Every day, in many situations, we use expressions which seem only vaguely to provide us with information. The weather forecaster tells us that "some showers are likely in Northern regions during the night", a statement which is vague with respect to number of showers, location, and time. Yet such messages are informative, and often it is not possible for the producer of the message to be more precise. A tutor tells his students that "only a few students fail their exams (...) outright". This does not give a precise incidence. Yet it might be equally misleading to do so. For example, to say that 12% failed outright last year says nothing about other years, while to say an average of 8% over the last five years says nothing about variability. We argue that a precise, numerical statement can be sometimes more misleading in reality than a vague statement. Many researchers in psychology have attempted to capture the meaning of quantities by relating them to scales of quantity. The book explores this idea in detail and shows with original studies how these expressions also serve to control attention and to convey information about the expectations held by those involved in the communication. The book works towards a psychological theory of the meaning of quantifiers and similarly vague terms. New links are drawn between formal theories of quantification and psychological experimentation. (shrink)

Prominent accounts of language use (those of Grice, Lewis, Stalnaker, Sperber and Wilson among others) have viewed basic communicative acts as essentially involving the attitudes of the participating agents. Developmental data poses a dilemma for these accounts, since it suggests children below age four are competent communicators but would lack the ability to conceptualise communication if philosophers and linguists are right about what communication is. This paper argues that this dilemma is quite serious and that these prominent accounts (...) would be undermined if an adequate more minimal alternative were available. Just such a minimalist account of communication is offered, drawing on ideas from relevance theory and situation theory. (shrink)

Sometime around their first birthday most infants begin to engage in relatively sustained bouts of attending together with their caretakers to objects in their environment. By the age of 18 months, on most accounts, they are engaging in full-blown episodes of joint attention. As developmental psychologists (usually) use the term, for such joint attention to be in play, it is not sufficient that the infant and the adult are in fact attending to the same object, nor that the one’s attention (...) cause the other’s. The latter can and does happen much earlier, whenever the adult follows the baby’s gaze and homes in on the same object as the baby is attending to; or, from the age of six months, when babies begin to follow the gaze of an adult. We have the relevant sense of joint attention in play only when the fact that both child and adult are attending to the same object is, to use Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) phrase, ‘mutually manifest’. Psychologists sometimes speak of such jointness as a case of attention being ‘shared’ by infant and adult, or of a ‘meeting of minds’ between infant and adult, all phrases intended to capture the idea that when joint attention occurs everything about the fact that both subjects are attending to the same object is out in the open, manifest to both participants. (shrink)

As it is essential to explore the influence of social communications on transportation routes in tourism, this article aims to examine the impacts of social communications on transportation routes in the field of tourism and to further explore the relationship between tourism destinations and their psychological perceptions. In terms of links between different tourism destinations in space and time dimensions, our empirical analysis draws the following conclusions: the behavior of tourist flow is a mediating variable on the links between (...) tourist psychological perceptions and tour routes; three modes of point-line interaction are presented in the space and time of tourism destinations; and the scenic city’s location, name, and features are important to tourists’ psychological perceptions. (shrink)

IntroductionWith the normalization of COVID-19 prevention and control, a large number of intergenerational audiences with different cognition preferences and value orientations have started to pour into non-acquaintance virtual communities to address their social needs by disclosing their own thoughts, feelings and experiences toward certain topics. To avoid the negative impacts of self-disclosure, this study introduced the concept of social integration into cyber society among non-acquaintance VCs, such as the topic-based VCs. Our theoretical model considers both the psychological antecedents and (...) consequences of VC audiences’ social integration and our findings have implications for public online social life. Moreover, this research could play a guiding role in improving VC audiences’ social integration status in future online learning and telecommuting scenarios.MethodTo assess the theoretical model constructed in this manuscript, we conducted an online survey in two different topic-based VCs among Microblog and yielded 472 useable responses from intergenerational audiences, among which 28.81% were born before 1985, 26.67% were born from 1985 to 1995, and 48.52% were born after 1995. Our sample consisted of 208 individuals from Health Regimen VC and 264 individuals from Star Chasing VC, 200 were men and 272 were women.ResultsOur structural equation model indicated that individuals’ self-disclosure in topic-based VCs might not directly guide them to acquire social integration. However, intimacy and cognitive communion derived from VC audiences’ self-disclosure might not only enhance their social integration, but also improve their psychological well-being. In addition, VC audiences’ social integration mediated the relationship between intimacy and psychological well-being, and the relationship between cognitive communion and psychological well-being. Moreover, VC audiences’ intimacy was found to have a direct influence on their cognitive communion.ConclusionIn the context of topic-based VCs, audiences’ self-disclosure could significantly foster their intimacy and cognitive communion with others, and both intimacy and cognitive communion are conductive to VC audiences’ social integration. Thus, audiences in topic-based VCs who wish to improve their psychological well-being need to disclose themselves and build corresponding psychological foundations to enhance their social integration. Meanwhile, topic-based VCs should pay attention to the cultivation of intimacy and cognitive communion among audiences while encouraging them to reveal themselves. (shrink)

