Psychology and the science of human-environment interactions.

Psychology has an indispensable role in understanding environmental problems and finding solutions. To fill this role, psychologists must work within an interdisciplinary effort to build a scientific understanding of human-environment interactions. This article enumerates 8 widely held beliefs about these interactions and assesses the strengths and limitations of each belief. It suggests that psychology can contribute more strongly by counteracting disciplinary biases, focusing research where a behavioral analysis identifies major opportunities, making appropriately modest claims, collaborating with other disciplines, and building on psychology's relative strengths among the human sciences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology and the State Associations.

Comments upon Robert Perloff's comment (1964) on state associations. The author mentions some things that Perloff might discover if he approached the problem as a psychologist. It is noted that the status and support of any science or profession depends upon public understanding and appreciation. In simple self-interest, any psychologist who takes the trouble to be informed in these matters, and who wants to support himself rather than live on the efforts of his colleagues, will join his efforts with theirs to insure professional standards and status for those who serve the public in the name of psychology. This means support and utilization of state associations, for there is no other organ so well adapted to deal with professional problems and the public's interest. Also, aside from the important questions of standards and competence, state associations are ideally situated to deal constructively with the divisive forces in American psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology in the Canadian Forces.

This paper provides an introduction to the Special Issue on Industrial-Organizational Psychology in the Canadian Forces. A brief history of the application of psychology in the Canadian Forces is outlined, beginning with World War II. In particular, the creation of the Personnel Selection Branch of the military is described, and the responsibilities of Personnel Selection Officers are outlined. It is demonstrated that these officers are engaged in a variety of activities where the application of psychology is important. The paper concludes by pointing out how the empirical papers contained in the Special Issue, are representative of current research and practice of psychology in the Canadian Forces. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond the group mind: A quantitative review of the interindividual-intergroup discontinuity effect.

This quantitative review of 130 comparisons of interindividual and intergroup interactions in the context of mixed-motive situations reveals that intergroup interactions are generally more competitive than interindividual interactions. The authors identify 4 moderators of this interindividual-intergroup discontinuity effect, each based on the theoretical perspective that the discontinuity effect flows from greater fear and greed in intergroup relative to interindividual interactions. Results reveal that each moderator shares a unique association with the magnitude of the discontinuity effect. The discontinuity effect is larger when (a) participants interact with an opponent whose behavior is unconstrained by the experimenter or constrained by the experimenter to be cooperative rather than constrained by the experimenter to be reciprocal, (b) group members make a group decision rather than individual decisions, (c) unconstrained communication between participants is present rather than absent, and (d) conflict of interest is severe rather than mild. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automatic abstraction of stimulus structure from episodes: Comment on Whittlesea and Dorken (1993).

B. W. Whittlesea and M. D. Dorken's (see record 1993-36194-001) experiments were designed to examine whether implicit learning reflects automatic abstraction of the structure underlying stimuli or instead reflects task-dependent encoding of particular experiences. Their episodic approach presents 2 difficulties: One problem is their assumption that automatic abstraction implies abstraction of knowledge directly from the stimulus rather than from memory representations of experiences. A 2nd problem is that they dichotomized information (item information and global regularities) that is naturally and easily acquired simultaneously. Purely episodic systems become inefficient and waste resources in real-life situations involving high levels of experience. It is argued that it is more fruitful to view memory as a conceptualizer that enables efficient interactions with the environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology from the standpoint of a generalist.

Describes the tenets of a liberalized scientific psychology. Such a science is empirical, deterministic, and analytic. Psychology is the science of behavior. Mentalistic concepts are inferences from behavior, and they play a centrally important role. Intuition, common sense, and personal experience provide hypotheses for this science. The elementist–holist controversy disappears with the understanding that the wholes of science differ at different levels of analysis. Free will can be brought within the scope of determinism. Overt behavior is the product of potentials laid down by nature–nurture interactions and conditions of the moment. Behavior is so complexly determined that individual uniqueness is an expected consequence. In this scheme of things, scientific values control the science of psychology, and humanistic values control the actions of the psychologists who create this science and apply it. Over the years, the process of change in psychology has been evolutionary rather than revolutionary. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is function of the Drosophila homeotic gene Ultrabithorax canalized?

Genetic variation affecting the expressivity of an amorphic allele of the homeotic gene Ultrabithorax, (Ubx1) was characterized after 11 generations of introgression into 29 different isofemale lines. Heterozygotes display a range of haploinsufficient phenotypes, from overlap with wild-type halteres to dramatic transformations such as a 50% increase in area and the presence of over 20 bristles on the anterior margin of each haltere. In both the wild-type and mutant genetic backgrounds, there is moderate genetic variance and low environmental variance/developmental asymmetry, as expected of a trait under stabilizing selection pressure. Surprisingly, there is little evidence that mutant halteres are more variable than wild-type ones, so it is unclear that haltere development is also canalized. The correlation between wild-type and Ubx haltere size is very low, indicating that interactions among modifiers of Ubx are complex, and in some cases sex-specific. The potential quantitative genetic contributions of homeotic genes to appendage morphology are discussed, noting that population-level effects of variation in key regulatory genes may be prevalent and complex but cannot be readily extrapolated to macroevolutionary diversification.     

