bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Satanic Ritual Abuse
Authors: Rhoades George F.
Published: January 2010

Satanic ritual abuse (SRA) or ritual abuse may be defined as a method of control over people of all ages consisting of physical, sexual, and psychological mistreatment through the use of rituals, with or without satanic meaning or overtones. Perpetrators of SRA may utilize satanic rituals as part of their belief system and/or to facilitate the control and mistreatment of their victims.
Schizoid Personality Disorder
Authors: Huprich Steven K.
Published: January 2010

Schizoid personality disorder (SPD) is one of the most interesting and theoretically complex personality disorders. In theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM‐IV‐TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000), SPD is described as a “pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of expression of emotions in interpersonal settings, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following: (1) neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family; (2) almost always chooses solitary activities; (3) has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person; (4) takes pleasure in few, if any, activities; (5) lacks close friends or confidants other than first‐degree relatives; (6) appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others; and (7) shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity” (p. 697).
School Learning
Authors: Adelman Howard
Published: January 2010

School learning is both formal and informal. Formal learning is associated primarily with instructional processes and content applied by teaching staff. Less directly, it also stems from schoolwide socialization processes, such as exposure to institutional standards and their enforcement. Informal learning at school, sometimes called the hidden curriculum, is associated with experiences of success and failure and with modeling and social persuasion.
School Refusal Behavior
Authors: Kearney Christopher A. , Turner Dio , Gauger Marisa
Published: January 2010

School refusal behavior refers to a child's refusal to attend school, as well as difficulties with remaining in classes for an entire day. The behavior refers to school‐age youth who miss entire or partial school days, skip classes, or arrive late to school for unjustified reasons. School refusal behavior also includes youth who display morning behavior problems to stay home from school and youth who attend school under great duress that precipitates pleas for future nonattendance. The behavior is differentiated from parents who deliberately withdraw their child from school and from youths with significant exigent circumstances such as homelessness that prevent adequate school attendance.
Selective Attention
Authors: Lamy Dominique
Published: January 2010

More information reaches our senses than our brains can fully process at a given moment in time. This limited capacity of our perceptual systems accounts for the difficulty we encounter when trying to monitor several sources of information at the same time, yet it is important for coherent behavior because it prevents different sources of information from eliciting incompatible courses of action. Attention refers to the mechanisms that implement the selection of sensory information that will reach short‐term memory and awareness and that will participate in the control of behavior. Because the visual system is the best understood sensory modality, most investigations of attention (whether in the behavioral, neuroscience, or clinical domains) have been concerned with visual attention.
Self‐Control
Authors: Shapiro Deane H. , Shapiro Shauna L. , Astin John A. , Shapiro Johanna
Published: January 2010

Psychology has had a long and stormy relationship with the term
self‐control
and related concepts of choice, willpower, self‐regulation, human agency, and personal autonomy. Although the concept raises difficult questions about the nature of self, free will, and determinism, the importance of self‐control cannot be ignored. Research has shown that self‐control is relevant to addressing psychological and behavioral health concerns. It also plays a role in religious and spiritual traditions where concepts of self‐restraint, internal self‐regulation, and management of external behavior (e.g., right speech, right action) are integral.
Self‐Disclosure
Authors: Zur Ofer
Published: January 2010

At its most basic, therapist self‐disclosure is defined as the revelation of personal rather than professional information about the therapist to the client. When therapist disclosure goes beyond the standard professional disclosure of name, credentials, fees, office policies, and the like, it is considered self‐disclosure, or what has also been referred to as therapist transparency. Cultural and technological developments in the last few decades have significantly changed the nature of transparency and the clinical meaning of self‐disclosure.
Self‐Monitoring
Authors: Lootens Christopher M. , Nelson‐Gray Rosemery O.
Published: January 2010

Self‐monitoring is the act of systematically observing and recording one's own target thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as they occur, usually in the natural environment. Having arisen primarily from the behavioral assessment tradition, self‐monitoring is used extensively in clinical psychology and is considered an essential component of any self‐control program (Bandura, 1977). It is also a practical technique, because alternative means of directly observing behavior are costly in terms of time, reactivity, and the need for trained observers. Bornstein, Hamilton, and Bornstein (1986) reported that self‐monitoring is quite popular among clinicians as both an assessment tool and a therapeutic tool because it (1) emphasizes an individual's control over his or her behavior, (2) provides feedback about an individual's behavior in the absence of a clinician, (3) is portable and cost‐efficient, (4) eliminates the undesirable bias often created by the presence of an external observer, and (5) allows a direct measure of target behaviors that are private by their very nature (e.g., thoughts) or by convention (e.g., sexual behavior).
Self‐Protection
Authors: Weitlauf Julie C.
Published: January 2010

