bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Hypnosis
Authors: Lynn Steven Jay , Barnes Sean , Boycheva Elza
Published: January 2010

From the time of Mesmer, hypnosis has captured the attention of luminaries in psychology including Sigmund Freud, Alfred Binet, William James, Wilhelm Wundt, Clark Hull, and Ernest R. Hilgard. Today, hypnosis is well positioned within the mainstream of psychology. Researchers have debunked common misconceptions about hypnosis and identified important social and cognitive determinants of suggestibility, and clinicians have recognized the promise of hypnosis in treating an array of psychological and medical conditions.
Hypothesis Testing
Authors: Milligan Glenn W.
Published: January 2010

Statistical hypothesis testing is a formalized decision‐making process. It allows one to reach conclusions about the possible value or values of one or more population parameters. These parameters reflect important characteristics of the populations under study that are of interest to the researcher.
Impression Management
Authors: Rogers Richard , Fiduccia Chelsea E.
Published: January 2010

Impression management is a common response style in clinical and work‐related settings. It is defined by Rogers (2008, p. 6) as “deliberate efforts to control others' perceptions of an individual; its purposes may range from maximizing social outcomes to the portrayal of a desired identity.” In most instances, impression management is perceived in terms of highly positive social outcomes. However, this is not necessarily the case. As a common example, persons involved in business may deliberately cultivate an image of being ruthlessly competitive. More extreme examples include undercover police officers and the tough personas of individuals involved in organized crime.
Imprinting
Authors: Bolhuis Johan J.
Published: January 2010

Imprinting is the learning process through which the social preferences of animals of certain species become restricted to a particular object or class of objects. Filial imprinting is involved in the formation, in young animals, of an attachment to, and a preference for, the parent or parent surrogate. Sexual imprinting is involved in the formation of mating preferences that are expressed later in life. Lorenz 1937 gave the phenomenon its name in an influential paper in which he provided a detailed description of imprinting in a number of bird species. Filial imprinting has been studied mostly in precocial birds such as ducklings and domestic chicks. These birds can move about shortly after hatching, and they approach and follow an object to which they are exposed. In a natural situation this object is usually the animal's mother, but inanimate mother surrogates are also effective in eliciting filial behavior (Horn, 1985; Bolhuis, 1991). A chick learns the features of an object during the time the bird is exposed to it, remains close to it, and may run away from novel objects. When given a choice between the familiar stimulus and a novel one, the bird shows a preference for the familiar stimulus.
Information Processing
Authors: Mayer Richard E.
Published: January 2010

How does the human mind work? What happens when someone learns or when someone solves a problem? According to the information processing view, the human mind works by forming mental representations and applying cognitive processes to them. This definition has two elements: (1) the content of cognition is mental representations, and (2) the activity of cognition involves cognitive processes. For example, as you read the words in this paragraph, you form a series of mental representations by applying appropriate cognitive processes such as mentally selecting important ideas, mentally organizing them into a coherent cognitive structure, and mentally relating them with prior knowledge. In short, the premise underlying information processing theory is that human mental life consists of building and manipulating mental representations. The information processing view has become a centerpiece of cognitive science—the interdisciplinary study of cognition.
Inhalant‐Related Disorders
Authors: Wu Li‐Tzy , Ringwalt Christopher L.
Published: January 2010

Inhalant use is the deliberate ingestion of volatile substances, via a number of methods: (1) “sniffing” or “snorting” fumes from containers; (2) spraying aerosols directly into the nose or mouth; (3) “bagging”—sniffing or inhaling fumes from substances sprayed or deposited inside a plastic or paper bag; (4) “huffing” from an inhalant‐soaked rag stuffed in the mouth; or (5) inhaling from balloons filled with nitrous oxide in order to induce a psychoactive or mind‐altering effect (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2005). It constitutes an important public health concern worldwide, particularly among adolescents and socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. Inhalants that are commonly used by adolescents include glue, shoe polish, toluene, gasoline, lighter fluid, spray paints, correction fluid, degreaser, nitrous oxide, and whippets (Wu, Pilowsky, & Schlenger, 2004). In contrast, adult inhalant users are likely to use nitrous oxide, whippets, amyl nitrite, poppers, and rush (Wu & Ringwalt, 2006). Adolescents also tend to use more types of inhalants and have a more frequent pattern of use than do adults (Wu et al., 2004; Wu & Ringwalt, 2006).
Insight‐Oriented Psychotherapy
Authors: Scaturo Douglas J.
Published: January 2010

Insight‐oriented psychotherapy is not a single method of psychotherapy; rather, it represents a category of psychotherapeutic approaches that share a common assumption about psychopathology and its treatment. These forms of therapy assume that an individual's behavior is disturbed in some way due to a lack of awareness of his or her motivations underlying it. Psychotherapy, then, involves the elucidation of a person's internal motivations and the development of a better sense of awareness and self‐understanding, in order to facilitate more adaptive behavior and courses of action in his or her life.
Intellectual Development
Authors: Yun Dai David
Published: January 2010

