This timely and applied textbook brings together leading scientists to illustrate how key theories and concepts in social psychology help to predict and explain behavior, and can be successfully applied to benefit social and practical problems. It focuses on robust theories and models known for their successful applications and covers a diverse range of settings-spanning classroom interventions, health behavior, financial decision making, climate change and much more. Each chapter comprises of a theoretical section to define the key concepts and summarize the theory, providing evidence for its reliability and limitations from basic research, as well as an application section that summarizes research in an applied context and provides details about a particular study including the respective application setting. The textbook expertly shows how theory can make meaningful predictions for real world contexts, and isn't afraid to explain the potential hurdles and pitfalls when applying a theory and its underlying set of concepts in a certain context. Crucially, this format moves towards theory testing in applied contexts, enabling a closer examination of why and under what circumstances interventions may be successful in obtaining a desired behavioral or psychological end-state. Among the topics explored: Mindset theory of action phases and if-then planning Quality of motivation in self-determination theory The focus theory of normative conduct Social identity theory and intergroup contact theory Intergroup forgiveness Social Psychology in Action is a critical resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in social and cultural psychology, as well as students of behavioral economics seeking to develop a deeper understanding of major theories and applications of the fields. Practitioners working in the areas of organizational behavior and management, health communication, social work, and educational science and pedagogy will also find the volume pertinent to their work.

What should be done about airplane safety and terrorism, global warming, polluted water, nuclear power, and genetically engineered food? Decision-makers often respond to temporary fears, and the result is a situation of hysteria and neglect--and unnecessary illness and death. Risk and Reason explains the sources of these problems and explores what can be done about them. It shows how individual thinking and social interactions lead us in foolish directions. Offering sound proposals for social reform, it explains how a more sensible system of risk regulation, embodied in the idea of a "cost-benefit state," could save many thousands of lives and many billions of dollars too--and protect the environment in the process. Cass R. Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Television Broadcasters. His many books include Republic.com (Princeton, 2001) and Designing Democracy (Oxford, 2001). He has worked in the United States Department of Justice and advised on law reform and constitution-making in many nations.

We cannot understand contemporary psychology without first researching its history. Unlike other books on the history of psychology, which are chronologically ordered, this Handbook is organized topically. It covers the history of ideas in multiple areas of the field and reviews the intellectual history behind the major topics of investigation. The evolution of psychological ideas is described alongside an analysis of their surrounding context. Readers learn how eminent psychologists draw on the context of their time and place for ideas and practices, and also how innovation in psychology is an ongoing dialogue between past, present, and anticipated future.

What should be done about airplane safety and terrorism, global warming, polluted water, nuclear power, and genetically engineered food? Decision-makers often respond to temporary fears, and the result is a situation of hysteria and neglect--and unnecessary illness and death. Risk and Reason explains the sources of these problems and explores what can be done about them. It shows how individual thinking and social interactions lead us in foolish directions. Offering sound proposals for social reform, it explains how a more sensible system of risk regulation, embodied in the idea of a "cost-benefit state," could save many thousands of lives and many billions of dollars too--and protect the environment in the process. Cass R. Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Television Broadcasters. His many books include Republic.com (Princeton, 2001) and Designing Democracy (Oxford, 2001). He has worked in the United States Department of Justice and advised on law reform and constitution-making in many nations.

The goal of this book is to present and evaluate the concept of dynamic testing. Unlike "static" tests such as the SAT or IQ tests, it emphasizes learning potential rather than past learning accomplishments. This book is unique in its wide-ranging review of virtually all approaches to dynamic testing. It also suggests alternatives to the typical kinds of tests given in the United States--tests that often seem to stifle rather than encourage the development of human potential.

Unrealistic public policies have increasingly concerned clinicians who fear being held responsible for their decisions in a legal climate that expects them to accurately predict the future. Clinical Assessment of Dangerousness provides a forum in which a group of internationally recognized scholars present the major conceptual issues and themes in their areas of violence research. Each chapter includes an issue-based essay that makes the research findings clinically relevant for assessment and prediction of violence. This book provides a reference that outlines key information for conducting more effective risk assessments with different populations.

