Social Psychology : oso

Why Only Humans Weep

Ad Vingerhoets — 2013-05-23

Author:: Ad Vingerhoets
ISBN:: 9780198570240
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198570240.001.0001
Published in print:: 2013
Published Online:: 2013-05-23

This book addresses the question why humans are the only animal species that produce emotional tears. The book brings together relevant theories and research from very different disciplines varying from clinical psychiatry to evolutionary biology and even the neurosciences and anthropology. Specific attention is devoted to the evolutionary origins of crying, the (neuro)biological aspects, antecedents, intra- and interpersonal differences, individual and gender differences in crying, cultural and art historical aspects, as well as the relation between crying and health. Several popular myths concerning this topic are disproved, while new challenging hypotheses are put forth.

The Social Net

Yair Amichai-Hamburger — 2013-05-23

Author:: YairAmichai-HamburgerDirector, The Research Center for Internet Psychology, Israel
ISBN:: 9780199639540
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199639540.001.0001
Published in print:: 2013
Published Online:: 2013-05-23

In 2005, The Social Net was a pioneering project to bring together contributions from leading scholars on the major topics pertaining to the social aspects of the online world. The book has been a great success and has helped many, including students, academics, and lay people, to attain a broad comprehensive knowledge of online social psychology. One of the leading aims of the book was to demonstrate the significant role the Internet plays in so many aspects of people’s social lives. Judging from the feedback it received, it appears that the book successfully fulfilled this purpose, and some people even suggested that ahead of its time, this volume predicted the colossal impact of the social networks. Now 7 years on, with around two billion people online, and countless websites covering all aspects of our existence, it is time to update this knowledge. During these years a great many articles have been published in this field, and it is important to bring this knowledge together into a more coherent whole. The book has been extended significantly to cover this rapidly growing phenomenon of human behavior in cyberspace. An A-team of leading scholars have produced an exciting new edition of The Social Net which promises to be on the cutting-edge of this dynamic field. Topics include: The Internet and personality, social cognition, identity manipulation, online romantic relationships, social influence on the Internet, online decision-making, the Internet and aggression, prosocial behavior online, online group processes, e-leadership, online prejudice and discrimination, online Intergroup contact, and online research. The book provides a comprehensive picture of the main areas of social psychology in the Internet arena and shows clearly that an understanding of the net cannot be limited to the technological aspects, for without an appreciation of the human factor involved, our grasp of this medium must be incomplete

The Science of Web Surveys

Roger Tourangeau, Frederick G. Conrad, and Mick P. Couper — 2013-05-23

Author:: Roger Tourangeau, Frederick G. Conrad, Mick P. Couper
ISBN:: 9780199747047
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199747047.001.0001
Published in print:: 2013
Published Online:: 2013-05-23

This book provides a thorough review of the authors’ own research and other empirical evidence on Web surveys, taking a total survey error perspective. That perspective distinguishes several major sources of error in survey estimates, including sampling and coverage, nonresponse, and measurement issues. Because Web surveys are often used in combination with more traditional modes of data collection, the book also provides a model of the errors arising from mixed mode surveys. In its discussion of sampling and coverage, the book assesses the effectiveness of statistical procedures designed to remove selection and coverage biases from Web survey estimates. Several chapters are devoted to the measurement properties of Web surveys, examining basic design issues in Web surveys, the impact of the Web’s character as primarily a visual medium, the ability of Web surveys to permit interaction with the respondents, and the Web as a method for self-administering sensitive survey questions. An overall theme of the book is that Web surveys often offer relatively poor representation of the general population (sampling is difficult, coverage is imperfect, and response rates are often low), but relatively accurate measurement (allowing feedback to respondents and providing the benefits of self-administration). Although the book’s aims are primarily scientific, it does offer practical guidance to researchers where the evidence seems to support clear recommendations.

Evolution's Empress

2013-05-23

Author:: Maryanne L.FisherDepartment of Psychology, Saint Mary's UniversityJustin R.GarciaThe Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University, BloomingtonRosemarie SokolChangState University of New York New Paltz and Southern New Hampshire UniversitySarah BlafferHrdy
ISBN:: 9780199892747
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892747.001.0001
Published in print:: 2013
Published Online:: 2013-05-23

Evolution’s Empress identifies women as active agents within the evolutionary process. The chapters in this volume focus on topics as diverse as female social interactions, mate competition and mating strategies, motherhood, women’s health, sex differences in communication and motivation, sex discrimination, and women in literature. The volume editors bring together a diverse range of perspectives to demonstrate ways in which evolutionary approaches to human behavior have thus far been too limited. By reconsidering the role of women in evolution, this volume furthers the goal of generating dialogue between the realms of women’s studies and evolutionary psychology.

Advances in Culture and Psychology

Michele J. Gelfand, Chi-yue Chiu, and Ying-yi Hong — 2013-05-23

Author:: Michele J. Gelfand, Chi-yue Chiu, Ying-yi Hong
ISBN:: 9780199840694
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199840694.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2013-05-23

Volume II of the Advances in Culture and Psychology showcases contributions from internationally renowned culture scholars who span the discipline of culture and psychology and represent diversity in the theory and study of culture within psychology. The volume includes cutting edge contributions on culture and neuroscience, culture and intelligence, culture and human development, culture and personality, culture and language, and culture change.

Advances in Culture and Psychology

Michele J. Gelfand, Chi-yue Chiu, and Ying-yi Hong — 2013-05-23

Author:: Michele J. Gelfand, Chi-yue Chiu, Ying-yi Hong
ISBN:: 9780199930449
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199930449.001.0001
Published in print:: 2013
Published Online:: 2013-05-23

Volume III of the Advances in Culture and Psychology series showcases a number of cutting edge research programs in culture and psychology. The volume includes chapters on The Role of Language and Culture in Universality and Diversity of Human Concepts (Mutsumi Imai and Takahiko Masuda); Development—The Cultural Solution to Universal Developmental Tasks (Heidi Keller and Joscha Kärtner); From Chinese to Cross-cultural Personality Inventory: A Combined Emic-Etic Approach to the Study of Personality in Culture (Fanny Cheung, Shu Fai Cheung and Weiqiao Fan); Cultural Unity and Diversity in Compensatory Control Processes (Aaron Kay and Daniel Sullivan); Creating Cultures between Arctics and Deserts (Evert Van de Vliert); and Macro Cultural Psychology: Its Development, Concerns, Politics, and Future Direction (Carl Ratner).

Simple Heuristics in a Social World

Ralph Hertwig, Ulrich Hoffrage, and ABC Research Group — 2013-01-24

Author:: RalphHertwigCognitive and Decision Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of BaselUlrichHoffrageDecision Theory and Risk, Graduate Business School of Economics (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales; HEC), University of Lausanne, SwitzerlandABCResearch Group
ISBN:: 9780195388435
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195388435.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2013-01-24

This book invites readers to discover the simple heuristics that people use to navigate the complexities and surprises of environments populated with others. The social world is a terrain where humans and other animals compete with conspecifics for myriad resources, including food, mates, and status, and where rivals grant the decision maker little time for deep thought, protracted information search, or complex calculations. The social world also encompasses domains, however, where social animals such as humans learn from one another how to deal with the vagaries of a natural world that both inflicts unforeseeable hazards and presents useful opportunities and dare to trust and forge alliances with one another to boost their chances of success. According to the book's thesis, the undeniable complexity of the social world does not dictate cognitive complexity as many scholars of rationality argue. Rather, it entails circumstances that render optimization impossible or computationally arduous: intractability, the existence of incommensurable considerations, and competing goals. With optimization beyond reach, less can be more. That is, heuristics—simple strategies for making decisions when time is pressing and careful deliberation an unaffordable luxury—become indispensible mental tools. As accurate or even more accurate than complex methods when used in the appropriate environments, these heuristics are good descriptive models of how people make many decisions and inferences, but their impressive performance also poses a normative challenge for optimization models. In short, the homo socialis may prove to be a homo heuristicus whose intelligence reflects ecological rather than logical rationality.

Principles of Social Change

Leonard A. Jason — 2013-01-24

Author:: Leonard A. Jason
ISBN:: 9780199841851
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199841851.001.0001
Published in print:: 2013
Published Online:: 2013-01-24

Principles of Social Change offers a comprehensive guide to the development of community interventions and provides the tools and resources to initiate and sustain progress. I examine various strategies developed by community activists, coalitions, and social scientists to break down what motivates people. What worked and why? What can be applied to other scenarios? I also discuss practical solutions to complicated issues, such as protecting children’s well-being, combating abuses of power, providing affordable housing, and cleaning up the environment. These ideas are designed to bring about enduring systemic changes at all levels of community life. Although activists such as Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Saul Alinsky, Jane Addams, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. have effected transformational change, everyday citizens and social entrepreneurs have also made tremendously important and sustainable contributions. The five principles reviewed in this book can be used by anyone who wants to bring comprehensive, structural solutions to some of our most vexing social issues. These principles and strategies demonstrate that there is, in fact, a tangible way to achieve change—ordinary people throughout history have done it. This guide is intended for anyone with a desire to improve his or her community. It is expressly for activists with a wide range of causes, from changing environmental regulations to helping disadvantaged children, or other complicated social problems. The five principles described in this book are essential to solving these problems, and they carry the potential to influence new generations of engaged citizens, community activists, and students of psychology and related social sciences. By understanding these principles, community leaders and activists will be poised to bring about a more just and humane society.

On Voter Competence

Paul Goren — 2013-01-24

Author:: Paul Goren
ISBN:: 9780195396140
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195396140.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2013-01-24

A half century of research shows that most citizens are woefully uninformed about public affairs, liberal-conservative ideologies, and the issues of the day. This had led most scholars to conclude that policy voting lies beyond the reach of typical American voters and to condemn them as politically inept. This book breaks sharply with this view. Once attention turns away from liberal-conservative predispositions and issue preferences, there is indisputable evidence that nearly everyone holds genuine policy principles and uses these to guide their votes come Election Day. Three principles that reflect the major cleavages long dividing the Democratic and Republican parties are paramount: limited government, traditional morality, and military strength. Integrating work from social and political history, social and political psychology, and electoral behavior, the book argues that these three principles are available in the minds of nearly all citizens; function as central heuristics in their belief systems; are rooted deeply in basic human values; and guide presidential choices to a comparable degree for voters across the sophistication spectrum. Analysis of opinion data from the past six presidential elections and three new surveys yields unequivocal support for these claims. Contrary to the indictment leveled by most of the scholarly community and political pundits more generally, ordinary citizens who are neither deeply knowledgeable nor engaged with the world of public affairs prove as adept as their more sophisticated counterparts at grounding presidential votes in abstract views about public policy.

The Impacts of Lasting Occupation

Daniel Bar-Tal and Izhak Schnell — 2013-01-24

Author:: DanielBar-TalTel Aviv UniversityIzhakSchnellTel Aviv University
ISBN:: 9780199862184
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199862184.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2013-01-24

The present book engages with the phenomenon of protracted occupation, which it perceives as both attention-grabbing and puzzling in the 21st century, an era in which it has become an exceptional and very rare phenomenon. The analysis begins with a view which suggests that occupation, by its very nature, has in most cases acquired a negative connotation because in the great majority of cases it is carried out coercively, against the will of the occupied population. In the discourse on this phenomenon, therefore, the focus of the interest is frequently on the occupied society, became it bears the very heavy tangible and intangible burdens of the occupation. Indeed there is growing literature on this issue. It is consequently requisite upon us also to analyze the relatively neglected effects of the occupation on the occupying society, effects that are not always explicit and easily observed. The present book focuses on a particular case of prolonged occupation – that of the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Israel following the Six Day War in 1967. Of importance for us is the fact that since 1967 Israel has been occupying Palestinian territories and the Palestinian population has been living for over four decades under this occupation. We focus on the relative gap in the interactive analysis in the context of occupation – the effects of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and of the Palestinian people, on the State of Israel and its society. The consequences of the occupation are felt in wide range of aspects of life from political, societal, legal and economic to cultural and psychological.

The Education of Selves

Jack Martin and Ann-Marie McLellan — 2013-01-24

Author:: Jack Martin, Ann-Marie McLellan
ISBN:: 9780199913671
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199913671.001.0001
Published in print:: 2013
Published Online:: 2013-01-24

Most contemporary North Americans take for granted the universality of their conceptions and experiences of themselves as individuals with uniquely valuable psychological lives. However, such psychological conceptions of selfhood are historically quite recent, dating mostly from the late eighteenth century. Perhaps more surprisingly, understandings of ourselves as creatively self-expressive and strategically self-managing individuals are, for the most part, products of twentieth-century innovations in Enlightenment-based social sciences, especially disciplinary psychology, in both its scientific and professional guises. This book examines the role that psychology (especially educational psychology) played in the transformation of American and Canadian classrooms and schools into sites for the self-development of students, creating an ideal image of the successful student as self-expressive, enterprising, and entitled to forms of education that recognize and cater to such expressivity and enterprise. Specific attention is given to each of the major programs of psychological research and intervention in American and Canadian schools from 1950 to 2000: self-esteem, self-concept, self-efficacy, and self-regulation. Critical consideration is provided with respect to definitions, conceptualizations, research measures and methods, intervention practices, and the sociocultural consequences of these programs of inquiry and practice. In light of these considerations, the backlash against what some have come to regard as a self-absorbed generation of young people may be interpreted, at least in part, as a reaction to the scientific and professional activities of psychologists, many of whom now appear to share in the general concern about where their activities have left students, schools, and society at large.

Divided We Stand

John Horgan — 2013-01-24

Author:: John Horgan
ISBN:: 9780199772858
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199772858.001.0001
Published in print:: 2013
Published Online:: 2013-01-24

Terrorism has returned to Northern Ireland. In the years after the Real IRA bombing of Omagh in 1998, violent Republican groups have re-emerged as a major security threat to a region that has for too long been denied peace, stability, and prosperity. Those responsible have many names. They are dissidents, breakaways, splinter factions, spoilers, “residual” terrorists. The Real IRA, Continuity IRA, and Óglaigh na hÉireann are only some of the groups now responsible for a growing wave of bombings, shootings, threats, and intimidation across Northern Ireland. These are the rejectionists for whom there seems to be no negotiated settlement, no peace deal, no consensus solution that will convince them to accept the will of the majority of the people on the island of Ireland. Divided We Stand: The Strategy and Psychology of Ireland’s Dissident Terrorists presents the results of meticulous research conducted by the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at the Pennsylvania State University. Since 2007, John Horgan, the Director of the center, has led a research project to monitor the activities of Ireland’s new terrorists. Drawing on one of the largest open-source militant databases yet assembled, this book describes the activities, histories, motivations, psychology, and strategy of the small, dynamic, and rapidly evolving splinter groups that continue to erode peace, stability, and normalization in Northern Ireland.

