2004) and Nadelhoffer (2004a). I evaluate whether the studies actually support this biasing effect. I argue that the studies are at best inconclusive and that even if they demonstrated that people fall under the biasing effect, such tendencies ought to have no bearing upon philosophical analyses of the concept of intentional action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Applied Psychology in Action: Comment on Word Meaning.

Comments on "The non-directive approach in advertising appeals" by H. D. Hadley (1953) and the distinction between credibility and credulity in the text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology, law, and the expert witness.

Stresses for the psychologist called on for expert testimony stem from (1) the general nature of court procedure and (2) the "special stresses which inhere in the present position of psychologists as experts and their uncertain status relative to physicians… . The general responsibility of psychologists to society entails efforts to bring legal practice into line with facts derived from the scientific investigation of behavior—normal, criminal, and insane. These efforts should be direct and continuous." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Applied Psychology in Action: Legal Status of Advertising and Marketing Psychology Experts.

An important U. S. District Court decision by Judge Robert C. Bell, District of Minnesota, was handed down on September 4, 1953 at St. Paul, Minn. The Court admitted the testimony of two experts in the field of advertising and marketing psychology (Howard P. Longstaff of the University of Minnesota and James N. Mosel of George Washington University). These experts had been engaged by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration to interpret advertising copy and to determine its impact on a sample of 200 prospective purchasers of a drug. As a result of the success attained it is probable that advertising and marketing psychologists will be increasingly used in prosecutions involving the fraudulent and misleading use of labels and advertisements in the marketing of drugs and foods. The case revolved around a full page newspaper advertisement of "Tryptacin." The label on the drug itself did not contain directions for use in the treatment of stomach ulcers although this is a condition for which the drug is intended and for which the drug is suggested and recommended in its advertising. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Another Course in Human Engineering.

We at the University of Detroit agree basically with the notions expressed by Coyer, in his article on a human engineering course (Amer. Psychologist, 1956, 11, 241-243). Certainly our courses in industrial psychology did not fulfill the need for more specifically trained persons in this area of psychology. Thus, we offered, during the second semester of the 1955-56 year, a course called, Applied Experimental Psychology. The course was given at the advanced undergraduate level with the option of additional requirements for graduate credit. It was our hope that the college of engineering would be interested. The ultimate population of the class consisted of seven seniors majoring in psychology, one graduate student in psychology, and one graduate engineer. Advantages and disadvantages of the course are discussed, and and expansion of the course into two semesters of general indoctrination and technical practicum are recommended. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Progress in Self Psychology, Volume 2.

Similar to the 1st volume of Progress in Self Psychology, this 2nd volume is a collection of invited papers and papers from national conferences devoted to this area of psychoanalysis. According to Goldberg, these volumes are intended, perhaps temporarily, to serve as a substitute for a journal in self-psychology. Loosely divided into sections on theory, clinical problems, development, and applied psychoanalysis, the collection serves as a sampler of contemporary issues, but does not provide a unified structure for theory and practice that some readers may expect of want from a cutting-edge book. The one issue that rings clearly throughout the book is how self psychology compares and contrasts to classical psychoanalysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

School Psychology.

Comments on the article by J. Bardon and N. Walker (see record 1973-05301-001). While the data is interesting, the author's hope that a follow-up study will also show where the training given enables the doctoral graduates to assist in developing a criterion-referenced marking system, and to employ an educational versus a medical model for dealing with disturbed behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Technique in Teaching Abnormal Psychology.

Recent issues of the American Psychologist have been devoting some space to techniques in teaching abnormal psychology. Mills (1955, 10, 74-78) suggested field trips to existing community facilities; Brown (1955, 10, 85-86) reported on a technique of having students analyze, without their knowing until afterwards, their own personality test protocols; and more recently Wertheimer (1955, 10, 826) wrote on a method of the students writing short papers on "abnormal" behavior from their own or their friends' experiences. Only the latter demonstration comes close to meeting one of the fundamental problems for the student of abnormal psychology: the meaning of the concepts of "normal" and "abnormal." This article presents a simple classroom demonstration that has been used successfully at Trinity College during the early part of the course to emphasize two fundamental ideas: (a) behavior which is different from that of the group is not necessarily abnormal behavior, and (b) our labels of normal and abnormal have more meaning for us if we are aware of the circumstances underlying the deviant behavior observed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology and the design of machines.

Because of "human errors," psychologists were asked to help engineers produce machines which required less of the man and which, at the same time, exploited his special abilities. Psychologists, with the help of anatomists, physiologists and engineers "started a new inter-discipline aimed at better machine design and called variously human engineering, biomechanics, psychotechnology, or engineering psychology." The engineering psychologist: (1) studies the psychology of the human as a system component; (2) assists the engineer in experimentally evaluating prototype man-machine systems; and (3) cooperates actively with engineers in the design of machines. Some day "psychology, biology, and physics will… all employ the same physicomathematical metalanguage when describing the behavior of those particular system components which fall within their purview." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The transformation of psychology: Influences of 19th-century philosophy, technology, and natural science.

Reviews the book, The transformation of psychology: Influences of 19th-century philosophy, technology, and natural science edited by Christopher D. Green, Marlene Shore, and Thomas Teo (see record 2001-01476-000). In the following review, I have found it convenient to divide the 11 chapters of this volume into three groups, one devoted to the philosophy of psychological science, one devoted to theoretical and biological psychology, and one devoted to applied psychology. The first of these groups contains chapters by Andrew S. Winston on Ernst Mach, by Charles W. Tolman on G. W. F. Hegel, and by Thomas Teo on Karl Marx and Wilhelm Dilthey. The second grouping of chapters is concerned with theoretical/biological psychology and includes five contributions. The final group of chapters concerns applied psychology. What I liked most about this book was the genuinely innovative character of every chapter; there is no "old hat" stuff anywhere. The editors and contributors are to be congratulated on a fine and timely work of scholarship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)