The Oxford Handbook of Prosocial Behavior provides a comprehensive review of the current literature on when and why people act to benefit others. It provides a comprehensive overview of the field to give both the casual reader and the neophyte to the field some perspective about fundamental questions (what, why, when, and who) relative to prosocial behavior. Taking a multi-level approach, the chapters represent the broad spectrum of this multi-faceted domain. Topics range from micro-level analyses involving evolutionary and comparative psychological factors to macro-level applications, such as reducing intergroup conflicts and ethnic genocide. Between these extremes, the contributors-all internationally recognized in their field-offer their perspectives on developmental processes that may predispose individuals to empathize with and respond to the needs of others, individual differences that seem to interact with situational demands to promote helping, and the underlying motivations of those helping others. They explain volunteerism, intragroup cooperation, and intergroup cooperation to move the analysis from the individual to group-level phenomena. They extend the consideration of this topic to include support of pro-environmental actions, means to encourage participation in medical clinical trials, and the promotion of world peace. The ways that gender, interpersonal relationships, race, and religion might affect decisions to give aid and support to others are also addressed. The final chapter offers a unique view of prosocial behavior that encourages researchers and readers to take an even broader consideration of the field to search for a prosocial consilience.

An increasing number of Americans marry late or never at all. Today there are more than 3 million men who are at least 40 years old and have never been married. Waehler examines the myths surrounding bachelors, and he shows that stereotypes about never-married men are largely simplistic and inaccurate. Just as it would be impossible to make reliable statements about all people who have chosen to marry, the bachelor caricature falls short of reality. In this book, Waehler describes bachelors' internal processes and interpersonal styles along a continuum with three specific bachelor types: Flexible, Entrenched, and Conflicted.

"Bachelors" is the first and the only book to examine the inner workings of the bachelor mind. Waehler explores the psychology of never-married men and their choices, looking at similarities as well as differences. He looks at their conscious and unconscious psychological profiles, the experience within their families of origin, their relationships with women, their development through adulthood, and their beliefs about marriage. In the end, Waehler establishes patterns that lead to men maintaining their single status with varying degrees of satisfaction. He also provides practical advice on how to come to terms with various bachelor styles, or alternatively, how to successfully move from bachelorhood to marriage. Real life case studies are provided throughout, making this a book for the interested adult as well as researchers and other professionals.

Poverty. Lack of social support. Limited access to education. High risk for health problems. Indigenous communities face an inordinate number of hardships. But when children have special needs, these problems multiply exponentially, making existing difficulties considerably worse. School-Parent Collaborations in Indigenous Communities: Providing Services for Children with Disabilities begins with an in-depth overview of indigenous experience and psychology, and situates disabilities within the contexts of indigenous communities and education services. The pilot study at the core of the book, conducted among the Bedouins of southern Israel, shows this knowledge in action as special education personnel engage parents in interventions for their children. Going beyond facile concepts of cultural sensitivity, the model recasts professionals as cultural mediators between school and family. This practice- oriented information has the potential to improve not only the well-being of children and families, but of the greater community as well. Featured in the coverage: * Unique characteristics of indigenous communities and children with disabilities. * Psychological models of reactions to disability. * Benefits of multidisciplinary teams. * Factors affecting collaboration between indigenous parents of children with disabilities and school professionals. * Core principles of indigenously attuned collaboration. * An extended case study on collaboration between parents of children with disabilities and school professionals in a Bedouin community. School-Parent Collaborations in Indigenous Communities is a breakthrough resource for researchers, graduate students, and professionals working with special needs children in child and school psychology, international and comparative education, social work, cross-cultural psychology, public health, and educational psychology.

Politics in the modern world is not simply based on the rational pursuit of objective interests; but rather that emotional and spiritual forces are to be found at the heart of political revolutions, totalitarian systems, and media power. The study of this spiritual aspect of modern, democratic politics requires the incorporation of broader anthropological based perspectives, moving beyond the narrow, rationalistic foundations of modern politics, that can be traced back to Hobbes and Kant.

Looking at the relationship between modernity, modernism and the rise of charismatic leaders, Agnes Horvath uses real-world 'threshold' situations - in particular the world wars - to trace the conditions out of which political regimes developed. The excessive focus on rationalism and structure has led to a systematic neglect of uncertain liminal moments, which gave new direction to entire societies and cultures.

