This book applies a range of ideas about scientific discovery found in contemporary philosophy of science to psychology and related behavioral sciences. In doing so, it aims to advance our understanding of a host of important methodological ideas as they apply to those sciences. A philosophy of local scientific realism is adopted in favor of traditional accounts that are thought to apply to all sciences. As part of this philosophy, the implications of a commitment to philosophical naturalism are spelt out, and a correspondence theory of truth is defended by showing how it helps explain various features of scientific practice. The central chapter of the book presents a broad theory of scientific method that comprises the detection of empirical phenomena and their subsequent understanding by constructing explanatory theories through the use of abductive methods. This theory of scientific method is then used as a framework to reconstruct the well-known qualitative method of grounded theory, and to present a systematic perspective on clinical reasoning and case formulation. Relatedly, an abductive or explanationist understanding of methods is employed to evaluate the knowledge credentials of evolutionary psychology. In addition, the conceptual and methodological foundations of a variety of quantitative methods are examined. Exploratory factor analysis and tests of statistical significance are given special attention.

This Open Access Brief analyzes the dynamics in which children's selves emerge through their everyday activities of meaning construction, both in their relationships with family and within school education. It begins with a discussion of new psychological inquiries into children's selves and builds upon the innovative theoretical notion of the Presentational Self, developed by the author over the last decade. The book illustrates how the observation of children's meaning construction in their everyday lives becomes a starting point for theoretical and empirical inquiries into child development and gives a framework that promotes new inquiries in this area. The book describes the Presentational Self Theory as a sense of how the notion of the Self is being worked upon in everyday life encounters. Chapters feature in-depth analyses of exchanges between adults and children in the Japanese cultural context. Meaning-Making for Living will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in the fields of cognitive, social, developmental, educational, and cultural psychology.

Researchers often have difficulties collecting enough data to test their hypotheses, either because target groups are small or hard to access, or because data collection entails prohibitive costs. Such obstacles may result in data sets that are too small for the complexity of the statistical model needed to answer the research question. This unique book provides guidelines and tools for implementing solutions to issues that arise in small sample research. Each chapter illustrates statistical methods that allow researchers to apply the optimal statistical model for their research question when the sample is too small. This essential book will enable social and behavioral science researchers to test their hypotheses even when the statistical model required for answering their research question is too complex for the sample sizes they can collect. The statistical models in the book range from the estimation of a population mean to models with latent variables and nested observations, and solutions include both classical and Bayesian methods. All proposed solutions are described in steps researchers can implement with their own data and are accompanied with annotated syntax in R. The methods described in this book will be useful for researchers across the social and behavioral sciences, ranging from medical sciences and epidemiology to psychology, marketing, and economics.

This book explores test adaptation, a scientific and professional activity now spanning all of the social and behavioural sciences. Adapting tests to various linguistic and cultural contexts is a critical process in today's globalized world, and requires a combination of knowledge and skills from psychometrics, cross-cultural psychology and others. This volume provides a step-by-step approach to cross-cultural test adaptation, emphatically presented as a melange between science and practice. The volume is driven by the first-hand practical experience of the author in a large number of test adaptation projects in various cultures, and is supported by the consistent scientific body of knowledge accumulated over the last several decades on the topic. It is the first of its kind: an in-depth treatise and guide on why and how to adapt a test to a new culture in such a way as to preserve its psychometric value.

Scale Development: Theory and Applications, by Robert F. DeVellis and new co-author Carolyn T. Thorpe, demystifies measurement by emphasizing a logical rather than strictly mathematical understanding of concepts. The Fifth Edition includes a new chapter that lays out the key concepts that distinguish indices from scales, contrasts various types of indices, suggests approaches for developing them, reviews validity and reliability issues, and discusses in broad terms some analytic approaches. All chapters have been updated, and the book strikes a balance between including relevant topics and highlighting recent developments in measurement while retaining an accessible, user-friendly approach to the material covered.

