bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Rationality
Authors: Krueger Joachim I.
Published: January 2010

With the study of human cognition comes the question of how well people can reason, and any answer requires standards with which observed cognitive performance can be compared. Cognition that does not meet these a priori standards is considered irrational. The Socratic philosophers held that rationality prevails unless disrupted by instincts, appetites, or emotions. They believed that only rational thought, but not momentary affect, can determine the best course of action. People are being irrational when they act against their own best interest, rationally defined. This conflict theory pervades Western philosophy and psychology. Of the topics for psychological research it has inspired, delay of gratification and temporal discounting are good examples. The theory holds that the rational mind takes the long‐term view of the organism's well‐being, whereas irrational forces demand rapid gratification. Although discounting of the future is not by itself irrational, its steep hyperbolic nature is. It is incoherent to prefer $50 now to $100 in a year, while at the same time preferring $100 in two years over $50 in a year (Ainslie, 2001).
Repertory Grid Methods
Authors: Neimeyer Robert A.
Published: January 2010

Developed within personal construct theory, repertory grid methods represent a diverse set of techniques for studying personal and interpersonal systems of meaning. Because of their flexibility, repertory grids (or
repgrids
) have been used in approximately 3,500 studies of a broad variety of topics, such as children's understandings of physical science principles, consumer preferences, formal structures of self‐reflection within cognitive science, and the mutual validation of belief systems between friends. However, their most consistent area of application has probably been in the clinical domain, where grids have been used to assess the properties of meaning systems of different groups of persons (e.g., those diagnosed as thought disordered or agoraphobic) and how these change over the course of treatment. With the publication of recent manuals on repgrid methods that illustrate their applications in both business and clinical settings, their use might be expected to increase in the years to come.
Residential Treatment
Authors: Leichtman Martin
Published: January 2010

Residential treatment is a class of inpatient therapeutic program that is based on the assumption that the milieu of the institution and the conduct of daily life within it are the critical components of treatment. When used in a narrow sense, the term typically designates programs for children and adolescents who exhibit severe psychiatric problems and whose families cannot manage them in the community. When used broadly, it has also been applied to group homes and other out‐of‐home placements for a wider clientele, including delinquent, dependent, and neglected children. Although associated chiefly with programs for children, the concept of residential treatment is similar to that of the therapeutic community and other forms of milieu therapy for adults (Almond, 1974). Moreover, as financial support for intermediate‐ and long‐term hospitalization has evaporated in the past two decades, the term has been used increasingly to designate less intensive 24‐hour care programs for adults.
Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test
Authors: Poreh Amir
Published: January 2010

The Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT) is one of the first commercially available tests for the assessment of memory. It was originally published in 1907 by Édouard Claparède, a renowned Swiss psychologist, and was called the
Test de Mémoire des Mots
(Test of Memory for Words; Claparède, 1919). In this test, the examinee was read a list of 15 words and was then asked to immediately recall them. Claparède published three alternate lists of the 15 words (Series A, B, and C) and later had the lists translated into German, Italian, and Spanish (Boake, 2000).
Rorschach Inkblot Method
Authors: Weiner Irving B.
Published: January 2010

The Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM) is a psychometrically sound performance‐based personality assessment instrument that consists of 10 inkblots printed individually on 6¾‐ by 9¼‐inch cards. Five of these blots are printed in shades of gray and black; two of the blots are in shades of red, gray, and black; and the remaining three blots are in shades of various pastel colors. The RIM is administered by showing people the cards one at a time and asking them to say what they see in them (“What might this be?”). In a second phase of the examination, respondents are asked to indicate where in the blots they saw each of their percepts and what made the percepts look as they did. The basic premise underlying Rorschach assessment is that how people look at the inkblots says something about how they look at the world, and the way people look at the world says something about the kind of person they are.
Sadomasochistic Personality
Authors: Novick Jack , Novick Kerry Kelly
Published: January 2010

The termsadomasochismusually refers to a sexual perversion, an attachment or addiction to pain with or without sexual excitement, and a personality type. Early in the history of psychoanalysis, Freud wrote to Jung, “In my practice, I am chiefly concerned with the problem of repressed sadism in my patients; I regard it as the most frequent cause of failure of therapy.…In general, sadism is becoming more and more important to me” (quoted in Novick & Novick, 2007, p. 42). Freud remained intrigued by the complexity of sadomasochism, and each major shift in psychoanalytic theory stemmed directly from his clinical experience with masochistic phenomena. However, by the end of his career, even Freud had to note that “we are specially inadequate” in dealing with masochistic patients (quoted in Novick & Novick, 2007, p. 42).
Sampling Error
Authors: DeMatteo David , Keesler Michael
Published: January 2010