India Analysed

Ramin Jahanbegloo and Sudhir Kakar — 2012-10-18

Author:: Ramin Jahanbegloo, Sudhir Kakar
ISBN:: 9780195698930
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195698930.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2012-10-18

Sudhir Kakar, a prominent psychoanalyst and eminent author, is considered one of India’s leading intellectuals. A mechanical engineer, Kakar did his doctorate in economics before beginning his training in psychoanalysis at the Sigmund-Freud Institute in Frankfurt, Germany in 1971. For someone trained as an engineer and later as an economist, he continues to cross disciplinary boundaries and capture the imagination of readers and everyone interested in the world of ideas. Based on interviews of Kakar by Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo, this book is a journey into Kakar’s mind — his fertile and unpredictable ways of thinking, and the essential humanism which all his writings signify — recounting the life and ideas of Kakar in his own words. In the process, the book affords readers rare insights into the psychological make-up of the modern Indian. Flowing effortlessly from Kakar’s descriptions of his early life in undivided India to discussions of the Indian psyche and sexuality, the book also presents his views on secularism and modern Indian leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Kakar brings to bear his intellect on a wide range of issues from philosophy to democracy, Indian culture and tradition, and the Partition, and the conversational style of the interviews helps demystify many of his complex ideas.

Culture and Psyche

Sudhir Kakar — 2012-10-18

Author:: Sudhir Kakar
ISBN:: 9780195696684
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696684.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2012-10-18

Some analysts, led by Sigmund Freud, have addressed the issue of culture in psychoanalytic theory. Freud was interested not in the impact of cultural differences on the evolution of mental life, but rather in culture's conflict with nature in which the individual psyche plays a central role. Culture helped shape the development and functioning of the psyche, namely, the formation of the superego. The essays in this book explore the Indian psyche and how it is affected by the culture that is so distinct from the culture of the Western world. Using diverse sources, including case studies, Indian myths and legends, and fiction, the author examines the various facets of Indian identity and sexuality. Apart from discussing culture in psychoanalytic thought, the author shares his personal account of the role of culture in psychoanalysis and psychology. He also discusses the influence of Freud and Carl Jung on psychoanalysis in India, the relationship between psychoanalysis and non-Western cultures, the maternal-feminine in Indian psychoanalysis, the so-called maternal enthrallment, middle age, rumours and religious riots, and the psychology of Islamist terrorism.

Social Perception and Social Reality

Lee Jussim — 2012-09-20

Author:: Lee Jussim
ISBN:: 9780195366600
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195366600.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-09-20

This book contests the received wisdom in the field of social psychology that suggests that social perception and judgment are generally flawed, biased, and powerfully self-fulfilling. The book reviews a wealth of real-world, survey, and experimental data collected over the last century to show that, in fact, social psychological research consistently demonstrates that biases and self-fulfilling prophecies are generally weak, fragile, and fleeting. Furthermore, research in the social sciences has shown stereotypes to be accurate. The book overturns the received wisdom concerning social perception in several ways. It critically reviews studies that are highly cited darlings of the bias conclusion and shows how these studies demonstrate far more accuracy than bias, or are not replicable in subsequent research. Studies of equal or higher quality, which have been replicated consistently, are shown to demonstrate high accuracy, low bias, or both. The book is peppered with discussions suggesting that theoretical and political blinders have led to an odd state of affairs in which the flawed or misinterpreted bias studies receive a great deal of attention, while stronger and more replicable accuracy studies receive relatively little attention. In addition, the book presents both personal and real-world examples (such as stock market prices, sporting events, and political elections) that routinely undermine heavy-handed emphases on error and bias but are generally indicative of high levels of rationality and accuracy. This book highlights the logical incoherence, as well as the scientific and political hypocrisy, that are often manifested in efforts to maintain and justify claims emphasizing error and bias.

Representing Red and Blue

David C. Barker and Christopher Jan Carman — 2012-09-20

Author:: David C. Barker, Christopher Jan Carman
ISBN:: 9780199796564
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199796564.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-09-20

This book argues that to understand how representation works in the United States, we need understand the demand side of the representational relationship. Citizens, the book proposes, have a sense for the degree to which they instinctively like “leaders who lead” (trustees), on the one hand, or “public servants who listen” (delegates), on the other. Picking up cues about a potential representative's representation style during election campaigns, citizens “reward” politicians with electoral support when they recognize a similar representational perspective. This pattern continues after the election: job approval may be shaped, in part, by whether the representative's governing style is consistent with the one constituents prefer. The central claim is that cultural traditionalists-especially, but not exclusively, evangelical Christians-tend to embrace trustee-style representation more readily than do seculars, religious progressives, or civil libertarians. By extension, the book contends that as long as religious and other cultural differences continue to color ideological identification, partisanship, and vote choices in the United States-with cultural traditionalists trending Republican, and seculars, religious progressives, and civil libertarians migrating Democratic-then preferences regarding styles of representation may also come in distinct partisan shades of “Red” and “Blue”. This book presents an in-depth analysis of several years (conducted between 2004 and 2009) of national surveys designed specifically to assess public preferences for, and evaluations of, political representation. In addition, unique aggregate data are used to examine how public preferences for representation influence how elected officials represent their constituents.

Psychology of Science

Robert W. Proctor and E.J. Capaldi — 2012-09-20

Author:: Robert W. Proctor, E.J. Capaldi
ISBN:: 9780199753628
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199753628.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-09-20

This book attempts to describe the influence of psychological processes on the creation of science. Although implicit processes have attracted some attention, most prior work in this area has emphasized the role of explicit reasoning in science. Contemporary research in psychology has tended to emphasize the importance of implicit processes in decision making and choice, and it has provided evidence that performance of many tasks involves a complex relationship between implicit and explicit processes. The book includes chapters from leaders in the emerging discipline of the psychology of science and from various other individuals who are experts on the roles of implicit and explicit processes in thinking. The book has a novel emphasis on the role of implicit processes in the creation of scientific knowledge and on recent findings and theorizing that will allow development of a closer relation between the psychology of science and psychology more generally. Understanding implicit processes, and how they relate to explicit cognitive processes, is essential to issues in a variety of areas of psychology including cognitive psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, and neuroscience.

The Inner World

Sudhir Kakar — 2012-09-20

Author:: Sudhir Kakar
ISBN:: 9780198077152
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198077152.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-09-20

Feelings, impulses, wishes, and fantasies—the dynamic content of the inner world—occupy the deepest recesses of the psyche. It is through introspection and empathy, essential to psychotherapy, that the outside observer can grasp the meaning of the inner world of an individual. First published in 1978 and hailed by critics globally as the best application of psychoanalysis to Indian culture, The Inner World is an inquiry into the development of Indian identity. It examines the network of social roles, traditional values, and customs with which the threads of Indian psychological development are interwoven and, in doing so, reveals important aspects of Indian society, myths, rituals, fables, and arts.

The Psychology of Terrorism Fears

Samuel Justin Sinclair and Daniel Antonius — 2012-05-24

Author:: Samuel Justin Sinclair, Daniel Antonius
ISBN:: 9780195388114
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195388114.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

The psychology of terrorism, in its most basic form, is about fear. While academics continue to debate the meaning of terrorism, the end result for many people affected is fear and terror. However, many studying the effects of terrorism have focused more exclusively on discrete psychopathological constructs, most of which are clinically based. Ironically, these paradigms fail to acknowledge the primacy of basic fear in the context of terrorism, as well as how fear affects people in both positive and negative ways—above and beyond whether one meets criteria for a clinical disorder. The purpose of this book is to unpack the complexity of terrorism fears, and to present a new paradigm for understanding the psychology of terrorism. As such, this book will present empirical and theoretical frameworks for understanding fear as a dynamic process that motivates and affects people on a myriad of levels, from the individual to society at large. The book will also highlight the paradox of how fear can negatively affect people and societies and can also be a central force underlying resilience and post-traumatic growth in the context of terrorism and political violence. Finally, this volume will discuss how society has changed as a function of terrorism, and specifically how our own systems for managing terrorism may in fact contribute to fear.

Neurodevelopmental Disorders Across the Lifespan

Emily K. Farran and Annette Karmiloff-Smith — 2012-05-24

Author:: Emily K.FarranSenior Lecturer, Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, University of London, UKAnnetteKarmiloff-SmithProfessorial Research Fellow, Birkbeck Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, University of London, UK
ISBN:: 9780199594818
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199594818.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

Nowadays, it is widely accepted that there is no single influence (be it nature or nurture) on cognitive development. Cognitive abilities emerge as a result of interactions between gene expression, cortical and subcortical brain networks, and environmental influences. In recent years, our study of neurodevelopmental disorders has provided much valuable information on how genes, brain development, behaviour, and environment interact to influence development from infancy to adulthood. This book presents evidence on development across the lifespan across these multiple levels of description (genetic, brain, cognitive, environmental). It chooses a well-defined disorder, Williams syndrome (WS), to explore the impact of genes, brain development, behaviour, as well as the individual's environment on development. WS is used as a model disorder to demonstrate the book's approach to understanding development, whilst being presented in comparison to other neurodevelopmental disorders — autism, developmental dyscalculia, Down syndrome, dyslexia, fragile X syndrome, Prader–Willi syndrome, Specific Language Impairment, Turner syndrome — to illustrate differences in development across neurodevelopmental disorders. WS is particularly informative for exploring development. Firstly, it has been extensively researched at multiple levels: genes, brain, cognition, and behaviour as well as in terms of the difficulties of daily living and social interaction. Secondly, it has been studied across the lifespan, with many studies on infants and toddlers with WS as well as a large number on children, adolescents, and adults. The book also explores a number of domain-general and domain-specific processes in the verbal, non-verbal, and social domains, across numerous neurodevelopmental disorders. This illustrates, among other factors, the importance of developmental timing, i.e., that the development of a cognitive skill at a specific timepoint can impact on subsequent development within that domain, but also across domains. In addition, the chapters discuss the value of investigating basic-level abilities from as close to the infant start-state as possible, presenting evidence of where cross-syndrome comparisons have shed light on the cascading impacts of subtle similarities and discrepancies in early delay or deviance, on subsequent development.

Navigating Multiple Identities

Ruthellen Josselson and Michele Harway — 2012-05-24

Author:: RuthellenJosselsonMicheleHarway
ISBN:: 9780199732074
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732074.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

In our increasingly complex globalized world, many people carry distinct, often conflicting, psychosocial identities. People live at the edges of more than one communal affiliation, bridging loyalties and identifications. This book is designed to explore how people attain or maintain personal integration in the face of often-shifting experiences of personal or social location—how people navigate the complexity of their multiple identities. One of the key premises of this book is that identity is rooted in social location and therefore always reflects the social and historical period in which it is formed and evolves. People are often fixed from outside themselves with labels that they must include or resist in their identity definition. Thus, even in our highly individualized society, identity remains socially constructed and people are not free to simple declare the meanings of their identity and have them accepted by others. Identities are fluid and context-dependent, and identity elements exist in readiness to be expressed depending on the external social factors that invite their emergence. The book considers individuals who are navigating across: • Racial minority or majority status • Cultures with different values • Gender identities • Roles • Cultural expectations versus individual definitions. The first section of the book attempts to look at identity theoretically and phenomenologically and assesses how current theory can aid in understanding the experience of multiple identity. The second and third sections of the book look at the identity navigation process in the United States and in cross-cultural populations.

Musical Imaginations

David Hargreaves, Dorothy Miell, and Raymond MacDonald — 2012-05-24

Author:: DavidHargreavesProfessor of Education, Roehampton University, UKDorothyMiellProfessor of Social Psychology, College of Humanities and Social Science, University of Edinburgh, UKRaymondMacDonaldProfessor of Music Psychology and Improvisation, School of Life Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
ISBN:: 9780199568086
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Music Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199568086.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

Musical imagination and creativity are amongst the most abstract and complex aspects of musical behaviour, though, until recently, they have been difficult to subject to empirical enquiry. However, music psychology and some allied disciplines have now developed, both theoretically and methodologically, to the point where some of these topics are now firmly within our grasp. The study of creativity and imagination is growing rapidly in disciplines including psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and education. The inter- and multidisciplinary study of music, and developments in music psychology in particular, mean that studies of musical imagination and creativity in action are now distinctly possible. This book reviews the latest theory and research on musical creativity, performance, and perception. The topics addressed include the investigation of creativity and imagination in music and emotion, composition and improvisation, performance and performance traditions, listening strategies, different musical genres and cultural belief systems, social collaboration, identity formation, and the development of psychologically-based strategies and interventions for the enhancement of performing musicians.

Musical Creativities in Practice

Pamela Burnard — 2012-05-24

Author:: Pamela Burnard
ISBN:: 9780199583942
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Music Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199583942.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

This book explores the social and the cultural contexts in which creativity in music occurs. It begins by considering what constitutes creativity — taking a cross cultural view of music, while investigating creative processes far beyond just the classical music genre — including electronic media, popular music, and improvised music. In addition it looks at creativity in both writing and performing. The field of musical education is a key focus: examining why creativity is important within the educational environment, and looking at how schools might sometimes stifle creativity in their music teaching, rather than encourage it. The book is packed with case studies and real-life examples taken from studies across the world, providing a powerful corrective to myths and outmoded conceptions which privilege the creative practice of individual artists. This book argues the need for conceptual expansion of musical creativities in line with vital contemporary real world practices. It explores how different types of musical creativities are recognized and communicated in the real world practices of a diversity of professional musicians. The book covers creative practice issues underlying composing, improvising, singer songwriting, originals bands, DJ cultures, live coding and interactive sound designing, and the implications of creativity research for music education and for the assessment of creativities in industry and education.

Music In Our Lives: Rethinking Musical Ability, Development, and Identity

Gary E. McPherson, Jane W. Davidson, and Robert Faulkner — 2012-05-24

Author:: Gary E. McPherson, Jane W. Davidson, Robert Faulkner
ISBN:: 9780199579297
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Music Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579297.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

Why do some children take up music, while others don't? Why do some excel, whilst others give up? Why do some children favour classical music, whilst others prefer rock? These are questions that have puzzled music educators, psychologists, and musicologists for many years. Yet, they are incredibly difficult and complex questions to answer. This book takes an innovative approach to trying to answer these questions. It is drawn from a research project that spanned fourteen years, and closely followed the lives of over 150 children learning music — from their seventh to their twenty second birthdays. This longitudinal approach allows for the probing of a number of important issues. For example, how do you define musical skill and ability? Is it true, as many assume, that continuous engagement in performance is the sole way in which those skills can be developed? What are the consequences of trends and behaviours observed amongst the general public, and their listening consumption? After presenting an overview and detailed case study explorations of musical lives, the book provides frameworks and theory for further investigation and discussion. It tries to present a holistic interpretation of these studies, and looks at their implications for musical development and education.