Psychology and the Law Enforcement Officer.

This item discusses the role of the police officer in society and the impact psychology has had upon the development of public attitudes toward the police officer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nativism versus neuroconstructivism: Rethinking the study of developmental disorders.

This article argues that one dominant position in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, and philosophy about how genetic disorders point to the innate specification of dissociated modules in the human brain should be replaced by a dynamic, neuroconstructivist approach in which genes, brain, cognition, and environment interact multidirectionally. The article challenges current thinking about a series of questions: (a) Do significantly better scores in one domain necessarily indicate an intact module? (b) What do scores in the normal range suggest? (c) What is wrong with mental-age matching? (d) Why is the notion of an intact module unlikely? (e) Do developmental disorders suggest associations rather than dissociations? (f) Is the environment the same for atypically developing individuals? The article concludes by examining the implications of taking a neuroconstructivist approach and by arguing that human intelligence is not a state (i.e., not a collection of static, built-in modules that can be intact or impaired) but a process (i.e., the emergent property over developmental time of dynamic, multidirectional interactions between genes, brain, cognition, behavior, and environment) with domain-specific outcomes impossible without the process of development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Epidermal growth factor (EGF) and EGF receptor in hypospadias

Environmental oncology is a discipline concerned with studies of multi-aspect relationships between environment and living organisms exposed to the modifying influence of carcinogenic agents. It also deals with general biological regularities involved in neoplasm development as well as their prevention in different species including man, animals and plants. Various investigations conducted at the Laboratory and supported with Russian and foreign grants (1991-1996) are briefly discussed. Among them are biotesting environmental carcinogens (aminoanthraquinons, by-products of drinking water chlorination, development of new testing systems and objects of detection involved in identification of genotoxic substances (criteria for formation of short-term test batteries and evaluation of perspectives, methods and results), investigation of xenobiotic metabolic activation (enzyme imprinting in adult animals), search for anticarcinogens (classification of carcinogenesis inhibitors, development of testing systems for modifiers selection), and establishing environment-related regularities of tumor growth. Vistas in environmental oncology development are discussed.     

Psychology and health.

This article traces the historical development of Canadian medicare and its significant influence on shaping not only the clinical services provided within Canada's public health care system but also its major impact on the nation's overall health research agenda. Particular emphasis is placed on how this has influenced the development and role of psychology in the public health care system. It is argued that all psychologists, whether their work is focused on the applied or experimental areas of the discipline, have much to offer Canadians across the entire health care spectrum. Nevertheless, psychological services in the public health care system, and particularly in hospitals, have mainly developed within and continue to be primarily focused around mental health. Services in nonmental health areas of health have been more limited, although their importance is well recognized. The current situation partly reflects the limited training in general health issues that clinical psychologists-in-training generally receive in many graduate school programs in Canada. However, it also reflects the overall influence of medicare on the development of Canada's health care system. Medicare has tended to focus the activities of Canada's health care system primarily on treating illness rather than on preventing it and/or maintaining health. Also, medicare has oriented Canada's health care system mainly toward delivering medical services rather than providing more comprehensive health services (e.g., the "medically necessary" criterion for funding). However, times are changing. The growing emphasis among health policymakers in Canada on illness prevention and health promotion (e.g., the creation of the federal government Public Health Agency of Canada in 2004) will significantly expand psychology's role across all areas of health. Psychology education and training programs are urged to seriously examine whether psychology practitioners and researchers are being adequately prepared at present for the much broader array of future interdisciplinary professional, research, and educational activities and responsibilities that will emerge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology and biology.

The relation between psychology and biology is set out from the point of view of a radical behaviourist. This is done by noting the similarities between the contingencies involved in the evolution of species and those involved in the modification of behaviour. Attempts are made to extend the parallel beyond the more obvious common features of variation and selection. The Law of Natural Selection provides the basis for a distinction between physical and biological sciences; similarly the Law of Reinforcement provides the basis for another distinction between sciences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genetic and environmental contributions to the association between quantitative ultrasound and bone mineral density measurements: a twin study