Broadly speaking, self‐protection refers to all actions undertaken in the hopes of preventing potentially harmful personal consequences (physical, emotional, financial, or otherwise) that may result from the aggressive acts of others. Within the United States, acts of self‐protection are colloquially referred to as “self‐defense” and often discussed in the context of women's response to male‐female violence. Given the prevalence of violence against women and the historical (though erroneous) attribution that the prevention of such violence is the responsibility of the female victim, it is not surprising that great interest in self‐defense exists. However, as this topic is highly complex and spans many disciplines (i.e., psychology, criminal justice, law), all discussion must first be placed in context. The empirical literature delineating the psychological benefits of self‐defense training as a form of rape prevention for women is the focus here. Implications regarding the use of weapons in the name of self‐defense and the potential legal consequences of all acts of self‐defense are not included in this discussion.
Self‐Rating
Authors: Lootens Christopher M. , Nelson‐Gray Rosemery O.
Published: January 2010

Self‐report measures, which include rating scales, are assessment tools in which individuals are asked to describe their own thoughts, behaviors, and experiences. For these measures, items can be constructed to gather information about a current behavior or experience, as in self‐monitoring, or they can be completed retrospectively, as in reports about past experiences. Numerous psychologically oriented self‐report measures exist, and they are most commonly designed to gather information about behaviors, psychiatric symptoms, personality traits, values, beliefs, and life experiences.
Sensory Deprivation
Authors: Fine Ione
Published: January 2010

In 1965, Wiesel and Hubel reported that kittens deprived of visual input in the first few months of life showed marked abnormalities in the organization of visual cortex and behaved as if they were still blind once visual input was restored. Since then a large body of animal research has documented the importance of sensory experience in the development of normal sensory processing.
Sentence Completion Tests
Authors: Farwell Lauren , Sherry Alissa
Published: January 2010

Sentence completion tests (SCTs) are among the instruments most commonly used by clinicians to facilitate personality assessments. Most people recognize SCTs as largely fill‐in‐the‐blank sentences about any number of psychological cues. The overall purpose of SCTs is to assess respondents through their written and expressed answers to sentence fragments. Examples might include, “My mother ____________” or “One thing that really bothers me is ____________.” A sentence completion test is generally considered a projective or performance‐based measure in personality assessment. This means that the manner in which individuals respond to the relatively unstructured task of completing these sentence fragments reveals latent aspects of their personality. Although identification of SCTs as projective in nature implies that SCTs are interpreted by the clinician and loosely scored by any objective standard, SCT responses are actually quite versatile in how they can be used. They can be used to facilitate interviews or establish rapport, for example, and they can be interpreted either projectively or as objectively scored by the clinician as part of a larger assessment battery.
Serotonin
Authors: Garlow Steven J.
Published: January 2010

Serotonin (5‐hydroxytryptamine, 5‐HT) is an indoleamine neurotransmitter and hormone that has many actions in the central nervous system and in the periphery. Serotonin was initially described as a hormonal activity in the serum from clotted blood that caused vasoconstriction, hence serum tonic factor or serotonin. Serotonin was purified from blood and identified as 5‐hydroxytryptamine in 1949. In 1953, serotonin was first detected in the central nervous system (CNS). The first serotonin receptors, termed D and M types, were characterized in guinea pig intestinal smooth muscle in 1957, but this classification schema is no longer in use (Gaddum & Picarelli, 1957). Serotonin achieved the status of neurotransmitter in 1963, when it was specifically identified in neurons of the raphe nuclei.
Sex Therapy, Female
Authors: Meston Cindy M. , Harte Christopher B.
Published: January 2010

Sex therapy is goal‐specific and is concerned with alleviating sexual impairments that cause distress; it may also include broader goals such as improvement of a couple's communication and relationship quality. The initial phase of sex therapy is concerned with the accurate diagnosis of the sexual dysfunction presented by the patient. This may pose a difficulty for many psychotherapists, considering that (1) the diagnostic criteria provided by the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM‐IV‐TR; American Psychiatric Association [APA] 2000) is often unclear, (2) there is high comorbidity with respect to sexual dysfunctions, and (3) there is a paucity of research examining age‐related norms for the female sexual response.
Sex Therapy, Male
Authors: Kleinplatz Peggy J.
Published: January 2010

