Psychology at the National University of Singapore: The First 15 Years

L'histoire de la psychologie à l'Université Nationale de Singapour (NUS) est assez courte. Le premier cycle de psychologie remonte à 1986. Néanmoins, le secteur psychologie du Département de Travail Social et de Psychologie s'est considérablement développé pour ce qui est de l'enseignement, de la recherche et des services. Les auteurs décrivent le développement de la psychologie à la NUS depuis son introduction. Nous décrivons le cursus, l'équipe enseignante et ses activités, et l'infrastructure de recherche. L'analyse des documents officiels prouve que ce département est un succès institutionnel. En outre, ce projet a contribué au développement de la psychologie théorique et appliquée.
The history of psychology at the National University of Singapore (NUS) is rather short. The undergraduate degree with psychology as a subject first became available in 1986. Nevertheless, the psychology program of the Department of Social Work and Psychology has grown considerably in terms of teaching, research, and service. The authors describe how psychology has been developing at NUS since its inception. The present review pertains to the existing academic programs, the teaching staff and their activities, and the infrastructure for psychological inquiry. Analyses of the official data disclosed that the Department of Social Work and Psychology at NUS can be regarded as a successful experiment in institution-building. Moreover, the psychology program has contributed to both basic and applied psychology.     

Psychology and Religion at Rice University: A Brief History

This essay provides a brief history and overview of the psychological, especially psychoanalytic, study of religion at Rice University.     

Industrial and Organizational Psychology Programme at the University of Colorado at Denver

This article describes the Industrial and Organizational Psychology Programme at the University of Colorado at Denver (CU-Denver). First, we provide an overview of the programme's most salient characteristics and objectives. Next, we summarize five ongoing research programmes being conducted at CU-Denver: (a) Social Power and Influence in Organizations, (b) Personnel Selection, (c) Applied Research Methods, (d) Training Evaluation, and (e) Cognitive Assessment. For each research programme we describe (a) primary questions addressed, (b) selective recent findings, and (c) current projects and future directions. Finally, we describe the role and current activities of the Centre for Applied Psychology     

Psychology at a crossroads

The current state of psychology is examined from the perspective that academic psychology and the private practice of psychology are faced with threats of their own obsolescence. Factors contributing to tensions in the discipline, as well as some hopeful signs, are reviewed. Three linked proposals are presented for the long-term resolution of these problems. An appropriate setting and a comprehensive model for graduate education are suggested. The third proposal concerns changes in our view of ourselves. A restoration of a sense of community is seen as a precondition for any constructive action.     

Towards a literary account of mental health from James' Principles of Psychology

The field of mental health tends to treat its literary metaphors as literal realities with the concomitant loss of vague “feelings of tendency” in “unusual experiences”. I develop this argument through the prism of William James’ (1890) “The Principles of Psychology”. In the first part of the paper, I reflect upon the relevance of James' “The Psychologist's Fallacy” to a literary account of mental health. In the second part of the paper, I develop the argument that “connotations” and “feelings of tendency” are central to resolving some of the more difficult challenges of this fallacy. I proceed to do this in James' spirit of generating imaginative metaphors to understand experience. Curiously, however, mental health presents a strange paradox in William James’ (1890) Principles of Psychology. He constructs an elaborate conception of the “empirical self” and “stream of thought” but chooses not to use these to understand unusual experiences – largely relying instead on the concept of a “secondary self.” In this article, I attempt to make more use of James' central division between the “stream of thought” and the “empirical self” to understand unusual experiences. I suggest that they can be usefully understood using the loose metaphor of a “binary star” where the “secondary self” can be seen as an “accretion disk” around one of the stars. Understood as literary rather the literal, this metaphor is quite different to more unitary models of self-breakdown in mental health, particularly in its separation of “self” from “the stream of thought” and I suggest it has the potential to start a re-imagination of the academic discourse around mental health.     

Introduction to the Special Edition on Psychology of Religion at Rice University

This brief paper introduces the special edition of Pastoral Psychology on the psychology of religion at Rice University.     