Sampling error is the difference between the value of a sample statistic and the corresponding parameter in the population from which the sample was drawn. The idea behind sampling error is that a chosen sample typically does not provide a perfectly accurate representation of the population from which it was selected. The discrepancy, or “error,” between a measurement computed for a sample (which is known as a statistic) and the actual value in the population (which is known as a parameter) is referred to as sampling error. In this context, the term
error
is nonpejorative and refers to the inherent variability found in different samples taken from the same population.
Sampling Methods
Authors: Beins Bernard C.
Published: January 2010

Psychologists usually test groups of research participants rather than individuals. One goal in creating groups is to select research samples that allow the investigator to generalize research results to the entire population. When results generalize to the population, they are said to show external validity. However, psychological research often involves undergraduate students, so questions arise as to whether the results of the research will generalize beyond the specific sample used in a study. Consequently, sampling methods used to identify research participants are of interest to scientists who study human behavior.
Savant Syndrome
Authors: Heaton Pamela
Published: January 2010

The term “idiot‐savant” was first used by Down (1998) to describe a group of rare individuals who, despite severe intellectual impairments, demonstrate impressive skills within specific domains. Published accounts of idiot‐savants appeared as early as the eighteenth century and provided descriptions of extraordinarily skilled performance in music, art, and mental calculation. The phenomenon of the idiot‐savant posed interesting questions about the nature of human intelligence and was frequently invoked in debates about whether humans possess mutiple, independent intelligences or a single global trait (see Nettlebeck & Young, 1996). However, limitations in the extent that intelligence test results inform our understanding of savant skills, along with the rise of cognitive neuropsychology, have motivated a different approach to studying savants, and researchers have increasingly focused on identifying cognitive, perceptual, and memory processes implicated in savant performance (Mottron, Dawson, Soulieres, Hubert & Burack, 2006; Pring, 2005).
School Dropout
Authors: Doll Beth
Published: January 2010

School dropout occurs when students exit from K‐12 schooling without graduating from high school. The failure to earn a high school diploma has been recognized as a serious threat to students' livelihoods since 1950, when, for the first time, more students graduated from high school than did not, and jobs for unskilled laborers began to decline precipitously (Doll & Hess, 2004). Prospective high school dropouts disengage from school as early as the fourth grade with gradually increasing absences and discipline problems and decreasing academic achievement. By middle school or early high school, the students may drop out of school temporarily, return, and then drop out again. Disturbingly, this pattern of school disengagement occurs more often for students who are poor, are from cultural or linguistic minority groups, or have disabilities.
Self Psychology
Authors: Silverstein Marshall L.
Published: January 2010

Psychoanalytic self psychology was introduced by Heinz Kohut (Kohut, 1966, 1971) to better explain and more efficaciously treat disorders of narcissism, a personality disturbance that had met with limited success when treatment relied on principles derived from Freud's (1926) drive theory and its revision as ego psychology. Understanding narcissism was problematic for Freud (Baudry, 1983), despite several attempts to find a satisfactory solution. Kohut (1971) viewed his initial explanation of narcissistic personality disorder as an extension of classical psychoanalytic theory, and he thus remained faithful to the major premises of Freud's vision of mental phenomena and the psychoanalytic method of treatment. As his work progressed, however, Kohut's ongoing clinical observations led him to a theoretical viewpoint that departed from some of the major tenets of classical psychoanalysis, notably the prominence of the ego in drive regulation and symptom formation and the unique significance of the oedipal conflict in personality development.
Self‐Efficacy
Authors: Bandura Albert
Published: January 2010

Perceived self‐efficacy is concerned with people's beliefs in their ability to influence events that affect their lives. This core belief is the foundation of human motivation, performance accomplishments, and emotional well‐being (Bandura, 1997, 2006). Unless people believe they can produce desired effects by their actions, they have little incentive to undertake activities or to persevere in the face of difficulties. Whatever other factors may serve as guides and motivators, they are rooted in the core belief that one can make a difference by one's actions.
Self‐Report Inventories
Authors: Ben‐Porath Yossef S.
Published: January 2010

Self‐report inventories (SRIs) have been a mainstay of assessment psychology for more than eight decades. They are used frequently in a broad range of settings and applications (e.g., mental health diagnosis and treatment planning, medical settings, substance abuse treatment facilities, psycholegal evaluations, and screening of candidates for public safety positions). SRIs typically require test takers to respond to a series of statements (items) by indicating whether, or to what extent, the item describes some aspect of their functioning. The response format varies from a dichotomous true or false to a Likert scale indication of degree of agreement with the statement as a self‐description. Some SRIs focus primarily on abnormal functioning or psychopathology, whereas others concentrate more on the normal personality range. Still others cover both normal and abnormal aspects of personality and psychopathology.
Separation Anxiety Disorder
Authors: Dick‐Niederhauser Andreas , Silverman Wendy K.
Published: January 2010

Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is a common psychiatric disorder of childhood and early adolescence characterized by recurrent excessive and unrealistic fear of separation from home or major attachment figures, typically the mother. SAD can interfere considerably with social, family, and academic functioning and often leads to age‐inappropriate behaviors. SAD should not be confused with separation anxiety, which occurs as a normal stage of development during the first year of life, when infants begin to understand that they are separate from their primary caregiver.
Sexual Harassment
Authors: Fernandez Shantel , Hanson Rochelle F.
Published: January 2010

Sexual harassment is illegal and occurs in a variety of settings. Laws have been developed to protect individuals from this problem in workplace, housing, and educational contexts. Both females and males experience sexual harassment. However, women are more likely to experience sexual harassment than men (Nora et al., 2002; Street, Gradus, Stafford, & Kelly, 2007). According to a study of federal employees, approximately 44% of women and 19% of men have experienced sexual harassment over a 2‐year period (United States Merit Systems Protection Board, 1995). In 2007, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received 12,510 charges of sexual harassment, with only 16% of those charges filed by males. Additionally, charges of sexual harassment can be quite costly. According to the EEOC web site (http://www.eeoc.gov), in 2007, 11,592 sexual harassment charges were resolved by the EEOC, with $49.9 million in monetary benefits recovered for charging parties and other aggrieved individuals. Importantly, this amount did not include monetary benefits obtained through litigation.
Shyness
Authors: Henderson Lynne , Zimbardo Philip , Carducci Bernardo
Published: January 2010

Shyness as an emotional state is considered by some researchers to be universal, a blend of fear and interest, and adaptive in evolution. Shyness as a personality trait may be defined experientially as excessive self‐focus characterized by negative self‐evaluation that creates discomfort or inhibition in social situations and interferes with pursuing one's interpersonal or professional goals. The experience of shyness can occur at any or all of the following levels: cognitive (e.g., excessive negative self‐evaluation), affective (e.g., heightened negative emotion), physiological (e.g., racing heart), and behavioral (e.g., failure to respond appropriately). It may be triggered by a wide variety of situational cues. Among the most typical situations are interactions with authorities and strangers, one‐on‐one opposite‐sex interactions, and unstructured social settings.
Significance Testing
Authors: Krueger Joachim I.
Published: January 2010

Over the past 100 years, the practice of significance testing (ST) has become nearly universal in psychological research. The increasing acceptance of the method has been punctuated by impassioned critiques and searches for viable alternatives.
Single‐Participant Research Designs
Authors: Huitema Bradley E.
Published: January 2010

Single‐participant research designs involve the intensive study of one participant continuously or repeatedly across time. The participant may be a person or a single molar unit, such as an industrial organization or a political unit. As with conventional group designs based on reasonably large samples of subjects, single‐participant designs are employed to determine whether different variables are related or whether a treatment or intervention causes some effect on relevant response measures. There are situations in which it is more meaningful, more convenient, more ethical, and/or less expensive to study one or very few participants intensively than to study many participants. A basic difference between group and single‐participant designs is that one or very few observations are generally obtained from each participant with group designs, whereas many observations are usually obtained from a single participant across time in the case of single‐participant designs. The design categories of correlational, quasi‐experimental, and experimental, which are frequently used to classify different types of group designs, can also be used to classify various single‐participant designs.
Sleep Disorders
Authors: McGlinchey Eleanor , Harvey Allison
Published: January 2010

There have been important advances in knowledge on many of the functions of human sleep. For example, it is increasingly evident that sleep plays a critical role in many domains of health and psychological functioning. Hence, sleep disorders have become a significant public health concern. It is estimated that the direct medical costs of insomnia alone are $13.9 billion each year, with indirect costs such as missing work nearly doubling that cost (Walsh & Engelhardt, 1999).
Social Facilitation
Authors: Guerin Bernard
Published: January 2010

The question at the heart of social facilitation research is how the presence of another person affects performance. If you play a musical instrument alone versus in front of an audience, is your performance typically better or worse? If you type on a computer with no one around, compared with when someone else is merely working in the background or observing you, how do these conditions affect both the speed and the accuracy of your typing?
Social Isolation
Authors: Andrews Keelah D. , Flanagan Kelly S.
Published: January 2010