The treatment of male sexual difficulties is still in its infancy, but it has had quite a dramatic beginning over the last 40 years or so. In 1966, Masters and Johnson published their seminal description of the physiology of male and female sexual response as observed in their laboratory. They referred to their observations as the human sexual response cycle (HSRC) model, which consisted of four stages: excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. Subsequently, in 1970, Masters and Johnson provided the first systematic approach to the treatment of sexual problems and became the founders of what is now called sex therapy. Problems came to be defined in terms of deviations from the 1966 HSRC model. For men, this meant that the major sexual dysfunctions were identified as what was then called “impotence,” now known as “erectile dysfunction” (ED); “premature ejaculation,” now known as “rapid ejaculation” (RE); “ejaculatory incompetence,” now known as “delayed ejaculation” (DE); or “male orgasmic dysfunction” and “dyspareunia,” meaning pain associated with sexual intercourse.
Sexism
Authors: Elias Steven M.
Published: January 2010

According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics (Spraggins, 2005), the median income for full‐time, year‐round female employees is $9,000 less than that of their male equivalents. Nationwide, Caucasian women typically earn 70 cents for every dollar earned by Caucasian men. Although females make up just 51% of the U.S. population, they account for 56% of Americans living in poverty. Even though it is true that discrimination directed toward females has decreased over the past several decades, it is still more difficult for a female to gain and retain a professional position than it is for a comparable male jobseeker. Once employed, it is currently more arduous for a female employee to be promoted at work than it is for a male employee with identical qualifications (Crosby & Stockdale, 2007). On reading these facts and figures, one may ask why such disparities exist between males and females. In answering such a question, most would indicate that sexism or gender discrimination is to blame. Furthermore, if asked, most people would probably agree that such difficulties continue to plague women.
Sexual Desire
Authors: Diamond Lisa M.
Published: January 2010

Sexual desire is typically viewed as an interest in sexual objects or activities. Although sexual desire is often confused with sex drive, these are fundamentally different constructs. Whereas sex drive represents a basic, biologically mediated motivation to seek out sexual activity and/or sexual gratification (and hence is traitlike in nature), sexual desire is a specific state of sexual interest that typically has a specific target and/or trigger. Sexual desire can be elicited by a large variety of cues and situations, private thoughts, feelings, and fantasies, erotic materials (such as books, movies, photographs), and a variety of erotic environments, situations, or social interactions. Researchers have increasingly come to acknowledge that there are different forms of sexual desire. One useful distinction, first advanced in the context of research on nonhuman primates, is that between proceptivity and receptivity. Proceptivity refers to a basic urge to seek out and initiate sexual activity and is regulated by gonadal hormones (e.g., testosterone in men and estrogen in women). Receptivity, sometimes called arousability, represents the capacity to become sexually interested or aroused upon exposure to certain environmental or situational stimuli. Unlike proceptivity, arousability is not hormone‐dependent; in fact, even individuals with no circulating gonadal hormones show arousability to erotic stimuli, although they are not typically motivated to seek out sexual gratification.
Sexual Development
Authors: McKinney John Paul
Published: January 2010

According to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, sexuality begins in infancy (Freud, 1920/1969). The development of sexuality is a major part of the development of personality. According to Freud, the individual passes through several psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, and genital, each named for the erogenous zone that gives rise to the main libidinal cathexis of that period.
Sexual Deviations
Authors: Burnette M. Michele
Published: January 2010

Few people would question whether sexual activities that involve force or coercion of an adult or any sexual activity with a child are deviant. These behaviors are not only maladaptive—they are criminal. But what about other atypical or unusual sexual behaviors that are noncoercive or do not involve children? Certainly, unusual sexual practices find their way into the sex lives of so‐called normal people. For example, normal sexual interactions between consenting adults may include tying one another to the bedpost while making love. Or a man may enjoy sex more when his partner wears lacy panties because he finds it particularly titillating. Are these normal or deviant practices?
Sexual Dysfunction, Female
Authors: Leiblum Sandra R.
Published: January 2010

Population surveys highlight the fact that female sexual disorders are highly prevalent. The 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey, conducted with a probability sample of the U.S. population between the ages of 18 and 59 years, found that 43% of women had significant sexual complaints lasting several months in the preceding year. The most common concern was lack of sexual interest (reported by 33% of women), followed by difficulty reaching orgasm (24%) and problems with lubrication (19%).
Sexual Dysfunction, Male
Authors: McCarthy Barry , Breetz Alisa
Published: January 2010