BackgroundHuman failure and a lack of effective communication are the main reasons for preventable adverse events, compromising patient safety in obstetrics. In order to improve safety, team and communication interventions have been implemented but lack feasibility in obstetric care. Psychological models such as the health action process approach might help to improve interventions.MethodsIn a cross-sectional online survey with N = 129 healthcare workers and a paper-pencil survey with N = 137 obstetric healthcare workers at two obstetric university (...) hospitals, associations of social-cognitive variables were tested in a path analysis and a multiple regression. Preliminary results informed a communication training for all obstetric healthcare workers. A repeated-measures MANOVA was used to compare pre- and post-intervention data.ResultsSocial-cognitive variables were associated according to model suggestions except for planning in the first study. Triggers of adverse events were associated with communication behavior, action self-efficacy and planning, as well as barriers to effective communication. The intervention was rated positively. Afterward, fewer triggers were reported and coping self-efficacy increased. There were group differences regarding hospital, experience, and time.DiscussionThe health action process approach was examined in the context of safe communication in obstetrics and can be used to inform interventions. A theory-based, short training was feasible and acceptable. Perceived patient safety improved but communication behavior did not. Future research should aim to test a more comprehensive psychological communication intervention in a thorough RCT design. (shrink)

This study investigated how young Italian people experienced the period of peak spread of COVID-19 in their country by probing their emotions, thoughts, events, and actions related to interpersonal and community bonds. This approach to the pandemic will highlight social dimensions that characterized contextual interactions from the specific perspective of Community Psychology. The aim was to investigate young people's experiences because they are the most fragile group due to their difficulty staying home and apart from their peers and because they (...) are, at the same time, the most potentially dangerous people due to their urge to gather in groups. The research involved 568 university students, 475 females, and 93 males, with an average age of 21.82 years. The collected data were analyzed with the Grounded Theory Methodology, using the Atlas 8.0 software. From the textual data, representative codes were defined and grouped into 10 categories, which reflect the individuals' prosocial attitudes, behaviors, and values. These categories formed three macro-categories, called: “Collective Dimensions,” which includes Connectedness, Solidarity, Italian-ness, Social Problems, and Collective Mourning; “Prosocial Orientation,” which includes Trust and Hope; and “Collective Values,” which includes Values of Freedom, Respect of Social Rules, and Civic-Mindedness. All these macro-categories are indicative of the shared feelings experienced by Italians during the first time of the pandemic. Further practical implications of these results will be discussed, including a consideration of the risk of developing distress and improving well-being, as well as promoting preventive behaviors. (shrink)

Community psychologists address social inequalities and problems by employing ecological principles, multiple methodologies, and participatory approaches to empower individuals, organizations, and communities to organize action and systems change. This article aims to contribute to mixed methods literature by presenting three models of mixed methods participatory research across a variety of geographic and sociocultural contexts. The models outline participatory processes and points of qualitative and quantitative data integration. Challenges related to the interplay between participatory approaches and mixed methods studies as well (...) as implications on social science research are discussed. (shrink)