Intellectual development concerns how individuals develop their higher mental functions, such as understanding abstract ideas, mastering complex skills, formulating logically organized thoughts, and solving novel problems, which allow them to deal effectively with life challenges and lead successful lives. The termsintellectual developmentandcognitive developmentare often used interchangeably. However, it can be argued that the scope of intellectual development should be broader than cognitive development, as it goes beyond the development of specific cognitive structures and functions to encompass issues of the effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity of a living system trying to achieve its goals in a complex and sometimes treacherous environment. Intellectual development is clearly associated with knowledge acquisition through experience and formal instruction, yet intellectual development connotes the growth of a mind that has more pervasive, transferable power than narrowly defined knowledge and skills or expertise.
Interamerican Society of Psychology
Authors: Consoli Andres J.
Published: January 2010

The Interamerican Society of Psychology (
www.sipysch.org
), known by its acronym in Spanish, SIP, for
Sociedad Interamericana de Psicologia
, is a nonprofit, scientific, and professional organization, serving psychologists in the Americas and beyond. SIP's purposes are twofold: to foster scientific and professional collaboration among persons concerned with psychology and related fields while promoting an understanding and appreciation of cultural similarities and differences in the Americas; and to aid in the development of psychology as a science and as a profession in all of the countries of the Americas. SIP was founded on December 17, 1951, by a group of behavioral scientists who met in Mexico City while attending the meeting of the World Federation of Mental Health.
Intermittent Explosive Disorder
Authors: McCloskey Michael , Noblett Kurt L. , Hines Edward J. , Coccaro Emil R.
Published: January 2010

Intermittent explosive disorder (IED) is a psychiatric diagnosis used to identify individuals who are repeatedly unable to resist angry and aggressive impulses and, as a result, engage in recurrent acts of aggression. As such, IED is the only adult psychiatric disorder for which impulsive aggression is pathognomonic.
International Association of Applied Psychology
Authors: Rehm Lynn P.
Published: January 2010

The International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) was founded in 1920 to advance knowledge about applied psychology, and it is the oldest of the international psychology member associations. The International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS) is older, founded in 1889, but it is an international organization of psychological societies. The IAAP is a member organization with over 3,300 individual members from more than 80 countries. In order to sustain an international membership, the organization's dues structure allows for reduced and subsidized dues for individuals from developing countries and those who for other reasons cannot afford the standard dues.
International Test Commission
Authors: GrÉGOIRE Jacques
Published: January 2010

The International Test Commission (ITC) is a not‐for‐profit organization dedicated to active promotion of coherent assessment and testing practices around the world. The idea of establishing an international organization that contributes to the improvement of testing practices worldwide was first raised by Professor Jean Cardinet in Switzerland in the late 1960s. Through correspondence with national societies and meetings among interested individuals during international conferences, his initial idea for an organization began to take shape. The International Test Commission was established in 1974 at a general meeting held during the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) meeting in Montreal (Oakland, Poortinga, Schlegel, & Hambleton, 2001).
Interpersonal Perception
Authors: Menzel Andrew J. , Maner Jon K.
Published: January 2010

In order to function in society, it is crucial that people be able accurately to notice, classify, and predict the behavior of other individuals. This process of perceiving other people and making inferences about what they are like and how they will behave is known as interpersonal perception. Sometimes, perceiving the attributes of others is easy—for example, knowing whether a person is a man or a woman, or knowing the general age of a person. Many of the inferences we form about other people, however, involve difficult‐to‐see attributes, such as personality traits, as well as other more transitory states such as emotions, goals, and intentions. The process of perceiving these types of attributes in other people can be quite complex. Indeed, perceptions of other people can be influenced by a wide range of factors within both the perceivers and the person being perceived, as well as factors within the immediate social situation.
Intervening Variables
Authors: Baldwin Scott A. , Berkeljon Arjan
Published: January 2010

The term “intervening variable,” as used by behavioral theorists such as Clark Hull and Edward Tolman, describes a variable that mediates the relationship between a stimulus and response (Hilgard, 1958). Behavioral theorists were not consistent in their use of the term
intervening variable
and often disagreed about what even constituted an intervening variable. At the heart of the controversy was whether intervening variables that were hypothetical entities could be considered scientific or whether allowing hypothetical entities threatened the rigor and objectivity of behavioral science. During this time American behavioral scientists wanted psychology to be a natural science and thus aligned themselves (often in name only) with the logical positivists (Smith, 1986). Consequently, ideas that smacked of subjectivity or that allowed for the positing of hypothetical entities that could not be empirically verified were met with resistance and skepticism.
Loevinger, Jane (1918–2008)
Authors: Larsen Randy J.
Published: January 2010