Winner of the "Outstanding Academic Title" recognition by Choice for the 2020 OAT Awards. The Choice OAT Award represents the highest caliber of scholarly titles that have been reviewed by Choice and conveys the extraordinary recognition of the academic community. In recent years social media has gained significant popularity and has become an essential medium of communication. Such user-generated content provides an excellent scenario for applying the metaphor of mining any information. Transfer learning is a research problem in machine learning that focuses on leveraging the knowledge gained while solving one problem and applying it to a different, but related problem. Features: Offers novel frameworks to study user behavior and for addressing and explaining task heterogeneity Presents a detailed study of existing research Provides convergence and complexity analysis of the frameworks Includes algorithms to implement the proposed research work Covers extensive empirical analysis Social Media Analytics for User Behavior Modeling: A Task Heterogeneity Perspective is a guide to user behavior modeling in heterogeneous settings and is of great use to the machine learning community.

Acculturation is the process of group and individual changes in culture and behaviour that result from intercultural contact. These changes have been taking place forever, and continue at an increasing pace as more and more peoples of different cultures move, meet and interact. Variations in the meanings of the concept, and some systematic conceptualisations of it are presented. This is followed by a survey of empirical work with indigenous, immigrant and ethnocultural peoples around the globe that employed both ethnographic (qualitative) and psychological (quantitative) methods. This wide-ranging research has been undertaken in a quest for possible general principles (or universals) of acculturation. This Element concludes with a short evaluation of the field of acculturation; its past, present and future.

Recognizing Frantz Fanon's remarkable legacy to applied mental health and therapeutic practices which decolonize, humanize, and empower marginalized populations, this text serves as a timely call for research, education, and clinical work to establish and further develop Fanonian approaches and practices. As the first collection to focus on contemporary clinical applications of Fanon's research and practice, this volume adopts a transnational lens through which to capture the global reach of Fanon's work. Contributors from Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America offer nuanced insight into historical and theoretical methods, clinical case studies, and community-based innovations to place Fanon's research and practice in context. Organized into four key areas, including the Historical Significance of Fanon's Clinical Work; Theory and Fanonian Praxis; Psychotherapeutic and Community Applications; and Action Research, each section of the book reflects an impressive diversity of practices around the world, and considers the role of political and socioeconomic context, structures of gender oppression, racial identities, and their intersection within those practices. A unique manifesto to the ground-breaking and immensely relevant work of Frantz Fanon, this book will be of great interest to graduate and post graduate students, researchers, academics and professionals in counselling psychology, mental health research, and psychotherapy.

Build your confidence in understanding, calculating, and interpreting statistics with STATISTICS PLAIN AND SIMPLE, Fourth Edition. This straightforward, conversational introduction to statistics presents just what its title promises -- a plain and simple overview that is clear, concise, and sparing in its use of jargon. A modular format presents material in easy-to-manage sections. You'll develop a strong awareness of the interaction between statistical methods and research methods along with a solid working knowledge of basic statistical cautions in research design, a strong understanding of the concept of significance, and the critical thinking skills necessary to apply these ideas.

A comprehensive introduction to research methods and best practices for designing, conducting, interpreting, and reporting findings

This text is designed to develop in students a passion for conducting research and an understanding of the practical value of systematic information- gathering and decision-making. It features step-by-step coverage of the research process including research design, statistical considerations, and guidance on writing up and presenting results.

Recognized leaders in the field--authors Bart Weathington, Christopher Cunningham, and David Pittenger--present:

Introductions to multiple research designs--including single-participant, multi-group, longitudinal, correlational, and experimental designs--accompanied by examples

Bibliographic research and methods for appropriate sampling

Identifying, developing, and evaluating reliable and valid approaches to measurement

The issues and steps common to all single-factor and multifactor studies, as well as single-subject and nonexperimental methods

How to summarize research in writing that conforms to the editorial guidelines of the American Psychological Association

A comprehensive review of research methods and the statistical concepts that support them, "Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences" offers the best techniques for studying behavior and social phenomena.

