bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Neuropsychological Rehabilitation
Authors: Prigatano George P.
Published: January 2010

Neuropsychological rehabilitation refers to training experiences and learning exercises that attempt to restore higher integrative brain functions following an acquired brain injury (Luria, 1948/1963) and/or teaching patients to compensate for residual higher order brain disturbances in their personal and interpersonal life (Prigatano, 1999). These activities are employed with both adults and children. Neuropsychological rehabilitation with adults attempts to help them deal with the problem of “lost normality” by having them return to a productive lifestyle and find ways of maintaining mutually satisfying interpersonal relationships (i.e., work and love). For children and their parents, the attempt is to help them both deal with the problem of the child “not developing normally.” This requires considerable effort at helping the child and parent realistically adjust to whatever permanent changes may be imposed by brain injury, without having children lose their “individuality.” That is, in both adults and children, the goal is to help them improve in their higher cerebral functioning and adjust to those functions that cannot get better, but to do so in a manner that still allows them to be true to who they are. The goal is not simply to have them adjust to society at the risk of losing their individuality.
Neuroscience
Authors: Marcano‐Reik Amy Jo , Blumberg Mark S.
Published: January 2010

One of the primary goals of psychology is to understand the biological, experiential, and social factors that shape and guide behavior. Neuroscientists share this goal, but focus their efforts toward understanding how the central and peripheral nervous systems control behavior.
New Zealand, Psychology in
Authors: Nairn Raymond , Hyde Pamela
Published: January 2010

To describe psychology in any country an author must touch on three facets of the discipline: knowledge, practice, and practitioners. In this overview of psychology in Aotearoa/New Zealand, we outline the workforce, describe the current practice regime, and discuss the most significant issue for psychological knowledge.
Nicotine‐Related Disorders
Authors: Feldstein Ewing Sarah W. , Hutchison Kent
Published: January 2010

Nicotine is a pale yellow, toxic liquid found in the leaves of 66 different species of plants. Nicotine is generally extracted from dried
Nicotiana tabacum
leaves, for the production of tobacco products and insecticide (nicotine sulfate). Nicotine falls within the category of chemical compounds called alkaloids, organic substances whose bitter taste (and often poisonous properties) discourage animals from eating the plants that contain them. Nicotine's first use dates back centuries (as early as the 1500s), during which nicotine was consumed for its stimulant and hunger‐reducing properties. However, nicotine is extremely poisonous and can cause respiratory failure, convulsions, nervous system paralysis, and death if a single dose of 50 mg or more is consumed.
Nonparametric Statistical Tests
Authors: Streiner David L.
Published: January 2010

Statistical tests in the ANOVA and correlation families (e.g.,
t
‐test, Pearson's correlation, multiple regression, path analysis) require the distribution underlying the dependent variables to be normally distributed. Because the normal curve is defined by two parameters (the mean and standard deviation), such tests are referred to
parametric
. Another class of tests is called
nonparametric
, or more properly,
distribution‐free
, because they do not make any assumptions about the parameters of the population from which the sample(s) are drawn. However, while they are distribution‐free, they are not assumption‐free. Many of the nonparametric tests have the same assumptions as parametric ones, such as that the observations are independent; that they are at a certain level of measurement (e.g., nominal or ordinal); and with some, that the distributions are similar across groups (i.e., if they are skewed, then they are skewed in the same direction for all groups).
Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury
Authors: Klonsky E. David
Published: January 2010

Nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) refers to the deliberate destruction of one's own body tissue without suicidal intent and for purposes not socially sanctioned. Although terms such as self‐mutilation and deliberate self‐harm have also been used for this behavior, NSSI has increasingly become the term of choice. Common examples of NSSI include skin‐cutting, burning, scratching, needle‐sticking, rubbing against rough surfaces, hitting or banging body parts, and interfering with wound healing. In general, behaviors associated with eating disorders (e.g., binging or purging) and substance disorders (e.g., alcohol or drug use) are not considered NSSI, because they are not accompanied by specific intent to physically damage one's body tissue. Similarly, most cases of tattooing and body piercing are not considered NSSI, because they are socially sanctioned forms of body decoration or artistic expression. Importantly, NSSI can be distinguished from suicidal behavior. Unlike suicide attempts, NSSI is not performed with the intent to die, and the injuries caused by NSSI are rarely life‐threatening or medically severe (Klonksy & Muehlenkamp, 2007).
Nonverbal Communication
Authors: Patterson Miles L.
Published: January 2010

Although language is obviously important in interactions, the nonverbal side of communication usually has a greater impact on how we think about others and relate to them. Nonverbal communication may be defined as the sending and/or receiving of information and influence through one's immediate environment, appearance, and nonverbal behavior (Patterson, 2002). Unlike verbal communication, nonverbal communication is always “on” in social settings, with the sending and receiving sides operating simultaneously. That is, even in the absence of conversation, we are continually sending and receiving nonverbal signals. Although verbal communication requires some attention and deliberation, nonverbal communication often operates automatically and outside of awareness. In turn, this leads to another characteristic—cognitive efficiency. Thus, the nonverbal system typically runs with minimal effort, freeing cognitive resources for more demanding activities.
Object Relations Theory
Authors: Mills Jon
Published: January 2010

