bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Somatization Disorder
Authors: Bursch Brenda
Published: January 2010

The
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM‐IV‐TR) defines somatization disorder as belonging to the diagnostic category of somatoform disorders; it is one of this group of psychiatric disorders defined by the presence of physical symptoms that are not fully explained by a known general medical condition, physical exam, or lab findings (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). DSM‐IV‐TR diagnostic criteria for somatization disorder require several years of physical complaints, beginning before the age of 30 years, with associated treatment seeking or disability. The symptoms must include at least four pain symptoms, two gastrointestinal symptoms, one sexual symptom, and one pseudo‐neurological symptom. Common symptoms include headaches, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, menstrual cramps, fatigue, fainting, painful intercourse, sexual dysfunction, or loss of sexual desire. Symptoms are not intentionally falsified. If there is a related medical problem, the symptoms or impairment in functioning must be in excess of what would be expected from an objective medical evaluation. Somatization disorder normally begins in late childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood; it frequently runs in families, and it is much more common in females. Somatization disorder has a poor prognosis and, therefore, can be a source of significant frustration to both patients and clinicians. Somatization disorder can wax and wane in severity but normally persists throughout life.
Speech Production
Authors: Fowler Carol A.
Published: January 2010

Speech production is a skill of considerable intricacy whereby prosodically marked (meaningless) language forms are implemented as vocal tract activity that generates an audible acoustic signal. Speech production contrasts in scope with language production, which encompasses the whole set of processes, starting with a plan to produce a meaningful message and ending with an acoustic speech signal. It contrasts in level of analysis with speech motor control, the study of which focuses on neural control systems and muscle activations.
S
pence,
K
enneth
W
. (1907–1967)
Authors: Staff
Published: January 2010

Kenneth W. Spence was born in Chicago in 1907, but his family soon moved to Montreal where he spent most of his early years. He attended McGill University, graduated in 1929, and went on to earn a master's degree in 1930. He completed his graduate work at Yale, primarily under the direction of Robert Yerkes, and he was also influenced by Clark Hull. Hence his early research was with primates and was focused on learning and visual discrimination. Spence received his PhD from Yale in 1933 and then moved to the Yale (later Yerkes) Laboratory of Primate Biology in Orange Park, Florida. He worked there for four years, after which he accepted his first faculty position, a one‐year temporary appointment, in psychology at the University of Virginia, where he spent the 1937–1938 academic year. In 1938, he moved to the University of Iowa (then the State University of Iowa), where he remained until 1964. He moved to the University of Texas in 1964 and stayed there until his death in Austin in 1967. In 1959, he married Janet Taylor Spence, who has had a long and distinguished career of her own.
Sport Performance Interventions
Authors: Van Raalte Judy L. , Brewer Britton W.
Published: January 2010

In a variation of an old joke, a boy asks a taxi driver, “How do I get to Fenway Park?” The cabbie replies, “Practice, practice, practice.” Although conventional wisdom suggests that physical practice is the path to sport performance excellence, enhancement of mental skills can also help athletes reach their sport goals. Sport performance interventions focusing on the ability to reach optimal performance states (i.e., “the zone”), management of arousal and anxiety, self‐talk, imagery, goal setting, mindfulness, biofeedback, and modeling have been identified as techniques that contribute positively to sport performance. Research on performance enhancement treatment packages indicates that combining two or more of these psychological techniques is particularly effective.
Sport Psychology
Authors: May Ryan K.
Published: January 2010

The discipline of sport psychology is dedicated to the investigation of the relationship between psychological factors and exercise and sport, as well as the application of this knowledge. Sport scientists and sport psychologists examine such issues as competition, performance enhancement, skill acquisition, children's development through sport, team interaction, and the maintenance and enhancement of physical and mental health.
Stalking
Authors: Reid Meloy J.
Published: January 2010

The crime of stalking contains three elements: a pattern of unwanted following or harassment, a credible threat, and the induction of fear in the victim. Without victim awareness, there is no crime of stalking. Unwanted pursuit and sustained fear are the sine qua non of stalking.
Standard Deviation
Authors: Reichardt Charles S.
Published: January 2010

The standard deviation is a measure of the variability of a set of scores and is defined in relationship to the average of the scores. The average of a set of scores is called the mean. The standard deviation is a measure of how far the scores vary from their mean. If all the scores in a set of data are close to the mean, the standard deviation is small. If all the scores in a set of data are far away from the mean, the standard deviation is large.
Standard Error of Measurement
Authors: Reichardt Charles S.
Published: January 2010

Measuring something means assigning a number to represent a characteristic of that something. A number assigned to represent a characteristic can be conceptualized as the sum of two components: the true score on the characteristic being measured and measurement error. The standard error of measurement (SEM) is an estimate of the size of measurement error that is contained in a measurement.
Statistical Power
Authors: Murphy Kevin R.
Published: January 2010