This article analyses the ethics of how community engagement and dialogue as applied by a mining corporation in Chile led to erosion of the community’s psychological freedom despite being aligned with best practice. This article details how a mining company squeezed the psychological freedom of the community in order to obtain an agreement between the period of 2000 and 2016. The findings focus particularly on a 9-month period between 2015 and 2016 when the company undertook intense community engagement. (...) The article identifies six corporate action phases undertaken which curtailed the community’s psychological freedom as paying off local leaders; challenging via courts of law; co-opting community lawyers; prohibiting a key debate during dialogue; and remaining silent after failing to honour its own self-imposed rule. The findings label the company’s community engagement as contradictory; while it conducted transitional and transformational engagement in formal spaces, it also engaged in unethical strategies in the informal spaces of community engagement. The result was overall community consent and an even more fragmented community. This article finds that when it limits the psychological freedom of participants, who are already divided as a group, corporate–community engagement can be viewed as ethically problematic. Based on analysis of the literature and an empirical case analysis, this article contributes a test for assessing the ethics of CCE. (shrink)

Reading psychology is an important basis for formulating news strategies. The purpose of this paper is to study how to analyze and study the psychological mechanism of reading and news communication strategies based on affective computing. It described the conditional random field. This paper put forward the problem of affective computing, which is based on affective computing technology. Then it expounded the concept of conditional random fields and related algorithms, and designed and analyzed cases of news communication (...) strategies. Through the period from April 1, 2022 to June 1, 2022, the 300 short videos of news and information with the highest playback volume respectively released by Z software were used as research samples, and a multi-angle analysis was carried out. Among the 300 selected news information videos, 252 videos are original content, accounting for 84.00%, and the other short videos are from the self-media of the platform. At present, it is necessary to continuously develop intelligent products that meet the needs of users at different stages, and carry out personalized design in strict accordance with the living habits and natural conditions of different groups of people. Then continuously improving the experience of different groups of people using new media products, so that their reading interest can be more effectively stimulated. (shrink)

The article addresses the psychological experience of the "We" developed in Being and Nothingness (BN), and how it resonates within the social dynamics of Critique of Dialectical Reason (CDR). It is problematized about which "We" is spoken in the condition of Being-with. In BN, Sartre demonstrates that the foundation of human relationships is conflict, as being-with-others is rooted in being-for-others. This, therefore, reflects on the impossibility of psychological experiences of the Us-object and We-subject to support alienation and engagement. (...) We start from the conjuncture of serial collectivity to address the experience of the Us-object, and the necessity of individual choice for engagement with others, which may or not occur when the experience of Us-object takes place. In this way, when individuals recognize themselves as part of a structure organized by a third party and aim for a common goal, the community subject happens. We noticed that Sartre, in Being and Nothingness and its developments, helps us to think about being-with-another, even in a virtual world of the 21st century. Sartre, throughout his life and although without success, strove to materialize the Being that he idealized for people: mutually committed to the responsible construction of a socio-material field “desirable for a community”, including conflict resolutions. (shrink)

Trust indicates positive effects on mental and social health in the work environment. In this study it was aimed to analyze the bidirectionality of trust and knowledge sharing variables over time. Results showed that there is a time pattern in the relationship between the two measures, where in time 1 (initial stage) participants have higher trust through knowledge sharing. In time 2 (middle stage) trust decreases and finally in time 3 (matured stage) it again increases. Finally, implications of the study (...) and how knowledge sharing can be an antecedent to trust building atleast in the initial stage is discussed. (shrink)

Nationalism is one of modern history’s great surprises. How is it that the nation, a relatively old form of community, has risen to such prominence in an era so strongly identified with the individual? Bernard Yack argues that it is the inadequacy of our understanding of community—and especially the moral psychology that animates it—that has made this question so difficult to answer. Yack develops a broader and more flexible theory of community and shows how to use it in the study (...) of nations and nationalism. What makes nationalism such a powerful and morally problematic force in our lives is the interplay of old feelings of communal loyalty and relatively new beliefs about popular sovereignty. By uncovering this fraught relationship, Yack moves our understanding of nationalism beyond the oft-rehearsed debate between primordialists and modernists, those who exaggerate our loss of individuality and those who underestimate the depth of communal attachments. A brilliant and compelling book, _Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community_ sets out a revisionist conception of nationalism that cannot be ignored. (shrink)