The Monogamy Gap

Eric Anderson — 2012-05-24

Author:: Eric Anderson
ISBN:: 9780199777921
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199777921.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

A resilient cultural myth equates monogamy with a test of true love. Yet, despite this strongly-held cultural ideal, cheating is rampant. Whereas most books seek to cure men from their cheating malaise, The Monogamy Gap offers a far more radical idea: that men cheat because they love. In this groundbreaking research by Professor Eric Anderson, instead of entering his research with a condemnation of cheating, he examines for the purpose of cheating. Drawing on interviews with 120 straight and gay men, The Monogamy Gap shows how, after the intense and passionate sex of the early relationship fades, cheating functions to keep monogamous couples together. Thus, Professor Anderson finds that men cheat not because they fail to love their partners, but in order to satisfy their sexual desires without desiring to disrupt their emotional relationship. Rather than break up with their lovers so they can have meaningless erotic sex, men cheat as a rational solution to the irrational expectations of monogamy. However, these men still want the cultural capital given to monogamous relationships, and they therefore find themselves living with competing emotional and sexual desires: wanting monogamy, but also wanting recreational sex.

Mobbing

Maureen Duffy and Len Sperry — 2012-05-24

Author:: Maureen Duffy, Len Sperry
ISBN:: 9780195380019
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380019.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

This book is about mobbing—a form of interpersonal abuse that occurs in all of the major institutions and organizations of human life—school, work, religious organizations, the legal system, and in communities where people live, such as condominium and homeowners’ associations. Mobbing casts its victims in a negative light to either force them out of the organization or to render them as suspect and unworthy while remaining within the organization. Mobbing is not the same as bullying, in that it involves the interaction of individual, group, and organizational dynamics. The book provides a cogent analysis, drawing from research beginning in the 1970s, of what mobbing is, its destructive consequences, and strategies for individual and organizational recovery and prevention. The book is divided into four parts. Part I introduces the process of mobbing and the development of mobbing research and provides an overview of mobbing within workplaces, schools, and other organizations together with case exemplars, illustrations, and discussions outlining how to recognize it. Part II examines how mobbing develops and looks at the organizational context, organizational dynamics, group dynamics, individual behavior, and the interrelationship among these factors to provide an explanatory framework. Part III discusses the significant negative consequences of mobbing in terms of its damaging effects on physical and psychological health, and its harmful impact on family and social relationships and work performance. Part IV examines how individuals and organizations recover from mobbing and what measures at the organizational and legislative levels are effective in reducing and preventing mobbing.

Mindmelding

William Hirstein — 2012-05-24

Author:: William Hirstein
ISBN:: 9780199231904
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231904.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

Can consciousness and the human mind be understood and explained in sheerly physical terms? Materialism is a philosophical/scientific theory, according to which the mind is completely physical. This theory has been around for literally thousands of years, but it was always stymied by its inability to explain how exactly mere matter could do the amazing things the mind can do. Beginning in the 1980s, however, a revolution began quietly boiling away in the neurosciences, yielding increasingly detailed theories about how the brain might accomplish consciousness. Nevertheless, a fundamental obstacle remains. Contemporary research techniques seem to still have the scientific observer of the conscious state locked out of the sort of experience the subjects themselves are having. Science can observe, stimulate, and record events in the brain, but can it ever enter the most sacred citadel, the mind? Can it ever observe the most crucial properties of conscious states, the ones we are aware of? If it can't, this creates a problem. If conscious mental states lack a basic feature possessed by all other known physical states, i.e., the capability to be observed or experienced by many people, this give us reason to believe that they are not entirely physical. This book argues that it is indeed possible for one person to directly experience the conscious states of another, by way of what it calls mindmelding. This would involve making just the right connections in two peoples' brains, which it describes in detail.

Ideology, Psychology, and Law

Jon Hanson and John Jost — 2012-05-24

Author:: JonHanson, John Jost
ISBN:: 9780199737512
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199737512.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

Formally, the law purports to be based solely in reasoned analysis, devoid of ideological bias or unconscious influences. Judges claim to act as umpires applying the rules, not making them. They frame their decisions as straightforward applications of an established set of legal doctrines, principles, and mandates to a given set of facts. As scholars who carefully study the law understand, that frame is a façade, and the impression that the legal system projects is an illusion. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. made a similar claim more than a century ago when he wrote that “the felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed.” A century later, though, we are much closer to understanding the mechanisms responsible for the gap between the formal face of the law and the actual forces shaping it. Over the last decade or so, political scientists and legal academics have begun studying the linkages between ideologies, on one hand, and legal principles and policy outcomes on the other. During that same period, mind scientists have turned to understanding the psychological sources of ideology. This book is the first to bring many of the world’s experts on those topics together to examine the sometimes unsettling interactions between psychology, ideology and law.

Designing Digital Experiences for Positive Youth Development

Marina Umaschi Bers — 2012-05-24

Author:: Marina Umaschi Bers
ISBN:: 9780199757022
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199757022.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

This book is about digital spaces that can support positive youth development. This book is driven by values and by a sense of urgency —as the design of our digital landscape is increasingly guided by commercial purposes and not by developmental concerns. Designers of digital landscapes that promote positive development, must take into consideration the children’s social, emotional, cognitive, physical, civic and spiritual needs. But should also consider the unique design features of each technology and the practices and policies that shape different interactions in the digital landscape. Although this book is about new technologies, it is inspired by an old question: “How should we live?” This book presents an approach to help children gain the technological literacies of the 21st century while developing a sense of identity, values and purpose. Too often youth’s experiences with technology are framed in negative terms. This book acknowledges problems and risks, and takes an interventionist perspective. It invites readers to not only observe and describe the digital landscape, but to actively engage in co-designing it by focusing on positive behaviors that can be promoted by new technologies. Based on over a decade and a half of research, this book provides a theoretical framework for guiding the implementation of experiences that take advantage of new technologies to support learning and personal development, as well as examples from concrete experiences. These engage children in playful learning by supporting content creation, creativity, choices of conduct, communication, collaboration and community building. These are the six C’s proposed by the Positive Technological Development framework presented in this book. They can guide the design and the evaluation of experiences from early childhood to adolescence. This book offers a possible path to help children out of the playpens into the playgrounds of this technological era.

The Declining Significance of Homophobia

Mark McCormack — 2012-05-24

Author:: Mark McCormack
ISBN:: 9780199778249
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199778249.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

Research has traditionally shown high schools to be hostile environments for gay youth. Boys have used homophobia to prove their own masculinity and distance themselves from homosexuality. While this has been a consistent finding for over three decades, The Declining Significance of Homophobia tells a different story. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews of teenage boys in three British high schools, Dr. Mark McCormack shows how heterosexual male students’ attitudes toward their gay peers have dramatically improved. Heterosexual male students are proud of their pro-gay attitudes and friendship with openly gay students. Indeed, homosexuality is not an important variable in determining a boys’ popularity. However, The Declining Significance of Homophobia goes beyond documenting this important shift. It also examines how decreased homophobia results in the expansion of gendered behaviors available to teenage boys. Dr. McCormack shows that in these British schools, heterosexual boys are able to develop meaningful and loving friendships. Furthermore, their friendships span across different groups of boys, so that jocks can befriend those more concerned with their school work. These boys have replaced peer violence, misogyny and homophobia with hugging and emotional intimacy. Free from the constant threat of social marginalization, boys are able to speak about once-feminized activities without censure. Incisive and accessible, The Declining Significance of Homophobia is essential reading for all those interested in the damage that homophobia brings to both gay and straight youth. Whether teacher, parent, student or academic, you will find this research to be remarkably uplifting. The sophisticated analysis and accessible language make this a truly insightful examination of the changing nature of teenage masculinity.

Visions of Compassion

Richard J. Davidson and Anne Harrington — 2012-03-22

Author:: Richard J.DavidsonUniversity of Wisconsin, MadisonAnneHarringtonHarvard University
ISBN:: 9780195130430
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195130430.001.0001
Published in print:: 2002
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

This book examines how Western behavioral science — which has generally focused on negative aspects of human nature — holds up to cross-cultural scrutiny, in particular the Tibetan Buddhist celebration of the human potential for altruism, empathy, and compassion. Resulting from a meeting between the Dalai Lama, leading Western scholars, and a group of Tibetan monks, this volume includes excerpts from these dialogues as well as engaging chapters exploring points of difference and overlap between the two perspectives.

Understanding Measurement: Reliability

Patrick Meyer — 2012-03-22

Author:: Patrick Meyer
ISBN:: 9780195380361
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380361.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

This is a book in the Understanding Statistics series, which is designed to provide guides to understanding, presenting, and critiquing analyses and associated inferences. Each book in the series demonstrates how the relevant topic should be reported—including detail surrounding what can be said, and how it should be said, as well as drawing boundaries around what cannot appropriately be claimed or inferred. This volume addresses reliability, which is a fundamental aspect of any social science study that involves educational or psychological measurement. It not only has implications for the quality of test scores themselves, but also any statistical analysis conducted using those scores. Topics addressed in this book cover three different types of reliability methods and appropriate standard errors of measurement: classical test theory methods, decision consistency indices, and generalizability theory coefficients. After a brief introduction to the topic, the book outlines how to report reliability in professional journal articles. It includes examples of both good and bad write-ups for methods sections of journal articles.

Understanding Genocide

Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber — 2012-03-22

Author:: Leonard S.NewmanUniversity of Illinois, ChicagoRalphErberDePaul University
ISBN:: 9780195133622
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195133622.001.0001
Published in print:: 2002
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

When and why do groups target each other for extermination? How do seemingly normal people become participants in genocide? Why do some individuals come to the rescue of members of targeted groups, while others just passively observe their victimization? And how do perpetrators and bystanders later come to terms with the choices that they made? In this book — the first collection of essays representing social psychological perspectives on genocide and the Holocaust — prominent social psychologists use the principles derived from contemporary research in their field to try to shed light on the behavior of the perpetrators of genocide. The primary focus of this volume is on the Holocaust, but the conclusions reached have relevance for attempts to understand any episode of mass killing. Among the topics covered are how crises and difficult life conditions might set the stage for violent intergroup conflict; why some groups are more likely than others to be selected as scapegoats; how certain cultural values and beliefs could facilitate the initiation of genocide; the roles of conformity and obedience to authority in shaping behavior; how engaging in violent behavior makes it easier to for one to aggress again; the evidence for a “genocide-prone” personality; and how perpetrators deceive themselves about what they have done. The book seeks to provide the reader with new ways of making sense of the horrors of genocide and to provide at least some of the knowledge needed to anticipate and prevent future such tragic episodes.

The Science of Emotional Intelligence

Gerald Matthews, Moshe Zeidner, and Richard D. Roberts — 2012-03-22

Author:: GeraldMatthewsUniversity of CincinnatiMosheZeidnerUniversity of HaifaRichard D.RobertsEducational Testing Service
ISBN:: 9780195181890
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195181890.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

During the past decade, emotional intelligence has been subjected to both scientific and public scrutiny. Numerous articles have been published on the topic in both academic journals and the popular press, testifying to the potential usefulness of emotional intelligence in psychology, business, education, the home, and the workplace. However, until now there has been no systematic synthesis that grounds emotional intelligence in contemporary theory while simultaneously sorting scientific approaches from popular fads and pseudoscience. Bringing together experts from a variety of sub-disciplines, this book aims to integrate recent research on emotional intelligence. The contributors address a set of focused questions concerning theory, measures, and applications: How does emotional intelligence relate to personality? What is the optimal approach to testing emotional intelligence? How can emotional intelligence be trained? In the final section of the book, the editors distill and synthesize the main points made by these experts, and set forth an agenda for building a science of emotional intelligence in the future.

The Psychology of Gratitude

Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough — 2012-03-22

Author:: Robert A.EmmonsUniversity of California, Davis, USAMichael E.McCulloughUniversity of Miami, USA
ISBN:: 9780195150100
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195150100.001.0001
Published in print:: 2004
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

Gratitude, like other positive emotions, has inspired many theological and philosophical writings, but it has inspired very little vigorous, empirical research. In an effort to remedy this oversight, this book brings together prominent scientists from various disciplines to examine what has become known as the most-neglected emotion. The volume begins with the historical, philosophical, and theoretical foundations of gratitude, and then presents the current research perspectives from social, personality, and developmental psychology, as well as from primatology, anthropology, and biology. The volume also includes a comprehensive, annotated bibliography of research on gratitude. This work contributes a great deal to the growing positive psychology initiative and to the scientific investigation of positive human emotions. It will be an invaluable resource for researchers and students in social, personality, developmental, clinical, and health psychology, as well as to sociologists and cultural anthropologists.

An Odyssey with Animals

Adrian R. Morrison — 2012-03-22

Author:: Adrian R. Morrison
ISBN:: 9780195374445
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195374445.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

The relationship between animals and humans is more complex today than ever before. Animal–human interaction has engendered a bitter enmity between animal rights activists and the biomedical researchers whose work depends on the use (and oftentimes the killing) of laboratory animals. This book—which argues that humane animal use in biomedical research is an indispensable tool of medical science, and that efforts to halt such use constitute a grave threat to human health and wellbeing— is the culmination of the author's years spent negotiating the treacherous divide between a legitimate concern for animals and the importance of biomedical research. Drawing on the disciplines of philosophy, history, biology, and animal behavior, he crafts a multi-faceted argument in favor of using animals humanely in research, the center of which is his staunch belief that human interests must be the primary concern of science and society. Along the way, he delves into other human uses of animals in domains such as agriculture, hunting, and education, examining each use along with its philosophical, moral, and ecological implications. The result is a thought-provoking, intelligent and fair-minded discussion of a charged subject—of the past and present of animals' relationships with humans, and how and why we should be able to use them as we do.

Models for Intensive Longitudinal Data

Theodore A. Walls and Joseph L. Schafer — 2012-03-22

Author:: Theodore A.WallsJoseph L.Schafer
ISBN:: 9780195173444
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195173444.001.0001
Published in print:: 2006
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

A new class of longitudinal data has emerged with the use of technological devices for scientific data collection. This class of data is called intensive longitudinal data (ILD). This book features applied statistical modelling strategies developed by leading statisticians and methodologists working in conjunction with behavioural scientists.

Justice Matters

Mona Sue Weissmark — 2012-03-22

Author:: Mona Sue Weissmark
ISBN:: 9780195157574
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195157574.001.0001
Published in print:: 2004
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

Springing from an unprecedented meeting between the sons and daughters of the Holocaust and the children of Nazis, this book examines the psychology of hatred and ethnic resentments passed from generation to generation. The book argues that justice is quite naturally shaped by emotional responses. In the face of unjust treatment, the natural response is resentment and deep anger—and a desire for revenge. While legal systems offer a structured means for redressing injustice, they often do not redress the emotional pain, which, left unresolved, is then passed along to the next generation—leading to entrenched ethnic tension and group conflict. The legacy of the Holocaust and the burden of confronting unresolved injustices, were passed to another generation, as, clearly, there has been no reconciliation between Nazis and survivors. Thus, coming to terms with their parents' past shaped the lives of Nazis' children and survivors' children. Could children of survivors and Nazis talk to each other about the Holocaust and World War II and understand the anxieties of each about the other as a gateway to re-establishing a relationship? Although more than half a century has passed, recollections of the Holocaust and World War II still sear the lives of survivors, their children, and grandchildren. Central to preventing the cycle of ethnic and religious strife from continuing is story-telling, with each side recounting the injustice it suffered and the valour shown by avenging its own group. This book describes how these stories or “legacies” transmit moral values, beliefs, and emotions and thus preserve the past, and thus, based on the microcosm of their parents' personal experiences, each group maintains an understanding of themselves as the legitimate victims. Ultimately, the book argues that coming to terms with their parents' past requires both parties not just to agree to talk, but to agree to moderate their emotions and dispense with the notion that they are the most aggrieved.