One of the most common statistical procedures in the behavioral and social sciences is testing the hypothesis that treatments or interventions have no effect, or that the correlation between two variables is equal to zero—that is, tests of the null hypothesis (H
0
). There are two ways to make errors when testing a null hypothesis: (1) Type I error, which consists of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is in fact true, and (2) Type II error, which consists of failing to reject the null hypothesis when it is in fact false. Statistical power is defined as 1 minus the conditional probability of making a Type II error. That is, power is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is in fact false.
Statistical Prediction
Authors: Garb Howard N.
Published: January 2010

In his popular book,
Super Crunchers: Why Thinking‐by‐Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart
(2007), Ian Ayres describes how computers are being used to make judgments and predictions in business, government, sports, and other areas, including medical and mental health practice. Ayres concluded, “We are in a historic moment of horse‐versus‐locomotive competition, where intuitive and experiential expertise is losing out time and time again to number crunching” (p. 10). The use of computers in the area of psychology will be described in this entry.
Statistical Significance
Authors: Drew C. J.
Published: January 2010

Researchers in psychology, education, and many other scientific fields often employ statistical tests to evaluate the results of their studies. The term
statistical significance
is commonly used in relation to the results obtained by calculating these tests. If a researcher's results or data achieve statistical significance from these calculations, then the investigator can say with confidence that the outcomes are probably not due to chance. This is very important to the researcher, because if the results are probably not due to chance, then there is basis for interpreting these results as being due to whatever treatment was part of the study. Similarly, if the researcher is investigating differences between genders, data that indicate statistically significant differences can probably be interpreted as reflecting actual distinctions between males and females. In these ways, statistical tests evaluate the results of a study by comparing them to the probability of chance occurrences.
Strong Interest Inventory
Authors: Hansen Jo‐Ida C.
Published: January 2010

The first edition of the Strong Interest Inventory (SII) was published in 1927 by E. K. Strong Jr. The SII has evolved over the decades with periodic revisions that have expanded the information provided for test takers, addressed issues of sex and cultural fairness, updated the item pool to reflect occupational and societal changes, and provided enhanced interpretive information. One constant throughout the history of the SII is the careful attention that has been paid to providing evidence of validity, as well as evidence of reliability, for the instrument's scale scores. Another constant has been the widespread use of the SII with adult and young populations. In contrast to the first edition of the SII that featured 18 Occupational scales, the profile of the current edition (Consulting Psychological Press, 2004) provides scores on 244 Occupational scales, 30 Basic Interest scales, 6 General Occupational Themes, and 5 Personal Style scales. Test takers respond to 291 items and are asked to indicate the extent to which they strongly like
,
like
,
are indifferent to, dislike, or strongly dislike various kinds of jobs, subjects, work and leisure activities, and people. The reading level for the SII is about the ninth grade, and the instrument takes about 30 minutes to complete.
Stroop Effect
Authors: MacLeod Colin M.
Published: January 2010

Since psychology's earliest days, we have known that it takes considerably more time to name objects or their properties than to read the corresponding words. Cattell (1886) demonstrated this difference in his dissertation: Saying “horse” to a picture of a horse or “blue” to a blue color patch took more time than did reading the word
horse
or
blue
aloud. Cattell attributed this difference to the automaticity of word reading that is developed through extensive practice.
Structuralism
Authors: Lundin Robert W.
Published: January 2010

As a school or system of psychology, structuralism had its antecedents in the British philosophy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. John Locke had established the empirical tradition by stating that all knowledge came from experience and that the mind at birth was a tabula rasa (blank tablet). Locke opposed the continental philosophers, such as René Descartes, who claimed that some ideas were inborn.
Structured and Semistructured Interviews
Authors: Hong Phan Y. , Ilardi Stephen S.
Published: January 2010

The past few decades have witnessed a rather striking shift toward the increased use of formal structure in the clinical interview process. It has become commonplace to categorize clinical interviews, on the basis of the degree of intrinsic structure imposed by the interviewer, into one of three distinct subtypes: structured, semistructured, and unstructured.
Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Diagnosis
Authors: First Michael B. , Caban Desiree
Published: January 2010

The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Diagnosis is a semistructured interview for making the majorDSM‐IVAxis I Disorders (SCID‐I) and Axis II Personality Disorders (SCID‐II) diagnoses. Unlike fully structured clinical interviews that may be administered by lay interviewers (e.g., the Diagnostic Interview Schedule), the SCID is a semistructured interview, and it must be administered by a clinician or trained mental health professional. As the most widely used instrument for assessing Axis I disorders, the SCID‐I has been used in thousands of research studies since its introduction in 1986.
Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms
Authors: Rogers Richard
Published: January 2010