Object relations theory is a psychoanalytic contribution that emphasizes the role of the object in psychological processes, that is, the role of other persons or elements of others, most notably an individual's parents or a primary caregiver. More specifically, object relations refer to a theory of intrapsychic activity based on the internalization of functional aspects of the experience of others and how they relate to one another in an individual's mind. There are many conceptual nuances to this generic theory that are derived from several historical traditions comprising the evolution of psychoanalytic thought. According to Freud, an object is the most variable aspect of drive activity and can be the source of pleasure, pain, anxiety, and wish and fantasy formation, whether real or imagined, and it is necessary for psychic development.
Optimal Functioning
Authors: Philip Daniel , Epting Franz R. , Brafman Rom
Published: January 2010

The area of optimal functioning was introduced into modern scientific psychology by Marie Jahoda. Those contributing most heavily to the area or optimal functioning were originally humanistic psychologists, who see optimal functioning as qualitatively different from normality or lack of pathology. More recently, the mantle of optimal functioning has been taken up by those in the fields of positive psychology and athletic performance.
Pakistan, Psychology in
Authors: Rahman Nosheen K.
Published: January 2010

Pakistan came into existence on August 14, 1947, after the division of British India into East and West Pakistan. At this time psychology was being taught as a branch of philosophy, but the history of psychology in Pakistan dates back to the 1920s. This history began with three departments of philosophy in the city of Lahore in West Pakistan that offered a master's program in both philosophy and psychology. Today there are more than 28 independent departments of psychology. In East Pakistan, a master's program in psychology was offered at two universities: Dacca and Rajshahi. These universities also offered MPhil and PhD degrees without a formal coursework. In 1971, East Pakistan was split away and became Bangladesh, and until the early 1980s there was no post–master's training offered in clinical psychology in Pakistan. Most of the clinical psychologists practicing in Pakistan at that time were qualified from abroad. Then two institutes were established to provide post–master's degrees, one at Karachi University in 1983 and the other at Punjab University in 1984.
Panic Disorder
Authors: Sanderson William C. , Dublin Randi A.
Published: January 2010

Panic disorder (PD) (with and without agoraphobia) is a debilitating condition with a lifetime prevalence of approximately 1.5% (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Studies have demonstrated that this prevalence rate is relatively consistent throughout the world. Approximately twice as many women as men suffer from PD. Although PD typically first strikes between late adolescence and the mid‐30s, it can also begin in childhood or in later life. Although data on the course of PD are lacking, it appears to be a chronic condition that waxes and wanes in severity. Consequences of PD include feelings of poor physical and emotional health, impaired social functioning, financial dependency, and increased use of health and hospital emergency services.
Parametric Statistical Tests
Authors: Rossi Joseph S.
Published: January 2010

Parametric statistical tests, as opposed to nonparametric or distribution‐free tests, are based on various assumptions regarding the characteristics, properties, and forms of the distributions of populations from which the data are drawn. A large number of statistical tests are included among the parametric tests, primarily hypothesis testing procedures derived from the general linear model. These include both univariate and multivariate statistical tests: thettest, univariate and multivariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) and covariance (including repeated measures), Pearson product‐moment correlation, simple and multiple regression (and variants including logistic regression), Hotelling'sT2, discriminant function analysis, canonical correlation, and multivariate set correlation.
Parent Management Training
Authors: Forehand Rex , Kotchick Beth A. , Shaffer Anne , McKee Laura Gale
Published: January 2010

Parent management training (PMT) employs a therapist as a consultant who works directly with a parent (mediator) to alleviate the problem behavior of a child (target). The basic PMT format consists primarily of instruction by the therapist in parenting techniques, structured modeling, role plays and practice sessions, and homework assignments for the parent to practice skills with the child (see McMahon & Forehand, 2003; Patterson & Forgatch, 2005). This format is based on the assumption that the interactions between parent and child contribute to the development and/or maintenance of child problem behaviors; PMT targets problematic parenting strategies and replaces them with a repertoire of skills that effectively manage, and eventually improve, the child's behavior, as well as improve broader parent–child interactional patterns.
Parental Alienation Syndrome
Authors: Venzke Beth A.
Published: January 2010

Richard Gardner (1985) first defined parental alienation syndrome (PAS) as a conscious effort on the part of one parent to purposely disrupt and destroy his or her child's relationship with the other biological parent. This process is related to divorce, and Gardner suggested that it was an effort on the part of one parent (according to Gardner, the biological mother in the vast majority of cases) to denigrate the other parent in a way that the child would no longer wish to maintain a relationship with the denigrated parent.
Participant Observation
Authors: Preissle Judith
Published: January 2010