This unique resource provides findings and insights regarding the multiple impacts of military duty on service members and veterans, specifically from a family standpoint. Broad areas of coverage include marital and family relationships, parenting issues, family effects of war injuries, and family concerns of single service members. The book's diverse contents highlight understudied populations and topics gaining wider interest while examining the immediate and long-term impact of service on family functioning. In addition to raising awareness of issues, chapters point to potential solutions including science-based pre- and post-deployment programs, more responsive training for practitioners, and more focused research and policy directions. Among the topics covered: * Deployment and divorce: an in-depth analysis by relevant demographic and military characteristics. * Military couples and posttraumatic stress: interpersonally based behaviors and cognitions as mechanisms of individual and couple distress. * Warfare and parent care: armed conflict and the social logic of child and national protection. * Understanding the experiences of women and LGBT veterans in Department of Veterans Affairs care. * Risk and resilience factors in combat military health care providers. * Tangible, instrumental, and emotional support among homeless veterans. War and Family Life offers up-to-date understanding for mental health professionals who serve military families, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Behavioral, biobehavioral, and biomedical interventions are programs with the objective of improving and maintaining human health and well-being, broadly defined, in individuals, families, schools, organizations, or communities. These interventions may be aimed at, for example, preventing or treating disease, promoting physical and mental health, preventing violence, or improving academic achievement. This book provides additional information on a principled empirical framework for developing interventions that are more effective, efficient, economical, and scalable. This framework is introduced in the monograph, "Optimization of Behavioral, Biobehavioral, and Biomedical Interventions: The Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST)" by Linda M. Collins (Springer, 2018). The present book is focused on advanced topics related to MOST. The chapters, all written by experts, are devoted to topics ranging from experimental design and data analysis to development of a conceptual model and implementation of a complex experiment in the field. Intervention scientists who are preparing to apply MOST will find this book an important reference and guide for their research. Fields to which this work pertains include public health (medicine, nursing, health economics, implementation sciences), behavioral sciences (psychology, criminal justice), statistics, and education.

This book describes a way of sharing dreams in a group, called 'social dreaming'. It explores how the sharing of real, night time dreams, in a group, can offer information on and insight into ourselves and the worlds we live in and share. It investigates how we can turn dream images, and ideas and feelings that arise from these images, into conscious thought, before describing the ways in which these can be used. Using a background of the psychosocial combined with a philosophical lens influenced by the work of Gilles Deleuze, Julian Manley shows how social dreaming can be understood as a Deleuzian 'rhizome of affects', a web or a root design where things interconnect in a random and spontaneous fashion rather than in a sequential or linear way. He illustrates how social dreaming can link dreams together into a collage of images, and compares this to the rhizome, where clusters of emotional intensity - which emerge from the dream images - weave and interconnect with other clusters, forming a web of interlinked dream images and emotions. From the basis of this rhizome emerges an interpretation of social dreaming as a 'body without organs' and the social dreaming matrix as a 'smooth space' where meanings emerge from the way these images form connections, and come and go according to our emotions at any particular moment.

This edited volume presents examples of social science research projects that employ new methods of quantitative analysis and mathematical modeling of social processes. This book presents the fascinating areas of empirical and theoretical investigations that use formal mathematics in a way that is accessible for individuals lacking extensive expertise but still desiring to expand their scope of research methodology and add to their data analysis toolbox. Mathematical Modeling of Social Relationships professes how mathematical modeling can help us understand the fundamental, compelling, and yet sometimes complicated concepts that arise in the social sciences. This volume will appeal to upper-level students and researchers in a broad area of fields within the social sciences, as well as the disciplines of social psychology, complex systems, and applied mathematics.

Horrified by the Holocaust, social psychologist Stanley Milgram wondered if he could recreate the Holocaust in the laboratory setting. Unabated for more than half a century, his (in)famous results have continued to intrigue scholars. Based on unpublished archival data from Milgram's personal collection, volume one of this two-volume set introduces readers to a behind the scenes account showing how during Milgram's unpublished pilot studies he step-by-step invented his official experimental procedure-how he gradually learnt to transform most ordinary people into willing inflictors of harm. Volume two then illustrates how certain innovators within the Nazi regime used the very same Milgram-like learning techniques that with increasing effectiveness gradually enabled them to also transform most ordinary people into increasingly capable executioners of other men, women, and children. Volume two effectively attempts to capture how step-by-step these Nazi innovators attempted to transform the Fuhrer's wish of a Jewish-free Europe into a frightening reality. By the books' end the reader will gain an insight into how the seemingly undoable can become increasingly doable.