Feigned mental disorders arising from malingering or factitious disorders dramatically influence the clinical presentations of clients. The accurate assessment of feigning, therefore, is a critical issue in many psychological evaluations. Inaccurate determinations of feigning have far‐reaching consequences. When feigning is not detected, individuals can receive unwarranted benefits, avoid responsibilities, and utilize a disproportionate level of health care services. When feigning is misclassified, individuals with genuine mental disorders can suffer greatly by having benefits and services unfairly revoked. In some cases legal sanctions can also be imposed on these individuals.
Subliminal Perception
Authors: Coren Stanley
Published: January 2010

Around the end of the 1950s, a great deal of public concern was expressed when it was claimed that a method existed for presenting advertising messages that could influence behavior at an unconscious level. A typical example used at that time was at a movie theater, where the message “BUY POPCORN” might be given during the film, and even though viewers were not consciously aware of its presence, they would still be motivated to purchase popcorn. The procedures involved quickly flashing messages on the screen at a size, speed, or brightness that was too insignificant to produce conscious awareness. Such stimuli are called subliminal, from the Latin for “below” (
sub
) the threshold for “consciousness” (
limen
). Subliminal perception comes about when such stimuli, even though apparently unnoticed, appear to exert an effect on later behavior.
Successive Approximation
Authors: Meador Stephanie K. , Hatfield David B.
Published: January 2010

The terms
successive approximation
and
shaping
are shorthand for the phrase “successive reinforcement of closer and closer approximations to the target behavior” (Skinner, 1953). This procedure is distinct from other operant reinforcement methods (e.g., chaining), in that it relies on both reinforcement and extinction applied to a changing set of criteria responses (Galbicka, 1994). The target, or terminal response, is either infrequent or novel to the organism (i.e., has never been performed), limiting the utility of direct reinforcement of the response. Shaping, as the name implies, involves slow transformations of the topography (or shape) of the organism's behavior over time, much like the process of shaping clay into a fine piece of pottery. Initially, a gross or distal response approximating the terminal behavior is sufficient for the delivery of reinforcement. In time, a closer approximation to the terminal response is required for reinforcement. This process continues until only the terminal response elicits reinforcement.
Suicidal Behavior Among Youth
Authors: Kaslow Nadine J. , Marshall Lee Erica D.
Published: January 2010

Adolescent suicide is a top 10 cause of death, and the number of youth who kill themselves is increasing around the world (Kutcher & Gardner, 2008). In 2006, there were 1,296 deaths due to suicide among individuals 18 and younger in the United States. That same year, suicide was the third leading cause of death among 10‐ to 24‐year‐olds, making it a significant public health problem in these age groups (http://www.cdc.gov). Firearms, hanging, and poisoning are the most common means for suicide completion in youth (Bridge, Goldstein, & Brent, 2006). Close to 10% of adolescents have attempted suicide, and 15–30% report having considered suicide (Bridge et al., 2006). Suicidal ideation and attempts are more common among adolescent females than males; however, the reverse is true for completed suicide (Bridge et al., 2006). Although historically, suicide rates have been lower among African American than Caucasian youth, the gap has narrowed recently (Bridge et al., 2006). The highest youth suicide rate is among Native Americans. Latino youth do not appear to be overrepresented among completed suicides. Rates among Asian American youth are the lowest.
Sullivan's Interpersonal Theory
Authors: Enfield Roger E.
Published: January 2010

Interpersonal theory is a theory of interpersonal relations developed, largely in the 1930s and 1940s, by Harry Stack Sullivan, an American psychiatrist, who died before his major works were published. Interpersonal theory emphasizes the social nature of the human condition and defines psychiatry, personality, mental illness, and key assessment and treatment concepts in interpersonal rather than intrapsychic terms.
Superego
Authors: Hart Anton H.
Published: January 2010

Freud's term
Superego
(1923) is best articulated in plain English as the “Above‐I.” It comprises the aspect of the mind that is the judge, censor, or conscience. Freud described the agencies of the conscious and unconscious mind as consisting of three: the Id or “the it,” the Ego or “the I,” and the Superego or Above‐I. This use of the Latin for new terms was not original, but rather was introduced by Freud's English translator, James Strachey. Freud's original German choices of das Es, das Ich, and das Uber‐ich were intended to be experientially accessible (Bettelheim, 1983), even as Freud sought to delve beneath the surface of conscious experience.
Taxometric Methods
Authors: Beauchaine Theodore P.
Published: January 2010