Participant observation is a qualitative research method for collecting data that depends on direct, firsthand sensory experience of human events, activities, and interactions. Researchers record and interpret what they see, hear, smell, touch, and taste in the course of watching, listening, and often, but not always, asking about what is occurring. Participant observation is often equated with sociological field research or field study and with anthropological ethnography, because methodologists in these two disciplines are most associated with the method's development and articulation. Field sociologists and sociocultural anthropologists pioneered methods of participant observation for several purposes. First, early‐twentieth‐century social scientists wanted to document the ways of living of non‐Western societies before modernization changed them. Second, scholars in industrialized nations studied people and groups in their own nations about which little was publicly known. Some of this work focused on representing people's lives in particular times and places as they themselves experienced and understood it. Other work aimed to use the material to develop universals, abstractions, and generalizations about humans and their societies. Research also was formulated around social problems, such as how to improve the lives of the urban poor.
Pastoral Counseling
Authors: Pargament Kenneth I. , Rosmarin David H.
Published: January 2010

Pastoral counseling (also known as pastoral care) is the provision of psychotherapy by ordained ministers, priests, rabbis, and other religious leaders. Religious communities have turned to clergy in times of crisis for millennia, and pastoral counseling remains today a vital resource for many people dealing with significant emotional, relational, physical, and spiritual concerns.
Patient Adherence
Authors: Morrow Daniel G. , Insel Kathleen C.
Published: January 2010

Patient adherence
is defined as the extent to which patients follow prescribed treatment regimens (Haynes et al., 2008). Adherence supports health promotion (e.g., exercise and diet), treatment of disease, symptom management, and efficient health care delivery. The term
adherence
is used rather than
compliance
because its meaning is more consistent with views of patients as active participants in health care rather than passive recipients of services. Although this article is limited to medication adherence, the issues are relevant for adherence to other prescribed regimens.
Peer Status
Authors: Browne Caroline B. , Prinstein Mitchell J. , Heilbron Nicole
Published: January 2010

Within the first few years of life, children establish relatively stable social positions among their peers. Research has demonstrated longitudinal associations between peer status and a variety of developmental outcomes. However, the correlational nature of this research leaves open the question of whether peer status exerts a unique, causal impact on psychological adjustment. Presented here is a brief synthesis of existing research in the field of peer status, including current definitions of the constructs of peer status and a review of key developmental outcomes often associated with peer status.
Peer Tutoring
Authors: Ginsburg‐Block Marika
Published: January 2010

Peer tutoring is an instructional strategy that employs peer interaction for the purpose of teaching and learning. Peers are defined as individuals of comparable stature, such as school‐age children.
Perception
Authors: Hochberg Julian
Published: January 2010

Perception
refers to the experience of obtaining sensory information about the world of people, things, and events and the underlying processes.
Perfectionism
Authors: Hewitt Paul L. , Flett Gordon L.
Published: January 2010

Perfectionism is a broad and multifaceted personality construct that involves the requirement of perfection or the appearance of perfection for the self or for others. This personality style is thought to incorporate both trait components that reflect a stable and enduring need for the self or others to be perfect and self‐presentational facets that reflect the interpersonal expression of perfection or the need to appear perfect (Hewitt & Flett, 1991; Hewitt et al., 2003). It is generally thought that perfectionism is composed of motivational, interpersonal, behavioral, and cognitive processing features (Flett & Hewitt, 2002). At the same time, it is important to clarify what perfectionism is not: it is not obsessiveness, orderliness, rigidity, conscientiousness, or achievement motivation. Although some of these features can at times coexist with perfectionism, they do not constitute perfectionism.
Personal Construct Theory
Authors: Neimeyer Robert A. , Bridges Sara K.
Published: January 2010

Personal construct theory (PCT) represents a coherent, comprehensive psychology of personality that has special relevance for psychotherapy. Originally drafted by the American psychologist George Kelly in 1955, PCT has been extended to a variety of domains, including organizational development, education, business and marketing, and cognitive science. However, its predominant focus remains the study of individuals, families, and social groups, with particular emphasis on how people organize and change their views of self and world in the counseling context.
Personality and Illness
Authors: Matheny Kenneth B. , Kern Roy M.
Published: January 2010

The belief that some personalities may predispose persons to illness has had a long history. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, wrote around 400
B.C.
, “There is no illness apart from the mind.” Perhaps with a bit of exaggeration, the ancient English physician, Parry of Bath, wrote: “It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than what sort of disease a person has.” In 1917, Alfred Adler, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, maintained that one's lifestyle—that is, an organized set of beliefs about oneself and the world—determines both the onset and severity of certain physical illnesses or disabilities.
Personality Assessment Inventory
Authors: Morey Leslie C. , Lowmaster Sara E.
Published: January 2010