Traditionally, male sex function and dysfunction has been viewed as simple. It was thought that 90% of male sex dysfunction was caused by psychological factors (especially performance anxiety) or relationship factors (typically poor communication). Since the introduction of Viagra (Goldstein et al., 1998), the pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme. The current belief within both academic and lay communities is that 95% of male sex dysfunction is biologically caused, with the common treatment being a stand‐alone medical intervention that will quickly return the man to “normal” sex functioning with easy erections and perfect performance. The result has been the dramatic medicalization of male sexuality (Rowland, 2007).
Sexual Intercourse, Human
Authors: McKinney John Paul
Published: January 2010

Human sexual intercourse, or coitus, is one of the most common sexual outlets among adults. Sexual intercourse generally refers to penile penetration of the vagina, the most common sexual expression between opposite‐sexed partners practiced in the United States. In a large national survey study of more than 3,000 participants, Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, and Michaels (1994) found that 95% of men and 97% of women report that they have experienced vaginal intercourse. Other sexual techniques with opposite‐sex partners include mutual masturbation, anal intercourse, and oral sex (both cunnilingus, i.e., male mouth on female genitalia, and fellatio, i.e., female mouth on male genitalia). Although less common than vaginal intercourse both in terms of life incidence and most recent experience, these sexual expressions are more openly discussed in the media and more frequently practiced than in the past, especially among adolescents (Weiss & Bullough, 2004).
Sexual Orientation, Roots of
Authors: Diamond Milton
Published: January 2010

No one is certain why a majority of individuals are heterosexual and a minority are homosexual, or why some of us accept the sex in which we are born and others do not. Most clues, however, point to genetic and endocrine forces interacting with postnatal social experiences. These biological factors set a bias with which the individual meets society to effect sexual orientation and sexual identity. Not everyone, however, sees biology as playing so strong a role.
Sexual Subcultures
Authors: Diamond Milton
Published: January 2010

The term
homosexual
refers to private behavior, the term
gay
to public behavior and association with a subculture. Although the majority of individuals who engage in homosexually oriented activities are probably closeted and unrecognized, others are open about their sexual preferences and desires. They may or may not be identified by mannerisms and activities. Observable traits can be effeminate ones by males or masculine ones by females. These may be natural expressions of the self or part of highly formalized codes that signal group identity. It is unknown what proportion of such persons can be so identified unless they want to be.
S
hakow,
D
avid (1901–1981)
Authors: Staff
Published: January 2010

David Shakow was born in New York City in 1901. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University, completing his dissertation in 1946. During the 1940s he worked on several committees and prepared papers that led to the well‐known Boulder Conference and the acceptance of the “Boulder Model” (designed for the most part by Shakow himself) to guide doctoral training in clinical psychology. He worked for several years as a psychologist in mental hospitals, including McLean Hospital, Worcester State Hospital, and Boston Psychopathic Hospital. He then became affiliated with the Worcester Child Guidance Clinic, where he developed one of the first internships in clinical psychology. In 1948, Shakow became professor of psychology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and he subsequently received a joint appointment at the University of Chicago Department of Psychology. He served as consultant to many commissions and committees, and in 1967 he became senior research psychologist with the National Institute of Mental Health, where he helped establish and served as chief of the NIMH Laboratory of Psychology.
Shamanism
Authors: Walsh Roger
Published: January 2010

Shamanism is probably humankind's most enduring healing tradition, having survived for many thousands of years. Because of their many therapeutic roles and methods, shamans are described as humankind's first general practitioners. Because of their many psychological techniques, they are described as our first psychologists and psychotherapists.
Shame
Authors: Hahn William K.
Published: January 2010

Shame is a complex experience characterized by overwhelming feelings of inadequacy, perseverative reproachful thoughts, condemning and accusatory imagery, and an urge to hide or withdraw (Lewis, 1971). The nonverbal signs that accompany shame include lowering the head and gaze, averting eye contact, social withdrawal, slumping shoulders, and blushing. At the heart of this experience is a sense of utter exposure of a personal flaw that has been perceptually magnified and is believed to be visible to a devaluing and condemning audience, while objective self‐evaluations fade from awareness. This cognitive process results in a distorted impression that the revealed characteristics are deplorable and accurately reflect the totality of one's character, leading to the belief that one is unacceptable and to an excruciating sense of aloneness. In other words, shame is a negative self‐evaluation experienced as if this evaluation came from others. As such, one is simultaneously both the object and the agent of contempt. Despite its unpleasantness, everyone experiences shame from time to time.
Short‐Term Psychotherapy
Authors: Binder Jeffrey L.
Published: January 2010