Scientists who study psychopathology have long debated whether mental disorders are best characterized as discrete categories or as extreme expressions of continuously distributed personality traits (Meehl, 1995). Although the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(American Psychiatric Association, 2000) exemplifies the categorical perspective, it is widely recognized that diagnostic syndromes affect people to varying degrees, and that some people exhibit clear signs of psychopathology without debilitating impairment. Accordingly, many who study psychopathology now prefer dimensional models over categorical models (Krueger, Watson, & Barlow, 2005).
Temperament
Authors: Windle Michael
Published: January 2010

Temperament refers to biogenetic dispositions that influence individual variation in emotional and behavioral styles. There is general agreement that temperament is manifested early in life, is highly heritable, and displays at least moderate stability over the life course. The study of temperament has a venerable history, dating from Greco‐Roman times, with scholars such as Hippocrates and Galen, through nineteenth‐ and early‐twentieth‐century contributions by Pavlov and others, to early‐ to middle‐twentieth‐century representations in many of the grand trait theories of temperament and personality, such as those of Eysenck and Cattell. Nevertheless, the revival or resurgence of temperament in the 1960s is typically credited to Thomas, Chess, Birch, Hertzig, and Korn (1963) in their highly influential New York Longitudinal Study (NYLS). The NYLS investigated 133 children and their families from childhood to adulthood with respect to causes and consequences of normal development and of behavioral and emotional problems. Of importance, Thomas and colleagues identified and labeled an individual difference variable, temperament, as critical in understanding the development of behavioral and emotional problems.
T
erman,
L
ewis
M
adison (1877–1956)
Authors: Staff
Published: January 2010

Lewis Madison Terman received a B.A. and M.A. (1903) from Indiana University and then enrolled at Clark University, from which he received his doctorate in 1905 under C. Stanford. In 1906, he held a position at Los Angeles State Normal School. From 1910 to 1943, he was at Stanford University; for 20 years, he served as head of the Psychology Department there.
Terror Management Theory
Authors: Maxfield Molly , Pyszczynski Tom
Published: January 2010

Terror management theory (TMT) is a social psychological theory of attitudinal and behavioral responses to humans' awareness of their mortality (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991). The theory posits that possessing an awareness of one's own inescapable death creates a uniquely human psychological problem, consequently impacting myriad attitudes and behaviors. Although there are many potential causes of anxiety in the world, the theory suggests that this existential concern differs from other anxiety‐provoking events or thoughts in that it is absolutely certain to occur and ultimately entails the end to all other human motives. This makes the management of death‐related psychological terror an especially important task for maintaining psychological equanimity.
Test Anxiety
Authors: Zeidner Moshe
Published: January 2010

This article provides a basic overview of current issues in test anxiety. It begins with a brief description of the test anxiety construct and its major facets and then moves on to discuss key issues in the assessment of test anxiety, as well as the anxiety–performance interface. It concludes by discussing a number of clinical considerations.
Test Standardization
Authors: Geisinger Kurt F.
Published: January 2010

The standardization of a test is the establishment of uniform procedures for the administration and scoring of the instrument. If psychological measurement is defined as the use of rules assigning numbers to relative “quantities” of psychological constructs associated with persons, then test standardization is determining and explicating those rules. Without standardization, measurement is only an informal process that varies from examiner to examiner. Historical impetus for the concern with control on the part of examiners arose from the nineteenth‐century experimental psychologists from Leipzig, where work demonstrated that minor variations in giving instructions and making observations resulted in behavioral differences (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997). The first standardized tests appeared in the beginning of the twentieth century, when E. L. Thorndike, an experimental psychologist, and others extended the principles learned in a laboratory to psychological measurement. The history of standardized testing may be found in Dubois (1970).
Testing Bias
Authors: Gregory Robert J.
Published: January 2010

The claim that some psychological tests are biased is a familiar criticism, and almost everyone has an opinion about it. Typically, skeptics assert that, because of the content or the approach of certain tests, cultural minorities encounter unfair discrimination, and therefore they obtain lower scores on cognitive tests or receive more pathological scores on personality tests than majority populations. The most common basis for the argument of test bias is a subjective one, namely, that certain items or particular subtests just look, appear, or feel unfair to specific subgroups. For example, critics argue that poor performance of some minority groups on cognitive tests is because the test material is drawn from outside the cultural experience of these minorities.
Thematic Apperception Test
Authors: Teglasi Hedwig
Published: January 2010

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a set of pictures and standard instructions for telling stories about them, but methods of analyzing these stories vary widely. Although Murray (1938) introduced the TAT in the context of a particular theory of personality, the technique did not become wedded to the theory from which it sprang. The TAT pictures and instructions are commercially available (see Murray, 1943) and remain in common use, although Murray's interpretive system is not, having been supplanted by a plethora of analytic methods for clinical use and for the study of personality. In line with its original intent, the TAT continues to be valued for revealing aspects of the personality that are outside of conscious awareness.
Therapeutic Alliance
Authors: Safran Jeremy D.
Published: January 2010