Interpersonal Rejection

Mark R. Leary — 2012-03-22

Author:: Mark R.LearyWake Forest University
ISBN:: 9780195130157
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195130157.001.0001
Published in print:: 2006
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

Interpersonal rejection ranks among the most potent and distressing events that people experience. Romantic refusal, ostracism, betrayal, stigmatization, job termination, and other kinds of denial have the power to compromise the quality of people's lives. As a result, individuals are highly motivated to avoid social rejection, and, indeed, much of human behavior appears to be designed to prevent such experiences. With the widespread effects of real, anticipated, and even imagined refutations, psychologists have devoted their efforts on dissecting this topic under different psychological subspecialties (e.g. social, clinical, developmental, and personality). The goal of this book is to consolidate all related literatures to further understand the influences of interpersonal rejection on behavior and emotion, and also, to have identifiable areas for future research. Other topics covered include sensitivity, emotional responses, and personality moderators of reactions to rejection.

Going Broke

Stuart Vyse — 2012-03-22

Author:: Stuart Vyse
ISBN:: 9780195306996
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195306996.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

This book offers a psychological perspective on the financial behavior of the many Americans today who find they cannot make ends meet, illuminating the causes of wildly self-destructive spending habits. Bringing together fascinating studies of consumer behavior, the book argues that the mountain of debt burying so many of us is the inevitable by-product of America's turbo-charged economy and, in particular, of social and technological trends that undermine self-control. The book illuminates everything from the rise of the credit card, to the increase in state lotteries and casino gambling, to the expansion of new shopping opportunities provided by toll-free numbers, home shopping networks, big-box stores, and the Internet, revealing how vast changes in American society over the last thirty years have greatly complicated man's relationship with money.

Emotion, Social Relationships, and Health

Carol D. Ryff and Burton Singer — 2012-03-22

Author:: Carol D.RyffUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, USABurtonSingerPrinceton University, USA
ISBN:: 9780195145410
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195145410.001.0001
Published in print:: 2001
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

A growing literature on humans and animals documents linkages between social integration and various health outcomes, including mortality. The actual mechanisms through which these effects occur are, however, not well understood. Emotion plays a central role in mediating connections between and among relational experiences, underlying neurobiological processes, and susceptibility to illness. Many prior studies have focused on the size and proximity of social networks without taking into consideration the accompanied emotions. Much attention has been given to the negative side of interaction; thus, providing minimal concern on the protective benefits of enduring love, nurturance, and affection. In view of this, the book brings together these differing inquiries to advance understanding on how emotions in significant social ties influence health. Formulation, observation and evaluation of social interactions in the clinical/laboratory setting and real life contexts are conceptualized. Recognition of intervening biological parameters and exposure to health challenges are also used. Recurrent themes of findings include the importance of attending to: both positive and negative emotional experiences in significant social relationships and how these influence underlying coping mechanisms; cumulative and repeated natures of socio-emotional experiences; health patterns according to gender differences; and the need for multiple methodologies to advance the emotion, social relationships, and health agendas.

Emotion, Character, and Responsibility

John Sabini and Maury Silver — 2012-03-22

Author:: JohnSabiniUniversity of PennsylvaniaMaurySilverTemple University
ISBN:: 9780195121674
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195121674.001.0001
Published in print:: 1998
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

This book explores why emotions are important in our conception of a person's character, and in our own conception of self. Chapter topics include caring, loyalty, sincerity, shame, guilt, embarrassment, and self-deception.

Creative Collaboration

Vera John-Steiner — 2012-03-22

Author:: Vera John-Steiner
ISBN:: 9780195307702
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195307702.001.0001
Published in print:: 2006
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

This book offers rare and fascinating glimpses into the dynamic alliances from which some of our most important scholarly ideas, scientific theories, and art forms are born. It shows the creative process unfolding in the intimate relationships of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Henry Miller and Anais Nin, Marie and Pierre Curie, Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins, and Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz; the productive partnerships of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, Albert Einstein and Marcel Grossmann, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, and Freeman Dyson and Richard Feynman; the familial collaborations of Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, and Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson and Mary Catherine Bateson; and the larger ensembles of The Guarneri String Quartet, Lee Strasburg, Harold Clurman and The Group Theater, and such feminist groups as The Stone Center and the authors of Women's Ways of Knowing. Many of these collaborators complemented each other, meshing different backgrounds and forms into fresh styles, while others completely transformed their fields. This book offers a unique cultural and historical perspective on the creative process and a compelling depiction of the associations that nurtured our most talented artists and thinkers. By delving into these complex collaborations, the book illustrates that the mind—rather than thriving on solitude—is clearly dependent upon the reflection, renewal, and trust inherent in sustained human relationships.

Altruism and Altruistic Love

Stephen G. Post, Lynn G. Underwood, Jeffrey P. Schloss, and William B. Hurlbut — 2012-03-22

Author:: Stephen G.PostCase Western Reserve UniversityLynn G.UnderwoodFetzer InstituteJeffrey P.SchlossWestmont CollegeWilliam B.HurlbutStanford University
ISBN:: 9780195143584
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195143584.001.0001
Published in print:: 2002
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

The concept of altruism, or disinterested concern for another's welfare, has been discussed by everyone from theologians to psychologists to biologists. In this book, evolutionary, neurological, developmental, psychological, social, cultural, and religious aspects of altruistic behavior are examined. It is a collaborative examination of one of humanity's essential and defining characteristics by researchers from various disciplines. Their integrative dialogue illustrates that altruistic behavior is a significant mode of expression that can be studied by various scholarly methods and understood from a variety of perspectives in both the humanities and the sciences. The book establishes a framework for scholarship on altruism by presenting definitions, a historical overview, a review of contemporary research, and debates in various disciplines, as well as a discussion of directions for future work.

Aggression and Its Causes

John W. Renfrew — 2012-03-22

Author:: John W. Renfrew
ISBN:: 9780195082302
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195082302.001.0001
Published in print:: 1996
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

This book explores the causes and control of aggression from a broad scientific perspective. It discusses the methodological concerns involved and reviews representative studies of the contributions of biological, environmental, experimental, and social factors in producing aggression. It examines how many of these factors function as it discusses several areas of current concern: juvenile delinquency, physical and sexual child abuse, spousal abuse, rape, and aggression associated with psychiatric conditions.

Strong Experiences with Music

Alf Gabrielsson — 2012-01-19

Author:: Alf Gabrielsson
ISBN:: 9780199695225
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Music Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695225.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

The mass media and the Internet have given us unlimited paths into the world of music. Just like music is varied and endless, so are our reactions to it. The very same piece of music can generate totally different reactions in different people, and a person can react quite differently to the same piece of music on different occasions. Individual factors — how you are feeling, how accustomed are you to listening to music, what your tastes are in music, what type of personality you are, and lots more besides — can play a major, sometimes completely decisive, role for how the reaction turns out. Similarly, the experience can be affected by the specific situation, for example where and when you hear the music (at home, in your car, at a concert, in the daytime, at night etc.), whether or not the acoustics are good, and if you are on your own or together with others. The experience is thus determined by an interplay of factors in the music, in the individual, and in the situation. Developments in the brain sciences have been invaluable in helping researchers to understand just how the human brain deals with music. However, there is a major gap between what we can uncover using state of the art technology, and understanding just what music really means to us personally. While measuring brain or heart activity can reveal much about our physiological reactions, there is of course much more to music than this.

Stereotype Threat

Michael Inzlicht and Toni Schmader — 2012-01-19

Author:: Michael Inzlicht, Toni Schmader
ISBN:: 9780199732449
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732449.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

Stereotype threat is defined as a situational predicament in which individuals are at risk of confirming negative stereotypes about their group. It is the resulting sense that one might be judged in terms of negative stereotypes about one’s group instead of on personal merit. Research over the past 15 years has shown that stereotype threat contributes to low performance among African Americans, Latinos, and the poor, but also among women in math and science, the elderly in memory, and even whites in athletics. This book examines this important topic not only at the level of basic processes and theory, but also at the level of application in the real world. It provides a contemporary and systematic treatment of research on the impact of negative stereotypes and devalued social identities on performance, engagement, sense of belonging, and self-control. This book is organized into four sections. The first section, Basic Processes, introduces definitions and conceptualizations of stereotype threat, including issues related to environmental triggers and questions of mechanism. Section two, Theoretical Extensions, explores how the initial theory has been refined to acknowledge stereotype threats (plural), how threat affects a sense of belonging, how it has implications that extend beyond the stereotyped domain, and the comparison of performance impairments due to motivational versus automated processes. Section three, Manifestations of Stereotype Threat, shows the breadth of the theory by exploring many of the different groups and performances to which the phenomenon of stereotype threat has been applied. Section four, Stereotype Threat and the Real World, examines issues of applied importance, taking a critical approach to understanding the extent to which stereotype threat has real-world consequences outside the lab. Finally, the originator of the theory, Claude Steele, provides a final essay in which he reflects upon the theory, from its origin to its implication.

The Slippery Slope to Genocide

I. William Zartman, Mark Anstey, and Paul Meerts — 2012-01-19

Author:: I. WilliamZartmanMarkAnsteyPaulMeerts
ISBN:: 9780199791743
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199791743.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

Genocide results from the culmination of conflicts over identity. A group of people that feels threatened by extinction resorts to genocide as a pathologically defensive reaction. This poses a security dilemma that can only be ended by quelling the feelings of threat and fear that prompt mass violence. In order to prevent genocide, it is essential to understand the internal dynamics of identity conflict. It is also important to intervene at the early stages of identity conflict; the parties involved require external help to ease tensions. In this volume, noted thinkers and practitioners of conflict management, who hail from ten different countries, present ideas on how to prevent identity issues from causing fear and escalating into genocide. They focus on measures for handling the internal dynamics of parties facing identity conflicts, as well as on considerations for arranging external assistance. Contributors address the problem of outbidders, actors whose nonconciliatory attitudes put them in positions of leadership in their identity groups. Since political extremism and violence can signal resolve and commitment to a group cause, moderates give way to hard-liners. Spoilers, who believe that peace undermines their interests and power, also play a key role in the dynamics of conflicts. Careful attention is necessary to select appropriate third parties who can deflect conflicting parties from the course of conflict. The authors discuss the concepts and practices involved in changing structures and attitudes to ease tensions, as well as the measures interveners must take to work in the midst of conflicting groups.

Pathological Altruism

Barbara Oakley, Ariel Knafo, Guruprasad Madhavan, and David Sloan Wilson — 2012-01-19

Author:: BarbaraOakleyOakland UniversityArielKnafoThe Hebrew University of JerusalemGuruprasadMadhavanNational Academy of SciencesDavid SloanWilsonSUNY Binghamton
ISBN:: 9780199738571
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738571.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

Many harmful deeds—from codependency to suicide martyrdom to genocide—are committed with the altruistic intention of helping companions or one’s own in-group. Therefore it is worthwhile to study how well-meaning altruism can shade into pathology. Although the term pathological altruism has been used to a limited degree in psychodynamic circles, there has been inadequate study of the phenomenon in general, and almost none from a biological, genetic, and evolutionary perspective. In essence, pathological altruism might be thought of as any behavior or personal tendency in which either the stated aim or the implied motivation is to promote the welfare of another. But instead of overall beneficial outcomes, this altruism instead has irrational (from the point of view of an outside observer) and substantial negative consequences to the other or even to the self. This volume presents psychological, neuropsychological, biological, and evolutionary approaches that help account for pathologically altruistic behavior, and goes on to discuss its diverse and profound societal implications. Each of these approaches points to one disturbing truth: What we value so much, the altruistic “good” side of human nature, can also have a dark side. The result is a nuanced counterbalance to the study of altruism and a call for further research.

Moving Beyond Self-Interest

Stephanie L. Brown, R. Michael Brown, and Louis A. Penner — 2012-01-19

Author:: Stephanie L. Brown, R. Michael Brown, Louis A. Penner
ISBN:: 9780195388107
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195388107.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

Moving Beyond Self-Interest is an interdisciplinary volume that discusses cutting-edge developments in the science of caring for and helping others. Contributors raise foundational issues related to human caregiving. They advance new theories and data to show how natural selection might have shaped a genuinely altruistic drive to benefit others, how this drive intersects with the attachment and caregiving systems, and how it emerges from a broader social engagement system made possible by symbiotic regulation of autonomic physiological states. The contributors propose a new neurophysiological model of the human caregiving system and present arguments and evidence to show how mammalian neural circuitry that supports parenting might be recruited to direct human cooperation and competition, human empathy, and parental and romantic love. Some contributors show how an evolutionary perspective helps us better understand parental investment in and empathic concern for children at risk for, or suffering from, various health, behavioral, and cognitive problems. Other contributors identify circumstances that differentially predict caregiver benefits and costs, and raise the question of whether extreme levels of compassion are actually pathological. The section concludes with a discussion of semantic and conceptual obstacles to the scientific investigation of caregiving. Contributors also discuss possible interfaces between new models of caregiving motivation and economics, political science, and social policy development. They show how the new theory and research discussed in this volume can inform our understanding of economic utility, policies for delivering social services (such as health care and education), and hypotheses concerning the origins and development of human society, including some of its more problematic features of nationalism, conflict, and war. The contributions in this volume help readers appreciate the human capacity for engaging in altruistic acts, on both a small and large scale.

Macro Cultural Psychology

Carl Ratner — 2012-01-19

Author:: Carl Ratner
ISBN:: 9780195373547
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195373547.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

This book articulates a new psychological theory and cultural theory that construes psychology as based in macro cultural factors, recapitulating the features of macro cultural factors, and functioning to perpetuate macro cultural factors. Participating in macro cultural factors is shown to generate general and concrete features of psychology. The theory traces general features of psychology (thinking, emotions, self-concept) to general features of cultural factors, and it traces concrete features of psychology (the individualistic self, anorexia, romantic love) to concrete macro cultural factors (such as consumerism, formal education, capitalist work, Protestant religion). The book additionally examines the cultural basis of psychological theories. Politics is shown to be a central element of macro cultural factors, and their corresponding psychological phenomena. Psychological theories are also shown to be political in the sense of supporting or reforming the status quo. Macro cultural psychology is based upon philosophical principles. These include dialectics, structuralism, critical realism. The entire enterprise draws upon the work of Vygotsky, Luria, and Leontiev known as cultural-historical psychology.