Social interaction is integral to mental health across development. Lack of social interaction, or social isolation, not only is a painful experience but also can negatively impact child development. Distinctions have been made between emotional isolation, appearing in the absence of close emotional attachment, and social isolation, which appears in the absence of an engaging social network. Social isolation can lead to feelings of loneliness, low self‐esteem and alienation, negative self‐concept and powerlessness, increased shyness and anger, decreased activity, depression, social and academic difficulties, and in some cases, delinquent behavior and violence. Recent studies suggest that social anxiety may be a precursor to social isolation and that the loneliness that accompanies social isolation uniquely contributes to severe emotional problems.
Social Psychophysiology
Authors: Cacioppo John T. , Berntson Gary G. , Aue Tatjana
Published: January 2010

Social psychophysiology is characterized by the use of noninvasive procedures to study the relationships between actual or perceived physiological events and the verbal or behavioral effects of human interactions. The field represents the intersection of social psychology and psychophysiology. Social psychology, the older of the two spawning disciplines, is directed toward understanding the reportable and behavioral effects of human presence and interactions, whereas psychophysiology employs noninvasive procedures to study the interrelationships between physiological events and a person's reportable or overt behavior.
Socialization
Authors: Wilson Janelle L. , Sonnad Subhash R.
Published: January 2010

Socialization is the process of becoming a social being. During this process, individuals acquire ways of learning, thinking, acting, and feeling that enable them to familiarize themselves with the culture and become active participants in the social process. Agents of socialization are persons or institutions that are influential in this process; key agents include family, peers, schools, and media. The increasingly ubiquitous role of popular culture and the media in the socialization process has gained the attention of scholars these past several years. Most recently, the role of rapidly changing technologies, such as cell phones, BlackBerrys, and iPods, as agents of socialization (especially among children and adolescents) has raised questions about their effect on human development. Peer groups have also gained in importance, because the family system has been subjected to significant changes that include single‐parent child rearing, stepparent socialization, multiple‐parent siblings, and fragmentation of family roles and responsibilities.
Society for the Psychology of Women
Authors: Chrisler Joan C.
Published: January 2010

The Division of the Psychology of Women was formally established in 1973 as Division 35 of the American Psychological Association (APA). Its name was changed to the Society for the Psychology of Women in 1991, and today the division is known to its members both as Division 35 and SPW. The impetus for the founding of the division came from women's social and political activism in the late 1960s, especially from members of the Association for Women in Psychology (AWP), which was founded in 1969. AWP and SPW continue to work together today by cosponsoring a hospitality suite during APA conventions and a prize for student research on the psychology of women and gender.
Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology
Authors: King Cheryl A.
Published: January 2010

The Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (SCCAP), which is Division 53 of the American Psychological Association (APA), represents psychologists active in teaching, research, clinical services, administration, and advocacy in clinical child and adolescent psychology. Its mission statement provides a clear statement of the organization's purpose:

The purpose of Division 53 (Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology) is to encourage the development and advancement of clinical child and adolescent psychology through integration of its scientific and professional aspects. The division promotes scientific inquiry, training, professional practice, and public policy in clinical child and adolescent psychology as a means of improving the welfare and mental health of children, youth, and families. In the service of these goals, the division promotes the general objectives of the American Psychological Association. (Society for Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Bylaws, 2007)
Sociology
Authors: Winfield Idee
Published: January 2010

Sociology is the social scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior (American Sociological Association, 2006). For sociologists, the lives of individuals can be understood only through the social contexts in which they live. By focusing on the social patterns and societal forces that shape people, sociology looks beyond individual psychology and unique events to the predictable broad patterns and regular occurrences of social life that influence our individual destinies.
Spatial Memory
Authors: Poucet Bruno
Published: January 2010

Spatial memory is ubiquitous. Almost every action takes place in space and requires some form of spatial memory. Also, it can easily be studied in animals, which often have outstanding spatial capabilities. Consider, for instance, the memory capabilities of food‐storing birds. During autumn, many birds store seeds that they retrieve later on (often several months after the storing episode), when the environment does not provide the necessary amount of fresh food. Thus an individual bird will store hundreds of food items in numerous caches scattered throughout its home range. Retrieving these food caches will depend at least partly on the bird's memory for their locations. For example, laboratory experiments show that Clark's nutcrackers show excellent retention of many spatial locations over time periods greater than 9 months. Other observations suggest that scrub jays remember more than just spatial locations. They also remember what type of food has been cached and whether it is perishable.
Speech Perception
Authors: Holt Lori L. , Idemaru Kaori
Published: January 2010

Spoken words exist for mere moments, but from this fleeting acoustic signal, we are able to apprehend considerable information. We can decode the linguistic message of the speaker, as well as information about his or her gender, age, region of origin, identity, and emotional state. As adult listeners, we are so adept at speech perception that the ability seems trivial. However, the ease with which we perceive speech belies the complexity of the perceptual, cognitive, and neural mechanisms involved.
Splitting
Authors: Tucker Jane
Published: January 2010