Jane Loevinger was well known for her work in psychometrics, her theory of ego development, and her widely used assessment instrument, the Washington University Sentence Completion Test. Born February 6, 1918, in St. Paul, Minnesota, Loevinger was the third of five children of Gustavus and Millie (Strause) Loevinger. Her father was a German immigrant who became a district court judge. Her mother was a part‐time schoolteacher and amateur pianist. Loevinger finished high school a semester early and enrolled at the University of Minnesota. She went to Jack Darley for vocational counseling and was told that psychology was “too mathematical” for her, whereupon she immediately enrolled in trigonometry and declared psychology as her major. Loevinger graduated magna cum laude in psychology at the age of 19, and a year later earned a Master of Science in psychometrics, also from the University of Minnesota (1939).
Just Noticeable Difference
Authors: Stern Melissa K. , Johnson James H.
Published: January 2010

The concept of just noticeable difference (jnd), also known as the difference threshold or difference limen (Latin for threshold), derives from early work in the area of classical psychophysics conducted in the mid‐nineteenth century. This work was highlighted by Weber (1795–1878), a German physiologist, whose experimental investigations focused on tactile stimulation and the determination of sensory thresholds. Weber's seminal work in this area was extended and elaborated upon by German philosopher and mathematician Fechner (1801–1878), who coined the term “psychophysics” to refer to this area of experimental psychology and, in 1860, published the first textbook on psychophysics, which laid out the basic goals of this emerging discipline and the scientific methods that were to be employed to advance knowledge in this area (Watson, 1973).
Kappa Coefficient
Authors: McGrath Robert E.
Published: January 2010

The kappa coefficient was introduced by Cohen (1960) as a reliability statistic when two judges are classifying targets into categories on a nominal variable. It is most commonly used to estimate interrater reliability. Cohen (1968) later described weighted kappa, which considers degree of disagreement. For example, two judges classifying individuals on primary diagnosis could receive greater credit if they choose more rather than less similar diagnoses. Weighted kappa is particularly useful when categories are at least ordinally scaled. Another variant is available when there are more than two judges (Fleiss, 1981).
Kaufman Adolescent and Adult Intelligence Test
Authors: Holt Ryan , Loomis David , Kaufman James C. , Kaufman Alan S.
Published: January 2010

The Kaufman Adolescent and Adult Intelligence Test (KAIT) was developed by Alan S. Kaufman and Nadeen L. Kaufman in 1993 and is an individually administered intelligence test for individuals ranging from 11 to 85‐plus years of age. It has a strong theoretical base integrating Horn and Cattell's concept of fluid and crystallized intelligence, Luria and Golden's notion of frontal lobe planning ability, and Piaget's construct of formal operational thought (Smith, 2001).
Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children
Authors: Loomis David , Holt Ryan , Kaufman James C. , Kaufman Alan S.
Published: January 2010

The Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children—Second Edition (KABC‐II, Kaufman & Kaufman, 2004) measures the cognitive abilities and mental processing of children and adolescents between the ages of 3 years 0 months and 18 years 11 months. Administered individually, this clinical instrument consists of 16 subtests (plus a Delayed Recall scale) and provides examiners with a Nonverbal scale composed of subtests that can be administered in pantomime and responded to motorically. The Nonverbal Scale is especially useful for children who are hearing impaired or have limited English proficiency (Kaufman, Kaufman, Kaufman‐Singer, & Kaufman, 2005).
K
ohlberg,
L
awrence (1927–1987)
Authors: Staff
Published: January 2010

Lawrence Kohlberg is best known for his research on the moral development of children. He received his BA degree (1948) and the PhD (1958) from the University of Chicago. The following year, he went to Yale University and remained there until 1961. After several interim appointments he joined the Harvard faculty of Education and Social Psychology in 1967. His principal work was
Essays on Moral Development
(two volumes).
Korsakoff Syndrome
Authors: Kessels Roy P. C.
Published: January 2010