The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) is a 344‐item self‐report inventory that assesses various domains of personality and psychopathology among adults and was designed for use in professional and research settings. Items are answered on a 4‐point Likert‐type scale according to the extent to which they reflect true descriptions of client experiences. These items are then combined into 22 nonoverlapping full scales, including 4 validity scales, 11 clinical scales, 5 treatment consideration scales, and 2 interpersonal scales (see Table 1). As shown in Table 1, 10 of the full scales contain conceptually derived subscales that were designed to facilitate interpretation and coverage of the clinical constructs. Administration of the inventory takes approximately 50–60 minutes, and test takers should have a reading ability at the fourth‐grade level.
Personality Disorders
Authors: Magnavita Jeffrey J.
Published: January 2010

Personality disorders represent a clinical condition encompassing various patterns of behaving, feeling, perceiving, managing impulses, and relating to others that are ingrained and habitual.
Personality
is a term used by psychologists to organize a set of characteristics that distinguish one individual from another (Magnavita, 2002). Although each person is unique, there are certain personality adaptations or styles that psychological scientists use to classify people, and research has shown through factor analysis that most people can be categorized on the basis of just three to five different dimensions.
Personality, Genetic Bases of
Authors: South Susan C. , Krueger Robert F.
Published: January 2010

Personality is influenced by genetic and environmental factors. This statement may seem self‐evident, but in fact, demonstrating genetic influence on variation across major domains of personality was an important breakthrough, as many twentieth‐century models of human behavior attributed personality solely to environmental influences. Even more recently, biometric approaches (approaches to modeling genetic and environmental influences on human behavior) have gone beyond simple estimates of heritability (the magnitude of genetic influence) to examine the different forms of gene‐environment interplay—that is, how genetic and environmental factors interact and correlate—on the etiology of personality. Findings from biometric modeling of gene‐environment interplay have also stimulated new work in molecular genetics, which has to date struggled to find replicable results linking measured genes to personality domains. We first briefly review biometric models, particularly using twin sample methodology, and the results from decades of research into behavior genetic studies of personality. We then present more recent work into the molecular basis of personality.
Personality, Interpersonal Theories of
Authors: Pincus Aaron L.
Published: January 2010

The origins of the interpersonal tradition in personality and clinical psychology are found in Harry Sullivan's highly generative interpersonal theory of psychiatry, which considered interpersonal relations and their impact on the self‐concept to be core emphases in understanding personality, psychopathology, and psychotherapy. The interpersonal legacy that emerged from Sullivan's work is now in its fourth generation and has dramatically evolved over a nearly 60‐year history, increasing in level of theoretical integration, methodological sophistication, and scope. Throughout this history, interpersonal theories of personality have had a reciprocally influential history with research programs that have culminated in well‐validated, empirically derived, circular (or circumplex) models and methods that are used to describe individual differences in interpersonal motives, dispositions, and behaviors. The integration of interpersonal theory and the interpersonal circle provides a coherent nomological net for the integrative study of personality, personality assessment, psychopathology, psychotherapy, health psychology, and behavioral medicine (Pincus & Cain, 2008; Pincus, Lukowitsky, & Wright, in press). Thus interpersonal theories of personality (IPC) include multiple methods to assess the interpersonal constructs associated with circumplex structural models, and they tie operational definitions of reciprocal interpersonal processes and patterns of validity in interpersonal behavior directly to these models. Figure 1 presents a contemporary version of the interpersonal circumplex model.
Personality, Psychodynamic Models of
Authors: Bornstein Robert F.
Published: January 2010

More than a century after its birth, the psychodynamic model of the mind remains one of the most influential theoretical perspectives in psychology. Although psychodynamic ideas are often criticized within academia, and psychodynamic treatments face numerous challenges in today's managed care environment, the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, remains the most widely cited author in contemporary psychology, both in journal articles and textbooks (Haggbloom et al., 2002). Some psychologists love the psychodynamic model, others hate it, but few ignore it.
Personality, Trait Theories of
Authors: McCrae Robert R.
Published: January 2010

Personality traits are familiar to laypersons as enduring characteristics of individuals that distinguish them from others. Jane may be exuberant, energetic, and overbearing, whereas Jack is sober, steady, and reserved. Such distinctions are routinely made in everyday life and in literature, and they are facilitated by an enormous vocabulary of trait terms in English and other languages. Trait psychology consists of the scientific study of these characteristics, and trait theories of personality attempt to explain the development and functioning of the person primarily in terms of traits. Personality research is currently dominated by trait approaches, and much has been learned about traits in the past 30 years.
Phantom Limb Pain
Authors: Molton Ivan
Published: January 2010