From the O.J. Simpson verdict to peace-making in the Balkans, the critical role of human judgment--complete with its failures, flaws, and successes--has never been more hotly debated and analyzed than it is today. This landmark work examines the dynamics of judgment and its impact on events that take place in human society, which require the direction and control of social policy. Research on social policy typically focuses on content. This book concentrates instead on the decision-making process itself. Drawing on 50 years of empirical research in decision theory, Hammond examines the possibilities for wisdom and cognitive competence in the formation of social policies, and applies these lessons to specific examples, such as the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the health care debate. Uncertainly, he tells us, can seldom be fully eliminated; thus error is inevitable, and injustice for some unavoidable. But the capacity for make wise judgments increases to the extent that we understand the potential pitfalls and their origin. The judgment process for example involves an ongoing rivalry between intuition and analysis, accuracy and rationality. The source of this tension requires an examination of the evolutionary roots of human judgment and how these fundamental features may be changing as our civilization increasingly becomes an information and knowledge-based society. With numerous examples from law, medicine, engineering, and economics, the author dramatizes the importance of judgment and its role in the formation of social policies which affect us all, and issues the first comprehensive examination of its underlying dynamics.

Immer mehr Unternehmen nutzen Online-Assessments, um Potenziale von Bewerbern oder Mitarbeitern via Internet zu testen. Online-Tests sind effizient und mittlerweile auch fur mittelstandische Unternehmen erschwinglich - doch sie haben auch ihre Grenzen. In diesem Buch zeigen erfahrene Personaler, was bei der Planung und dem Einsatz zu beachten ist und in welchen konkreten Bereichen Online-Tests sinnvoll eingesetzt werden konnen: Von der Vorselektion und dem Personalmarketing, uber die Personalauswahl und -entwicklung, bis hin zu besonderen Einsatzgebieten wie Karriereberatung und Erfassung interkultureller Kompetenzen. Diese Darstellung wird eingerahmt von wissenschaftlichen und technischen Grundlagen sowie einem Uberblick uber neueste Entwicklungen und Trends. Fallbeispiele aus fuhrenden Unternehmen, Checklisten zu Erfolgskriterien sowie eine kommentierte Ubersicht uber Anbieter von Online-Tests machen dieses Buch zu einem unverzichtbaren Leitfaden fur alle, die Online-Assessments einsetzen mochten, aber auch fur jene, die sich einen ersten Uberblick uber die Thematik verschaffen wollen."

This path-breaking book reviews psychological research on practical intelligence and describes its importance in everyday life. The authors reveal the importance of tacit knowledge--what we have learned from our own experience, through action. Although it has been seen as an indispensable element of expertise, intelligence researchers have found it difficult to quantify. Based on years of research, Dr. Sternberg and his colleagues have found that tacit knowledge can be quantified and can be taught. This volume thoroughly examines studies of practical intelligence in the United States and in many other parts of the world as well, and for varied occupations, such as management, military leadership, teaching, research, and sales.

This path-breaking book reviews psychological research on practical intelligence and describes its importance in everyday life. The authors reveal the importance of tacit knowledge--what we have learned from our own experience, through action. Although it has been seen as an indispensable element of expertise, intelligence researchers have found it difficult to quantify. Based on years of research, Dr. Sternberg and his colleagues have found that tacit knowledge can be quantified and can be taught. This volume thoroughly examines studies of practical intelligence in the United States and in many other parts of the world as well, and for varied occupations, such as management, military leadership, teaching, research, and sales.

Judgments Under Stress presents a new and exciting approach to understanding the effects of stressful conditions on judgment and decision making -- a topic so important it was addressed in a Congressional Hearing in 1988. Consisting mainly of two parts, the book synthesizes a vast body of cognitive psychology research into an innovative theoretical framework. Part I provides the reader with background in regards to judgment under stress while Part II discusses a new approach to studying it. Author Kenneth Hammond extends his examination from the effects of stress on professional judgments to its effects on moral and political judgments, working out a conceptual framework wholly within a psychological context. The book also includes discussions on sleep deprivation, fatigue, noise, heat, shock, and time pressure. In addition to laboratory experiments, Hammond looks at real life historical events such as Iran Flight 655 and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Judgments Under Stress provides a shrewd analysis of the effects of stress on human rationale, making it ideal for professional psychologists as well as for those interested in political science and social policy.