Splitting is a psychoanalytic concept that connotes a process of organizing mental contents by separating them into categories in which reality is partly accepted and partly dismissed; the categories are often contradictory. Definitions of splitting have varied, as have opinions regarding the areas and functions of the mind that might be involved in the process. A few essentials are offered here.
State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory
Authors: Spielberger Charles D.
Published: January 2010

Anxiety was defined by Freud as “something felt,” an emotional state that included feelings of apprehension, tension, nervousness, and worry accompanied by physiological arousal. Consistent with Darwin's evolutionary perspective, Freud observed that anxiety was adaptive in motivating behavior that helped individuals cope with threatening situations and that intense anxiety was prevalent in most psychiatric disorders. In measuring anxiety, Cattell (1966) emphasized the importance of distinguishing between anxiety as an emotional state and individual differences in anxiety as a personality trait.
Stereotype Threat
Authors: Maxfield Molly , Pyszczynski Tom
Published: January 2010

The concept of stereotype threat was developed in response to the observation that African American undergraduates underperform relative to their Caucasian counterparts. A common explanation for this frequently observed group difference is that African American students receive inferior preparation for college, largely due to lower socioeconomic status; however, African American students with SAT scores equivalent to Caucasian students were still less successful in college than their nonminority classmates. Steele (2003) provides an overview of the origins of stereotype threat. He and his colleagues began to consider the psychological influences of one's social identity, suggesting that increased awareness of negative stereotypes associated with one's group amplifies concern about confirming that stereotype. This concern ultimately interferes with one's ability to perform and can thus result in the fulfillment of the stereotype. Steele proposed that the existing stereotype that African Americans do not develop strong intellectual abilities negatively influences group members' ability to achieve in college. More generally, because all groups have stereotypes, everyone is potentially susceptible to the performance‐undermining effect of stereotype threat.
Stroop Color‐Word Test
Authors: Schiehser Dawn M. , Bondi Mark W.
Published: January 2010

The Stroop Color‐Word Test (SCWT; Stroop, 1935) is one of the oldest and most commonly used tests in psychology for examining executive functions and response inhibition. There are a number of versions of the task, several of which have been translated into different languages and modified for use with diverse populations, including children, adults, and clinical patients. In the standard form of the task, a participant is asked to (1) read words that are the names of colors (i.e., word reading), (2) name the color of ink patches (i.e., color naming), and (3) name the color of the ink in which incongruent color words are printed (e.g., say “red” when the word
green
is printed in red ink). This latter condition is thought to require response inhibition, as one must inhibit the easier and more automatic word reading in order to name the color of the ink (see MacLeod & MacDonald, 2000).
Structural Equation Modeling
Authors: Savalei Victoria , Bentler Peter M.
Published: January 2010

Many constructs in psychology, such as intelligence, achievement motivation, and mental health status, cannot be measured directly. Such constructs are termed
latent variables,
or
factors,
and the data analytic technique designed to study the relationships among such variables is called structural equation modeling (SEM). SEM merges multivariate regression and factor analysis. In regression, a dependent variable
y
is predicted from
p
predictors as
y
 = α + β
1
x
1
 + β
2
x
2
 + … + β

p

x

p

 + 
e
. SEM extends regression by allowing (1) latent variables, in which the
x
s are unobserved factors (a measurement model); (2) latent regressions, in which both
x
s and
y
s are latent variables; (3) multiple equations simultaneously with dependent variables
y
1
,
y
2
,  … ,
y

m

, latent or observed; and (4) a dependent variable in one equation to be a predictor in another equation, and vice versa. A model with only observed
x
s and
y
s is called a
path
or
simultaneous equation
model.
Suicidality
Authors: Lester David
Published: January 2010

The psychological study of suicidal behavior has been hindered by problems of terminology and classification. Those who die from suicide are known as completed suicides. It is estimated that, for every completed suicide, about 10 individuals make attempts at suicide but survive. In the past, these individuals were called attempted suicides, but scholars pointed out that many attempted suicides had no intention of dying. For a while, the term parasuicide was adopted for this behavior, but more recently the terms “deliberate self‐harm” and “self‐injurious behavior” have become more common.
Supportive‐Expressive Therapy
Authors: Barber Jacques P. , Sharpless Brian A.
Published: January 2010

The term “supportive‐expressive psychoanalytic psychotherapy” (SET) was used originally to describe the open‐ended, psychoanalytically oriented therapy conducted at the Menninger Foundation. One can trace SET's conceptual origins to Freud's technical papers and the works of several of his followers (e.g., Bibring, Fenichel, Stone). SET was formally manualized by Luborsky in the late 1970s (Luborsky, 1984) and has since that time been the focus of considerable research. This manualized version of SET is the focus of the present article.
Symbiosis
Authors: Silverman Doris K.
Published: January 2010