Access to Language and Cognitive Development

Michael Siegal and Luca Surian — 2012-01-19

Author:: MichaelSiegalProfessor of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UKLucaSurianProfessor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Trento, Italy
ISBN:: 9780199592722
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199592722.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

One of the most important questions about children's development involves how knowledge acquisition depends on the effect of language experience. To what extent, and in what ways, is a child's cognitive development influenced by their early experience of, and access to, language? Likewise, what are the effects on development of impaired access to language? This book confronts directly the issue of how possessing an enhanced or impaired access to language influences children's development. Its focus is on learning environments, theory of mind understanding, and the process of deriving meaning from conversations. The book features chapters which are concerned with bilingualism, deafness, atypical child development, and development in cultures with limited vocabularies in areas such as number concepts. Throughout, it maps out what is known about the interface between language and cognitive development and the prospects for the future directions in research and applied settings.

The Psychologically Literate Citizen

Jacquelyn Cranney and Dana Dunn — 2011-09-22

Author:: JacquelynCranneyUniversity of New South Waleshttp://www.psy.unsw.edu.au/profiles/jcranney.htmlDanaDunnMoravian College
ISBN:: 9780199794942
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794942.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-09-22

This book covers two timely and interconnected concepts in psychology pedagogy: psychological literacy and the psychologically literate citizen. Psychological literacy encapsulates the common graduate attributes or capabilities that students should acquire while undertaking a major in psychology, as exemplified by guidelines and lists of student learning outcomes delineated by many national psychology organizations. Although psychology educators internationally have been working toward assisting students to acquire these attributes for at least the past fifty years, only recently have educators explicitly delineated attributes and learning outcomes, and sought to develop appropriate learning, teaching and assessment strategies, including whole-program approaches. Psychological literacy thus becomes the most important outcome of undergraduate education. Psychologically literate citizens use their psychological literacy to problem-solve in an ethical and socially responsible manner in a way that directly benefits their communities. These two key concepts receive further theoretical development in this volume, and a rich variety of international perspectives is given. In addition, practical guidance is given for both the classroom psychology educator as well as the curriculum developer and reviewer. We need to create a paradigm shift in psychology education, utilizing these concepts of psychological literacy and the psychologically literate citizen.

The Political Psychology of Globalization

Catarina Kinnvall and Paul Nesbitt-Larking — 2011-09-22

Author:: Catarina Kinnvall, Paul Nesbitt-Larking
ISBN:: 9780199747542
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199747542.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-09-22

In an era of global risk and uncertainty, individuals and political communities have been exposed to an increasingly broad and unpredicted range of economic, strategic, cultural, and political forces. Rapidly accelerating changes and sudden events exert an impact everywhere from the broadest planetary scale down to the scope of the individual mind and heart. The Political Psychology of Globalization: Muslims in the West explores how these shifts and shocks have conditioned the identity strategies adopted by Muslim minorities in order to construct their roles as political actors. On the basis of conversations with Muslims, the data uncover three typical identity strategies, each shaped by the citizenship regimes of particular Western states: retreatism, essentialism, and engagement. Grounded in an analysis of their colonial histories, patterns of immigration, and citizenship regimes, six Western countries—Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom—serve as places for exploration of the emergence of Muslim political identities. Those regimes that have best been able to balance individual and community rights have most adequately promoted the politics of engagement, while regimes that focus on antiterrorist legislation and exclusionary majority discourses have conditioned retreatist and essentialist identity strategies among both minority and majority communities. In addition to describing the politics of engagement, the authors make the normative case for a climate of engagement among both minority and majority political communities, grounded in recognition, dialogue, deep multiculturalism, and a new global and “cosmopolitical” consciousness.

The Origins of Morality

Dennis Krebs — 2011-09-22

Author:: Dennis Krebs
ISBN:: 9780199778232
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199778232.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-09-22

This book updates Darwin’s early account of the evolution of morality in light of contemporary theory and research from a wide array of academic areas. The evidence supports two main propositions. First, a capacity for morality evolved in the human species because it helped early humans survive, reproduce, and propagate their genes. Second, traditional psychological accounts of morality can be improved by recognizing that processes such as those that regulate social learning, moral reasoning, empathy, perspective-taking, and conscience, are products of evolution. To account for the sources of morality featured in psychological theories, we must understand the functions that they evolved to serve. Dispositions to exert self-control, to defer to authority, to obey rules that uphold the social order, to punish transgressors, and to behave in altruistic and cooperative ways evolved because they helped early humans advance their biological interests and reap the benefits of group living. Old brain mechanisms that humans share with other primates engender primitive aspects of a sense of morality, such as feelings of moral obligation, sympathy, gratitude, guilt, forgiveness, and righteous indignation. Although new brain mechanisms endow humans with higher-order cognitive abilities that enable them to override primitive impulses, people are only provisionally rational, and often use mental shortcuts that are susceptible to a variety of cognitive biases to make moral decisions in their everyday lives. People are naturally-disposed to be as moral as they have to be to advance their interests, and a little bit more.

New Perspectives on Faking in Personality Assessment

Matthias Ziegler, Carolyn MacCann, and Richard Roberts — 2011-09-22

Author:: MatthiasZieglerHumboldt-Universitat zu Berlinhttp://www.psychology.hu-berlin.de/staff/1682288CarolynMacCannUniversity of Sydneyhttp://www.psych.usyd.edu.au/staff/carolynm/RichardRobertsEducational Testing Service
ISBN:: 9780195387476
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387476.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-09-22

This book showcases a range of different viewpoints on response distortion from a diverse group of world experts in personality assessment. Chapters consider what it means to "fake" a personality assessment, why and how people would try to fake particular scores on personality tests, and which types of tests people can successfully fake. A range of traditional and cutting-edge methods for detecting and controlling for faking are presented and their usefulness is discussed. Amongst the methods are social desirability (lie) scales, warnings, affective neutralization, unidimensional and multidimensional pairwise preferences, decision trees, linguistic analysis, situational measures, and methods based on item response theory. Two independent chapters make separate attempts to synthesize, evaluate, and summarize the range of viewpoints presented throughout the book, suggesting practical recommendations and areas for future research.

Social Neuroscience

Alexander Todorov, Susan Fiske, and Deborah Prentice — 2011-05-01

Author:: AlexanderTodorovDepartment of Psychology, Princeton Universityhttp://psych.princeton.edu/psychology/research/todorov/index.phpSusanFiskeDepartment of Psychology, Princeton Universityhttp://psych.princeton.edu/psychology/research/fiske/index.phpDeborahPrenticePrinceton Universityhttp://psych.princeton.edu/psychology/research/prentice/index.php
ISBN:: 9780195316872
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195316872.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

The field of social cognitive neuroscience has been at the forefront of study for many psychologists over the past decade or so. Much of the spur for this new field has come from the development of functional neuro-imaging techniques, making possible unobtrusive measurement of brain activation over time. Now we are able to ask such questions as: are there regions of the brain in the inferior temporal cortex dedicated to face processing? There are many other such intractable questions that we can ask now that we could not even imagine asking thirty years ago. This book is interested in questions such as: How do we understand and represent other people? How do we represent social groups? How do we regulate our emotions and offer socially undesirable responses? This book is divided into four sections. The first deals with understanding and representing other people. The second deals with representing social groups. The third section deals with the interplay of cognition and emotion in social regulation. The final section considers a range of questions that have emerged in the context of social neuroscience research.

The Obamas and a (Post) Racial America?

Gregory Parks, Matthew Hughey, and Charles Ogletree — 2011-05-01

Author:: GregoryParksDistrict of Columbia Court of AppealsMatthewHugheyMississippi State Universityhttp://www.sociology.msstate.edu/faculty/socfaculty/hughey.php, Charles Ogletree
ISBN:: 9780199735204
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199735204.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

Since the milestone election of Barack Hussein Obama on November 4, 2008, some have wondered whether the United States can now be considered a post-racial nation. According to this book's contributors, a more nuanced and contemporary analysis and measurement of racial attitudes undercuts this assumption. Despite the election of the first black President and rise of his family as perhaps the most widely recognized family in the world, race remains a salient issue—particularly in the United States. Looking beyond public behaviors and how people describe their own attitudes, the contributors draw from the latest research to show how, despite the Obama family's rapid rise to national prominence, many Americans continue to harbor unconscious, anti-black biases. Nonetheless, the prominence of the Obamas on the world stage and the image they project may hasten the day when America is indeed post-racial, even at the implicit level.

Great Flicks

Dean Keith Simonton — 2011-05-01

Author:: Dean Keith Simonton
ISBN:: 9780199752034
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199752034.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

The main purpose of the book is to understand what it takes to make a great film. As noted in the Chapter 1 prologue, however, this review of cinematic creativity and aesthetics will be confined to scientific studies, studies carried out by a multidisciplinary group of researchers. Chapter 2 then concentrates on movie awards, including the Oscars and Golden Globes, and how those awards relate to critical acclaim. Do great films receive both shiny trophies and five stars? Chapter 3 studies more closely how these awards cluster together and which of these clusters best predict cinematic success. How do the dramatic awards compare with the visual, technical, and music awards? Chapter 4 adds a new consideration, namely the film’s financial performance: How does box office compare with critical evaluations and movie awards? The following four chapters focus on specific contributions to a film’s impact: Chapter 5 covers the script (including writers), Chapter 6 the director (or “auteur”), Chapter 7 the actors (especially gender differences), and Chapter 8 the music (both score and song). Chapter 9 addresses the question of whether the same cinematic factors that make some films great also make other films bad: Are bombs the exact opposite of masterpieces? The book closes with an epilogue on future directions in scientific studies of cinematic creativity and aesthetics. What do researchers need to do if we want a complete understanding of what it takes to create a powerful cinematic experience?

Framed by Gender

Cecilia L. Ridgeway — 2011-05-01

Author:: Cecilia L. Ridgeway
ISBN:: 9780199755776
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199755776.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

How does gender inequality persist in an advanced industrial society like the United States, where legal, political, institutional, and economic processes work against it? This book draws on empirical evidence from sociology, psychology, and organizational studies to argue that people's everyday use of gender as a primary cultural tool for organizing social relations with others creates processes that rewrite gender inequality into new forms of social and economic organization as these forms emerge in society. Widely shared gender stereotypes act as a “common knowledge” cultural frame that people use to initiate the process of making sense of one another in order to coordinate their interaction. Gender stereotypes change more slowly than material arrangements between men and women. As a result of this cultural lag, at sites of social innovation, people implicitly draw on trailing stereotypes of gender difference and inequality to help organize the new activities, procedures, and forms of organization that they create, in effect reinventing gender inequality for a new era. Chapters 1 through 3 explain how gender acts as a primary frame and how gender stereotypes shape interpersonal behavior and judgments in contextually varying ways. Chapters 4 and 5 show how these effects in the workplace and the home reproduce contemporary structures of gender inequality. Chapters 6 examines the cultural lag of gender stereotypes and shows how they create gender inequality at sites of innovation in work (high-tech start-ups) and intimate relations (college hook-ups). Chapter 7 develops the implications of this persistence dynamic for progress toward gender equality.

The Evolution of Personality and Individual Differences

David M. Buss and Patricia H. Hawley — 2011-05-01

Author:: David M.BussThe University of Texas at AustinPatricia H.HawleyUniversity of Kansashttp://www.psych.ku.edu/psych_people/faculty_Patricia_Hawley.shtml
ISBN:: 9780195372090
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195372090.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

Rather than viewing individual differences as merely the raw material upon which selection operates, this book provides theories and empirical evidence which suggest that personality and individual differences are central to evolved psychological mechanisms and behavioral functioning. The book draws theoretical inspiration from life history theory, evolutionary genetics, molecular genetics, developmental psychology, personality psychology, and evolutionary psychology, while utilizing the theories of the “best and the brightest” international scientists working on this cutting edge paradigm shift. The first three sections analyze personality and the adaptive landscape; here, the book offers a novel conceptual framework for examining “personality assessment adaptations.” Because individuals in a social environment have momentous consequences for creating and solving adaptive problems, humans have evolved “difference-detecting mechanisms” designed to make crucial social decisions such as mate selection, friend selection, kin investment, coalition formation, and hierarchy negotiation. The second section examines developmental and life-history theoretical perspectives to explore the origins and development of personality over the lifespan. The third section focuses on the relatively new field of evolutionary genetics and explores which of the major evolutionary forces—such as balancing selection, mutation, co-evolutionary arms races, and drift—are responsible for the origins of personality and individual differences.

Developing Destinies

Barbara Rogoff — 2011-05-01

Author:: Barbara Rogoff
ISBN:: 9780195319903
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195319903.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

This book provides a unique window on the cultural nature of human development. The ideas are illustrated with the life and work of a Mayan woman who was born to be a sacred midwife. The ideas are revealed also in the changes and continuities of children's and families' ways of life in her Guatemalan Mayan town. In following the threads of culture and history in the life cycles of this Mayan midwife and her town, the book illuminates how individuals build on cultural heritage from prior generations and at the same time create new ways of living. The book documents changes and continuities across decades and centuries with extensive photographs as well as first-person accounts and research on birth, childrearing, and learning. This book argues that by examining how people participate in cultural practices, we can better understand the role of culture in our lives.

Designing Positive Psychology

Kennon M. Sheldon, Todd B. Kashdan, and Michael F. Steger — 2011-05-01

Author:: Kennon M.SheldonUniversity of Missourihttp://psychology.missouri.edu/sheldonkTodd B.KashdanGeorge Mason Universityhttp://psychology.gmu.edu/people/details/tkashdanMichael F.StegerColorado State Universityhttp://psy.psych.colostate.edu/psylist/detail.asp?Num=263
ISBN:: 9780195373585
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195373585.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

Positive psychology exploded into public consciousness ten years ago and has continued to capture attention around the world ever since. The movement promised to study positive human nature, using only the most rigorous scientific tools and theories. How well has this promise been fulfilled? This book evaluates the first decade of this fledgling field of study from the perspective of nearly every leading researcher in the field. Scholars in the areas of social, personality, clinical, biological, emotional, and applied psychology take stock of their fields, while bearing in mind the original manifesto and goals of the positive psychology movement. Chapters provide honest, critical evaluations of the flaws and untapped potential of these various fields of study. The chapters design the optimal future of positive psychology by addressing gaps, biases, and methodological limitations, and exploring exciting new questions.

Altruism in Humans

C. Daniel Batson — 2011-05-01

Author:: C. Daniel Batson
ISBN:: 9780195341065
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195341065.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

This book takes a hard-science look at the possibility that we humans have the capacity to care for others for their sakes (altruism) rather than simply for our own (egoism). The look is based not on armchair speculation, dramatic cases, or after-the-fact interviews, but on an extensive series of theory-testing laboratory experiments conducted over the past 35 years. Part I details the theory of altruistic motivation that has been the focus of this experimental research. The theory centers on the empathy-altruism hypothesis, which claims that other-oriented feelings of sympathy and compassion for a person in need (empathic concern) produce motivation with the ultimate goal of having that need removed. Antecedents and consequences of empathy-induced altruistic motivation are specified, making the theory empirically testable. Part II offers a comprehensive summary of the research designed to test the empathy-altruism hypothesis, giving particular attention to recent challenges. Overall, the research provides remarkably strong and consistent support for this hypothesis, forcing a tentative conclusion that empathy-induced altruism is within the human repertoire. Part III considers the theoretical and practical implications of this conclusion, suggesting that empathy-induced altruism is a far more pervasive and powerful force in human affairs than has been recognized. Failure to appreciate its importance has handicapped attempts to understand why we humans act as we do and wherein our happiness lies. This failure has also handicapped efforts to promote better interpersonal relations and create a more caring, humane society.