How can sport community involvement influence life satisfaction during a pandemic? Self-expansion theory posits that individuals seek to gain resources such as positive interpersonal relationships for growth and achievement. By considering psychological capital as a dispositional resource intervening between sport community involvement and life satisfaction, we examined an empirical model to test the chain of effects. Based on the stress process model, distress and generational group were tested as moderators. Participants responded to the scale item questionnaire for model assessment. (...) Supporting the hypothesized relationships, the model was supported with a significant moderated-moderated mediation. The mediation effect of PsyCap was stronger when distress level was lower and such interaction effect was amplified for Generation Z. Whereas the global sport communities and Gen Z were found to be more particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, our findings suggest that there are psychological pathways for fans to maintain their resilience. It is foremost imperative to lower the stress level of sport fans for their community involvement to positively affect life satisfaction. Gen Z were more stressed during the pandemic but individuals who managed to cope with stress were able to leverage community involvement to boost positive psychological resources. Acknowledgment of these effects brings implications for better management strategies and provides avenues for new research. (shrink)

Burnout is a well-documented entity in Care Workers population, affecting up to 50% of physicians, just as it is equally well established that managing an infectious disease outbreaks, such as confirmed in the COVID-19 pandemic, increases Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the psychological burden. Mental health support, in the form of formal or remote sessions, has been shown to be helpful to health care staff, despite the organizational difficulties in an emergency. During the first emergence of COVID-19 in Italy, the (...) Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Policlinico San Matteo Foundation, the Italian hospital that treated “patient 1,” has activated an agreement with the Soleterre Foundation, an international Non-Governmental Organization that manages health emergency projects, to provide psychological support. A task force of psychologists was created with the aim of designing and administering a Therapeutic Mental Health Assessment for COVID-19 Care Workers to evaluate and support health care workers’ mental health. The assessment battery was developed to evaluate symptoms and behaviors associated with trauma and the corresponding maladaptive behaviors. Once the TMHA COVID-19 CWs had been developed, the team of psychologists regularly visited healthcare staff in the ward to administer it. One hundred seven care workers across Intensive Care Units, the emergency room and medical ward were administered the TMHA COVID-19 CWs. PTSD symptoms were reported as severe by 13% of the population. Depressive symptoms as severe for 7% and Anxiety symptoms as severe for 14%. Severe psychotic symptoms were experienced by 2% and severe suicidal thoughts by 1% of the population. The possibility of acting upon the results of the TMHA COVID-19 CWs allowed an early intervention through individual session beyond the cut-off level for PTSD in NSESSS. In fact, 280 individual support sessions were offered. Therefore, we considered our project a protective and support factor for healthcare workers’ mental well-being and we recommend implementing a mental health screening program in ward involved in COVID-19 patients’ care. (shrink)

Three studies were conducted to explore the psychological determinants of COVID-deterrent behaviors. In Study 1, using data collected and analyzed both before and after the release of COVID-19 vaccines, mask-wearing, other preventative behaviors like social distancing, and vaccination intentions were positively related to assessments of the Coronavirus Behavioral Health Mindset ; belief in the credibility of science; progressive political orientation; less use of repressive and more use of sensitization coping; and the attribution of COVID-19 safety to effort rather than (...) ability, powerful forces, fate, or luck. In Study 2, favorable COVID-19 vaccination intentions were related to greater willingness to work, lower emotional distress, and greater customer experience mindset. Study 3 examined the personality and motives of individuals who volunteered to help deliver COVID-19 inoculations to the local community. The vaccine-giving volunteers, especially those with prosocial motives, had high CVBHM scores, belief in the credibility of science, low use of repressive coping, greater attribution of COVID-19 protection to effort, low likelihood of voting conservative, were older, and had more education than others. The majority of public health volunteers expressed prosocial motives to help people or join a cause, but many expressed the personal motives of getting the COVID-19 vaccination for themselves, conveying a public image of compassion, or structuring time. Based on the three research studies, a COVID-19 Mindset Hierarchy model is proposed to integrate the results. (shrink)