As Freud reflected on children's developing sense of self, their dealings with nonpleasurable bodily experiences, and their growing recognition of reality, he understood these progressive changes as occurring gradually. He considered infants as initially undifferentiated, merged with their mothers, and slowly advancing toward differentiation. Freud was describing the infant's first experiences of symbiosis based on the then‐limited information about infants' developmental capacities. Freud's ideas took hold in the psychoanalytic literature, and many theoreticians continue to support the view of infants' merger and fusion feelings. However, current research on infants' early experiences suggests the need to retire the concept of early‐stage symbiosis in infancy.
Symptom Checklist‐90‐Revised
Authors: Derogatis Leonard R. , Unger Rachael
Published: January 2010

The Symptom Checklist‐90‐Revised (SCL‐90‐R) is a 90‐item self‐report symptom inventory developed by Leonard R. Derogatis in the mid‐1970s to measure psychological symptoms and psychological distress. It is designed to be appropriate for use with individuals from the community, as well as individuals with either medical or psychiatric conditions. The SCL‐90‐R assesses psychological distress in terms of nine primary symptom dimensions and three summary scores termed global scores. The principal symptom dimensions are labeled Somatization (SOM), Obsessive‐Compulsive (OBS), Interpersonal Sensitivity (INT), Depression (DEP), Anxiety (ANX), Hostility (HOS), Phobic Anxiety (PHOB), Paranoid Ideation (PAR), and Psychoticism (PSY). The global measures are referred to as the Global Severity Index (GSI), the Positive Symptom Distress Index (PSDI), and the Positive Symptom Total (PST).
Synesthesia
Authors: Brang David
Published: January 2010

Synesthesia is a perceptual experience in which a stimulus presented through one modality (e.g., hearing) will spontaneously evoke a sensation experienced in an unrelated modality (e.g., vision). For example, an individual may experience a specific color for every given note (e.g., C sharp is red) or every number may be tinged with a specific hue (e.g., five is indigo and seven is green). Although synesthesia can occur in response to drugs (LSD, mescaline, peyote), sensory deprivation, or, in rare cases, brain damage, research has largely focused on individuals with the heritable trait of developmental synesthesia. Synesthesia has no known association with any disorder or condition, and research suggests a higher occurrence among artists and musicians. Furthermore, synesthetes will often lament the loss of these experiences that sometimes occurs because of depression or the use of antidepressants.
Systematic Desensitization
Authors: McGlynn F. Dudley
Published: January 2010

Systematic desensitization is a behavior therapy developed by Joseph Wolpe (1915–1997) for fear and anxiety. Treatment begins with an assessment that describes the objects and/or events that elicit fearfulness. It continues with three basic procedures: The therapist teaches the patient to relax the voluntary muscles. At the same time, the therapist and patient develop detailed descriptions of personal encounters with the objects and/or events that provoke fear and arrange them in order of increasing fearsomeness. Then the therapist instructs the patient to visualize the encounters in increasingly fearsome order while relaxed. The therapist also encourages the patient to confront the fearsome objects and/or events sometime after relaxed visualization of them.
Systems and Theories
Authors: Marx Melvin H.
Published: January 2010

In American psychology, systems and theories historically have been closely associated. For this reason, it is important that students of psychology know at least the essence of the major systems that have influenced and, to a lesser degree, continue to influence psychological thought.
Tactile Sensation
Authors: Kitada Ryo , Pawluk Dianne T. V.
Published: January 2010

When you drive a car, you can sense pressure, vibrations, and warmth in your hands as you grip the steering wheel. You experience such events because contact with the steering wheel triggers activity in sensory receptors in your skin wherever contact occurs. These receptors respond to mechanical and/or thermal energy, leading to sensory experiences that are collectively described as tactile sensations. Other sensations you may have from your skin, including pain and itch, are not generally included in this definition. Tactile sensations are passively elicited as a result of stimulation by some external source. This is in contrast with haptic perception, which typically involves contact with the external environment through active manual exploration. These two modes of tactile experience result in an interesting distinction. When your skin is passively stimulated, you typically focus your attention on your internal subjective tactile sensations (although it is often possible to perceive external objects and their properties). In contrast, when you haptically explore, you tend instead to focus your attention on the external world.
Task Design
Authors: Desai Sreedhari D. , Brief Arthur P. , Williamson Rebecca B.
Published: January 2010