Overcoming Evil

Ervin Staub — 2011-01-01

Author:: Ervin Staub
ISBN:: 9780195382044
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195382044.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2011-01-01

This book describes the origins or influences leading to genocide, violent conflict, and terrorism. It identifies principles and practices of prevention, and of reconciliation between groups after violence, or before violence thereby to prevent violence. It uses both past cases such as the Holocaust, and contemporary ones such as Rwanda, the Congo, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, contemporary terrorism, and the relations between the Dutch and Muslim minorities, which also has relevance to other European countries, as examples. The book draws on work on all these issues, as well as on research in genocide studies, the study of conflict and of terrorism, and psychological research on group relations. It also describes the work conducted in real world settings, such as with promoting reconciliation in Rwanda, Burundi, and the Congo. The book considers what needs to be done to prevent impending or stop ongoing violence. It emphasizes early prevention, when violence generating conditions are present and a psychological and social evolution toward violence has begun, but not yet immediate danger of intense violence. The book considers the role of difficult social or life conditions, repression, culture, the institutions or structure of society, the psychology of individuals and groups, and the behavior of witnesses or bystanders within and outside societies. It emphasizes psychological processes, such as differentiation between us and them and devaluation of the “other”, past victimization and psychological woundedness, the power of ideas, and people's commitment to destructive ideologies. It considers humanizing the other, healing from past victimization, the creation of constructive ideologies and groups, and how these help people develop cultures and institutions that make violence less likely. The book asks what needs to be accomplished to prevent violence, how it can be done, and who can do it. It aims to promote knowledge, understanding, and “active bystandership” by leaders and government officials, members of the media and citizens to prevent violence and create harmonious societies.

Narrative and the Politics of Identity

Phillip L. Hammack — 2011-01-01

Author:: Phillip L. Hammack
ISBN:: 9780195394467
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394467.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2011-01-01

Since the late 19th century, Jews and Arabs have been locked in an intractable battle for national recognition in a land of tremendous historical and geopolitical significance. While historians and political scientists have long analyzed the dynamics of this bitter conflict, rarely has an archaeology of the mind of those who reside within the matrix of conflict been attempted. This book not only offers a psychological analysis of the consequences of conflict for the psyche, it develops an innovative, compelling, and cross-disciplinary argument about the mutual constitution of culture and mind through the process of life-story construction. But the book pushes boundaries further through an analysis of two peace education programs designed to fundamentally alter the nature of young Israeli and Palestinian life stories. This book argues that these popular interventions, rooted in the idea of prejudice reduction through contact and the cultivation of “cosmopolitan” identities, are fundamentally flawed due to their refusal to deal with the actual political reality of young Israeli and Palestinian lives and their attempt to construct an alternative narrative of great hope but little resonance for Israelis and Palestinians. Grounded in over a century of literature that spans the social sciences, this book's analysis of young Israeli and Palestinian lives captures the complex, dynamic relationship among politics, history, and identity and offers a provocative and audacious proposal for psychology and peace education.

Empowering Settings and Voices for Social Change

Mark S. Aber, Kenneth I. Maton, Edward Seidman, and James G. Kelly — 2011-01-01

Author:: Mark S.AberUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignKenneth I.MatonUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignEdwardSeidmanNew York University, James G. Kelly
ISBN:: 9780195380576
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380576.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2011-01-01

This book combines a focus on understanding social settings as loci for empowering intervention with a focus on understanding and giving voice to citizens. The book illuminates advances in theory and method relevant to changing a broad spectrum of social settings (including programs, organizations, institutions, communities, and social policy) from a strengths-based perspective. Three cross-cutting concepts—a strengths-based approach to research and social action, empowerment, and narrative research methods—serve as integrating and foundational themes. Part I takes up issues of setting processes and outcomes of influence, research methods, and implications for setting and community change efforts and social policy. Part II examines how action scientists have sought to understand and amplify the voices of those individuals and communities who serve as the focus of their research and social change actions. Finally, the chapters in Part III seek to situate the rest of the volume's chapters in the context of decades of work on empowering settings, giving voice and social change.

A Cultural Psychology of Music Education

Margaret S. Barrett — 2011-01-01

Author:: Margaret S.BarrettUniversity of Queensland, Australia
ISBN:: 9780199214389
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Music Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199214389.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2011-01-01

Recent studies in music education have investigated the ways in which different groups construe music and music education, and the ways in which these constructions are culturally bound. This book explores the ways in which the discipline of cultural psychology can contribute to our understanding of how music learning and development occurs in a range of cultural settings, and the subsequent implications of such understanding for the theory and practice of music education. The book opens with an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of a cultural psychology of music education. Ten music education scholars and researchers provide chapters that illustrate the application of this approach to key issues in music education; its theory and practice. These chapters provide opportunities to look more deeply into the practices of music education in order to understand the role culture plays in shaping children's musical learning and thinking, the learning and teaching of music teachers, the formal and informal institutions and structures within and through which learning and teaching occur, and, the intersection of these processes and structures in the development of musical thought and practice.

Bridging Cultural and Developmental Approaches to Psychology

Lene Arnett Jensen — 2011-01-01

Author:: Lene Arnett Jensen
ISBN:: 9780195383430
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195383430.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2011-01-01

This book contains chapters which propose ways to bridge cultural and developmental approaches to human psychology. The chapters heed the call of cultural psychology to study different peoples around the world and to recognize that culture profoundly impacts how we think, feel, and act. At the same time, they also take seriously the developmental science perspective that humans everywhere share common life stage tasks and ways of learning. Doing what has not previously been done, the chapters integrate key insights and findings from cultural and developmental research. This book is in step with a world where culturally diverse peoples interact with one another more than ever due to migration, worldwide media, and international trade and travel. With these interactions come changes to cultures and the psychological development of their members, and the implications for scholarship and policy are thoughtfully examined here. The book covers a wide range of related topics. It addresses the intersection of development and culture for psychological processes such as learning and memory, for key contexts of development such as family and civil society, for conceptions of self and identity, and for how the life course is partitioned including a focus on childhood and emerging adulthood.

Advances in Culture and Psychology

Michele J. Gelfand, Chi-yue Chiu, and Ying-yi Hong — 2011-01-01

Author:: Michele J.GelfandUniversity of Maryland College ParkChi-yueChiuNanyang Technological University, SingaporeYing-yiHongNanyang Technological University, Singapore
ISBN:: 9780195380392
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380392.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2011-01-01

Volume I of the Advances in Culture and Psychology series showcases a number of cutting edge research programs in culture and psychology. The volume includes chapters on human culture in evolutionary perspective (Michael Tomasello), culture, emotion, and expression (David Matsumoto and Hyi-Sung Hwang), infectious disease and the creation of culture (Mark Schaller and Damian Murray), culture and attachment, learning and coping (Fred Rothbaum, Gilda Morelli, and Natalie Rusk), culturally situated linguistic ecologies and language use (Gün Semin), micro-macro dynamics of the cultural construction of reality (Toshio Yamagishi), and implications of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism for psychological processes (Sharon Shavitt, Carlos Torelli, and Hila Riemer).

Free Will and Consciousness

Roy F. Baumeister, Alfred R. Mele, and Kathleen D. Vohs — 2010-09-01

Author:: Roy F.BaumeisterAlfred R.Melehttp://www.fsu.edu/~philo/people/faculty/almele.htmlKathleen D.Vohs
ISBN:: 9780195389760
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195389760.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2010-09-01

This volume is aimed at readers who wish to move beyond debates about the existence of free will and the efficacy of consciousness and closer to appreciating how free will and consciousness might operate. It draws from philosophy and psychology, the two fields that have grappled most fundamentally with these issues. In this wide-ranging volume, the contributors explore issues such as how free will is connected to rational choice, planning, and self-control; roles for consciousness in decision making; the nature and power of conscious deciding; connections among free will, consciousness, and quantum mechanics; why free will and consciousness might have evolved; how consciousness develops in individuals; the experience of free will; effects on behavior of the belief that free will is an illusion; and connections between free will and moral responsibility in lay thinking. Collectively, these state-of-the-art chapters by accomplished psychologists and philosophers provide a glimpse into the future of research on free will and consciousness.

Evolutionary Worlds without End

Henry Plotkin — 2010-09-01

Author:: Henry Plotkin
ISBN:: 9780199544950
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199544950.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2010-09-01

The book examines the issue of whether there is any general theory in the biological and social sciences that has similar explanatory power to the general theories of physics. Specifically selection theory and niche construction are deemed to have wide explanatory scope within the transformation of species, certain forms of learning and knowledge gain, the operation of the vertebrate immune system, and the way science itself operates as a process. Cultural change in general is also assessed as a possible consequence of selection processes. It is concluded that in addition to the selection and construction processes themselves, the complexity of the multiple forms of co-evolving selection processes operating at different levels of selection must be considered as an essential part of any general theory.

Breaking the Poverty Cycle: The Human Basis for Sustainable Development

Susan Pick and Jenna Sirkin — 2010-09-01

Author:: Susan Pick, Jenna Sirkin
ISBN:: 9780195383164
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195383164.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2010-09-01

Many international development efforts have been limited because they are elaborated as exclusively economic projects. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen argues, however, that combating poverty requires expanding individual freedoms and capabilities, in place of bolstering only macroeconomic growth. Based on the work of IMIFAP (The Mexican Institute of Family and Population Research) in Mexico and Latin America, this book seeks to transform Sen’s philosophical approach into an operative model for sustainable development through its Framework for Enabling Empowerment (FrEE). The book offers a new, practical paradigm based in social psychology which empowers marginalized individuals to interact critically and constructively with their social, education, health and civic contexts.

Silencing the Self Across Cultures

Dana C. Jack and Alisha Ali — 2010-05-01

Author:: Dana C. Jack, Alisha Ali
ISBN:: 9780195398090
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Clinical Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195398090.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2010-05-01

This international volume offers new perspectives on social and psychological aspects of the complex dynamic of depression. The 21 contributors from 13 countries—Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Haiti, India, Israel, Nepal, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Scotland, and the United States—represent contexts with very different histories, political and economic structures, and gender role disparities. Authors use Silencing the Self theory, which details the negative psychological effects when individuals silence themselves in close relationships and the importance of the social context in precipitating depression. This book breaks new ground by demonstrating that the linkage of depressive symptoms with self-silencing occurs across a range of cultures. Chapters offer evidence regarding why women’s depression is more widespread than men’s and why the treatment of depression lies in understanding that a person’s individual psychology is inextricably related to the social world and to close relationships. Several chapters describe the transformative possibilities of community-driven movements for disadvantaged women that support healing through a recovery of voice, and describe the need for systemic and structural changes to counter violations of human rights as a means of reducing women’s risk of depression. Chapters also discuss health-related aspects of self-silencing, including eating disorders, treatment for cardiovascular disease, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, and self-care for women in cancer treatment. Bringing the work of these researchers together in one collection furthers international dialogue about critical social factors that affect the rising rates of depression around the globe.

Self Control in Society, Mind, and Brain

Ran Hassin, Kevin Ochsner, and Yaacov Trope — 2010-05-01

Author:: RanHassinThe Hebrew UniversityKevinOchsnerColumbia UniversityYaacovTropeNew York University
ISBN:: 9780195391381
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195391381.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2010-05-01

This book presents social, cognitive, and neuroscientific approaches to the study of self-control, connecting recent work in cognitive and social psychology with recent advances in cognitive and social neuroscience. It consists of three sections: The Social, The Mental, and The Brain. The “Mental” section is the book's anchor, examining within-individual self-control processes at all levels, from low-level attention to motivation and motivational systems. The “Social” section looks at group processes, broadly defined, and how groups and societies (attempt to) resolve conflicts between their global goals and the individual's self interest. The “Brain” section explores the brain processes that underlie self control attempts and which speak directly to mental-level processes. The book brings together multiple perspectives on self-control dilemmas from researchers in various allied disciplines in order to illustrate the depth and breadth of the research in the new field of self control.

A Lens on Deaf Identities

Irene W. Leigh — 2010-05-01

Author:: Irene W. Leigh
ISBN:: 9780195320664
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195320664.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-05-01

Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals develop their identities within environments that convey and reinforce preconceived assumptions of what it means to hear or see the world differently. These assumptions ultimately influence identity evolution and psychological well-being. A Lens on Deaf Identities explores multiple factors, both past and present, with significance for deaf/hard-of-hearing identities. These factors include explanatory paradigms of how deaf and hard-of-hearing people are understood within the context of disability and sociolinguistics; the formal recognition of a Deaf culture and the emergence of bicultural frames of reference; the appearance of deaf identity theories in the psychological literature; the influence of families and schools, and historical and social contexts; the acknowledgment of diversity in this population; and the technology that affects the identity of deaf people in different ways (e.g., cochlear implants as bionic ears, telecommunications that bring deaf people together with each other as well as with hearing people, and advances in genetics that counter the acceptability of hearing differences). Personal experiences, theoretical formulations, and research data are used to examine interfaces within and between each of these areas and how the tensions emerging at these junctures influence deaf and hard-of-hearing identity formation in complex, multifaceted ways that defy pervasive stereotypes of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons. This book will appeal to readers interested in d/Deaf/hard-of-hearing lives, Deaf studies and deaf education, and those interested in identity formation in the presence of “disability”.

International Differences in Well-Being

Ed Diener, Daniel Kahneman, and John Helliwell — 2010-05-01

Author:: Ed Diener, Daniel Kahneman, John Helliwell
ISBN:: 9780199732739
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732739.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2010-05-01

This book draws together the latest work from scholars around the world using subjective well-being data to understand and compare well-being across countries and cultures. Starting from many different vantage points, the book reaches a consensus that many measures of subjective well-being, ranging from life evaluations through emotional states, based on memories and current evaluations, merit broader collection and analysis. Using data from the Gallup World Poll, the World Values Survey, and other internationally comparable surveys, the chapters document wide divergences among countries in all measures of subjective well-being. The international differences are greater for life evaluations than for emotions. Despite the well-documented differences in the ways in which subjective evaluations change through time and across cultures, the bulk of the very large international differences in life evaluations are due to differences in life circumstances rather than differences in the way these differences are evaluated.