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

To improve the understanding of film and television postproduction for college students in the era of intelligent media, a study is conducted on college students’ short video communication education and audience psychology based on the rapid development of virtual image and the Internet of Things. Primarily, the collaborative filtering algorithm is optimized and combined with the principle of Spark and Hadoop platforms as well as the IoT and virtual image technologies. Then, a hybrid computing model is proposed, and the (...) two algorithms are improved and combined, with 90,000 network video records as data samples. Finally, the push accuracy of the hybrid algorithm and the traditional algorithm is calculated and compared, and based on this, a questionnaire survey on the audience psychology of short video production is carried out for college students. The results show that the time user of the combined algorithm is always at least 0.4 s faster than that of a single algorithm and the running speed of the algorithm with five nodes is nearly 80% higher than the algorithm with a single node. The Spark algorithm with multinode has good versatility in image recording and processing of large groups of college students. When processing more than 100,000 image records, the deviation values of Spark and Hadoop with a single node exceeded 1.1, but the deviation value of the hybrid algorithm was still lower than 1.1. With the increase of data volume, the deviation values of the three algorithms are increasing. Compared with the traditional CFA algorithm, the optimized algorithm has a higher speed in processing data and is more accurate in content pushing. From the questionnaire survey of college students, it is found that contemporary college students are not active in learning knowledge of virtual images. Hence, it is concluded that colleges must carry out relevant courses based on short video communication education and strengthen the short video communication education of college students. A reference is provided for the development of college students’ short video communication education in the digital age. (shrink)

This volume presents the ethical implications of risk information as related to genetics and other health data for policy decisions at clinical, research and societal levels. Ethical, Social and Psychological Impacts of Genomic Risk Communication examines the introduction of new types of health risk information based on faster, cheaper and larger sets of genetic or genomic analysis. Synthesising the results of a five-year interdisciplinary project, it explores the unsolved ethical and social questions around the sharing of this data, (...) such as: What is best practice in risk communication? What are the normative presumptions and ethical consequences of an increased individual responsibility for ones' health? And how does one deal with the gap between the knowledge of risk and the lack of therapeutic options which often exist for complex diseases, such as dementia or some types of cancer? Drawing on contributions from over twenty experts in the field, this collection examines these questions from a liberal bioethics' perspective, advocating for contextual and cultural-sensitive ethical discussions. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theoretical and clinical medical ethics, medical sociology, risk communication and ethics of risk, as well as professionals in clinical genetics. (shrink)

This article discusses the role of communication research in the Cold War, moving from a US-centered to a comparative-transnational point of view. It examines research on prop-aganda and mass communication in the United States and the Soviet Union, focusing not only on the similarities and differences, but also on mutual perceptions and transnational entanglements. In both countries, communication scientists conducted their research with its benefits for propaganda practitioners and waging the Cold War in mind. It has been (...) suggested that after an initial period of close cooperation between politics and communication science, early expectations of the potential of systematic research for controlling the hearts and minds of people through propaganda started to fade. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, communication research eventually became a ‘normal’ scholarly discipline. (shrink)

Most discussions of the reproducibility crisis focus on its epistemic aspect: the fact that the scientific community fails to follow some norms of scientific investigation, which leads to high rates of irreproducibility via a high rate of false positive findings. The purpose of this paper is to argue that there is a heretofore underappreciated and understudied dimension to the reproducibility crisis in experimental psychology and neuroscience that may prove to be at least as important as the epistemic dimension. This is (...) the communication dimension. The link between communication and reproducibility is immediate: independent investigators would not be able to recreate an experiment whose design or implementation were inadequately described. I exploit evidence of a replicability and reproducibility crisis in computational science, as well as research into quality of reporting to support the claim that a widespread failure to adhere to reporting standards, especially the norm of descriptive completeness, is an important contributing factor in the current reproducibility crisis in experimental psychology and neuroscience. (shrink)

ObjectivesSelf-neglect in older adults has become an important public health issue and is associated with negative health outcomes and increased morbidity and mortality. Social support has been recognized as a prominent predictor of self-neglect, but the underlying mechanism is unclear. This study aims to investigate and illustrate the associations among social support, psychological capital, and self-neglect.MethodsThis study used a cross-sectional convenience sampling design. A total of 511 older adults were recruited in Chinese communities. Spearman’s correlation coefficient and hierarchical multiple (...) regression analysis were performed to assess the influencing factors of self-neglect. A structural equation model was applied to test the hypothesized mediation model.ResultsSocial support and psychological capital were found to be negatively related to self-neglect. Social support and psychological capital explained 5.1 and 11.9% of the incremental variances of older adults’ self-neglect, respectively. Psychological capital acts as a mediator between social support and self-neglect.ConclusionSelf-neglect among older adults is a rising problem in China. Social support and higher psychological capital could decrease the risk of self-neglect in older adults. It is crucial to improve social networks and facilitate psychological interventions to reduce such self-neglect. (shrink)