The therapeutic alliance is one of the best‐researched variables in the psychotherapy literature. Several meta‐analytic reviews have provided evidence linking the quality of the alliance to treatment outcome. Most recently, Horvath and Bedi (2002), in a review of 89 studies, found a median effect size of .25 Although as Horvath and Bedi point out, the magnitude of this relation may not appear very impressive, the impact of the alliance across studies is far in excess of the outcome variance that can be accounted for by techniques.
Therapeutic Assessment
Authors: Finn Stephen E.
Published: January 2010

Therapeutic assessment is a paradigm in which psychological testing is used to help people understand themselves better and find solutions to their persistent problems. Therapeutic assessment differs from traditional psychological assessment, in which the main goal is to diagnose disorders, plan treatments, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions. Therapeutic assessment can serve all these purposes as well, but its primary goal is to facilitate positive changes in clients (Finn & Tonsager, 1997).
T
horndike,
E
dward
L
ee (1874–1949)
Authors: Staff
Published: January 2010

Edward Lee Thorndike was an undergraduate at Wesleyan University (B.S. in 1895) and then studied under William James at Harvard University (M.A. in 1897), where he began animal research in psychology. He moved to Columbia University to work with J. M. Cattell and continued his research with dogs, cats, and chicks. He created puzzle boxes with which he studied animal intelligence, and his work was published in a monograph, “Animal Intelligence.” He received his doctorate from Columbia University in 1898. He was President of APA in 1912.
Time‐Series Analysis
Authors: Huitema Bradley E.
Published: January 2010

The statistical analysis of data that have been collected on a single unit (e.g., a person, a family, or an organization) at equally spaced time intervals (or in a continuous form) is a time‐series analysis. Time‐series methods are employed to describe the relationship between variables (e.g., biochemical measures in person A and the behavior of person A), to predict future behavior, to describe the statistical nature of a process, and to estimate intervention effects. Hence the applications for time‐series analysis have much in common with the applications for conventional data analytic methods.
Toilet Training
Authors: Christophersen Edward R. , Vanscoyoc Susan M.
Published: January 2010

Toilet training is a routine developmental topic of discussion with health care providers. Very few empirical data are available for providing guidance to parents about toilet training. A report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2006) reviewed outcome studies for 26 observational studies and 8 controlled trials that they were able to identify on toilet‐training procedures. The authors reported no comparison studies in peer‐reviewed journals of different approaches to toilet training, including the two most popular approaches: the structured behavioral approach of Foxx and Azrin (1973) and Brazelton's child‐oriented approach (1962).
Tolman,EdwardChase (1886–1959)
Authors: Staff
Published: January 2010

Edward Chase Tolman received his first degree, in engineering, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, he later changed to psychology and was awarded the PhD degree by Harvard in 1915. He taught for a while at Northwestern University, but he spent most of his career (1918–1954) at the University of California at Berkeley, where he established his rat laboratory.
Torture
Authors: Dutton Donald G.
Published: January 2010

According to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, torture is “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions” (United Nations, 1984). Motives for torture range from sadistic sexual gratification by individuals to the extraction of information by states or religious authorities. The Catholic Church practiced torture officially from the twelfth century until it was outlawed in 1834 (Peters, 1999).
Tower of Hanoi Problem
Authors: Schmidtke Klaus
Published: January 2010

The Tower of Hanoi is a classical puzzle applied in the psychology of problem solving and skill learning. In the standard wooden version, it consists of three vertical pegs and a variable number of disks, usually three to five, with increasing diameter. The disks have a hole in the middle and are stacked on the left peg in the order of the diameter. The task is to transfer the stack of disks to the right peg with a minimum of moves. Disks are moved from one peg to another, one at a time. Each peg can serve as a temporary target for any disk. Larger disks must not be placed above smaller ones. Performance is measured by the number of moves and/or the time required to complete the task. False moves can also be assessed and classified. The minimum number of moves is 2

n

 − 1, where
n
is the number of disks (e.g., 31 for the five‐disk version). Approximate mean performances on the first attempt are 22 moves in 2 minutes for the four‐disk version and 64 moves in 10 minutes for the five‐disk version. In aged subjects, mean baseline performance declines.
Trail‐Making Test
Authors: Allen Daniel N. , Haderlie Michael M.
Published: January 2010

The Trail‐Making Test (TMT) is a measure of visual scanning, complex attention, psychomotor speed, and mental flexibility. The TMT is an adaptation of John E. Partington's Test of Distributed Attribution, which was originally developed in 1938 to assess intellectual function. It was later renamed Partington's Pathways Test and was used to examine the effects of opiate use on brain function (Partington & Leiter, 1949). Subsequently, it was incorporated into the Army Individual Test Battery in 1944, where it received its current name. It was incorporated into the Halstead‐Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery (HRNB) with minor modifications, and it remains one of the most frequently used neuropsychological tests in research and clinical practice (Rabin, Barr, & Burton, 2005).
Trait Psychology
Authors: Farmer Richard F. , Sundberg Norman D.
Published: January 2010