Implicit Motives

Oliver Schultheiss and Joachim Brunstein — 2010-05-01

Author:: Oliver Schultheiss, Joachim Brunstein
ISBN:: 9780195335156
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335156.001.0001
Published in print:: 2010
Published Online:: 2010-05-01

This chapter provides an overview of the history of research on implicit motives. Six common principles of implicit motive research are laid out: (1) Implicit motives are nonconscious, (2) motive arousal is associated with characteristic changes in thought content and behavior, (3) motives act as affect amplifiers, (4) motives interact with situational incentives to shape behavior, (5) motives affect multiple levels of psychological functioning, and (6) the number of implicit motives is biologically constrained. The chapter also provides an overview of the structure and topics of the book.

Well-Being for Public Policy

Ed Diener, Richard Lucas, Ulrich Schimmack, and John Helliwell — 2010-04-01

Author:: Ed Diener, Richard Lucas, Ulrich Schimmack, John Helliwell
ISBN:: 9780195334074
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195334074.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-04-01

The case is made for implementing national accounts of well-being to help policy makers and individuals make better decisions. Well-being is defined as people's evaluations of their lives, including concepts such as life satisfaction and happiness, and is similar to the concept of “utility” in economics. Measures of well-being in organizations, states, and nations can provide people with useful information. Importantly, accounts of well-being can help decision makers in business and government formulate better policies and regulations in order to enhance societal quality of life. Decision makers seek to implement policies and regulations that increase the quality of life, and the well-being measures are one useful way to assess the impact of policies as well as to inform debates about potential policies that address specific current societal issues. This book reviews the limitations of information gained from economic and social indicators, and shows how the well-being measures complement this information. Examples of using well-being for policy are given in four areas: health, the environment, work and the economy, and social life. Within each of these areas, examples are described of issues where well-being measures can provide policy-relevant information. Common objections to using the well-being measures for policy purposes are refuted. The well-being measures that are in place throughout the world are reviewed, and future steps in extending these surveys are described. Well-being measures can complement existing economic and social indicators, and are not designed to replace them.

Strangers in a Strange Lab

William Ickes — 2010-04-01

Author:: William Ickes
ISBN:: 9780195372953
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195372953.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-04-01

Can we predict how well we will get along with others even before we meet them? According to the research findings reported in this book, we can. This book summarizes decades of research on how personality characteristics affect behavior, thoughts, and feelings in initial interactions. Much of the research was conducted by the author and his colleagues, enabling a first-person account of the reasons for exploring different aspects of personality, the surprises encountered along the way, and the author's attempt to integrate the findings into a more comprehensive pattern. The book first provides background on the unstructured dyadic interaction paradigm — a research method developed to study naturally occurring social interaction in a controlled laboratory setting. The next chapters focus on the roles of specific personal characteristics and personality traits in shaping behavior in initial interactions. The earliest of these chapters concern gender and gender composition, race/ethnicity, birth order, and physical attractiveness. Later chapters concern androgyny; the Big Five traits — extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience; shyness and self-consciousness; and self-monitoring. The final chapter addresses whether, when, and how personality similarity/dissimilarity is important, and proposes a more integrated view of how personality shapes people's initial and longer-term relationships.

The Political Psychology of Democratic Citizenship

Eugene Borgida, Christopher M Federico, and John L Sullivan — 2010-04-01

Author:: EugeneBorgidaChristopher MFedericoJohn LSullivan
ISBN:: 9780195335453
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335453.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-04-01

While scholars in political science, social psychology and mass communications have made notable contributions to our understanding of democratic citizenship, they concentrate on very different aspects of the overall problem. The current volume challenges this fragmentary pattern of inquiry, and adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of citizenship, which holds great potential for insight and integration across topic areas, and for the development of informed interventions aimed at meeting challenges faced by democratic citizens. The volume is organized around five themes related to democratic citizenship: citizen knowledge about politics; persuasion processes and intervention processes; group identity, and perception of individual citizens and social groups; hate crimes and intolerance; and the challenge of rapid changes in technology and mass media. These themes address the key challenges to existing perspectives on citizenship, represent themes that are central to the health of democratic societies, and reflect ongoing lines of research that offer important contributions to an interdisciplinary political psychology perspective on citizenship. These also represent themes for which scholars may not be aware of work in other disciplines on the same topic, or where scholars are insufficiently aware of such work and might well benefit from greater intellectual commerce. In other words, these are themes that provide opportunities for the interdisciplinary cross-talk that characterizes contributions to this volume by scholars from psychology, political science, sociology, and mass communications. In the final section, commentators reflect on different aspects of the scholarly agenda put forth in this volume, including what this body of work suggests about the state of political psychology's contributions to our understanding of these issues. Thus, the volume aims to provide a multifaceted, interdisciplinary look at the political psychology of democratic citizenship. The interdisciplinary bent of contemporary work in political psychology may uniquely equip it to provide us with a more nuanced understanding of citizenship issues — and perhaps even of competing democratic theories — in democratic societies.

Information Foraging Theory

Peter L. T. Pirolli — 2010-04-01

Author:: Peter L. T. Pirolli
ISBN:: 9780195173321
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195173321.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2010-04-01

Modern mankind forages in a world awash in information, of our own creation, which can be transformed into knowledge that shapes and powers our engagement with nature. We produce a staggering volume of content that can be transmitted at the speed of light. This wealth of information provides resources for adapting to the problems posed by our increasingly complex world. However, this information environment poses its own complex problems that require adaptive strategies for information foraging. This book is about Information Foraging Theory, which aims to explain and predict how people will best shape themselves to their information environments, and how information environments can best be shaped to people. This book presents the details of empirical investigations of its predictions, and applications of the theory to the engineering and design of user interfaces. The theory and methodology have been developed by drawing upon work on the rational analysis of cognition, computational cognitive modeling, behavioral ecology, and microeconomics. Empirical research that has shaped Information Foraging Theory has included the study of application problems in human—information interaction, which is emerging as a new branch in the field traditionally known as human—computer interaction. The insights and results are intended to be relevant to the practitioner interested in a deeper understanding of information-seeking behavior and guidance on new user interface designs.

Image Bite Politics

Maria Elizabeth Grabe and Erik Page Bucy — 2010-04-01

Author:: Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Erik Page Bucy
ISBN:: 9780195372076
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195372076.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-04-01

Image Bite Politics is the first book to systematically assess the visual presentation of presidential candidates in network news coverage of elections and to connect these visual images with shifts in public opinion. Presenting the results of a comprehensive visual analysis of general election news from 1992-2004, encompassing four presidential campaigns, the authors highlight the remarkably potent influence of television images when it comes to evaluating leaders. The book draws from a variety of disciplines, including political science, behavioral biology, cognitive neuroscience, and media studies in order to investigate the visual framing of elections in an interdisciplinary fashion. Moreover, the book presents findings that are counterintuitive and which challenge widely held assumptions; yet are supported by systematic data. For example, Republicans receive consistently more favorable visual treatment than Democrats, countering the conventional wisdom of a “liberal media bias”; and image bites are more prevalent, and in some elections more potent, in shaping voter opinions of candidates than sound bites. Finally, the authors provide a foundation for promoting visual literacy among news audiences and bring the importance of visual analysis to the forefront of research.

Group Creativity

Paul B. Paulus and Bernard A. Nijstad — 2010-04-01

Author:: Paul B.PaulusUniversity of Texas, ArlingtonBernard A.NijstadUniversity of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
ISBN:: 9780195147308
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195147308.001.0001
Published in print:: 2003
Published Online:: 2010-04-01

Creativity often leads to the development of original ideas that are useful or influential, and maintaining creativity is crucial for the continued development of organizations in particular, and society in general. Most research and writing has focused on individual creativity, yet in recent years, there has been an increasing acknowledgment of the importance of the social and contextual factors in creativity. Even with the information explosion and the growing necessity for specialization, the development of innovations still requires group interaction at various stages in the creative process. Most organizations increasingly rely on the work of creative teams where each individual is an expert in a particular area. This book summarizes the exciting new research developments on the processes involved in group creativity and innovation, and explores the relationship between group processes, group context and creativity. It draws from a broad range of research perspectives, including those investigating cognition, groups, creativity, information systems and organizational psychology. The first section in this book focuses on how group decision making is affected by factors such as cognitive fixation and flexibility, group diversity, minority dissent, group decision-making, brainstorming and group support systems. Special attention is devoted to the various processes and conditions which can inhibit or facilitate group creativity. The second section explores how various contextual and environmental factors affect the creative processes of groups. The chapters explore issues of group autonomy, group socialization, mentoring, team innovation, knowledge transfer and creativity, at the level of cultures, and societies.

Envy

Richard Smith — 2010-04-01

Author:: RichardSmith
ISBN:: 9780195327953
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195327953.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2010-04-01

For centuries, scholars have argued that envy is the source of much aggressive behavior as well as the root cause of much unhappiness, but it is only recently that there have been attempts to examine the emotion from an empirical perspective. This book is the first of its kind to offer a comprehensive summary of current theoretical and empirical work on envy, provided by scholars from a range of disciplines. The first section of the book focuses on the rich theological, philosophical, and evolutionary foundations of scholarly thinking on envy. The second section covers the social psychological work on envy and includes chapters on social comparison processes, definitional challenges, the link between envy and schadenfreude, inter-group envy, and fear of envy. The third section covers research on envy from organizational psychology, experimental economics, marketing, neuroscience, and anthropology. The fourth section focuses on the implications of understanding envy for physical and mental health, with chapters on psychoanalytic conceptions of envy, health psychology, and the challenges of coping with envy. A final chapter consists of reflective comments on all the chapters, and brings together recurring themes, making suggestions for future research on envy.

The Cultural Animal

Roy F. Baumeister — 2010-04-01

Author:: Roy F. Baumeister
ISBN:: 9780195167030
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167030.001.0001
Published in print:: 2005
Published Online:: 2010-04-01

What makes us human? Why do people think, feel, and act as they do? What is the essence of human nature? What is the basic relationship between the individual and society? These questions have fascinated people for centuries. Now, at last, there is a solid basis for answering them, in the form of the accumulated efforts and studies by thousands of psychology researchers. We no longer have to rely on navel-gazing and speculation to understand why people are the way they are; we can instead turn to solid, objective findings. This book not only summarizes what we know about people; it also offers a coherent, easy-to-understand though radical, explanation. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, the author argues that culture shaped human evolution. Contrary to theories that depict the individual's relation to society as one of victimization, endless malleability, or just a square peg in a round hole, he proposes that the individual human being is designed by nature to be part of society. Moreover, he argues that we need to briefly set aside the endless study of cultural differences to look at what most cultures have in common; because that holds the key to human nature. Culture is in our genes, although cultural differences may not be. This core theme is further developed by a tour through the main dimensions of human psychology. What do people want? How do people think? How do emotions operate? How do people behave? And how do they interact with each other? The answers are often surprising, and along the way, the author explains how human desire, thought, feeling, and action are connected.

The Changing Portrayal of Adolescents in the Media Since 1950

Patrick Jamieson and Daniel Romer — 2010-04-01

Author:: Patrick Jamieson, Daniel Romer
ISBN:: 9780195342956
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342956.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2010-04-01

Following World War II, unparalleled economic prosperity, along with the largest cohort of American youth, gave rise to a new teen market and a new media landscape defined by television and radio. These influences in turn gave rise to a youth culture that found expression in the mass media, and which emphasized the virtues of a consumerist ethos made possible by an ever-expanding economy. Advertising became a vehicle for advancing this new consumer culture that enabled youth to become a major audience for entertainment media, and which gave unprecedented voice to their interests and concerns. With the advent of the Internet, media have again afforded young people with even greater opportunities to create and disseminate their own content. This has led to a transformation in both how youth are portrayed in the media and how American culture has been influenced in turn. This book describes these changes since 1950, with a focus on the role of the mass media as both an influence on youth socialization and as an evolving expression of youth concerns. Experts from various fields of media studies discuss these changes in chapters that focus on different aspects of adolescent portrayal, including: the history of the emergence of youth culture; youth representation in popular music and music videos; increasing portrayal of health risk behaviors in popular movies, advertising, and other media since 1950; changes in portrayal of gender roles, body image, and different ethnic groups; and the role of new and evolving media such as video games and the Internet. The book concludes with a discussion of potential policy directions for ameliorating harm from problematic media content, and the potential use of media literacy and other strategies to encourage healthier adolescent development.

Then A Miracle Occurs

2010-02-01

Author:: Christopher R.AgnewDonal E.CarlstonWilliam G.GrazianoJanice R.Kelly
ISBN:: 9780195377798
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Clinical Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377798.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-02-01

The inaugural Purdue Symposium on Psychological Sciences (PSPB) gathered leading thinkers in social psychology to consider theoretical and empirical issues relevant to behavior, across the field and with respect to various subfields of social psychological inquiry. This volume presents the contributions of the PSPS symposium participants. Each contributor highlights theoretical and/or measurement issues about behavior, including how behavior is treated in current social psychological theory and research. The book's coverage of behavior is divided into two overarching sections: (1) behavior and intra-individual processes, including social cognition and individual differences, and (2) behavior and inter-individual processes, including close relationships and group dynamics. Despite the imposed sections, there is significant overlap in issues examined across sections. Focusing attention on a multiplicity of issues surrounding the study of behavior is timely and important. Some scholars believe that, across various sub-disciplines of the field, social psychology has contributed a great deal to our understanding of behavior and its antecedents. From this perspective, there is considerable utility in drawing together such work in one place. Other scholars suggest that, though there has been great progress elucidating the internal cognitive, affective and motivational underpinnings of behavior, much less research focuses on external behavior itself. From this perspective, it is important to identify the theoretical gaps, the empirical needs, and the focal issues that still demand attention. In this volume, we review some of these key issues with contributions from some of the world's leading social and personality psychologists.

Health Behavior Change and Treatment Adherence

Leslie Martin, Kelly Haskard-Zolnierek, and M. Robin DiMatteo — 2010-02-01

Author:: Leslie Martin, Kelly Haskard-Zolnierek, M. Robin DiMatteo
ISBN:: 9780195380408
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380408.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-02-01

Each year, millions of people resolve to take better care of their health and almost a billion medical visits take place. Yet as many as half of these visits result in patient nonadherence, and most people who successfully begin necessary health behavior changes fail to maintain them. Healthcare professionals often struggle to provide their patients with the tools necessary for successful maintenance of healthy behavior. This book synthesizes the results from an overwhelming number of empirical research articles on adherence and health behavior change, providing simple, powerful, and practical guidance for health professionals. A set of effective evidence-based strategies for putting long-term health-relevant behavioral changes into practice includes the straightforward 3-ingredient Information–Motivation–Strategy model that has been supported by decades of outcomes research. In order to change, individuals must (1) know what change is necessary information; (2) desire the change (motivation); and then (3) have the tools to achieve and maintain the change (strategy). Numerous clinical examples illustrate the important practice principles offered. Health Behavior Change and Treatment Adherence brings together major research findings in a succinct, readable, practical, and usable format for making real changes. It is written for a wide variety of practitioners and students including those in medicine, chiropractic, osteopathy, nursing, health education, physician assistant programs, dentistry, clinical and health psychology, marriage and family counseling, social work, school psychology, and care administration. This book is also for anyone who wishes to take an active role in their health.