Early writings on task design advocated the simplification and standardization of tasks comprising a job as means of enhancing productivity in organizations. Indeed, these strategies led to simplified production scheduling, lowered training costs, and reduced expenditures for labor through the employment of lower‐skilled, more interchangeable, and cheaper workers. However, simplification also produced monotonous work, which presumably led to boredom and dissatisfaction that cost employers in terms of increased absenteeism and turnover and reduced production output.
Terrorism
Authors: Comer Jonathan S.
Published: January 2010

Terrorism is defined in Title 22 of the U.S. Code, Section 2656f(d), as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub‐national groups … intended to influence an audience.” Risk analyses suggest that the target locations for terrorist attacks are typically those that are critical to the government and economy, contain iconic symbols, and are high in human occupancy. These targets tend to exist in major urban areas, and thus when terrorism strikes, a great many individuals are in close proximity and are vulnerable to directly witnessing the attack, seeing dead or injured people, being involved in an evacuation, experiencing extended hours of separation from loved ones amid a climate of panic, losing a loved one, viewing physical damage or ruins, and/or being forced to relocate their residency.
Test Anxiety Inventory
Authors: Spielberger Charles D.
Published: January 2010

As Seymour Sarason (1959), a major early contributor to theory and research on test anxiety, observed, “We live in a test‐conscious, test‐giving culture in which the lives of people are in part determined by their test performance” (p. 26). Consequently, it is not surprising that test anxiety is a pervasive problem for many students who are so disturbed by the stress associated with taking tests that they experience substantial decrements in performance in evaluative situations. During examinations, individuals high in test anxiety are more likely to experience frequent and intense elevations in anxiety as an emotional state (S‐Anxiety), greater activation of the autonomic nervous system, and more self‐centered worry and task‐irrelevant thoughts that interfere with attention and performance. Given these characteristics, test anxiety can be viewed as a situation‐specific personality trait (Spielberger, Gonzalez, Taylor, Algaze, & Anton, 1978).
T
hurstone,
L
ouis
L
eon (1887–1955)
Authors: Staff
Published: January 2010

Considered the foremost American leader in psychometrics, Louis Leon Thurstone was born in Chicago, Illinois, but spent his childhood in Sweden; he returned to the United States to earn a degree in electrical engineering at Cornell University in 1912. While still a student, he invented and patented a motion picture projector. It attracted the attention of Thomas A. Edison, who hired him as an assistant. Working in Edison's laboratory, Thurstone became interested in problems of acoustics, sensory psychology, and the objective measurement of sensation. This led him to graduate study in psychology at the University of Chicago, where he received his PhD degree in 1917. After eight years at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, where he became professor and chairman of the Psychology Department, Thurstone returned to the University of Chicago, to serve as Professor of psychology for 28 years. The last three years of his life were spent at the University of North Carolina as the first Director of the Psychometric Laboratory, which now bears his name. He was the President of the American Psychological Association in 1932; in 1936, he was one of the founders and first President of the Psychometric Society.
Trauma Psychology
Authors: Rhoades George F.
Published: January 2010

Trauma may be seen as an insult or assault to the body of an individual resulting in a long‐standing injury. Trauma may also be seen as a psychologically distressing event that is outside the range of usual human experience, often involving a sense of intense fear, terror, and helplessness. Trauma psychology is the study and treatment of emotional wounds or shocks that may create substantial, lasting damage to a person's psychological development and state of well‐being.
Trust
Authors: Ross William H.
Published: January 2010

Trust is a multifaceted concept typically defined as “the expectancy of positive outcomes that one can receive based on the expected action of another party in an interaction characterized by uncertainty” (Bhattacharya, Devinney, & Pillutla, 1998). It is a variable that is of interest to scientists and practitioners working in a variety of areas of psychology involving interpersonal relationships, including marital, social, and business relationships. Psychologists treat trust as both a dispositional (personality) variable and a temporary state.
Variables in Research
Authors: Rossi Joseph S. , Merenda Peter F.
Published: January 2010

The term variable has been defined as a “symbol to which numerals or values are assigned.” This generic description, albeit applicable to psychological variables in research, denotes a mathematical basis. Any variable,xory, therefore implies one of the four basic measurement scales: nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio. The nature and number of variables available to the researcher are of numerous types. Their relative contributions in research investigations are not fixed but are related primarily to the experimental design involved in the research study. Hence it is difficult, if not impossible, to rank research variables with respect to importance or frequency of use or with respect to any other categorical designation. The discussion of variables that follows should be viewed in this context.
Violence Risk Assessment
Authors: Nussbaum David
Published: January 2010