*We've added a comprehensive basic math review to this edition. It will get your students off to a good start in statistics. * In the worksheets, students obtain answers to humorous riddles if their work is correct. If the answer to a riddle does not make sense, they know to check their work. * Easy to coordinate with all major statistics textbooks because each exercise covers only a limited number of statistics. * All major topics are included-from calculating percentages to conducting a one-way ANOVA. * Over 40 humorously illustrated, interactive guides give your students solid advice on study skills covering everything from how to get the most out of a statistics textbook to how to work with a tutor. * The 64-page instructor's answer key shows all the steps in the solutions for the computational problems. This key makes it easy for you to start using the workbook right away. * This book has been a perennial best-seller. Minor adjustments throughout bring you an improved Second Edition for 1999.

Implicit knowledge, a term coined by Reber in 1965, is acquired independent of conscious attempts to learn, and generally without the capacity to communicate what has been acquired. One of the core assumptions of this argument is that implicit learning is a fundamental process, one that lies at the very heart of the adaptive behavioural repertoire of every complex organism. This is a highly readable account of the cognitive unconscious, focusing in particular on the problem of implicit learning.

Over the last fifteen years, psychological research regarding sexual orientation has seen explosive growth. In this book, Anthony R. D'Augelli and Charlotte J. Patterson bring together top experts to offer a comprehensive overview of what we have discovered - and what we still need to learn - about lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities. Writing in clear, nontechnical language, the contributors cover a range of topics, including conceptions of sexual identity, development over the lifespan, family and other personal relationships, parenting, and bigotry and discrimination. Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identities Over the Lifespan is essential reading for researchers, students, social scientists, mental health practitioners, and general readers who seek the most up-to-date and authoritative treatment of the subject available.

The purpose of this contribution to the Counterpoints series is to compare and contrast different conceptions of working memory. This is one of the most important notions to have informed cognitive psychology over the last 20 years or so, and yet it has been used in a wide variety of ways. This, in part, is undoubtedly because contemporary usage of the phrase `working memory, encapsulates various themes that have appeared at different points in the history of research into human memory and cognition. This book presents three dominant views of working memory.

Forensic psychiatry and psychology involve specialized practice with unique patients, including children, the incarcerated, and involuntary clients, presenting practitioners with specific ethics challenges. In this volume, Ezra E. H. Griffith offers a selection of engaging essays that guide practicing forensic specialists through particular situations that often result in ethics dilemmas. In chapters covering topics such as forensic practice and critical feminist theory, neuroethics in court, work with asylum applicants, and ethics problems presented by the internet, the contributors demonstrate methods to help practitioners resolve problems that they are likely to encounter in forensic practice. The concentrated focus on thinking through ethics quandaries encourages forensic practitioners to reflect regularly on the ethics dimensions of their work and provides them with the tools to create ethics-based solutions that are transparent and understandable and best serve their clients. This essential book provides a roadmap for specialists in these evolving fields to recognize dilemmas through reflection and consideration, thoughtfully articulate the problems, and create solutions.

While it is often assumed that behavioural development must be based upon both physical law and the biological principles of morphogenesis and selection, forging a link between these disciplines has remained an elusive goal. This book addresses the question of how familiar human functional acts - eating, walking, manipulating objects, smiling, etc. - emerge during infancy due to both intrinsic dynamics and selective processes. The central thesis of the book is that during perceptually guided spontaneous activity, a variety of biodynamic devices for doing different kinds of work are assembled and adapted to specific tasks. Following the introductory chapters, which explore principles from the fields of dynamics and ecological psychology, the author introduces a theory of the development of action systems based upon both self-organisation in complex systems and perceptually guided selective processes. The theory is then examined in the context of development of each of several action systems. The book addresses many long-standing issues in behavioural development, including the apparent disappearance of so-called primitive behaviours, the emergence of new skills, and the role of the caregiver on skill acquisition. The prospects for extending the theory to atypical development and to other domains such as cognition and language are also considered.

This book is a biophysically grounded comparative survey of how animals detect light and image in their world. Included are discussions of photoreceptors, light emitters, and eyes. The book centres on the kinds of optical systems that have evolved, beginning with unicellular organisms that detect and respond to light. The book details how these systems developed into more advanced and complex designs for imaging. Wolken's book will appeal to biologists, bioengineers and researchers working in the area of visual optics.