The Story of Sexual Identity

Phillip L. Hammack and Bertram J. Cohler — 2009-09-01

Author:: Phillip L.HammackUniversity of California-Santa CruzBertram J.CohlerUniversity of Chicago
ISBN:: 9780195326789
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326789.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2009-09-01

When viewed through the broad lens of social history, the story of sexual identity across place and time is infused with extraordinary contextual specificity. Different cultures in different historical eras have organized human sexuality in a multiplicity of diverse forms and functions, constructing stories of sexual identity that serve a larger social structure with master narratives of what it means to be a member of a given community, culture, and society. In examining the shifting narratives of sexual identity in the 20th and 21st centuries and their impact on the process of human social development, this edited volume fuses historical, cultural, and psychological perspectives on human sexuality to articulate a rigorous interdisciplinary approach to the study of sexual lives. Recognizing the historical and cultural relativity of life-course development, the contributors seek to offer a comprehensive perspective on the ways in which identity is inherently a process of co-construction between individual and culture, thereby positing a significant role for the social in the development of sexual identity. Following a general introduction in which the book explains the utility of a narrative approach to the study of sexual identity, the book is organized into sections which deal with specific life-span considerations of sexuality: childhood and adolescence, adulthood, marriage and parenthood, and aging.

Artifacts in Behavioral Research

Robert Rosenthal, Ralph L. Rosnow, and Alan E. Kazdin — 2009-09-01

Author:: Robert Rosenthal, Ralph L. Rosnow, Alan E. Kazdin
ISBN:: 9780195385540
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195385540.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2009-09-01

This book is really three-books-in-one, dealing with the topic of artifacts in behavioral research. It is about the problems of experimenter effects which have not been solved. Experimenters still differ in the ways in which they see, interpret, and manipulate their data. Experimenters still obtain different responses from research participants (human or infrahuman) as a function of experimenters' states and traits of biosocial, psychosocial, and situational origins. Experimenters' expectations still serve too often as self-fulfilling prophecies, a problem that biomedical researchers have acknowledged and guarded against better than have behavioral researchers; e.g., many biomedical studies would be considered of unpublishable quality had their experimenters not been blind to experimental condition. Problems of participant or subject effects have also not been solved. Researchers usually still draw research samples from a population of volunteers that differ along many dimensions from those not finding their way into our research. Research participants are still often suspicious of experimenters' intent, try to figure out what experimenters are after, and are concerned about what the experimenter thinks of them. That portion of the complexity of human behavior that can be attributed to the social nature of behavioral research can be conceptualized as a set of artifacts to be isolated, measured, considered, and, sometimes, eliminated. This book examines the methodological and substantive implications of sources of artifacts in behavioral research and strategies for improving this situation.

Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification

John T. Jost, Aaron C. Kay, and Hulda Thorisdottir — 2009-05-01

Author:: John T.JostNew York UniversityAaron C.KayUniversity of Waterloo, OntarioHuldaThorisdottirPrinceton University
ISBN:: 9780195320916
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195320916.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2009-05-01

This volume both reflects and exemplifies the recent resurgence of interest in the social and psychological characteristics and processes that give rise to ideological forms. Ideology is an elusive, multifaceted construct that can usefully be analyzed in terms of “top-down” processes related to the social construction and dissemination of ideology, as well as to “bottom-up” processes, including dispositional and situational factors, that make certain ideological outcomes more likely than others. The twenty chapters of this volume focus on the cognitive and motivational antecedents and consequences of adopting specific ideologies, the functions served by those ideologies, and the myriad ways in which people accept and justify (versus reject) aspects of the social and political worlds they inhabit. Current challenges and future directions for the study of ideology and system justification are also discussed in several chapters. The volume represents a wide variety of research traditions bearing on the social and psychological bases of ideology and system justification. These traditions include (a) the study of attitudes, social cognition, and information processing at both conscious and nonconscious levels of awareness, (b) theories of motivated reasoning and goal-directed cognition, (c) research on personality and dispositional correlates of political orientation, (d) work on social justice and the origins of moral values, (e) the myriad ways in which social and political opinions are shaped by local situations and environments, and (f) studies of stereotyping, prejudice, and the ideological correlates of intergroup attitudes.

The Development of Persistent Criminality

Joanne Savage — 2009-05-01

Author:: JoanneSavageAmerican University
ISBN:: 9780195310313
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310313.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2009-05-01

This volume addresses one of the most pressing problems of modern criminology: Why do some individuals become chronic, persistent offenders? Chronic offenders are responsible for the majority of serious crimes committed and understanding which individuals will become chronic offenders is an important step in developing interventions that will work. Unfortunately, much of the research on causes of offending does not distinguish between minor, short-term delinquency and long-term patterns of serious criminality. The volume was inspired by a desire to bridge the gap between two sets of literature that can help us shed light on this problem: criminological research on offending trajectories and research on risk factors for offending in the field of developmental psychology. Chapters cover topics such as families and parenting, poverty, stressful life events, social support, biology and genetics, early onset, foster care, educational programs for juvenile offenders, deterrence, and chronic offending among females. Several authors also share new theoretical approaches to understanding persistence and chronicity in offending, including an expansion of the conceptualization of the etiology of self-control, a discussion of offender resistance to social control, a dynamic developmental systems approach to understanding offending in young adulthood, and the application of Wikström's situational action theory to persistent offending.

Reputation

Kenneth H. Craik — 2009-01-01

Author:: Kenneth H. Craik
ISBN:: 9780195330922
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195330922.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2009-01-01

The network interpretation of reputation advanced in this book depicts the everyday flow and storage of information about a person throughout the extensive lifelong network of all of those other individuals who have come to know that person. This demonstration of the underlying components and development of a person’s reputation affords examination of such issues as truth in reputation, how persons are both the agent and resultant of their reputations, the mutual relevance of reputation and personality, the psychological structure of libel law, and three distinct stages in the evolution of a person’s posthumous reputation network. The explicit network approach provides guidance for addressing such questions as How can we estimate the total membership size of a person’s lifelong reputational community? What adaptive social functions does gossip serve? What does the libel court of London teach us about the risks of communicating information about specific other persons and of defaming and being defamed? What changes occur in the flow of information about persons upon their death? This integrative network conception of reputation brings together a wide range of subfields in the social sciences and humanities into a coherent framework. They include biographical studies, cultural history, evolutionary psychology, gossip research, libel law, organizational psychology, personality assessment, publicity and public relations, social cognition, social network analysis, and social representation theory. The comprehensiveness of the network interpretation of reputation spotlights new forms of interdisciplinary analysis and shows how scholars and scientists in a broad array of disciplines have something important to contribute.

Reading Our Lives

William L. Randall and Elizabeth McKim — 2008-09-01

Author:: William L. Randall, Elizabeth McKim
ISBN:: 9780195306873
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195306873.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2008-09-01

This book examines aspects of aging that are commonly overlooked by dominant conceptual models in gerontology, which focus on the observable, measurable, or “outside” dimensions of aging. Drawing on the emerging field of narrative gerontology, it provides conceptual-theoretical support to scholars of aging who are interested in bringing such topics as reminiscence and life review more into the center of gerontological inquiry. Although aging has often been framed in terms of a narrative of inevitable decline, a more positive portrayal of aging becomes possible as the focus is placed on the intricate psychological dimensions or “inside” of aging, and as the storied nature of human experience is taken explicitly into account. The book looks at aging as, potentially, a process of poeisis: a creative endeavor of fashioning meaning from the ever-accumulating, ever-thickening texts — memories and reflections — that constitute our inner worlds. At its center is the conviction that, although we are constantly reading our lives to some degree anyway, doing so in a mindful manner is critical to our development, or growth, in the second half of life. The book employs a narrative, and thus interdisciplinary, perspective to link together topics that have tended to be of marginal interest within mainstream gerontology, specifically memory, meaning, wisdom, and spirituality. It does this by exploring the convergence of ideas from literary theory regarding reader-response; of advances in neuroscience regarding the narrative basis of consciousness itself; and of thinking about narrative development and narrative identity within psychology, in particular the psychology of aging.

The Social Psychology of Intergroup Reconciliation

Arie Nadler, Thomas Malloy, and Jeffrey D. Fisher — 2008-05-01

Author:: ArieNadlerTel Aviv UniversityThomasMalloyRhode Island CollegeJeffrey D.FisherUniversity of Connecticut
ISBN:: 9780195300314
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195300314.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2008-05-01

The book begins with an overview by Herbert Kelman, discussing reconciliation as distinct from related processes of conflict settlement and conflict resolution. Following that, the first section of the book focuses on intergroup reconciliation as consisting of moving beyond feelings of guilt and victimization (i.e., socio-emotional reconciliation). These processes include acceptance of responsibility for past wrongdoings and being forgiven in return. Such processes must occur on the background of restoring and maintaining feelings of esteem and respect for each of the parties. The chapters in the second section focus on processes through which parties learn to co-exist in a conflict free environment and trust each other (i.e., instrumental reconciliation). Such learning results from prolonged contact between adversarial groups under optimal conditions. Chapters in this section highlight the critical role of identity related processes (e.g., common identity) and power equality in this context. The contributions in the third part apply the social-psychological insights discussed previously to an analysis of real world programs to bring reconciliation (e.g., Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, Israelis and Palestinians, and African societies plagued by the HIV epidemic and the Western aid donors). In a concluding chapter Morton Deutsch shares his insights on intergroup reconciliation that have accumulated in close to six decades of work on conflict and its resolution.

Are We Free?

John Baer, James C. Kaufman, and Roy F. Baumeister — 2008-05-01

Author:: JohnBaerRider UniversityJames C.KaufmanCalifornia State UniversityRoy F.BaumeisterFlorida State University
ISBN:: 9780195189636
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189636.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2008-05-01

Do people have free will, or is universal belief an illusion? If free will is more than an illusion, what kind of free will do people have? How can free will influence behavior? Can free will be studied, verified, and understood scientifically? These are a few of the questions this book attempts to answer. People generally act as though they believe in their own free will: they don't feel like automatons, and they don't treat one another as they might treat robots. While acknowledging many constraints and influences on behavior, people nonetheless act as if they (and their neighbors) are largely in control of many if not most of the decisions they make. Belief in free will also underpins the sense that people are responsible for their actions. Psychological explanations of behavior rarely mention free will as a factor, however. Can psychological science find room for free will? How do leading psychologists conceptualize free will, and what role do they believe free will plays in shaping behavior? This book looks both at recent experimental and theoretical work directly related to free will and at the ways leading psychologists from all branches of psychology deal with the philosophical problems long associated with the question of free will, such as the relationship between determinism and free will and the importance of consciousness in free will. It also includes commentaries by leading philosophers on what psychologists can contribute to long-running philosophical struggles with this most distinctly human belief.

Aggression in the Sports World

Gordon W. Russell — 2008-05-01

Author:: Gordon W. Russell
ISBN:: 9780195189599
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189599.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2008-05-01

This book was written for colleagues, students, and knowledgeable sports fans. Strong international and interdisciplinary themes underlie the presentation of the best and most recent findings on questions surrounding sports aggression. Topics range from those with a narrow focus on the personality of hooligans and others, the role of drugs both legal and illegal, sports heroes, and the media in relationship to interpersonal aggression. A broader focus encompasses topics that include environmental factors such as temperature and noise in addition to cultural influences that exert strong effects on human aggression. That most revered concept in sports, that is competition, is examined and clarified both with respect to its definition and relationship to aggression. A major portion of the book is dedicated to crowd violence at sporting and entertainment events. Questions of who riots, why they riot, and situations that favor their occurrence are addressed. Similarly, research into the underlying cause of crowd panics and the peculiar behavior of those caught up in panics is examined. A series of proposals intended to avert or minimize the severity of riots and panics accompanies both topics. A concluding feature of the book provides a brief introduction to the means by which social scientists investigate questions of aggression as well as a capsule summary of several traditional theories of aggression.

The Redemptive Self

Dan P. McAdams — 2007-09-01

Author:: Dan P. McAdams
ISBN:: 9780195176933
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195176933.001.0001
Published in print:: 2006
Published Online:: 2007-09-01

Drawing from the author's psychological research on especially generative (that is, caring and productive) midlife American adults and on a reading of American cultural history and literature, this book identifies a prototypical story of the good life that many Americans employ to make sense of who they are, who they have been, and who they will be in the future. The central theme in this story is redemption — the deliverance from suffering to a positive status or outcome. Empirical research suggests that highly generative American adults are much more likely than their less generative counterparts to construe their lives as tales of redemption. Redemptive life stories promote psychological well-being, physical health, and the adult's commitment to making a positive contribution to society. But stories of redemption are as much cultural texts as they are individual psychological constructions. From the spiritual autobiographies composed by the Massachusetts Bay Puritans to the most recent episodes of the Oprah Winfrey Show, common scripts for the redemptive self may be found in religious accounts of conversion and atonement, the rags-to-riches stories of the American dream, and canonical cultural narratives about personal liberation, freedom, and recovery. The book examines the psychological and cultural dynamics of redemptive life narratives, including the role of American religion and self-help as sources for the construction of life stories and the broad similarities, as well as the striking differences in how African-American and Euro-American adults construct redemptive stories of the self. For all their psychological and cultural power, redemptive life stories sometimes reveal important limitations in American identity. For example, some versions of the redemptive self underscore the naïve expectation that suffering will always be overcome and the arrogance of seeing one's own life as the living out of a personal manifest destiny.

Family Relationships

Catherine A. Salmon and Todd K. Shackelford — 2007-09-01

Author:: Catherine A.SalmonUniversity of Redlandshttp://www.redlands.edu/academics/college-of-arts-sciences/undergraduate-studies/psychology/2212.aspxTodd K.ShackelfordFlorida Atlantic University
ISBN:: 9780195320510
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Psychology, Social Psychology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195320510.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2007-09-01

Kinship ties — the close relationships found within the family — have been a central focus of evolutionary biological analyses of social behavior ever since biologist William Hamilton extended the concept of Darwinian fitness to include an individual's actions benefiting not only his own offspring, but also collateral kin. Evolutionary biologists consider organisms not only reproductive strategists, but also nepotistic strategists. If a person's genes are just as likely to be reproduced in her sister as in her daughter, then we should expect the evolution of sororal investment in the same way as one expects maternal investment. This concept has revolutionized biologists' understanding of social interaction and developmental psychologists' understanding of the family. However, kinship ties have largely been ignored in other areas of psychology, particularly social psychology. This book illustrates the ways in which an evolutionary perspective can inform our study and understanding of family relationships. It is argued that family psychology is relationship specific: the relationship between mother and daughter is different from that between father and daughter or that between brother and sister or sister and sister. In other words, humans have evolved specialized mechanisms for processing information and motivating behavior that deal with the distinct demands of being a mate, father, mother, sibling, child, or grandparent. Such an evolutionary perspective on family dynamics provides a unique insight into human behavior.