Short‐term psychotherapy can refer to an agreement about the duration of therapy, either by setting a specific number of sessions (typically between 1 and 25 to 30) or by setting a calendar date for the maximum length of treatment (typically no more than several months). Short‐term psychotherapy also can refer to explicitly setting specific goals and predicting their achievement within approximately 25 sessions or less. In the broadest sense, short‐term therapy can refer to the therapist's mind‐set in four respects: (1) Chronic problems can be overcome, and significant psychological and interpersonal changes can be facilitated in a relatively brief period of time; (2) even people with severe psychopathology have potential psychological resources that can be activated in treatment with the therapist's encouragement; (3) the patient's experience in therapy can catalyze changes in broad areas of his or her life through actions taken between sessions and after formal therapy ends; and (4) there is no way to predict how much can be accomplished in therapy if the therapist works to make every minute of every session count (Budman & Gurman, 1988; Hoyt, 2003).
Sibling Relationships
Authors: Kretschmer Tina , Pike Alison
Published: January 2010

Although it is rarely contemplated, our sisters and brothers are often the longest lasting relationship partners in our lives. Siblings are present before friendships or romantic relationships, and they usually outlive our parents. Until about three decades ago, the importance of siblings was neglected by psychologists, despite the fact that around 80% of children still grow up with siblings (e.g., U.S. Census Bureau, 2008). Research before the 1980s almost exclusively concentrated on birth order and the impact of particular gender compositions (boy‐boy, girl‐boy, etc.) for siblings. Most of this literature, however, was either not based on empirical studies at all, or on research with serious methodological limitations. For three decades now, sibling relationships and their impact on family life and individual development have attracted the interest of developmental and clinical psychologists, resulting in a substantial body of evidence‐based literature about sibling relationships.
Simultaneous Conditioning
Authors: Tobia Michael J. , Kennard John A. , Woodruff‐Pak Diana S.
Published: January 2010

In cognitive neuroscience, the dual‐task approach is a means to test hypotheses about shared brain substrates of behavioral processes. Simultaneous conditioning uses the dual‐task design, with a conditioning task as one of the two tasks performed simultaneously. Concurrent performance of two tasks is more difficult than carrying out either task in isolation and often results in decremented performance of one or both tasks. Theoretical analyses conceptualize the interference effects of dual‐task performance as a resource limitation. The central bottleneck theory (Pashler, 1994) and central capacity sharing theory (Tombu & Jolicoeur, 2003) each hypothesize that a common information‐processing resource of limited availability is distributed among diverse task demands during dual‐task processing. Accordingly, the interference induced by dual‐task demands is the result of a secondary task having distracted essential resources away from processing information that is relevant to the primary task. This interference can cause an assortment of performance decrements that include increased processing time and error rates. Neuropsychological theories of executive function and cognitive control postulate the existence of a different resource that aids in resolving interference between the two tasks so as to maintain or enhance performance of the primary task.
Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire
Authors: Piedmont Ralph L.
Published: January 2010

The introduction of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) in 1949 marked the beginning of the modern era of personality assessment. This scale was the first to utilize many of the major conceptual and empirical methods that have come to characterize contemporary personality scale development. Its developer, Raymond B. Cattell, was a pioneer in the field and helped to set the criteria by which future assessment endeavors would be evaluated. This article provides an overview of the 16PF and its applications in and implications for contemporary assessment.
Skill Acquisition
Authors: Ackerman Philip A.
Published: January 2010

The hallmark characteristics of well‐learned skills are that they tend to be fast and accurate and can often be performed with little attentional effort. Normal adults have countless numbers of such skills, ranging in complexity from very simple (e.g., brushing one's teeth) to relatively complex (e.g., reading a novel). In the absence of such skills, the process of getting from one's bed to work would be an exhausting and error‐prone challenge. The question of how people acquire skills has been central to psychology for more than 100 years. For many intents and purposes, though, it is useful to separate two different kinds of knowledge and skills. Ryle (1949/2000) suggested that there are fundamental differences between procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge. Procedural knowledge is described as “knowing how,” and declarative knowledge is defined as “knowing that.”
S
kinner,
B
urhus
F
redrick (1904–1990)
Authors: Staff
Published: January 2010

Burhus Fredrick Skinner was among the most important psychologists of the twentieth century. However, like anyone who takes a strong position, he had many critics throughout his career. He is regarded as a great teacher, experimental psychologist, behavior theorist, and never‐ending promoter of strictly objective psychology.
Sleep Cycle
Authors: Steiger Axel
Published: January 2010

Sleep in mammals, including humans, and in birds has a cyclic structure. Polygraphic recordings (sleep electroencephalogram [EEG]) reveal the alternating occurrence of periods of non‐rapid‐eye‐movement (nonREM) and rapid‐eye‐movement (REM) sleep. One sleep cycle consists of one nonREM and one REM period. Normal adult human subjects have three to five sleep cycles per night (see Figure 1).
Sleep Cycles
Authors: Manber Rachel
Published: January 2010