This book explores the practice and transmission of Lacanian and Freudian theory. It discusses the pure versus applied analysis of Lacanian and Freudian theory in practice; and the hierarchical versus circular transmissions within psychoanalytic organizations. Underpinned by extensive practical knowledge of the clinic, this work examines the differences between Freud and Lacan in their understanding of the subject and the unconscious and pushes them in new directions. The book also offers an analysis and commentary of several key Lacanian texts including an accessible study of the notoriously challenging text L'etourdit. Offering both divergent and reinforcing takes on Lacan, the author explores the traits that separate out the psychoanalyst from other twentieth-century thinkers and theorists. This book offers a clear clinical picture of where Lacanian psychoanalysis is today, both in the US and internationally.

Since the late 19th century, when the "new science" of psychology and interest in esoteric and occult phenomena converged - leading to the "discovery" of the unconscious - the dual disciplines of depth psychology and mysticism have been wed in an often unholy union. Continuing in this tradition, and the challenges it carries, this volume includes a variety of inter-disciplinary approaches to the study of depth psychology, mysticism, and mystical experience, spanning the fields of theology, religious studies, and the psychology of religion. Chapters include inquiries into the nature of self and consciousness, questions regarding the status and limits of mysticism and mystical phenomenon, and approaches to these topics from multiple depth psychological traditions.

Taking philosophical principles as a point of departure, this book provides essential distinctions for thinking through the history and systems of Western psychology. The book is concisely designed to help readers navigate through the length and complexity found in history of psychology textbooks. From Plato to beyond Post-Modernism, the author examines the choices and commitments made by theorists and practitioners of psychology and discusses the philosophical thinking from which they stem. What kind of science is psychology? Is structure, function, or methodology foremost in determining psychology's subject matter? Psychology, as the behaviorist views it, is not the same as the psychoanalyst's view of it, or the existentialist's, so how may contemporary psychology philosophically-sustain both pluralism and incommensurability? This book will be of great value to students and scholars of the history of psychology.

"[A] fascinating read... Contrary to what the title might suggest, this is an upbeat exploration of suicide with a positive message." --Jeanine Connor, Therapy Today, December, 2018 This thought-provoking volume offers a distinctly human evolutionary analysis of a distinctly human phenomenon: suicide. Its 'pain and brain' model posits animal adaptations as the motivator for suicidal escape, and specific human cognitive adaptations as supplying the means , while also providing a plausible explanation for why only a relatively small number of humans actually take their own lives. The author hypothesizes two types of anti-suicide responses, active and reactive mechanisms prompted by the brain as suicide deterrents. Proposed as well is the intriguing prospect that mental disorders such as depression and addiction, long associated with suicidality, may serve as survival measures. Among the topics covered: * Suicide as an evolutionary puzzle. * The protection against suicide afforded to animals and young children. * Suicide as a by-product of pain and human cognition. * Why psychodynamic defenses regulate the experiencing of painful events. * Links between suicidality and positive psychology. * The anti-suicide role of spiritual and religious belief. In raising and considering key questions regarding this most controversial act, The Evolution of Suicide will appeal to researchers across a range of behavioral science disciplines. At the same time, the book's implications for clinical intervention and prevention will make it useful among mental health professionals and those involved with mental health policy.