This study was designed to assess the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to the variation and covariation of quantitative ultrasound (QUS) measurements and their relationships to bone mineral density (BMD). Forty-nine monozygotic (MZ) and 44 dizygotic (DZ) female twins between 20 and 83 years of age (53 +/- 13 years, mean +/- SD) were studied. Digital (phalangeal) QUS (speed of sound [SOS]) and calcaneal QUS (broadband ultrasound attenuation [BUA] and velocity of sound [VOS]) were measured using a DBM Sonic 1200 ultrasound densitometer and a CUBA ultrasound densitometer, respectively. Femoral neck (FN), lumbar spine (LS), and total body (TB) BMD were measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Familial resemblance and hence heritability (proportion of variance of a trait attributable to genetic factors) were assessed by analysis of variance, univariate, and multivariate model-fitting genetic analyses. In both QUS and BMD parameters, MZ twins were more alike than DZ pairs. Estimates of heritability for age- and weight-adjusted BUA, VOS, and SOS were 0.74, 0.55, and 0.82, respectively. Corresponding indices of heritability for LS, FN, and TB BMD were 0.79, 0.77, and 0.82, respectively. In cross-sectional analysis, both BUA and SOS, but not VOS, were independently associated with BMD measurements. However, analysis based on intrapair differences suggested that only BUA was related to BMD. Bivariate genetic analysis indicated that the genetic correlations between BUA and BMD ranged between 0.43 and 0.51 (p < 0.001), whereas the environmental correlations ranged between 0.20 and 0.28 (p < 0.01). While the genetic correlations within QUS and BMD measurements were significant, factor analysis indicates that common genes affect BMD at different sites. Also, individual QUS measurements appear to be influenced by some common sets of genes rather than by environmental factors. Significant environmental correlations were only found for BMD measurements and ranged between 0.50 and 0.65 (p < 0.001). These data suggest that QUS and BMD measurements are highly heritable traits. While it appears that there is a common set of genes influencing both QUS and BMD measurements, specific genes yet to be identified appear to have greater effects than that of shared genes in each trait.     

Semantic relations and Alzheimer's disease: Typicality and direction of testing.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and elderly controls verified semantic attributes of common concepts. For each attribute tested (superordinate category, part, property, and function), typicality of the semantic relation was varied, as well as the order in which relations were tested (e.g., category-concept or concept-category). Like controls, AD patients showed decreased accuracy and increased response times as typicality decreased across the range of attributes tested and for both test orders. Overall, the findings indicate that the early stages of AD result in a systematic deficit in which the relations among semantic concepts remain orderly rather than in a disordering of the relations among concepts. The findings are discussed in relation to 2 major theoretical interpretations of semantic deficits in AD: degraded structure and disrupted processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology in relation to design: An overview.

Suggests that the behavioral sciences will play a greater role in the design of the built environment. The complexity of current design programming makes the traditional intuitive approach of designers less satisfactory. A new set of considerations has appeared, including user needs, how the physical-spatial environment affects behavior, how individuals attend to and perceive this environment, and the social use of space. This set of concerns defines the emerging area of environmental psychology. Future research should be focused on man-environment interactions that can be translated into the design process. It is suggested, however, that it is unlikely that the built environment accounts for a substantial portion of the variance in human behavior, and that the expectations of designers are often not concordant with the potential offerings of behavioral science. (76 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Empathy across the adult lifespan: Longitudinal and experience-sampling findings.

This study examined change in self-reported empathy in a four-wave longitudinal study spanning 12 years (1992-2004) and the association between empathy and other measures, including daily reports of relationship experiences. Participants initially ranged in age from 10 years to 87 years. Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of age with empathy revealed divergent patterns. Whereas cross-sectional analyses suggested that older adults scored lower in empathy than younger adults, longitudinal analyses showed no age-related decline in empathy. This combined pattern suggests that the cross-sectional age-differences reflect a cohort rather than an age effect, with older cohorts reporting lower levels of empathy than younger ones. Independent of age, empathy was associated with a positive well-being (e.g., life satisfaction) and interaction profile (e.g., positive relations with others). In addition, a subsample of participants (n = 114) conducted experience-sampling about social interactions for a week. People with high self-reported empathy perceived their interactions as more meaningful, felt more positive in these interactions, and thought that their interaction partner felt also more positive. Thus, self-reported empathy was meaningfully associated with adults' actual social interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Committee on the Scientific and Professional Aims of Psychology: Preliminary Report.

"This report concerns some of the issues involved in the increasing diversification of psychology." Focus was "on problems of professionalization in clinical psychology in order: (a) to deal with the problems involving the largest number of psychologists, and (b) to make it possible to speak more specifically about issues." The "training of clinical psychologists for the practice of psychotherapy should be established as a new doctoral program within the university." Interdisciplinary training is encouraged. "Generally we favor awarding a degree other than the PhD at the end of such doctoral training." "None of the present models for training of psychotherapists, whether within clinical psychology, medicine, or social work, are satisfactory means for developing competent practitioners able to meet the needs or expectations of society." Guidelines for legislation are suggested. It was suggested that "perhaps as much as 50% of the [APA Convention] program should be composed of invited talks and papers which would be either integrative in their nature or which would open up new areas in which significant advances are being made." The Committee has proposed suggestions rather than solutions to problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)