Drawing from Kohut's conceptualisation of self, Riker sets out how contemporary America's formulation of persons as autonomous, self-sufficient individuals is deeply injurious to the development of a vitalizing self-structure-a condition which lies behind much of the mental illness and social malaise of today's world. By carefully attending to Kohut's texts, Riker explains the structural, functional, and dynamic dimensions of Kohut's concept of the self. He creatively extends this concept to show how the self can be conceived of as an erotic (...) striving for connectedness, beauty, and harmony, separate from the ego. Riker uses this distinction to reveal how social practices of contemporary American society foster skills and traits to advance the aims of the ego for power and control, but tend to suppress the needs of the self to authentically express its ideals and connect with others. The book explores the impact that this view can have on clinical practice, and concludes by imaginatively constructing an ideal self-psychological society, using Plato's Republic as a touchstone. Informed by self psychology and philosophy, this book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and philosophers, seeking to revisit and revise constructions of both self and humanity. (shrink)

IntroductionIn recent years, with the popularity of many social media platforms worldwide, the role of “virtual social network platforms” in the field of cross-cultural communication has become increasingly important. Scholars in psychology and neuroscience, and cross-disciplines, are attracted to research on the motivation, mechanisms, and effects of communication on social media across cultures.Methods and AnalysisThis paper collects the co-citation of keywords in “cultural psychology,” “cross-culture communication,” “neuroscience,” and “social media” from the database of web of science and (...) analyzes the hotspots of the literature in word cloud.ResultsBased on our inclusion criteria, 85 relevant studies were extracted from a database of 842 papers. There were 44 articles on cultural communication on social media, of which 26 were from the perspective of psychology and five from the perspective of neuroscience. There are 27 articles that focus on the integration of psychology and neuroscience, but only a few are related to cross-cultural communication on social media.ConclusionScholars have mainly studied the reasons and implications of cultural communication on social media from the perspectives of cultural psychology and neuroscience separately. Keywords “culture” and “social media” generate more links in the hot map, and a large number of keywords of cultural psychology and neuroscience also gather in the hot map, which reflects the trend of integration in academic research. While cultural characteristics have changed with the development of new media and virtual communities, more research is needed to integrate the disciplines of culture, psychology, and neuroscience. (shrink)

Although it has become commonplace to regard Marsiglio of Padua's Defensor Pacis (completed in 1324) as a quintessential work of medieval Aristotelian political theory, this view has been challenged for various reasons in recent years. Some scholarship has pointed to the superficial quality of Marsiglio's appeal to Aristotle's �authority�. Others have emphasized Marsiglio's decisive reliance on sources and doctrines which were quite at odds with his overtly Aristotelian commitments. A revealing measure of the depth of his Aristotelianism is perhaps his (...) failure to cite Aristotle's authority at all in the Defensor Minor, an abbreviated version of the Defensor Pacis composed about 1340.4 At minimum, it seems necessary to reconsider the claim (pioneered already by Albertus Pighius in the sixteenth century) that Marsiglio was �homo magis aristotelicus quam christianus�.5 Indeed, it may be true to say that the assumption of Marsiglio's fidelity to Aristotle has acted as a filter, screening out interesting or original features of his thought because they are cloaked in outwardly Aristotelian language. In this paper, I would like to test this hypothesis with reference to Marsiglio's alleged application of the basic principles of Aristotelian moral psychology (in particular, Aristotle's doctrine of hexis) within the Defensor's account of the constituent parts of the political community. In both his Ethics and his Politics, Aristotle had employed the idea of hexis (often translated as �habit�, but more properly denoting �state� or �firm disposition�) to explain the way in which moral and civil virtues come to be instilled in persons. Thus, hexis served as the foundation for his conception of ethical and political education. Marsiglio seems to use the Latin rendering of hexis, habitus, in a very similar manner. He argues that the different parts of the community, ranging from the rulers and priests to the warriors and farmers, each have a set of characteristics unique to their function. These functional properties are, he says, a result of the differing kinds of habitus which typify each part of the community. (shrink)

Psychology and Buddhism. From Individual to Global Community. Edited by Kathleen H. Dockett, Rita Dudley-Grant and C. Peter Bankart. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York 2003. xv, 308 pp. £47.00. ISBN 0-306-47412-3.