Korsakoff syndrome, originally known as Korsakoff's psychosis, is a mental disorder that is characterized by severe and irreversible memory impairments and confabulation behavior in the absence of intellectual decline or attention deficits (Zubaran, Fernandes, & Rodnight, 1997). The syndrome was first described by Sergei Korsakoff in the late nineteenth century, based on observations of brain‐lesioned patients with a history of chronic alcoholism. Korsakoff syndrome is associated with chronic alcohol abuse and malnutrition, resulting in a thiamine deficiency that presumably causes brain damage in the diencephalon, notably the mammillary bodies and the thalamus. Lesions in other brain areas, such as the frontal lobes, have also been associated with Korsakoff syndrome (Visser et al., 1999). The syndrome is classified in theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM‐IV‐TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) as alcohol‐induced persisting amnestic disorder, but Korsakoff syndrome has also been found in patients with chronic thiamine deficiency of nonalcoholic origin, such as anorexia, pregnancy, or dialysis. Typically, it is preceded by a confusional state with a sudden onset in combination with opthalmoplegia and stance and gait ataxia, known as Wernicke's disease or Wernicke's encephalopathy. Since the etiology of both Wernicke's disease and Korsakoff syndrome is the same, they are often taken together as the Wernicke‐Korsakoff syndrome or complex, with an estimated prevalence of approximately 1–2% in the general population (Zubaran et al., 1997).
Language, Intergroup Parameters of
Authors: Giles Howard , Reid Scott A.
Published: January 2010

Language is an integral element of most multicultural contexts. Take, for example, the resurrection of Hebrew as a lingua franca in multicultural Israel, the role of French in Quebecois separation, and the revival of Catalan in Spain. Yet beyond nationalist and ethnic arenas, forms of language (e.g., dialect, nonverbals, and discourse) play key roles in virtually all intergroup situations—as evident in adolescents' distinctive speech styles, patronizing ways of addressing and referring to older adults and those physically challenged, gay expressions and tone of voice, and so forth (see Clément, 1996). In fact, intergroup processes have become core foci in the social psychology of language, as witnessed by their frequent occurrence across many different chapters of
The New Handbook of Language and Social Psychology
(Robinson & Giles, 2001), and language and communication issues have, in turn, featured prominently in the study of intergroup relations (Kashima, Fielder, & Freytag, 2007; Reid & Giles, 2005).
Late‐Life Psychosis
Authors: Sweet Robert A.
Published: January 2010

The most common psychoses to appear in the later years of life are those associated with dementia and major depressive disorder with psychotic features, with delusional disorders being much less common. This article provides an overview of recent advances pertinent to each of these major categories of late‐life psychosis.
Latent Class Analysis
Authors: Reinecke Jost
Published: January 2010

Latent class analysis (LCA) is a statistical method for finding subtypes of related cases (latent classes) from multivariate categorical data. Latent classes are the dimensions that structure the cases with respect to a set of observed variables. It is assumed that parameters of a statistical model differ across unobserved subgroups. These subgroups form the categories of a categorical latent variable. In principle, cases of a data set are divided into latent classes, which are so‐called conditionally independent classes, meaning that the observed variables are uncorrelated within classes. With the estimated parameters, cases are classified according to their most likely latent class. In applications the LCA can be used to find types of attitude structures from survey responses, consumer segments from preference variables, and examinee subgroups from their answers to test items.
Latent Inhibition
Authors: Lubow Robert E.
Published: January 2010

Latent inhibition (LI) is demonstrated when a previously exposed, unattended stimulus is less effective in a new learning situation than a novel stimulus. The term “latent inhibition” dates back to Lubow and Moore (1959), who intended to design a classical conditioning analog of latent learning. As such, the LI effect was “latent” in that it was not exhibited in the stimulus pre‐exposure phase, but rather in the subsequent test phase. “Inhibition” simply reflected the fact that the effect was manifest as a retardation of learning. Since that first demonstration, there have been hundreds of LI‐related experiments. LI is extremely robust, appearing in all mammalian species that have been tested and across many different learning paradigms.
Learning Curves
Authors: A. Kimble Gregory
Published: January 2010

Progress in learning reflects itself in a number of different ways: increase in the rate, probability of occurrence, speed and vigor of responding, decrease in latency (time required to initiate a response), time required to complete a task, and number of errors committed in doing so. These changes in performance are frequently presented in one of a variety of forms called
learning curves
, in which the baseline is most often the number of practice trials but occasionally is time. The vertical axis represents one of the measures just mentioned.
Learning Disabilities
Authors: Mather Nancy , Urso Annmarie
Published: January 2010

Learning disabilities (LD) encompass a heterogeneous group of perceptual disorders that impact the development of academic performance is the areas of reading, written language, and mathematics. The most prevalent type of learning disability is a specific reading disability that is commonly referred to as dyslexia, but disorders also exist in written language (dysgraphia) and mathematics (dyscalculia). These disorders are often referred to as “specific” because functioning is only affected in certain, but not all, aspects of academic development and performance. Although LD can co‐occur with other disorders, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), these disorders are distinct.
Learning Theories
Authors: Donahoe John W.
Published: January 2010

A theory consists of a set of principles based on observations typically obtained under controlled laboratory conditions. The function of theory is to summarize in a concise fashion observations in a field of study and to enable predictions about future observations in that field. Learning theory is concerned with the variables that produce long‐lasting changes in individual behavior and the cumulative effects of those variables acting over time. Although based on laboratory research, often with animals, the principles are intended to apply to all behavior including the behavior of humans.
Lie Detection
Authors: Iacono William G.
Published: January 2010