From the author of A Wedding in the Family, Annette Byford continues her examination of how mothers experience life changes in family contexts and how it impacts their sense of who they are. The book picks up the theme of family transitions and moves it to the wider focus of what happens to a family when children grow up and leave home, and the particular challenges this phase brings. Becoming a mother is not just a question of learning how to bring up a child - it brings a profound change of identity. The same happens years later, when children leave home and the job is, supposedly, 'done.' The author draws on her own experiences, both personal and professional, to discuss how mothers negotiate this change. She includes material from interviews with mothers and looks at these experiences against the background of analytic psychotherapy and family therapy. Also included is an exploration of images and depictions of mothers-in-law, grandmothers etc in literature and media, along with several, illustrative short stories on the theme of mothers and their adult children. Throughout the book there are discussions about what constitutes a successful or unsuccessful transition. This title will appeal to readers, mainly mothers, who are over fifty and interested in psychological processes in families, who may well have read books on childcare when their children were young, but who find themselves unprepared for this stage of motherhood.

Exploring phenomenological philosophy as it relates to psychiatry and the social world, this book establishes a common language between psychiatrists, anti-psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. Phenomenology and the Social Context of Psychiatry is an inter-disciplinary work by phenomenological philosophers, psychiatrists, and psychologists to discover the essence and foundations of social psychiatry. Using the phenomenology of Husserl as a point of departure, the meanings of empathy, interpersonal understanding, we-intentionality, ethics, citizenship and social inclusion are investigated in relation to psychopathology, nosology, and clinical research. This work, drawing upon the rich classical and contemporary phenomenological tradition, touching on a broad range of thinkers such as Deleuze, Levinas, and R.D. Laing, also explicates how phenomenology is a method capable of capturing the human condition and its intricate relation to the social world and mental illness

Providing an invaluable resource for scholars and researchers, this book investigates positive psychology and relationships theory and research across a range of settings and life stages-intimate, work, educational, senior/retirement, and in the context of diversity. Nearly universally, relationships are a key source of what we all seek in life: happiness, fulfillment, and well-being. The experts who contributed to this novel volume apply the framework of positive psychology to the findings of relationships research across a variety of practical contexts. What actions create and sustain respectful, caring, joyous, stimulating, and loving relationships? How do people rich in friendship, intimacy, and interpersonal skills think and behave? How do they unconsciously cultivate positive relationships? This book brings together authoritative reviews, cutting-edge research, and thoughtful scholarship that serve to answer these questions and document the benefit of positive relationships in a variety of settings and across the human life span. Following a comprehensive introduction, the book addresses positive intimate relationships, positive relationships at work, positive relationships during different stages of life (in youth, in adolescence, and among older adults), and positive relationships intersecting with diversity. The chapters underscore the simple concept that relationships are central to what makes life worth living and are fundamental to well-being across all life domains as they play out at home, in school, at work, in retirement homes, and in the community at large. Explores recent relationships research in the most important life domains and life stages-in romance and at work, during youth and in old age, and in contexts of diversity Brings together contributions from renowned leaders and prolific thinkers in positive relationships Presents science-based information that will be useful to scholars and students as well as general readers

This book addresses important current and historical topics in astrobiology and the search for life beyond Earth, including the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The first section covers the plurality of worlds debate from antiquity through the nineteenth century, while section two covers the extraterrestrial life debate from the twentieth century to the present. The final section examines the societal impact of discovering life beyond Earth, including both cultural and religious dimensions. Throughout the book, authors draw links between their own chapters and those of other contributors, emphasizing the interconnections between the various strands of the history and societal impact of the search for extraterrestrial life. The chapters are all written by internationally recognized experts and are carefully edited by Douglas Vakoch, professor of clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute. This interdisciplinary book will benefit everybody trying to understand the meaning of astrobiology and SETI for our human society.