Phantom limb sensation refers to the perception of a variety of physical feelings in a part of the body that has been removed. Although this is generally associated with limb amputation, phantom sensations have also been reported in women following mastectomy and in certain spinal cord injuries. Phantom limb sensations can include an “awareness” of the missing limb in its usual position or a sense that the affected limb is an unusual size (either too large or too small), is moving, is in an unusual position, is wrapped in cotton, or is wet. Phantom pain, or phantom limb pain, is a subtype of phantom limb sensation in which these perceptions are perceived as noxious. Although there are numerous historical examples of phantom limb pain, the term itself is generally credited to the U.S. Army physician Silas Weir Mitchell, who in 1872 described that “thousands of spirit limbs were haunting as many good soldiers, every now and then tormenting them.”
Phenylketonuria
Authors: Christ Shawn E.
Published: January 2010

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by an inability to metabolize phenylalanine, a common amino acid. Although its incidence and prevalence may vary based on geographical area, PKU occurs in approximately one in 15,000 individuals. The most common variation of PKU (often termed “classic” PKU) is an autosomal recessive condition with a locus on chromosome 12q.
Phineas Gage
Authors: Tranel Daniel , Cordry David
Published: January 2010

On September 13, 1998, a group of brain scientists, including neurologists, neuropsychologists, and neurosurgeons, gathered in the hamlet of Cavendish, Vermont, to commemorate a bizarre anniversary. It was the 150th anniversary of an accident in which a young man named Phineas Gage suffered a brain injury when an iron bar was shot through the front part of his head. The accident itself was remarkable enough—immediately afterward, despite a gruesome wound to the front of his head and brain, Gage was conscious, alert, and talkative, and it seemed rather a miracle that he had even survived. But what followed over the next few decades, and then over the many years since, is what put Cavendish, Vermont, on the scientific map and became the reason for scientists to travel from around the world that late summer day in 1998 to commemorate the anniversary (see Macmillan, 2000).
Phonemes
Authors: Gaskell Gareth , Tamminen Jakke
Published: January 2010

Linguistic analyses have traditionally represented the form of speech in terms of phonemes. The wordcat,for instance, can be represented by a sequence of three phonemes: /k/, /æ/, and /t/. Changes in the phonemic construction of a word result in different words or nonsense words. For example, reordering the phonemes incatproduces other words, such asact(/ækt/) andtack(/tæk/), whereas replacing the /k/ with a /p/ results in a new word,pat.Words likecatandpatthat differ on the identity of a single phoneme are referred to as minimal pairs and provide a useful source of evidence for defining the phonemic inventory of a language. In an alphabetic language such as English, the phonemic nature of speech is made explicit by the close correspondence between letters and the phonemes they represent. Logographic languages (e.g., Chinese) do not share this correspondence; instead, characters are used to represent whole words.
Physiological Psychology
Authors: King Bruce M. , Cantalupo Claudio
Published: January 2010

If psychology is defined as the study of behavior, then physiological psychology (also known as biological psychology) is the study of the physiological bases of behavior. It differs from many disciplines of neuroscience, the study of the nervous system, in its emphasis on behavior. The goal of physiological psychology is to understand how the brain functions to control our learned and unlearned behaviors, as well as our hopes, dreams, emotions, and cognitive processes.
P
iaget,
J
ean (1896–1980)
Authors: Haynie N. A.
Published: January 2010

Piaget published his first scientific paper at the age of 10 and received his doctorate in 1917, at the age of 21, from the University of Neuchatel, for his research studies on mollusks. After working in a psychology laboratory in Zurich, he went to Paris and to Geneva, where he studied the psychology of thought and was appointed Professor of Psychology in 1940. In 1952, he was named Professor of child psychology at the Sorbonne in Paris. He was actively involved in UNESCO and in educational activities in Switzerland.
Piaget's Theory
Authors: Murray Frank B.
Published: January 2010

Over the course of some 60 years, Jean Piaget (1896–1980), a Swiss biologist and philosopher, formulated a theory of the development of intellectual competence that continues to influence contemporary theories in this domain. Piaget maintained that logical thought depended on learning, social cooperation, biological maturation, and development
,
by which he meant a series of fundamental changes such that the later ways of thinking are dependent on, yet qualitatively distinct from, the earlier ones, always moving in the direction of greater logical consistency and coherence. He formulated subsidiary theories of the development of moral judgment and reasoning, perception, images, and memory, but always from the perspective of how each was constrained by various levels of intellectual competence.
Pick's Disease
Authors: Irwin David , Lippa Carol F.
Published: January 2010