The practice of psychology in rural areas offers unique challenges for psychologists as they try to provide optimal care, often with a minimum of resources. Psychologists are frequently required to be creative and flexible in order to provide effective services to a wide range of clients. However, these unique challenges often confront psychologists with ethical dilemmas and problems for which their urban-based training has not prepared them. The author examines how certain characteristics of rural communities may lead to specific ethical (...) dilemmas. By being a part of a small community, psychologists will inevitably face multiple relationship dilemmas. Confidentiality is harder to maintain in a small town, particularly with its informal information-sharing network. To provide services to meet community needs, with a limited number of referral options, psychologists typically need to be generalists. This may lead to concerns about scope of practice, training, and experience with diverse populations. Psychologists also face other competency issues, such as a lack of supervision and consultation resources. Other concerns addressed include the psychologist's visibility in the community, having clients know about the psychologist's personal life, and the blurring of professional and personal roles. Suggestions are made for coping with each of these ethical issues, although more quantitative research and discussion are needed on the practice of psychology in rural areas. (shrink)

The question of incommensurability is an overlooked issue that has profound consequences for our ability to understand relationships and utilize common standards for comparison, contrast, and evaluation in psychology. Are the differences among discourse communities so deep that there is no common "commensurate" &emdash; no common measuring stick for making comparisons among communities? If so, then the community of communities, the discipline of psychology, has no way to compare competing knowledge claims, and no way to effect disciplinary unity and coherence. (...) Kuhn's distinction between incommensurability and incompatibility is described, along with its challenge to Enlightenment rationality and scientific method for brokering the relativity among discourse communities. Popper's misconception that this challenge implies an "anything goes" nihilism is also discussed, specifically his misconception that incompatibility and incommensurability mean incomparability. On the contrary, the article shows how recognizing the incommensurable is often the key to comparison, and thus disciplinary coherence and unity. (shrink)

We evaluate a common reasoning strategy used in community ecology and comparative psychology for selecting between competing hypotheses. This strategy labels one hypothesis as a “null” on the grounds of its simplicity and epistemically privileges it as accepted until rejected. We argue that this strategy is unjustified. The asymmetrical treatment of statistical null hypotheses is justified through the experimental and mathematical contexts in which they are used, but these contexts are missing in the case of the “pseudo-null hypotheses” found in (...) our case studies. Moreover, statistical nulls are often not epistemically privileged in practice over their alternatives because failing to reject the null is usually a negative result about the alternative, experimental hypothesis. Scientists should eschew the appeal to pseudo-nulls. It is a rhetorical strategy that glosses over a commitment to valuing simplicity over other epistemic virtues in the name of good scientific and statistical methodology. (shrink)

This paper deals with certain ethical problems inherent in psychological research based on internet communication as stored information. Section 1 contains an analysis of research on Internet debates. In particular, it takes into account a famous example of deception for psychology research purposes. In section 2, the focus is on research on personal data in texts published on the Internet. Section 3 includes an attempt to formulate some ethical principles and guidelines, which should be regarded as fundamental in (...) research on stored information. (shrink)

Review comment on the first edition "Wheldall asks himself and his readers what has transpired within the field of educational psychology ... and what its relevance actually is for teaching, learning and education. As such it is a 'must read' for all educational psychologists, students of educational psychology, teachers and teacher trainers." Professor Paul Kirschner, Open Universiteit, British Journal of Educational Technology What is the relevance of educational psychology in the twenty first century? In this collection of essays, leading educational (...) psychologists reflect on the seminal developments which have been made in the field over the past twenty five years or so and assess how far we have progressed. Given a broad and personal remit to address a range of issues, the contributors review and critique a variety of topics, including: intelligence; communication; family environments; individual differences; reading; peer learning; classroom behaviour; and higher education. Providing provocative and challenging insights into the state of contemporary educational psychology, the contributors acknowledge throughout the successes and progression in the field, but with a critical edge and a challenge being thrown down to psychologists of education to make study more seriously informed and as a consequence, reformed. Now in its second edition this compelling text for students and researchers is thoroughly updated and includes four new chapters. (shrink)