Every day we hear about some fascinating new discovery. Yet anemic progress toward addressing the greatest risks to humankind -- clean energy, emerging infections, and cancer -- warns us that science may not be meeting its potential. Indeed, there is evidence that advances are slowing. Science is costly and can hurt people; thus it must be pursued with caution. Yet, excessive caution stifles the very thing that powers inventiveness: creation. In her boldest book yet, Roberta Ness argues that the system of funding agencies, universities, and industries designed to promote innovation has come to impede it.
The Creativity Crisis strips away the scientific enterprise's veil of mystique to reveal the gritty underbelly of university research. America's economic belt-tightening discourages long-term, risky investments in revolutionary advances and elevates short-term projects with assured outcomes. The pursuit of basic research insights, with the greatest power to transform but little ability to enrich, is being abandoned. The social nature of academia today also contributes to the descent of revolutionary discovery. In academia, which tends to be insular, hierarchical, and tradition-bound, research ideas are "owned" and the owners gain enormous clout to decide what is accepted. Communalism is antithetical to idea ownership. Thus science has not embraced the Web-based democratic sharing of ideas called crowdsourcing, one of the greatest tools for creativity and social change in our age. A final battleground between creation and caution is within the sphere of ethics. Scientists are typically altruistic but sometimes have all-too-human inclinations toward avarice and conceit. The most original thinkers are most likely to flout convention. This tendency can pull them across the lines of acceptable behavior. Caution is a necessary check on the destructive potential of amoral creation. Yet, when every individual and institution is considered a priori to be a threat, adventuresome invention is squelched.
Creation and caution in science should be in balance, but they are not. For possibilities to unlock, the ecosystem in which science is done must be fundamentally rebalanced.

Urban renewal has been the dominant approach to revitalizing industrialized communities that fall into decline. A national, community-based organization, the Skillman Foundation sought to engage in a joint effort with the University of Michigan's School of Social Work to bring six neighborhoods in one such declining urban center, Detroit, back to positions of strength and national leadership. A Twenty-First Century Approach to Community Change introduces readers to the basis for the Foundation's solicitation of social work expertise and the social context within which the work of technical assistance began. Building on research, the authors introduce the theory and practice knowledge of earlier scholars, including the conduct of needs assessments at multiple levels, engagement of community members in identifying problem-solving strategies, assistance in developing community goals, and implementation of social work field instruction opportunities. Lessons learned and challenges are described as they played out in the process of creating partnerships for the Foundation with community leaders, engaging and maintaining youth involvement, managing roles and relationships with multiple partners recruited by the Foundation for their specialized expertise, and ultimately conducting the work of technical assistance within a context of increasing influence of the city's surrounding systems (political, economic, educational, and social). Readers will especially note the role of technical assistance in an evolving theory of change.

This book is the outcome of a joint collaboration between East China Normal University and the University of Luxembourg, initiated by the Center of Ideas for the Basic Education of the Future (IBEF), and focuses on kindergartens in China from a cultural psychology perspective. By coupling young scholars from diverse cultural backgrounds as research tandems, this book uses an innovative methodological method to reveal a deeply immersing research perspective of the often complicated issues in the Chinese social reality, where long historical tradition and strong motivation for a "modernized" future are fused together and continuously evolve itself into a vibrant and intricate landscape. Meanings and values consciously or unconsciously promoted and conducted in the kindergarten are semiotic devices and they mediate children's and educator's daily behaviours and activities, which are constantly navigating among different social institutions and crossing the border of kindergarten. The book discusses the process of children's socialization in the kindergarten from different angles such as cultural objects, moral education, conflict negotiation, children's drawing analysis and the role of Lego in numeracy development. It also provides an overview of basic educational needs in Chinese kindergartens as well as three commentaries to provide background information and to add a reflective angle for the readers. By reading the book, readers will hopefully go through a constantly transforming process between familiarizing and de-familiarizing along with the research tandem and develop their own understanding of the complex landscape of the Chinese kindergarten and its children as developing subjects constantly living and transcending the context.