Pick's disease is a neurodegenerative dementing illness first described by Arnold Pick in 1892. Pick's original description, as reviewed by Kertsez (2007), was based on clinical cases of aphasia and behavioral abnormalities that corresponded to focal atrophy of the temporal and frontal lobes. The description of focal neurodegeneration was a new concept, as atrophy was felt to be a diffuse process at the time (Kertsez, 2007). Pick's original studies were limited to gross examination. Alois Alzheimer was the first to describe histological features of these patients in 1911 (Rossor, 2001). He found argyrophilic intraneuronal inclusion bodies, composed of the microfilament protein tau, in affected brain regions in these patients and “ballooned” achromatic cells, with relative sparing of the hippocampus and lack of neurofibrillary tangles or plaques (Rossor, 2001). These inclusion bodies, thought to be characteristic of all patients fitting Pick's original description, were named Pick bodies, and the degenerating neurons were named Pick cells (see Figure 1). Onari and Spatz outlined criteria for diagnosis in 1926 with a strong emphasis on macroscopic features, including frontal atrophy and neuronal depletion in superficial cortical layers, with occasional presence of Pick bodies or Pick cells (Uchihara, Ikeda, & Tsuchiya, 2003). As it became apparent that not all clinical cases of Pick's disease contained the Pick bodies or Pick cells, characterization and nomenclature became problematic.
Pituitary Gland
Authors: Thorne B. Michael
Published: January 2010

The small gland beneath the brain's hypothalamus received the name
pituitary
in the early seventeenth century because of the mistaken notion that the structure made phlegm. Pituitary comes from the Latin
pituita,
which means “phlegm.” The pituitary gland is also called the
hypophysis,
which is Greek for “undergrowth.”
Placebo
Authors: Steer Rebecca Y. , University Emory , Ritschel Lorie A.
Published: January 2010

A placebo is a substance that has little or no active pharmacological effect on the symptoms for which it is administered. The placebo effect occurs when inert substances, such as sugar pills, are given in place of active medications and the recipient's condition changes in the desired direction. Placebo treatments may also include the prescription of substances with known physiological effects but a mechanism of action that is unrelated to the patient's presenting problem (e.g., prescribing vitamins for a chronic pain condition). In this case, the placebo is given with the hope of promoting improved health through increased positive expectancies on the part of the patient. Because the recipient is not aware of the inactive nature of the placebo, the observed changes are often attributed to positive expectations about the treatment.
Play
Authors: Elkind David
Published: January 2010

The concept
play
is much like an inkblot, open to many different and quite varied interpretations. Nonetheless, the idea that play is a basic and vital human disposition has been recognized by a wide variety of writers. Philosopher Friedrich Schiller regarded play as crucial to the human experience (Schiller, 1967). For Schiller, play is the activity that allows humans to realize their highest aspirations and ideals. Johan Huizinga titled his book
Homo Ludens
(Huizinga, 1950) and argued that play was a defining human characteristic. Play, he contended, is the driving force in the evolution of civilization. Other writers on play make the case that it as a major dynamic in linguistics (Derrida, 2007), in literature (Wilson, 1990), and in game theory (Callois, 1961/2001). These diverse approaches to the meaning and purpose of play help to explain why psychologist Brian Sutton‐Smith (Sutton‐Smith, 1997) titled a book
The Ambiguity of Play.
The present article, however, will concern only those theories that have direct psychological implications and relevance.
Play Assessment
Authors: Russ Sandra W. , Cordiano Tori Sacha
Published: January 2010

Play assessment can tell us a great deal about a child's cognitive and emotional functioning. Pretend play is often a part of a clinical assessment, because play is such a natural form of expression for young children (age 4–10 years). Clinicians often infer much about a child's functioning from their observations of pretend play. Standardized play tasks and measures are being developed that can be used in a formal assessment battery. Play assessment can contribute to treatment planning and outcome evaluation.
Pleasure Principle
Authors: Shill Merton A.
Published: January 2010

Sigmund Freud considered the pleasure principle, together with the reality principle, to be a basic regulatory principle of the mind. Influenced by Gustav Fechner, a German physicist considered to be the father of psychophysics, Freud theorized that conscious pleasure and unpleasure (discomfort) were experienced when mental stimulation became too intense. Freud proposed the term
pleasure principle
to denote an inferred mental process that regulates all stimuli impinging on the mind, whether from internal psychological or somatic sources or from external sources of any kind. This principle facilitates psychic processes that reduce or eliminate unpleasant extremes and, in this way, restore mental equilibrium. He later suggested that the mind, in accordance with this principle, develops an unconscious danger signal of anxiety to forewarn itself of impending overstimulation. This signal anxiety then triggers a variety of self‐protective processes in the ego, including physical removal (flight from the anticipated danger) or the various ego defenses, which are the psychic equivalents of physical flight or avoidance (Shill, 2004).
Police Psychology
Authors: Corey Dave , Honig Audrey
Published: January 2010