Human sleep changes across the night in a cyclic pattern. Each sleep cycle begins with non‐rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and ends with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The cycling frequency is approximately 90 minutes but shorter than this during the first year of life. The number of sleep cycles depends on the duration of sleep. An average young adult who sleeps well has between 5 and 6 sleep cycles during a typical night's sleep. The organization of sleep during the first year of life differs substantially and depends on brain maturation during this early stage of human development.
Small‐Sample Statistics
Authors: Rossi Joseph S. , Merenda Peter F.
Published: January 2010

The notion of small‐sample or small‐nstatistics was first developed by Gosset, a statistician working at the Guinness Brewery in the United Kingdom. One of his duties was to analyze samples of freshly brewed stout. Due to the inherent variability in the nature of the brewing process and the length of time required to test samples, Gosset experimented with the idea of substantially reducing the number of samplings to be taken from the very large number of available barrels. He found that the sampling distribution for small samples differed markedly from the normal distribution. Further, the distribution changed depending on the size of the sample, giving rise to a whole family of distributions. The results of his experiments with small samples led to the development of thetdistribution, which Gosset published in 1908 using the pseudonym Student. In addition to being the first to recognize and deal with the problem of small samples, Gosset was also the first to combine experimental design with statistical testing and probably also the first to suggest anything like the .05 level as a reasonable criterion for rejecting the null hypothesis. Although not immediately recognized as such, Gosset's work with small samples was a critical breakthrough in the history of statistics, leading to the development of a number of other procedures, including the analysis of variance.
Smoking Behavior
Authors: Feldstein Ewing Sara W. , Hutchison Kent
Published: January 2010

Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the world, responsible for at least 5.4 million deaths in 2005. Across the globe, 35% of men and 22% of women smoke daily. Nicotine dependence is the most common form of substance dependence in the United States, with 20–29% of Americans smoking. In the United States, 70% of adult smokers want to quit; last year, 44.2% stopped smoking for at least 1 day. Rates of adult smoking influence not only themselves but also the health and development of young children. Approximately 60% of U.S. children age 3–11 are routinely exposed to secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke is linked to 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia among children less than 18 months old, resulting in 7,500–15,000 annual hospitalizations.
Social Competence
Authors: Orpinas Pamela
Published: January 2010

Social competence is defined as the ability to handle social interactions effectively. In other words, social competence refers to getting along well with others, being able to form and maintain close relationships, and responding in adaptive ways in social settings. Given the complexity of social interactions, social competence is the product of a wide range of cognitive abilities, emotional processes, behavioral skills, social awareness, and personal and cultural values related to interpersonal relationships. To further complicate the understanding of this concept, social competence is dependent on developmental characteristics (i.e., expectations of social competence vary by age of person), the specific social situation (i.e., people may be socially competent in one situation but not in another, or a child may appear more competent when interacting with a socially skilled partner than with a shy person), and cultural characteristics (i.e., specific acts of social competence are bound by cultural expectations). In an effort to integrate these components, Orpinas and Horne (2006) defined social competence as “a person's age‐appropriate knowledge and skills for functioning peacefully and creatively in his or her own community or social environment” (p. 108).
Social Construction
Authors: Gergen Kenneth J.
Published: January 2010

The phrasesocial constructionrefers to a tradition of scholarship that traces the origin of knowledge, meaning, or understanding to human relationships. The termconstructivismis sometimes used interchangeably, but scholarship associated with constructivism tends to trace the origin of people's constructions of the world to processes inherent in the individual mind, as opposed to human relationships. Although one may trace early roots of social construct to Vico, Nietzsche, and Dewey, scholars often view Berger and Luckmann's 1966 volume,The Social Construction of Reality,as the landmark work. Yet, because of its being lodged in social phenomenology, this work has largely been eclipsed by more recent scholarly developments. One may locate the primary stimulants to the more recent development of social constructionist thought in at least three quite independent movements. The convergence of these movements provides the basis for social constructionist inquiry today.
Social Desirability
Authors: Holden Ronald R.
Published: January 2010

Social desirability is the tendency for individuals to portray themselves in a generally favorable fashion. Within the areas of psychological testing in general, and personality assessment in particular, the concept of social desirability has generated heated debates for decades. Arguments have focused on the definition of social desirability, its pervasiveness, the problems it poses for the interpretation of psychological test results, and methods for its control.
Social Learning Theory
Authors: Ormond Jeanne Ellis
Published: January 2010