Because lying often has harmful consequences, it is not surprising that law enforcement and security agencies have long been invested in having a valid lie detector. However, despite almost a century of effort devoted to lie detector development, there remains no fool‐proof method for identifying liars.
Limbic System
Authors: Hamner Mark B. , Lorberbaum Jeffrey P. , George Mark S.
Published: January 2010

Broca described the “great limbic lobe” of the brain as a large cerebral convolution that lies medially and envelops the brain stem and is common to all mammals (Broca, 1878). The limbic lobe was thought to be important in olfaction due to its dense connections with the olfactory cortex and was often referred to as the
rhinencephalon
(smell brain). Papez, in 1937, proposed that the rhinencephalon was also important in emotional behavior. In 1952, MacLean coined the term
limbic system
to refer to both a medial part of the cortex that enveloped the brain stem and to subcortical structures that were tightly associated with this region. He based this group not only on its anatomic location but also on evidence that this region was well developed only in mammals, was phylogenetically older than the more peripheral neocortex, and appeared to be important in emotional and social behavior (1990). The limbic, or paleomammalian, system of the brain is shown in Figure 1 in relation to higher cortical (or neomammalian) and deep brain (or reptilian) structures. MacLean's subdivisions of the limbic system (1990) include the amygdala, septal, and thalamocingulate divisions shown in Figure 2. Extensive preclinical and clinical observations have suggested that the limbic system is critical in learning, memory, emotions, social behaviors, and autonomic responses. This article will briefly review the definition and anatomy of the limbic system, describe the three limbic subdivisions, and discuss evidence for and against the limbic system construct.
Logical Positivism
Authors: Houts Arthur C.
Published: January 2010

Logical positivism is an approach to philosophy of science that was developed in the 1920s and 1930s in Vienna and Berlin (for a review, see Suppe, 1974). These philosophers pursued a common goal: to rid philosophy of the excesses of metaphysical idealism by clarifying philosophical language. This project called for strict logical and empirical criteria for assigning meaning to terms and truth value to propositions. The logical criteria were those of deductive logic, and the empirical criteria were appropriated from a misreading of Wittgenstein. Members of the Vienna Circle mistook Wittgenstein's quite imprecise claims about “atomic facts” as implying that science contained a language of facts independent from theoretical assumptions. Bloor (1983) has provided a corrective reading of Wittgenstein.
Logistic Regression
Authors: Ozechowski Timothy J.
Published: January 2010

In general, regression modeling is a foundational statistical procedure for studying the functional relationship between two or more variables. The most basic of all cases is the simple linear regression model in which the value of some dependent or outcome variable
Y
is expressed mathematically as a linear function of a single independent or predictor variable
X
. Given that values of
Y
are measured on a continuous scale (interval or ratio), the simple linear relationship between
Y
and
X
may be expressed by the following regression model

urn:x-wiley:9780470479216:media:corpsy0512:xm1

where
Y
i
is the observed value of
Y
for individual
i
(
i
 = 1,…,
n
),
X

i

is the observed value of the independent predictor variable for individual
i
(which may or may not be measured on a continuous scale), β
0
is an intercept term that is equivalent to the expected value of
Y

i

given that
X

i

 = 0, β
1
is a regression weight equivalent to the expected change in

Y
i

per unit increase in
X

i

(also known as the slope of the regression equation), and

i

is a residual error term equivalent to the deviation of
Y
i
from its expected value given
X

i

, β
0
, and β
1
. It is assumed that the residuals ɛ

i

are normally distributed (i.e., ɛ

i

∼N(μ, σ
2
). The simple linear regression model in (1) may be expanded to include multiple independent predictor variables.
Longitudinal Studies
Authors: Drew Clifford J.
Published: January 2010

Investigators in psychology use longitudinal research designs to assess changes in participant performance or status over time. Longitudinal studies employ research designs where groups of participants are observed or repeatedly assessed over a fairly lengthy interval—sometimes years. Longitudinal designs represent a very important research approach in psychology and other behavioral science investigations where time‐related phenomena are under study. This has particularly been the case in developmental psychology and gerontology where maturation is the focus of an investigation. Often the intent is to examine behavioral, cognitive, or physiological changes that may occur in participants as they grow older.
Loose Associations
Authors: Hoffman Ralph E.
Published: January 2010

The primary source of data for assessing patients with psychotic disorders is speech behavior during a clinical interview. One critical component of this assessment is the patient's ability to produce coherent conversational discourse.
Love
Authors: Hatfield Elaine , Rapson Richard L.
Published: January 2010