Trait psychology is an approach to the theory and measurement of personality that has the concept oftraitas a central organizing feature and fundamental unit of analysis. Traits have been generally defined in one of two ways: (1) as descriptions of stable behavior patterns or (2) as internal dispositions to behave in particular ways. When used descriptively, trait labels denote patterns of thoughts, emotions, or actions that are consistent over time and across situations. When viewed as internal dispositions that influence or cause behavior, traits are usually regarded as direct expressions or products of biological entities (e.g., genes) or organismic processes influenced by biological endowments (e.g., patterns of brain activation, neurochemical or hormone regulation). With either position, there are limits to the explanatory power of traits. Most notably, trait concepts are unable to explain behavior with reference to questions such as “Why this specific behavior, and why now?” (Funder, 1994). Trait psychology, therefore, is a framework for organizing, assessing, classifying, and predicting behavior; it does not currently, however, provide a conceptual foundation for fully explaining, influencing, or modifying behavior.
Transpersonal Psychology
Authors: Hartelius Glenn , Friedman Harris
Published: January 2010

Transpersonal psychology (TP) emerged in the United States during the 1960s, a turbulent time when psychedelic experimentation and the rediscovery of mysticism, primarily from Eastern and indigenous traditions, caused much deep reflection. It grew from the growing discontent by some humanistic psychologists who questioned the limitations of a solely human‐based psychology that paid scant attention to consciousness and spirituality. Although TP had many earlier roots, its formal birth is generally linked to the debut of the
Journal of Transpersonal Psychology
. The lead article in this journal's first issue was written by one of TP's founders, Abraham Maslow (1969), who had played a key role in developing humanistic psychology and then refocused his attention on developing a psychology centered on human connections to the cosmos. Among other notable TP founding figures are Stanislav Grof (1985) and Charles Tart (1975).
Tricyclic Antidepressants
Authors: Rutherford Bret R. , Roose Steven P.
Published: January 2010

Following their introduction in the 1960s, the tricyclic antidepressants soon became widely used for the treatment of depression. Along with phenothiazine antipsychotic medications for the treatment of schizophrenia and lithium for the treatment of bipolar disorder, tricyclic antidepressants ushered in the modern era of psychopharmacology. Today, the established efficacy of the tricyclics must be balanced against their problematic side effects, and they have been supplanted by serotonin reuptake inhibitors and other agents as first‐line treatment for depression. However, tricyclics continue to be effective options for patients with treatment‐resistant depression, as well as a range of other psychiatric and nonpsychiatric disorders.
Turkey, Psychology in
Authors: Boratav Hale Bolak
Published: January 2010

Turkey is often seen as a cultural as well as a geographical bridge between the East and the West. Bearing the legacies of great civilizations in Anatolia, the country has a rich cultural heritage. Previously, issues of psychological relevance were largely relegated to the mystic and religious realms. The fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923, accompanied by the introduction of secular reforms, provided a context within which Western scientific ideas emerged as an alternative to and challenged traditional systems of knowledge and belief (Bolak‐Boratav, 2004).
Unconscious Mind
Authors: Morsella Ezequiel , Bargh John A.
Published: January 2010

In the words of George A. Miller, “In some sense not yet defined we are both conscious and unconscious at the same time.” Miller's eloquent assertion is illustrated perhaps most dramatically by an experiment conducted by Logothetis and Schall (1989), in which subjects were trained to self‐report the contents of their conscious experience under conditions of binocular rivalry, a striking perceptual phenomenon in which visual inputs cannot be resolved into a single percept. In this kind of experiment, subjects are first trained to respond in certain ways when presented with certain visual stimuli (e.g., to button‐press when presented with the image of a house). After training, a different visual stimulus is presented to each eye (e.g., an image of a house to one eye and an image of a tree to the other). Surprisingly, the subject does not consciously perceive both objects (e.g., a tree overlapping a house) but responds as if perceiving only one object at a time (e.g., a house followed by a tree). Each percept occupies consciousness for only a few seconds, even though both images are continuously present and each exerts a nontrivial influence over nervous processing (e.g., activation of the visual system and other brain regions). At any given moment, the subject is unaware of the computational processes leading to this bizarre “one at a time” outcome and of the systematic influence that the inexperienced percept has on neural, cognitive, and even emotional processes (Williams, Morris, McGlone, Abbott, & Mattingley, 2004). Muraya, Yang, and Blake (2007) discuss the factors that influence the outcome of the visual competition, including how voluntary action toward the stimuli modulates rivalry. However, paralleling what has been found in countless studies with undergraduate participants, the subjects of Logothetis and Schall—in this case, rhesus monkeys—exhibited binocular rivalry and were, in a sense, conscious and unconscious at the same time.
Underachievement
Authors: Peterson Jean Sunde
Published: January 2010