The concepts of psychological literacy and the psychologically literate citizen promise to invigorate a new global approach to psychology education. They pose a basic question: What attributes and capabilities should undergraduate psychology majors acquire? Many psychological organizations have defined psychological literacy by guidelines and lists of student learning outcomes, but although psychology educators across the globe have been working towards helping students to acquire these attributes over the past 50 years, educators have only recently explicitly delineated attributes and learning outcomes, and sought to develop appropriate learning, teaching, and assessment strategies, including whole program approaches.
The contributors to this volume argue that psychological literacy is the most important outcome of an undergraduate psychology education and that psychologically literate citizens use their knowledge of psychology to problem-solve in ethical and socially responsible ways that directly benefit their communities. In this book, a rich variety of international perspectives contribute to the development of the two key concepts of psychological literacy and the psychologically literate citizen. Authors provide practical guidance for classroom psychology educators, as well as curriculum developers and reviewers. Ultimately, they make the case for a paradigm shift in psychology education.

social neuroscience, social psychology, developmental, psychology, social cognition, vision research and clinical psychology. social neuroscience, social psychology, developmental, psychology, sThis comprehensive volume reviews current developments in our evolving knowledge of social attention and its processes. In doing so, it examines the brain-behavioral bases of social attention from diverse complementary fields, including disordered and healthy adult findings, infant and developmental studies and social neuroscience. The studies explored in this volume reflect the ongoing shift toward naturalistic, context-based experiments and integrative scientific approaches, and away from relying solely on standardized tasks in laboratory settings. In keeping with this proactive perspective, the authors pose critical questions throughout the book to point readers toward the potential next wave of research developments and interventions.Included in the coverage: The development of social attention in human infants. Neural bases for social attention in healthy humans. Social attention, social presence, and the dual function of gaze. Early departures from normative processes of social engagement in infants with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Aberrant social attention and its underlying neural correlates in adults with ASD. The future of social attention research. The Many Faces of Social Attention will interest researchers in social neuroscience, social psychology, developmental psychology, social cognition, visual attention and cognition, and clinical psychology, and inspire new advances in this increasingly important area of study. ocial cognition, vision research and clinical psychology.

Exploring Twins presents an analysis of twinship considered as a specifically social phenomenon. Drawing upon a wide range of interdisciplinary, historical and cross-cultural data, Dr Stewart argues that in both traditional and modern societies, twinship represents a recurrent anomaly which calls into question the assumptions around which different types of society are organized. Part One identifies and analyses the fascinating range of cultural and disciplinary approaches to the interpretation of twinship, while Part Two considers the possibilities for a distinctively social analysis of twinship.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of how communities can leverage their social capital to improve overall quality of life for citizens. In addition, it offers detailed guidance on the design, implementation, and evaluation of social capital initiatives. It defines critical concepts of social capital, its decline in recent years, and the potential for rebuilding it through progressive social policy initiatives. Chapters present an innovative social policy template, Serve Here, for improving Americans' collective quality of life, starting with young adults. Serve Here sets out a comprehensive, sustainable service learning plan aimed at increasing quality higher education for young adults, reducing college debt, and enhancing long-term civic participation and community building. The book offer guidelines for developing tailored solutions to ensure greater parity of social capital to regional, demographic, and other marginalized populations. Featured topics include: The civic value of social capital. The economics of social capital in communities. Building social capital across communities by leveraging personal relationships. Social capital and returning military veterans. Millennials and social capital. Teaching the social entrepreneurs of tomorrow. Social Capital and Community Well-Being: The Serve Here Initiative is a valuable resource for clinicians and practitioners as well as researchers and graduate students in community psychology, social work, education, and healthcare policy.

This book proposes new perspectives on relational wellness and the contemporary family-combining a psychoanalytic overview with scientific research about the burgeoning popularity of divorce, the increase in "stepfamilies," and the use of social networks as well as other technologies. In this day and age, psychoanalysis has become increasingly interested in hyper-modern scenarios; for example, social networks and apps provide matching algorithms, which allow users to connect with people of similar interests. These networks have become one of the places where dissatisfied partners seek "more satisfactory situations." In the United Kingdom, cohabitation lasts for up to two years, on average, and 40% of marriages end in divorce. In the United States, the percentage rises: it has now reached 50%. Today the value of temporariness, in which everything is fragmented, is exalted. On the other hand, is it wrong to deny the natural ebb and flow of human feeling?