Social psychologists distinguish between two kinds of love:
passionate
love and
companionate
love. Passionate love, a potent emotion, is defined as an intense longing for union with the other. It is associated with a confusion of feelings: tenderness and sexuality, elation and pain, anxiety and relief, altruism and jealousy (Hatfield & Rapson, 1993). Companionate love, a cooler emotion, is characterized by affection, intimacy, attachment, and a concern for the welfare of the other (Sternberg, 2006).
Major Depressive Disorder
Authors: Sheets Erin S. , Brosse Alisha L.
Published: January 2010

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by depressed mood or a lack of interest or pleasure in once‐enjoyable activities, and associated symptoms (e.g., sleep disturbance; appetite/weight disturbance; difficulty concentrating; feelings of worthlessness or exaggerated guilt). To receive a diagnosis of MDD, at least five symptoms must be present most of the day, nearly every day, for at least two weeks (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2000).
Mann‐Whitney
U
Test
Authors: McKnight Patrick E. , Najab Julius
Published: January 2010

The Mann‐Whitney U test, which is also known as the Wilcoxon rank sum test, tests for differences between two groups on a single, ordinal variable with no specific distribution (Mann & Whitney, 1947; Wilcoxon, 1945). In contrast, the independent samples t‐test, which is also a test of two groups, requires the single variable to be measured at the interval or ratio level, rather than the ordinal level, and to be normally distributed. We accordingly refer to the Mann‐Whitney U test as the nonparametric version of the parametric t‐test. Both tests require two independently sampled groups and assess whether two groups differ on a single, continuous variable. The two tests, however, differ on the assumed distribution. A nonparametric test assumes no specific distribution, whereas a parametric test assumes a specific distribution. Thus, the Mann‐Whitney U is conceptually similar to the t‐test for determining whether two sampled groups are from a single population. When data do not meet the parametric assumptions of the t‐test, the Mann‐Whitney U tends to be more appropriate.
Marriage Counseling
Authors: Whisman Mark A.
Published: January 2010

Problems in marriage and other close relationships are widespread. For example, the divorce rate in the United States is approximately 50%. Relationship problems are also among the most common reasons for people seeking mental health services. There is good evidence that marriage counseling is effective in treating relationship problems and a variety of emotional and behavioral disorders.
Masculinity
Authors: Levant Ronald F.
Published: January 2010

The dominant psychological perspective on masculinity views gender roles not as biological or even social “givens,” but rather as psychologically and socially constructed entities that bring certain advantages and disadvantages. Most importantly, they can change. This perspective acknowledges the biological differences between men and women, but argues that it is not the biological differences of sex that make for masculinity and femininity. These notions are socially constructed from bits and pieces of biological, psychological, and social experience to serve particular purposes. Traditional constructions of gender serve patriarchal purposes; non‐traditional constructions, such as Gilmore (1990) described among the Tahitians and the Semai, serve more equalitarian purposes.

Adapted from Levant, R. F. (1996). The new psychology of men.
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 27
, 259‐265. Copyright © 1996 by the American Psychological Association. Adapted with permission.
M
eehl,
P
aul
E
. (1920–2003)
Authors: Staff
Published: January 2010

Paul E. Meehl was born in 1920 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He attended public schools there and received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1945. Among the teachers at Minnesota who shaped his thinking were psychologists D. G. Paterson, William T. Heron, B. F. Skinner, and his advisor, Starke R. Hathaway; philosopher Herbert Feigl; and statisticians A. Treloar and P. O. Johnson.
Mental Imagery
Authors: Kunzendorf Robert G. , Sheikh Anees A.
Published: January 2010

The study of mental imagery has generated major disagreement ever since the science of psychology was founded in the nineteenth century. Much of this disagreement, then and now, focuses on whether imaging abilities are representative of universal psychological processes or whether they are indicative of individual differences.
Mental Status Examination
Authors: Schwartz Eliezer
Published: January 2010

The Mental Status Examination (MSE) is a structured method of observations and inquiry that guides examiners in collecting observable behaviors and manifestations of emotions and cognitions and categorizing them for diagnostic purposes. The MSE does not need to be a standardized test. Its validity and reliability are not based on psychometric properties, but on its simplicity and its consistent sequential inquiry (Rogers, 2001). This method of investigation is relatively independent from the verbal content of an interview, and it is uniquely tuned to the identification of specific behavioral manifestations that are diagnostically and prognostically significant. The MSE can be part of a formal clinical interview or part of any type of interaction with a patient. The MSE method allows the examiner to observe and identify selected targeted behaviors that are specific objectives for intervention.
Modeling
Authors: Bandura Albert
Published: January 2010