Academic underachievement is often a concern for parents and educators when classroom performance is not at an expected level. Definitions of underachievement vary, but they generally reflect discrepancy between potential and performance. Broad definitions allow flexibility in identifying underachievers; narrow definitions may preclude participation of some who could benefit from special programs (Reis & McCoach, 2000). Although underachievement can occur across a wide range of ability, it is probably most often discussed in regard to highly able students and academic work. These are the focus of the present article, which discusses the pertinent research and conceptual literature and the author's clinical observations.
Validity
Authors: Coolidge Frederick L. , Segal Daniel L.
Published: January 2010

Validity can be defined as the extent to which a test accurately reflects or assesses the specific construct it purports to measure. Whereas reliability is concerned with the consistency or stability of measurements, validity is concerned with the meaningfulness and usefulness of the specific inferences made from test scores. For a test of anxiety, for example, the question of its validity would be whether the test actually measures the known domains of anxiety, such as anxious thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. A truism is that a test can be reliable (i.e., stable and consistent) but not valid, but a test cannot be valid without first being reliable. The question of a test's validity is both an empirical issue and a theoretical one. The validity of any psychological test cannot be absolutely established but only relatively established, because there is no gold standard of validity in measurement. There are also many different types of validity including face, content, criterion, construct, and concurrent validity.
Video Applications
Authors: Dowrick Peter W.
Published: January 2010

Video is used in psychology to help people change (behavior, feelings, attitudes), to gather and disperse information, and as experimental stimuli. These uses are summarized in this entry. In the 1970s, video recorders became available to therapists and trainers, who rushed to use them so their clients and trainees could see themselves as others see them. In the 1980s, the most prevalent use of video in the behavioral sciences was for data gathering. In the last decade or so, technology has made video editing easy—hence a gathering interest in
creating
video images, not just documenting events for scrutiny.
Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales
Authors: Drew Clifford J.
Published: January 2010

The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS) are a series of instruments aimed at assessing social competence. Social competence has also been termed adaptive behavior, and it has been incorporated as a major consideration in several types of disability. Adaptive behavior or social competence has been the focus of considerable measurement effort over several decades, with part of the challenge being accurate and reliable measurement.
Visual Illusions
Authors: Wade Nicholas J.
Published: January 2010

Illusions of space and motion have fascinated students of vision for over 2,000 years, but it is only in the last century and a half that they have assumed a central position in psychology (Wade, 2005). Psychologists would now say that an illusion occurs when there is a mismatch between the proximal stimulus (the projection of the stimulus onto the retina) and perception. The term visual spatial illusion is now applied mainly to such mismatches in size and orientation of specific two‐dimensional figures. They were not referred to as geometrical‐optical illusions until the mid‐nineteenth century, and many novel spatial illusions were named after those who first described them (Robinson, 1998).
Vocational Rehabilitation
Authors: Berent Stanley
Published: January 2010

Vocational rehabilitation can be viewed as a product of several dynamic and interactive processes, a major one being the law and another being the clinical ability to enable a person to engage successfully in work. Underlying these processes is the human spirit of altruism, which provides the motivation for the rest to occur.
Vocational Testing
Authors: Taber Brian J.
Published: January 2010

The purpose of vocational testing lies in the premise that the selection of an occupation requires the clarification of one's self‐concept and its implementation in the world of work (Super, 1951). This basic premise has its roots in the foundation of career counseling that was laid down a century ago. Frank Parsons's (1909) landmark work,
Choosing a Vocation,
outlined a model for effective vocational guidance that continues to be a mainstay of modern career counseling. In making a wise vocational choice, Parsons stated that there are three factors that need to be considered:

(1) a clear understanding of yourself, your aptitudes, abilities, interests, ambitions, resources, limitations, and their causes; (2) a knowledge of the requirements and conditions of success, advantages and disadvantages, compensation, opportunities and prospects in different lines of work; (3) true reasoning on the relations of these two groups of facts.