Historically, social learning theory has focused on the ways in which people learn from observing one another, with particular attention to modeling and imitation. In its early years in the 1960s, its roots were in behaviorism, giving attention to the potential roles of environmental stimuli and consequences (reinforcement and punishment) in learning and behavior. But over time, it has increasingly incorporated cognitive factors into its explanations of how people learn and why they behave as they do, and it is now sometimes called social cognitive theory. For example, it has expanded far beyond learning through observation to include people's interpretations of what they see, their expectations regarding future events, and their beliefs about their ability to successfully accomplish challenging tasks. Furthermore, it has increasingly portrayed learning and behavior as being controlled not by environmental circumstances but rather by learners themselves.
Social Projection
Authors: Krueger Joachim I. , Machunsky Maya
Published: January 2010

At the phenomenal level, the term
social projection
refers to the finding that, unless there is evidence to the contrary, people assume that the characteristics of individual other people (attitudes, preferences, experience, traits) or the characteristics of groups resemble their own. Social projection is therefore strongest when perceivers know their own characteristics but must guess those of others. The inference from the self to the group is an inductive one that can be modeled by Bayes's theorem, which describes the rational updating of beliefs (i.e., about social consensus) in light of relevant sample information (i.e., one's own characteristics). As the characteristics of most people are, by statistical necessity, correlated with the characteristics of most others, projection serves as a useful inferential heuristic, yielding reasonably accurate predictions under most conditions (Krueger, 2007).
Social Psychology
Authors: Park Bernadette , Smith J. Allegra
Published: January 2010

The classic definition of social psychology, provided by Gordon W. Allport (1985), is “an attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feeling, and behavior of individuals is influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.” That is, social psychology studies how we are affected to our very core by the fact that we are fundamentally social creatures. If humans lived solitary and disentwined lives, the field of social psychology most certainly would not exist. Social psychologists study a wide variety of topics, many of which overlap with other areas of psychology (developmental, cognitive, clinical, neuroscience), as well as other disciplines outside psychology (sociology, education, law, business, political science). At its core are three guiding principle that weave together theory and research within the field (see Ross & Nisbett, 1991).
Social Self
Authors: Guenther Corey L. , Alicke Mark D.
Published: January 2010

The self‐concept—our understanding of our characteristics, preferences, and behavioral tendencies—derives from various sources. These sources include biological predispositions, the culture in which we are reared, and motivationally based needs and desires. However, the factor that transcends all other self‐definitional forces is that of social context.
Social Support
Authors: Friis Robert H.
Published: January 2010

At its most general level, social support refers to helpful interpersonal relationships that derive from one's friends, family members, other contacts, and the larger society (Friis & Sellers, 2009). Social support engenders the sense that one is cared for and loved, esteemed and valued, or is part of a network of mutual interpersonal commitments. However, as a formal construct, social support is not easily defined and can be subdivided approximately into structural (quantitative) and functional (qualitative) domains (Helgeson, 2003). The former pertains to the number, structure, and pattern of networks that one maintains with other people or organizations. The mere existence of social ties is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for social support, nor is the absolute number of ties strongly correlated with social support. In fact, some social ties may be intrusive, stressful, or at best, perfunctory.
Society for Child and Family Policy and Practice
Authors: Falender Carol , Tolan Patrick
Published: January 2010

Division 37 of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Society for Child and Family Policy and Practice, was founded in 1978. The impetus for its formation was to draw together individuals interested in advocacy and social policy for children and families. The founding members were from the Section on Clinical Child Psychology, then Section 1 of the Division of Clinical Psychology, Division 12 of APA (Routh & Culbertson, 1996). Through revisions of the division name, essential components have remained: application of psychological knowledge through advocacy for the welfare of families, children, and youth. The division has been a leader within APA in child mental health efforts, opposition to violence, and child welfare. Historically, Division 37 was regarded as a public interest division, but it has also had a substantial interest in practice and education.
Society for Community Research and Action
Authors: Bogat G. Anne
Published: January 2010

Community psychology formally began in 1965 at the Swampscott, Massachusetts, conference. Its founders were concerned with the individualistic focus that dominated psychology. Community psychology was conceived as a redefinition of psychologists' roles, to empower psychologists to become change agents who studied and modified the social settings in which individuals interacted. Division 27 of the American Psychological Association, Community Psychology, was established in 1966. The division became a society and changed its name to Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) in 1990 to better reflect its mission.
Society for Neuroscience
Authors: Marder Eve E.
Published: January 2010