Police psychology aims to assist law enforcement personnel and agencies in carrying out their functions and missions with optimal effectiveness, safety, health, and conformity to laws and ethics. Its nearly 100‐year history dates back to Lewis Terman's testing of San Jose police applicants in 1916, although it was more than 50 years later that its modern era began. Two events in 1968 spurred police psychology's rapid development in America: broad federal funding of hundreds of psychological studies and programs by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and the decision by the Los Angeles Police Department to hire Dr. Martin Reiser as the first full‐time police psychologist in a major law enforcement agency. These events and the activities they spurred contributed to “the steady evolution of an expanding police psychology that has had a major influence on law enforcement” (Scrivner & Kurke, 1995, p. 6).
Political Psychology
Authors: Immelman Aubrey
Published: January 2010

Political psychology is an interdisciplinary academic specialty focusing on the study of psychological processes that influence political behavior. Accordingly, a more precise label for the discipline might be the psychology of politics or psychological political science.
P
ortugal, Psychology in
Authors: Nobre Pedro J.
Published: January 2010

The roots of psychology in Portugal may be found within the work of some nineteenth‐century professionals, primarily those in the medical sciences (psychiatry, neuropsychiatry) and philosophy. Some of the most prominent pioneers include Miguel Bombarda (1851–1910), Magalhaes de Lemos (1855–1931), Julio de Matos (1856–1922), Elysio de Moura (1877–1910), and Egaz Moniz (1874–1955). Silvio Lima (1904–1993) was the first author to write about the history of psychology in Portugal (Lima, 1950, as cited in Abreu, 2005). Lima, also a historical figure in the field, divided the history of psychology through 1950 into three different periods: the mid‐nineteenth century to 1914, a period characterized by positivism; 1914 to 1941, a period marked by experimental methods; and 1941 to 1950, a period characterized by hermeneutic and humanistic approaches.
Positive Psychology
Authors: Mruk Christopher J.
Published: January 2010

Although the concept of positive psychology may be traced back to the late nineteenth century, today the phrase is most often used in two ways. The first is associated with humanistic psychology and arose as a reaction against the reductionistic determinism of traditional psychoanalytic and behavioral psychology. From its beginning, humanistic psychology was concerned with exploring, understanding, and facilitating the development of positive human experience and behavior in an attempt to focus on the whole person.
Postconcussion Syndrome
Authors: Spiegel Eric P. , Vanderploeg Rodney D.
Published: January 2010

A concussion is a physiological disruption of brain function as a result of an external force to the head resulting in a loss or alteration of consciousness. Immediate postinjury objective signs of concussion are a person being dazed, confused, and disoriented, new onset of feeling nauseous or throwing up, or a period of loss of consciousness. Other postconcussion signs may include brief neurological impairments such as not being able to stand, walk, or converse sensibly immediately afterward. Acute subjective symptoms of concussion include feeling lightheaded, “seeing stars,” having blurred vision, headaches, or experiencing ringing in the ears. Postconcussion syndrome (PCS), as the name suggests, is a characteristic complex of subjective symptoms that occurs subsequent to a concussion. In the vast majority of individuals these symptoms resolve within a time period ranging from minutes to 24–72 hours. Although some symptoms may last for days, approximately 90 percent or more of individuals who sustain a concussion are asymptomatic within a couple of weeks.
Postpartum Depression
Authors: Cuijpers Pim
Published: January 2010

For a diagnosis of postpartum depression to be made, the patient must meet the criteria for a major depressive disorder as specified in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM‐IV‐TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Furthermore, the onset of the episode of major depression should be within 4 weeks postpartum. That a woman with postpartum depression meets the criteria of a major depression means that she has five or more of the following symptoms (and at least one of these symptoms is 1 or 2): (1) a depressed mood most of the day, (2) a markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all or almost all activities most of the day, (3) significant weight loss or weight gain or a considerable decrease or increase in appetite, (4) insomnia or hypersomnia, (5) psychomotor agitation or retardation, (6) fatigue or loss of energy, (7) feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt, (8) concentration problems, and (9) thoughts of death or suicide.
Posttraumatic Growth
Authors: Calhoun Lawrence G. , Tedeschi Richard G.
Published: January 2010

The view that the struggle with major challenges can lead to significant positive changes is present in ancient myths, is a theme in literature, and is reflected in some of the major world religions. Heroes encounter severe hardships and emerge transformed and better persons, and believers who suffer greatly are sanctified through their martyrdom. This theme is captured in the well‐known Latin phrase, attributed to Seneca, the Younger,
per aspera ad astra
—by the harsh road to the stars. Although the idea is ancient, the systematic study of this phenomenon by social and behavioral scientists is recent.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Authors: Miller Mark W. , Marx Brian P. , Keane Terence M.
Published: January 2010