Human nature is enigmatic. Are we cruel, selfish creatures or good merciful Samaritans? This book takes you on a journey into the complexities of human mind and kind, from altruism, sharing, and large-scale cooperation, to cheating, distrust, and warfare. What are the building blocks of morality and sociality? Featuring contributions from leading researchers, such as Christophe Boesch, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Azar Gat, Dennis Krebs, Ara Norenzayan, and Frans B. M. de Waal, this fascinating interdisciplinary reader draws on evolutionary and comparative perspectives, and is essential reading for any students interested in the unique characteristics that define humanity and society.

Modern men the world over are becoming increasingly fascinated with their image, spending more of their disposable income on beautification products and services. This book examines 'metrosexuality', highlighting the negotiation and construction of masculinities and sexualities in the twenty-first century.

The past several decades of rapid organizational change and global economic activity beseech a fresh understanding of work conditions and mental health across all nations and regions. This volume addresses psychosocial factors at work, legislation, frameworks, research innovations and common perceptions in the Asia Pacific countries. It presents new research on psychosocial factors at work from an Asia Pacific perspective, introducing exciting new research on workaholism, bullying, work-life balance and conflict, work demands classifications, and psychosocial safety climate. Insights regarding workplace psychosocial factors, worker health and well-being have evolved mainly within North American and European cultural contexts and developed industrial countries. This state of the art account of knowledge development in the Asia Pacific region will stimulate new insights for researchers and policy makers to improve the quality of workers' lives worldwide. "This very informative book highlights the significance and uniqueness of job stress problems encountered by workers of different countries in the Asia Pacific region. Occupational health researchers all around the world will find this book a great inspiration for future research." Yawen Cheng, ScD, Institute of Health Policy and Management, Taiwan "Initiatives and interventions reported from collaborative projects present useful hints for filling gaps in policies and practices for managing psychosocial risk factors in diverse work-life situations in the Asia Pacific region". Dr. Kazutaka Kogi, President, International Commission of Occupational Health

This significant book explains why family psychology-an entirely different field from family therapy-provides a cutting-edge description of human behavior in context and as such represents the wave of the future in psychology. Family Psychology: Theory, Research, and Practice is the definitive introductory text on family psychology, a fast-growing specialty and increasingly dominant voice for the field in the 21st century. Authors John W. Thoburn, PhD, ABPP, and Tom Sexton, PhD, ABPP, have created the first introductory book focused on this specialty, laying the groundwork that students as well as developing therapists can use to understand the basics of family psychology. This single-volume book makes the history and development of family psychology relevant to contemporary research and practice, explaining how the ecosystemic approach of family psychology provides a cutting-edge description of human behavior in context and as such is the most promising field in psychology. It addresses the history, research, theory, treatments, diagnoses, and assessment of family psychology; ethics and supervision along with related areas such as systems sex therapy; family forensic psychology; international family psychology; and systems consultation, providing a comprehensive overview of the career and practice of family psychology. Family Psychology: Theory, Research, and Practice also identifies how it differs from the individualistic therapy of traditional psychology and how it differs from the field of marriage and family therapy. Chapters include vignettes from family sessions that effectively illustrate the issues being addressed and examine the significance of gender, culture, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Supplies a comprehensive treatise on the value of family psychology to the field of psychology as a whole Provides a historical overview of family psychology and makes the important differentiation between family psychology and marriage and family therapy Examines the relationship between research and practice, cure and care, and the science and art of family psychology Documents how family psychology strives to view persons in context of their situation and the relationships within the family

This is an innovative study of 300 delinquent boys in a medium security institution and after their release. This longitudinal field experiment shows how peers affect the rehabilitation of different group members, how staff use those influences to lead to prosocial change after release from the institution, and how different behavior, values, and feelings improved. This well-designed research has broad implications for use in graduate courses in sociology, criminology and penology, social and personality psychology, and group dynamics. The book is equally useful to administrators and policymakers dealing with delinquents and individuals with behavior problems. The field experiment was devised with both practical and theoretical purposes in mind, to develop corrective programs for delinquent youth and to test social science hypotheses in the context of a longitudinal experimental research design. The study presents a typology of delinquent boys that guides differential treatment, focuses on peer group and staff influences, and identifies factors in residential treatment and in the open community that facilitate prosocial reentry. The findings test hypotheses about group and staff impact on anti-social behavior within the institution and after release.