Psychology experiments: Spiritism at the sorbonne

During the years which followed World War I, psychologists of the Sorbonne organized “control experiments” to question the reality of parapsychological phenomena. They worked with well-known mediums and the results of their investigations were published in widely-read French and American newspapers. Despite the melodramatic and somewhat humorous character of these episodes, the researchers involved were engaged in efforts toward genuinely scientific psychology. Henri Pieron and Henri Laugier, both positivists and militant rationalists, were leaders in the institutionalized development of psychology in France.     

Perspectives on Counseling Psychology: Portugal at a Glance

Les auteurs décrivent le statut actuel et réfléchissent à l'avenir possible de la psychologie du counseling au Portugal, cela à partir de ses forces, de ses faiblesses, de ses opportunités et de ce qui la menace. Le counseling est de plus en plus une aide proactive au développement individuel, plutôt qu'une solution aux situations problématiques. Dans ces conditions, l'une des orientations possibles de la psychologie du counseling est le traitement de la diversité des approches théoriques et techniques pour mettre au point des méthodes d'intervention communes. Les défis que rencontreront prochainement les psychologues du counseling sont analysés à partir des demandes universitaires et autres, la qualité des services et la nécessité d'une réglementation officielle. On propose enfin des recommandations relatives à l'avenir de la psychologie du counseling.
Based on an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats the authors discuss the current status and possible future directions for counseling psychology in Portugal. Counseling is increasingly being viewed as a proactive support to individual development, rather than as a remedial solution to problem situations. In this environment, pursuing diversity in theoretical and techniques approaches to find common intervention methodologies is one possible direction for counseling psychology. The challenges encountered by counseling psychologists in the near future are analysed relative to academic and other demands, the quality of the services, and the need for statutory regulation. Recommendations pertaining to the construction of the future for counseling psychology are proposed.     

Disability: a justice-based account

Philosophical Studies - Most people have a clear sense of what they mean by disability, and have little trouble identifying conditions they consider disabling. Yet providing a clear and consistent...     

Classifying emotion: a developmental account

The aim of this paper is to propose a systematic classification of emotions which can also characterize their nature. The first challenge we address is the submission of clear criteria for a theory of emotions that determine which mental phenomena are emotions and which are not. We suggest that emotions as a subclass of mental states are determined by their functional roles. The second and main challenge is the presentation of a classification and theory of emotions that can account for all existing varieties. We argue that we must classify emotions according to four developmental stages: 1. pre-emotions as unfocussed expressive emotion states, 2. basic emotions, 3. primary cognitive emotions, and 4. secondary cognitive emotions. We suggest four types of basic emotions (fear, anger, joy and sadness) which are systematically differentiated into a diversity of more complex emotions during emotional development. The classification distinguishes between basic and non-basic emotions and our multi-factorial account considers cognitive, experiential, physiological and behavioral parameters as relevant for constituting an emotion. However, each emotion type is constituted by a typical pattern according to which some features may be more significant than others. Emotions differ strongly where these patterns of features are concerned, while their essential functional roles are the same. We argue that emotions form a unified ontological category that is coherent and can be well defined by their characteristic functional roles. Our account of emotions is supported by data from developmental psychology, neurobiology, evolutionary biology and sociology.     

从西方理论心理学的崛起看中国理论心理学发展——兼论中国理论心理学建构

心理学能够从对实证资料积累的追求中解放出来,转而注重学科自身的理论反思与理论建构,是心理科学逐渐走向成熟的一种表现。随着西方理论心理学的崛起,中国心理学理论研究也逐渐得到重视,出现很多有价值的理论成果,但在心理学元理论和实体理论的建设上,仍旧过度依赖欧美心理学,原创性的元理论和实体理论几乎没有。在研究的规模、研究领域、研究水准、研究方法乃至研究从业者数量上的差距也使中国理论心理学发展显得步履维艰。然而,西方理论心理学的崛起却可以给中国理论心理学发展带来重要启示,在对中国理论心理学建构过程中,要积极对国外理论心理学的理论思维和理论研究方法进行筛淘,加强原创性的理论建设,处理好理论与实践、引进与创新、反思和建构的关系。