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder defined by symptoms reflecting disturbances in cognitive, behavioral, and physiological functioning that develop in the wake of exposure to a psychologically traumatic event. According to the
DSM‐IV‐TR
(American Psychiatric Association, 2000), the diagnosis applies to individuals who develop a requisite number of symptoms after experiencing, witnessing, or being confronted with an event that involved perceived or threatened loss of life, serious injury, or loss of physical integrity and that evoked fear, helplessness, or horror (e.g., military combat, sexual or physical assault, serious accidents, and major disasters).
DSM‐IV‐TR
organizes the symptoms of PTSD under three clusters: (1) reexperiencing (e.g., intrusive thoughts, nightmares, flashbacks, and psychophysiological reactivity to reminders of the trauma), (2) avoidance and emotional numbing (e.g., avoiding stimuli associated with the trauma and inability to experience a full range of emotions), and (3) hyperarousal (e.g., hypervigilance, exaggerated startle response, and sleep disruption). By definition, these symptoms must persist for more than 1 month after the trauma and produce clinically significant distress and/or impairment.
Prescription Privileges
Authors: Abeles Norman
Published: January 2010

In 2004, Louisiana became the second state (after New Mexico) to pass legislation authorizing psychologists to prescribe certain medications for the treatment of mental health disorders (Holloway, 2004). Previously, in 1998, the legislature in the territory of Guam provided the right of psychologists to prescribe under the supervision of psychiatrists. At that time, there were 16 psychologists in Guam. Sammons, Levant, and Page (2003) review the history of the prescriptive authority movement by noting that Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D‐HI) proposed this to the Hawaii Psychological Association in 1984. He believed that this authority would fit nicely into their programmatic theme of transcending traditional boundaries.
Prevention of Mental Disorders
Authors: MuÑOZ Ricardo F. , Mendelson Tamar
Published: January 2010

The twentieth century witnessed major advances in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. However, the alarming prevalence of many mental disorders, as well as their devastating consequences for individuals and communities, highlights the need for preventive interventions. Researchers have estimated that existing treatment methods are not sufficient to reduce the burden of depression, anxiety, and substance use by half, even assuming ideal conditions of treatment access, clinician competence, and patient compliance (Andrews & Wilkinson, 2002). Growing recognition of the importance of prevention has spurred research in this area, with considerable progress regarding methods and outcomes of preventive interventions over the past 15 years.
Primary Motor Cortex
Authors: Sanes Jerome N.
Published: January 2010

The primary motor cortex represents a principal component of sensory motor integration implemented in the brain. Motor cortex has the fundamental function to control voluntary movements, including integration of motor commands with the ongoing somatic sensory state of the body. To accomplish this function, primary motor cortex receives information from sensory, motor‐related, and associative cortical and subcortical brain areas and sends massive output monosynaptically to the spinal cord, especially to alpha‐motor neurons that couple to muscles. From classical perspectives, the primary motor cortex functions as the final cortical output for already processed movement commands, relaying signals from premotor cerebral cortical sites to the spinal cord. Recent evidence, however, indicates more complex and crucial roles for primary motor cortex in processing motor‐related information.
Priming
Authors: Fleischman Debra A.
Published: January 2010

Priming is an implicit (nonconscious) long‐term memory phenomenon that increases the processing efficiency (Schacter & Buckner, 1998) or tuning (Wiggs & Martin, 1998) that occurs as a consequence of a single repetition of an event. Consistent with the notion of increased efficiency or tuning, the neural signature of priming is a decrease in region‐specific activation (i.e., repetition suppression) upon the repeated processing of studied material. This decreased activation contrasts with an increase in activation for explicit (conscious) retrieval for the same material.
Principal Component Analysis
Authors: Kelley Mary E.
Published: January 2010

Principal component analysis (PCA) is a data reduction technique formalized by Hotelling (1933) and later characterized statistically by Anderson (1963), although the concept goes back as far as Pearson (1901). PCA, as well as factor analysis, is used in the social sciences mainly to characterize underlying latent variables, or factors, that are represented as weighted combinations of the observed variables. The most common use of PCA in the social sciences is in the form of scale construction (psychometrics), although it can also be used to summarize any set of related variables and has more recently been applied to high‐dimensional data problems in both imaging and genetics.
Problem Solving
Authors: Leighton Jacqueline P. , Babenko Oksana I.
Published: January 2010

A problem is a state of difficulty that needs to be resolved. For example, if you accidentally lock your car keys inside the car, the problem is how to get home or wherever you need to go without access to the car. Problem solving is the goal‐driven process of changing one state of difficulty into a state that does not include the source of difficulty (Simon, 1999). The state without the source of difficulty is the desirable state. According to Sternberg and colleagues (e.g., Pretz, Naples, & Sternberg, 2003, pp. 4–5) and others (Bransford & Stein, 1993; Hayes, 1989), the problem‐solving process can be described as a cycle of seven steps or events: (1) a problem is recognized or identified in the environment; (2) the problem is defined and represented mentally; (3) within the mental representation generated, a solution strategy is developed to solve the problem; (4) relevant knowledge about the problem is organized; (5) the physical and mental resources needed to solve the problem are distributed; (6) progress toward the goal of solving the problem is monitored; and (7) the solution is evaluated for meeting the goal of solving the problem.