The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is the world's largest organization of basic scientists and physicians who study the brain and nervous system. The society, a nonprofit membership organization, was formed in 1969 and has grown from 500 members to more than 38,000 worldwide. The society's primary goal is to promote the exchange of information among researchers. To this end, it publishes the
Journal of Neuroscience
and holds an annual meeting each fall that attracts more than 30,000 attendees from around the globe.
Society for Personality Assessment
Authors: Brabender Virginia
Published: January 2010

The Society for Personality Assessment, initially incorporated as the Rorschach Institute, was founded by Bruno Klopfer and his students in 1938 in Essex County, New Jersey. The organization was renamed the Society for Personality Assessment in 1971 to reflect the breadth of its mission, which is the furtherance of personality assessment and the ethical and legal use of these concepts and methods. Currently in its eighth decade, the society, an international and national organization, has more than 1,500 members and has developed a wide range of scholarly and educational activities devoted to the advancement of personality assessment.
Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration
Authors: Wachtel Paul L.
Published: January 2010

The Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) is an international organization devoted to exploring potential convergences and synergies between different approaches to psychotherapy and the different theoretical orientations from which those approaches derive. Originally founded in North America in 1983, SEPI now has members in more than 30 countries on six continents, and its annual meetings have been held in many cities throughout North America, South America, and Europe.
Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts
Authors: Seifert Lauren S.
Published: January 2010

A 1945 charter division of the American Psychological Association (APA) as Division 10, the Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts has a rich history. As a professional society, Division 10 aims to join together individuals from diverse backgrounds: researchers and clinicians, art therapists and artists, and academicians and students. Common interests in creative process, product, and perception bring them together to dialogue about myriad topics from aesthetics and the arts, to creative leadership and giftedness, to cognition and creativity in aging (e.g., Kennedy, 1993; Lindauer, 2003; Richards, 2007; Seifert, 2007; Sternberg, 2006; Zhang & Sternberg, 2006).
Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence
Authors: Mayton Dan
Published: January 2010

The Division of Peace Psychology, established within the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1990, is a growing organization of psychologists, students, and professional affiliates from diverse disciplines. Division 48 is now also an independent organization, under the name Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence, and it is open for membership to individuals who are not members of APA.
Society for the Teaching of Psychology
Authors: Buskist William
Published: January 2010

The Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP), also known as Division 2 of the American Psychological Association (APA), was founded in 1945–1946 and was one of APA's original 19 divisions. As per its mission statement, STP's raison d'être is to promote excellence in teaching and learning as they pertain to psychology. In realizing this goal, STP has evolved into an expansive organization that supplies teachers at all levels (high school, community college, college, and university) with a vast array of resources and services, as well as numerous opportunities for professional development.
Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology
Authors: Sugarman Jeff
Published: January 2010

The Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology is Division 24 of the American Psychological Association (APA). The organization is committed to the following: furthering theoretical and philosophical work in disciplinary and professional psychology; to the recognition of such work as fundamental and indispensable to all psychological inquiry and practice; and to making psychology more responsive to philosophical and other forms of scholarship and criticism. The society promotes theoretical and philosophical psychology as a distinct specialization within psychology, a specialization that has broad applicability across the domains of psychological study and practice. Knowledge of the theory and philosophy of psychology can inform the orientations of other areas of psychology and provide means for disciplinary self‐critique. For this reason, the society also advocates for the importance of theoretical, philosophical, and historical education in programs of academic psychology.
Society of Clinical Psychology
Authors: Weiner Irving B.
Published: January 2010

The Society of Clinical Psychology (SCP) was established as Division 12 of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1948 and has been organized as a society since 1997. SCP grew in time to become the largest and most diverse APA division, with more than 6,900 members representing a broad range of primary interests, professional activities, theoretical orientations, and work settings. The society decreased in size to its present membership of 4,300 after two of its sections split off to become separate APA divisions in child and adolescent psychology (Division 53) and pediatric psychology (Division 54).
Zeigarnik Effect
Authors: Denmark Florence L.
Published: January 2010

Work by Bluma Zeigarnik (1927), a Russian psychologist, established the fact that subjects ranging widely in age tended to remember interrupted tasks better (and with greater frequency) than they remembered tasks they had completed. She first noticed that waiters seemed to remember orders only so long as the order was in the process of being served, not once it was finished and therefore a complete task. What amounted to commonsense observations became the impetus for a series of germinal experiments by Zeigarnik.
Sociometric Methods
Authors: Frederickson Norah
Published: January 2010

Sociometric (social measurement) methods are used to assess patterns of attraction and repulsion among members of a social group. Originated by Moreno (1934), these methods include a variety of data collection and analysis techniques that have been developed and widely applied within psychology, particularly with children in school classes and in different age groups.