We are approaching the end of the first century of attempts to discover how the brain enables us to acquire, retain, and use information based on experience. The past several decades especially have witnessed an ever accelerating pace of research. This increase is due in large part to the development of new techniques for the analysis of brain and behavior. But, to a greater extent, these advances have been fueled by some seminal findings and the accumulation of knowledge based on systematic inquiry in many laboratories around the world. This important volume, authored by internationally renowned leaders in the field, is a progress report on this burgeoning work. What processes underlie the formation of new memories? What determines their strength? Where are the changes underlying memory located? In judging recent progress, this book looks at what we have learned about each of these questions. Furthermore, the contributors look at how these questions are rephrased and refined by new findings, hypotheses, and theories. Topics include: emotion and memory, aging and memory, plasticity of the cerebral cortex, and synaptic connectivity and memory. This book will be welcomed by neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, and cognitive scientists.

Longitudinal research (or observing the same subject across time) in human development requires more careful planning than do cross-sectional studies and is demanding theoretically and organizationally. This volume focuses on methods of data treatment in longitudinal research emphasizing the importance of careful matching of methodology to the substantive problem under consideration. It deals particularly with concepts of stability and change that are central to personality and developmental research. Contributors to this volume explore the methodology and scope of life span studies in a variety of contexts, including intellectual and cognitive development, transitions such as that from childhood to early adult life, social mobility, behavioral genetics, and psychological disorder, particularly depression. It is a valuable reference for a wide range of researchers in developmental psychology, social and behavioral science, psychiatry, epidemiology, and statistics.

Want to master research methods in psychology? Look no further! Written with new students in mind, this book will help you understand and apply research methods to every part of your degree. It will help you develop your critical and analytical skills by making features of key issues such as ethics and cultural context. It aims to entertain with interesting facts, and will enhance your understanding with examples of real studies. Other features include: Skoolkid errors Ig Nobel Prize Whoa there! and are all designed to make the study of methods enjoyable and easy.

The goal of this book is to introduce cognitive neuropsychology to a broad audience of clinicians and researchers. To orient readers who are interested in disorders of higher cortical function, but have little background in psychology, sufficient introductory material is provided, and yet each topic is explored in enough depth to serve as a reference for cognitive psychologists and cognitive neuropsychologists. The editor, David Margolin, M.D., Ph.D., has assembled a prominent group of researchers and clinicians, and each describes how the vocabulary, theoretical framework, and information-processing models of cognitive psychology are applied to various disorders of higher cortical function. Each chapter provides an overview of the disorder being discussed, develops a rationale for selecting the stimulus materials, and demonstrates how a given patient's deficits can be understood in terms of a breakdown in one or more cognitive domains. The contributors gear the chapters toward the practicing clinicians and use a step-by-step description of how one goes about determining the locus of the deficit in a patient. This cognitive neuropsychological approach is applied to disorders of attention, memory, language, vision, calculation, and motor control. A final chapter introduces the important role of neuroimaging techniques in diagnosis, which will continue to aid our understanding of brain-behavior relationships. Professionals in the fields of neuropsychology, neurology, clinical psychology, psychiatry, as well as practicing speech therapists and pathologists, will find this volume a comprehensive introduction to this increasingly important discipline.

PsychoPy is an open-source software package for creating rich, dynamic experiments in psychology, neuroscience and linguistics. Written by its creator, this book walks you through the steps of building experiments in PsychoPy, from using images to discovering lesser-known features, and from analysing data to debugging your experiment. Divided into three parts and with unique extension exercises to guide you at whatever level you are at, this textbook is the perfect tool for teaching practical undergraduate classes on research methods, as well as acting as a comprehensive reference text for the professional scientist. Essential reading for anyone using PsychoPy software, the second edition has been fully updated and includes multiple new chapters about features included in recent versions of PsychoPy, including running studies online and collecting survey data. Part I teaches you all the basic skills you need (and some more advanced tips along the way) to design experiments in behavioral sciences. Each chapter introduces anew concept but will offer a series of working experiments that you can build on. Part II presents more details important for professional scientists intending to use PsychoPy for published research. This part is recommended reading for science professionals in any discipline. Part III covers a range of specialist topics, such as those doing fMRI research, or those studying visual perception. "This book fills an incredibly important gap in the field. Many users of PsychoPy will be excited to learn that there is now a highly accessible and well-designed written guide to refine their skills." - Susanne Quadflieg, University of Bristol

"Advances in Psychology Research" presents original research results on the leading edge of psychology research. Each article has been carefully selected in an attempt to present substantial psychology advances across a broad spectrum.