(Parsons, 1909, p. 5)
W
atson,
J
ohn
B
. (1878–1958)
Authors: Staff
Published: January 2010

John B. Watson grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and matriculated at nearby Furman University at age 16. He graduated from Furman and earned a master's degree by age 21. He then was a school principal for one year before entering graduate school at the University of Chicago to study with the functionalists, Dewey and Angell, along with other Chicago faculty. He soon became interested in the Russian conditioning studies of Sechenov, Bekhterev, and Pavlov, and he gravitated to the study of behavior rather than the “functions” of the mind. He stayed at Chicago for several years and continued his studies of animal behavior. While at Chicago, he married Mary Ickes (sister of future Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes). In 1907, Watson was hired as an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University.
W
ertheimer,
M
ax (1880–1943)
Authors: Wertheimer Michael
Published: January 2010

Max Wertheimer's father Wilhelm directed a private business college for many years; his mother was an accomplished amateur violinist. A competent violinist and pianist himself, Wertheimer was educated at a Catholic school in Prague and then studied at Charles University in Prague, first law and then philosophy and psychology. He was particularly impressed by the teachings of the philosopher‐psychologist Christian von Ehrenfels, who in 1890 had published an important paper on form qualities. In 1902, Wertheimer transferred to the University of Berlin, where he studied primarily philosophy and psychology with a number of notable members of the faculty, especially Carl Stumpf. In 1904, he moved to the University of Wurzburg, where he completed his PhD in psychology the same year, under Oswald Kulpe, with a dissertation on the use of the word‐association method for the detection of criminal guilt.
Wide‐Range Achievement Test
Authors: Robertson Gary J.
Published: January 2010

The Wide‐Range Achievement Test (WRAT) was developed in the 1930s by psychologist Joseph Jastak and first published for operational use in 1946. Two subsequent revisions of the WRAT were issued in 1984 (WRAT‐R) and 1993 (WRAT 3; Wilkinson, 1993). The current edition—WRAT 4—retains the focus of the previous editions by providing norm‐referenced measures of reading, spelling, and mathematics computation. Designed for use with individuals age 5–94 years, the WRAT 4 contains four subtests: word reading, sentence comprehension, spelling, and mathematics computation. The reading and sentence comprehension tests must be administered individually, whereas the spelling and mathematics computation tests may be administered either individually or in small groups. The administration time required is 15–45 minutes, depending on the age of the test taker. The various editions of the WRAT have enjoyed widespread use due to their ease of administration and scoring and the amount of information obtained in a relatively brief amount of testing time.
Wisdom
Authors: Staudinger Ursula M.
Published: January 2010

Since the beginnings of human culture, wisdom has been viewed as the ideal end point of human development (Baltes & Staudinger, 2000). Historically, wisdom was conceptualized in terms of a state of idealized being, as a process of perfect knowing and judgment as in King Solomon's judgments, or as an oral or written product such as wisdom‐related proverbs. Wisdom is considered an ideal that is difficult to be fully represented in the isolated individual.
W
itmer,
L
ightner (1861–1956)
Authors: McReynolds Paul W.
Published: January 2010

In 1896, Lightner Witmer established the first psychological clinic at the University of Pennsylvania. This event is universally recognized as marking the beginning of the science and profession of clinical psychology—although not yet by that name. In 1907, Witmer founded the journal
The Psychological Clinic
, and in the first issue he called for the establishment of a new helping profession, to be called clinical psychology.
Woodcock‐Johnson III: Test of Cognitive Abilities and Achievement
Authors: Mather Nancy , Wendling Barbara J.
Published: January 2010

The Woodcock‐Johnson III (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001) consists of two conormed batteries: the WJ III Test of Cognitive Abilities (WJIII COG) and the WJ III Tests of Achievement (WJ III ACH). When used together, these batteries provide a comprehensive framework for evaluating and exploring the relationships and interactions among cognitive abilities and academic performance for individuals between the ages of 2 and 90+ years. The WJ III is based on the principle of selective testing; the examiner administers only the tests most relevant to the referral questions.
Workplace Violence
Authors: White Stephen G.
Published: January 2010

“Workplace violence” typically conjures up images of mass murder by disgruntled employees. Broader definitions include other forms of aggression and a range of severity: threats, yelling and angry outbursts, bizarre communications, bullying, stalking, assaults, sabotage, and property damage. Workplace violence has varying impacts, including death and physical harm, fear and trauma, disruption and lost productivity, and employer liability.
W
undt,
W
ilhelm (1832–1920)
Authors: Haynie N.A.
Published: January 2010

Wilhelm Wundt studied medicine at the University of Tubingen and at Heidelberg, where he changed his major to physiology and earned his doctorate in 1855. He remained there until 1874, teaching and formulating his ideas about psychology. His books of 1858 and 1862,
Contributions to the Theory of Sensory Perception
, formalized these ideas. He was appointed professor of philosophy in 1875 at Leipzig, where he worked for the next 45 years. Edward B. Titchener was Wundt's student and the proponent of his “structuralism” psychology in the United States. Many other prominent individuals came to Leipzig to study and work with Wundt; these included G. Stanley Hall, Emil Kraepelin, Lightner Witmer, J. Mck. Cattell, Hugo Munsterberg, and E. C. Spearman.