Psychological theories have traditionally emphasized learning through the rewarding and punishing effects that actions produce. Natural endowment provides humans with enabling biological systems but few inborn skills. Competencies must be developed over long periods and altered to fit changing conditions over the life course. Direct experience is a tough teacher, because errors can be highly costly and some types of missteps are deadly. If knowledge and competencies could be acquired only by direct experience, human development would be severely retarded, not to mention unmercifully tedious and perilous. A given culture could never transmit the complexities of its language, mores, social practices, and essential competencies if they had to be shaped laboriously in each new member solely by response consequences, without the benefit of models to exemplify the cultural patterns. The abbreviation of the acquisition process is, therefore, vital for survival as well as for successful human development. Moreover, the constraints of time, resources, and mobility impose severe limits on the situations and activities that can be directly explored for the acquisition of knowledge and competencies.
Moral Development
Authors: Berzonsky Michael D.
Published: January 2010

Moral development involves the process by which people internalize and orient their behavior according to socially sanctioned rules. Three conceptually distinguishable aspects of this developmental process have been highlighted: moral judgment (how one reasons about moral situations), moral behavior (how one acts), and moral emotions (what one feels).
Morality
Authors: Krebs Dennis L.
Published: January 2010

Traditionally, psychologists have focused on the moral development of children and have derived their models from psychoanalytic, social learning, and cognitive‐developmental theory. Each of these models focuses on a different aspect of moral development—respectively, conscience, moral behavior, and moral judgment—and defines morality in a different way. In contrast to philosophical theories of ethics, which attempt to derive ultimate moral principles, psychological theories attempt to explain why people conform to moral norms and how they develop a subjective sense of morality. In recent years, psychologists have joined with scholars from other disciplines in attending to the evolution of morality in the human species.
Morphology
Authors: Feldman Laurie Beth , Aronoff Mark
Published: January 2010

The central focus of those who study morphology is how language users understand complex words and how they create new ones. Compare the two English words
secure
and
insecurity
. The word
secure
cannot be broken down further into meaningful parts. It is morphologically simple. By contrast,
insecurity
is morphologically complex because it consists of three unanalyzable meaningful components (i.e., in + secure + ity), which linguists call morphemes. The study of the patterning of morphemes within a word and how morphemes combine to form new complex words falls within the domain of morphology. Morphemes are meaningful elements and must be distinguished from units of sound, because a simple morpheme may be complex in its sound structure: The simple morpheme
secure
is complex in terms of sound, consisting of two syllables and six phonemes. The study of the sound structure in language processing is well established. Only relatively recently, however, have psycholinguists begun to examine morphology as a window into understanding how we process words.
Motion Parallax and Structure from Motion
Authors: Braunstein Myron L.
Published: January 2010

Motion parallax and structure from motion are two related sources of information for the perception of the shape of 3‐D objects and surfaces as well as the layout of objects and surfaces in 3‐D scenes. Motion parallax refers to the inverse relation between the speed at which the projection of an object moves across the retina and the distance of the object from the eye. When the head moves horizontally, for example, projections of stationary objects closer than fixation move across the visual field in the direction opposite the head while projections of more distant objects move in the same direction as the head. The same is true for parts of objects or surfaces; the relative speeds with which objects move in the retinal projection provides information about their relative distances in the environment, assuming that the 3‐D distances between the objects remain constant. This assumption is known as the
rigidity constraint
. Stationary objects move rigidly when an observer moves, but the validity of a rigidity constraint is less clear for moving objects. If the moving objects are associated with a continuous surface that is moving relative to the observer, a rigidity constraint may be reasonable.
Multiple Correlation
Authors: Cohen Barry H.
Published: January 2010

Multiple linear correlation, which is the simplest and most common form of multiple correlation, is usually measured by a coefficient that ranges between zero and one (symbolized as
R
); it represents the highest possible degree of association between a weighted linear combination of several given predictor variables and a single criterion variable. For any particular case in a dataset, a prediction can be generated by multiplying its values on each of the predictor variables by the optimal weighting coefficients found by the least‐squares method and adding a constant.
R
is then the ordinary Pearson's coefficient of linear correlation (
r
) between the predicted and actual criterion values.
Myelin
Authors: Colello Raymond J.
Published: January 2010

Myelin is a protein and lipid‐rich substance that is produced by oligodendrocytes in the central nervous system and Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system. Myelin is elaborated into a sheath and wrapped, in a concentric fashion, around an axon. The deposition of myelin in a spiraling pattern around an axon generates two morphological features of the myelin sheath: the major dense line (DL) and the intraperiod line (IL). The DL is formed when the cytoplasm within the myelin process is lost, and the apposing plasma membranes come together. As the myelin sheath spirals around the axon, the outer faces of the plasma membrane of each wrap oppose each other to form the IL. The ensheathment of an axon with myelin is not continuous along its length, but is laid down as segments of myelin (internodes) that are interrupted, at regular intervals, by areas devoid of myelin, which are termed the nodes of Ranvier.
Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator (
MBT
)
Authors: Quenk Naomi L.
Published: January 2010

The Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator
®
assesses healthy personality differences by identifying 16 personality types that result from interactions among two pairs of bipolar mental functions and two pairs of bipolar attitudes, as described in C. G. Jung's theory of psychological types (1923/1971) and as interpreted and extended by Katharine C. Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. Versions of the instrument have been published since 1943, with three manuals (Myers, 1962; Myers & McCaulley, 1985; Myers, Quenk, & Hammer, 1998). The specified mental functions and attitudes are identified using forced‐choice items that elicit preferences for one or the other pole within four pairs of opposites. These four pairs are as follows: (1) opposite ways of perceiving‐sensing (S), gathering information through the five senses and trusting facts and details, versus intuition (N), perceiving patterns, interconnections, and inferences and trusting future possibilities; (2) opposite ways of judging—thinking (T), reaching conclusion through logical analysis to arrive at trust, versus feeling (F), reaching conclusions by weighing important values to arrive at harmony; (3) opposite attitudes or orientations of energy—extraversion (E), gaining and using energy primarily in the outer world of activities and people, versus introversion (I), gaining and using energy through the inner world of ideas, concepts, and internal experience; and (4) a judging (J) attitude when functioning in the outer world, using the preferred form of judgment (thinking or feeling) to organize the world and achieve closure, versus a perceiving (P) attitude in the outer world, using the preferred form of perception (sensing or intuition) to stay open as long as possible to incoming information. The judging‐perceiving dichotomy was added by Myers and Briggs to Jung's original three dichotomies as a way of identifying the dynamic character of each type.
Narcissism
Authors: Miller Joshua D. , Campbell W. Keith
Published: January 2010

Narcissism has been conceptualized and studied both as a general personality trait on which individuals exist on a continuum from nonnarcissistic to narcissistic and as a mental disorder (narcissistic personality disorder; NPD) in which there is an emphasis on the maladaptive nature of narcissistic traits. Regardless of the type of conceptualization used, the traits ascribed to narcissism are similar. Narcissistic individuals tend to be grandiose, arrogant, entitled, manipulative, preoccupied with status, and nonempathic. Although narcissism was originally conceptualized within a psychoanalytic or psychodynamic framework, more empirically based work began when NPD was included as an official diagnosis in the third version of the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM‐III; American Psychiatric Association, 1980). Interestingly, most of this research has been undertaken by social and personality psychologists who have studied narcissism in a dimensional manner using nonclinical samples. Empirical data on NPD are sparse.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
Authors: Li Ting‐Kai
Published: January 2010

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) is one of the 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest funding agency of biomedical research, both biological and behavioral, in the United States. NIAAA's name implies a mission focused on alcohol‐use disorders (AUDs), consisting of alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence; and a considerable investment is made into understanding the etiology, progression, heterogeneity, prevention, and treatment of these disorders. The mission of the Institute, however, is much broader than the name suggests and includes research on alcohol use as it relates to health across the lifespan of the individual.
National Institutes of Health
Authors: Zerhouni Elias A.
Published: January 2010

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation's medical research agency, is the primary federal agency for supporting and conducting medical research, including basic, clinical, and translational research. Leading the way to important medical discoveries that improve health and save lives, NIH scientists investigate ways to prevent disease as well as to discover the causes, treatments, and cures for both common diseases and the more than 6,000 rare diseases that affect our nation's citizenry. NIH also contributes knowledge about disease to the global community and collaborates on international health threats. For more than a century, NIH has played a key role in improving the health of the nation.
Nature‐Nurture Controversy
Authors: Loehlin John C.
Published: January 2010

The so‐called nature‐nurture controversy is a family of controversies about the relative roles of heredity (nature) and environment (nurture) in shaping human characteristics. These controversies exist not so much because the scientific questions involved are difficult—although many are—but because the proposed alternative solutions are perceived as having profound implications for cherished beliefs concerning human equality, social justice, and individual responsibility.
Neurochemistry
Authors: Agranoff Bernard W.
Published: January 2010

A chemical approach to understanding the nervous system had its origins in the late nineteenth century. Early neurochemists found that mammalian brains contained large amounts of fatty substances (lipids), many of which were found to be unique to the nervous system. The human brain contains about 10% lipids, 10% protein, and 78% water, with the remaining 2% represented by DNA, RNA, electrolytes, and other small molecules. The gray matter contains mainly neuronal cell bodies and astroglia, generally regarded as support cells that are often interposed between cerebral blood vessels and neurons. White matter contains nerve axons, which are ensheathed in multilayers of lipid‐rich membranes (myelin) produced by oligodendroglia (Schwann cells in peripheral nerves). Brain lipids contain long, highly unsaturated fatty acids incorporated into phospholipids, as well as glycolipids, and little or no free cholesterol or triglyceride (conventional dietary fat, also found in adipose tissue).