An extensive literature concerning violence risk assessment (VRA) details discrete risk factors and their derivative instruments for specific violent populations, including sex offenders, young offenders, domestic violence, female offenders, and the violent developmentally delayed (see Nussbaum, 2006). This entry provides a conceptual appreciation for the evolution of VRA technique and content to enable a critical reading of primary literature with an understanding of its defining issues, informed translation of research into practice, and a call for generating advances in this intellectually challenging and practically important area.
Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy
Authors: Rothbaum Barbara Olasov
Published: January 2010

Virtual reality (VR) offers a human–computer interaction paradigm in which users are no longer simply external observers of images on a computer screen but are active participants within a computer‐generated three‐dimensional virtual world. Virtual environments differ from traditional displays in that computer graphics and various display and input technologies are integrated to give the user a sense of presence or immersion in the virtual environment.
Vocational Counseling
Authors: Savickas Mark L.
Published: January 2010

The phrase
vocational counseling
represents a composite of the two most popular career services, namely, vocational guidance and career counseling. Career services are psychosocial interventions that assist individuals in adapting to the community by choosing, entering, and adjusting to a work role. Other important career services include academic advising, occupational placement, job coaching, vocational rehabilitation, and career education (Busacca, 2002). Vocational guidance and career counseling are the most widely known career interventions because both are offered at most schools and colleges by educators who are sometimes referred to as guidance counselors. Although vocational guidance and career counseling share many similarities, they are easily distinguishable from each other. Vocational guidance involves
personal appraisal
by a counselor, computer program, or self‐help booklet to assist individuals and groups in making better educational and vocational decisions. Career counseling is an ongoing, face‐to‐face interaction during which a counselor uses
problem appraisal
to assist a client coping with decision‐making difficulties or work adjustment concerns. The following paragraphs elaborate the distinction between vocational guidance and career counseling by describing each career service.
Voyeurism
Authors: Lavin Michael
Published: January 2010

Long before voyeurism became a diagnosis, people peeped. An unanticipated opportunity for King David to peep at Bathsheba led him to a train of Biblical woes and Nathan's rebuke. According to old lore, Tom's peeping at Lady Godiva led God to blind him. The stories of King David and Tom are presented as examples of “sinful,” not pathological, behavior. Neither story provides enough details to permit a diagnosis of voyeurism for either man. Voyeurism as a diagnosis came later. In the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM‐IV‐TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000), voyeurism requires more than isolated episodes of peeping. The DSM‐IV‐TR diagnosis of voyeurism has three criteria; (1) The patient must have recurrent sexual fantasies, urges, or acts of observing an unsuspecting person naked, in the process of undressing, or having sex; (2) The patient must have had these recurrent fantasies, urges, and acts for at least six months; and (3) Either the patient has engaged in peeping or, if not, is having personal or interpersonal difficulties as a result of voyeuristic interests.
Wechsler Intelligence Tests
Authors: Saklofske Donald H. , Beran Tanya N.
Published: January 2010

The many tests today that carry the name of David Wechsler (1896–1981) began with the 1939 publication of the Wechsler‐Bellevue Intelligence Test. The tradition that he began has carried on under his name, through the many new tests on intelligence, memory, and achievement developed by leading experts in psychological measurement and assessment (see Table 1).
Weight Control
Authors: Cronce Jessica M. , Schwartz Marlene B.
Published: January 2010

Obesity has become a global epidemic, with the highest prevalence rates occurring in the United States and other Westernized cultures. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 32% of American adults are obese (with a Body Mass Index [BMI] ≥30 kg/m
2
) and an additional 34% are overweight (with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 kg/m
2
). The prevalence of overweight children has more than doubled in the last 20 years. Paradoxically, this has occurred while there have been major scientific, medical, and commercial efforts to develop effective means of weight control. One limitation is that these methods have been based on a medical model that emphasizes behavioral interventions for individuals. More recently, obesity has come to be considered a public health crisis that demands broader social interventions. This article highlights advances in treating obesity, the important issue of stigma, and suggested areas for public policy research.
Wide‐Range Assessment of Memory and Learning
Authors: Adams Wayne
Published: January 2010

Memory is one of the central ingredients in determining who we are and become. Without it, we would struggle to make sense of the present and would have no past or future. And yet, while so critical, memory is an extremely vulnerable cognitive system, and therefore its evaluation is especially important following acute or progressive insults to the brain, such as those resulting from motor vehicle accidents, blast injuries, multiple sclerosis, brain tumors, infections, and strokes. Memory also normally exhibits measurable differences within and across the age range, with the greatest variability seen in younger children and older adults. The Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning, second edition (WRAML2), is an individually administered test battery designed to assess memory ability across the age range (5 to 90 years). Consequently, the battery can prove useful in assessment settings often found in hospitals, schools, rehabilitation centers, and neuropsychologists' offices.