This book addresses the premise that therapy can be understood, practiced, and researched as a discursive activity. Using varied forms of discourse analysis, it examines the cultural, institutional, and face-to-face communications that shape, and occur within, therapies that are discursively understood and practiced. By first providing an overview of commonalities across discursive therapies and research approaches, the authors discursively examine general aspects of therapy. Topics explored include subjectivity, psychological terms, institutional influences, therapeutic relationships, therapists' ways of talking and questioning, discursive ethics, and assessment of therapeutic processes and outcomes. This book offers a macro-analysis of the conversational practices of a discursively informed approach to therapy; as well as a micro-analysis of the ways in which language shapes and is used in a discursively informed approach to therapy. This book will interest practitioners seeking to better understand therapy as a discursive process, and discourse analysts wanting to understand therapy as discursive therapists might practice it.

Subjectivity, the Unconscious and Consumerism is a unique and imaginative psycho-sociological exploration of how postmodern, contemporary consumerism invades and colonises human subjectivity. Investigating especially consumerism's unconscious aspects such as desires, imagination, and fantasy, it engages with an extensive analysis of dreams. The author frames these using a synthesis of Jungian psychology and the social imaginaries of Baudrillard and Bauman, in a dialogue with the theories of McDonaldization and Disneyization. The aim is to broaden our understanding of consumerism to include the perennial consumption of symbols and signs of identity - a process which is the basis for the fabrication of the commodified self. The book offers a profound, innovative critique of our consumption societies, challenging readers to rethink how we live, and how our identities are impacted by consumerism. As such it will be of interest to students and scholars of critical psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, but is also accessible to anyone interested in the complex psychology of contemporary subjectivity.

This approachable guide meets health and social sciences scholars at their level-either as a reference text or as an enchanting but practical read-and walks them through each stage of their academic publishing journey. Drawing on a wealth of examples from his own experience mentoring others and publishing 300+ articles, Dr. Schwartz engages early, mid-, and senior-level professionals as well as graduate students and postdoctoral fellows alike, to demystify each stage of the writing and publishing process. Employing a reader-friendly, accessible voice, Dr. Schwartz's style captivates readers across disciplines, with a refreshing, can-do perspective. Before diving in, the author relates his own personal story in scholarly publishing, inviting all academics to unlock the high-impact writer within. The next set of chapters tackle the nuts and bolts of the academic publishing process, with basics such as topic selection, data analysis for publication, writing preparation, drafting and editing manuscripts, and journals submissions. The book advances into more innovative topics that can be simultaneously intimidating and rewarding, including recruiting and collaborating with coauthors, developing a network, navigating the peer review process, publishing nonempirical papers, getting creative with rejected manuscripts, foraying into Open Access and fee-based publishing, and even how to publish a book or book chapter. Designed as a digital mentor, The Savvy Academic is the ultimate tool for students, fellows, and scholarly professionals of a broad range of experiences in the health and social sciences who are looking to launch or elevate their scholarly publication career.

This book explores the ways in which the spatio-temporal contingency of human life is being conceived in different fields of research. Specifically, it looks at the relationship between the situatedness of human life, the situation or place in which human life is supposed to be situated, and the dimensions of space and time in which both situation and place are usually themselves supposed to be situated. Over the last two or three decades, the spatio-temporal contingency of human life has become an important topic of research in a broad range of different disciplines including the social sciences, the cultural sciences, the cognitive sciences, and philosophy. However, this research topic is referred to in quite different ways: while some researchers refer to it in terms of "situation", emphasizing the "situatedness" of human experience and action, others refer to it in terms of "place", emphasizing the "power of place" and advocating a "topological" or "topographical turn" in the context of a larger "spatial turn". Interdisciplinary exchange is so far hampered by the fact that the notions referred to and the relationships between them are usually not sufficiently questioned. This book addresses these issues by bringing together contributions on the spatio-temporal contingency of human life from different fields of research.

This edited volume contains reports of current research, and literature reviews of research, involving self-efficacy in various instructional technology contexts. The chapters represent international perspectives across the broad areas of K- 12 education, higher education, teacher self-efficacy, and learner self-efficacy to capture a diverse cross section of research on these topics. The book includes reviews of existing literature and reports of new research, thus creating a comprehensive resource for researchers and designers interested in this general topic. The book is especially relevant to students and researchers in educational technology, instructional technology, instructional design, learning sciences, and educational psychology.