Addressing Diversity in the Decade of Behavior: Focus on Women of Color

The Decade of Behavior provides an opportunity to reflect on the need for psychologists to develop a "diversity mindfulness" in their education, training, and research activities, a need that has never been more urgent. In this article, we focus on the lives of women of color to illustrate diversity-mindful feminist principles that may inform research and program development related to other aspects of diversity. We discuss perspectives and priorities of women of color in psychology. We consider why implementing feminist psychology's inclusive vision for research is a continuing struggle, particularly with regard to research on poor women, and identify some contributions and priorities of feminist research on women of color that relate to Decade goals of achieving a "safer, better educated, healthier, more democratic and more prosperous nation" (White, Travis, & Russo, 2001, p. x). Understanding and incorporating perspectives of women of color in Decade activities is essential if researchers are to generate new knowledge "to prepare the world for facing emerging problems in the 21st century" (Decade of Behavior website: http://www.decadeofbehavior.org).     

MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALING OF LARGE CHROMATIC DIFFERENCES BY NORMAL AND COLOR-DEFICIENT SUBJECTS

The following two articles offer a glimpse at current experimental psychology in the Soviet Union, normally screened from the English-speaking world by all but impenetrable language barriers. The accompanying Commentary by Tarow Indow helps place these contributions in the framework of contemporary work on the psychophysics of color perception.   Abstract —
Fifteen normal trichromatic subjects, two protanopes, and two deuteranopes judged pairs of successively presented foveal color stimuli. Multidimensional scaling of the data yielded estimates of a three-dimensional space with axes interpreted as red–green, blue-yellow, and white-black. For color-deficient subjects, the average radius of the space differed from that of normals, being smaller for the protanopes and larger for the deuteranopes. For both types of color deficiency, the blue-yellow axis was stretched relative to the red-green, more strongly in the protanopes. The findings are taken to support the generality of a "spherical" model.     

The Legacy of Adolf Meyer''s Comparative Approach: Worcester Rats and the Strange Birth of the Animal Model

The breeding of albino rats had an enormous impact on experimental psychology in the twentieth century. Rats were, and for many questions still remain, the "standard animal" for laboratory research in neurology, psychology, and physiology. Albert Meyer was one of the figures most responsible for developing the albino rat as an experimental model. Despite Meyer's pioneering work with albino rats, his rat research has received only sparse attention. Little is known about the way in which the animal served Meyer's more famous psychiatric program. In this article, the author discusses the role that albino rats played in Meyer's animal research. He then turn to the contrast between the way in which Meyer viewed the animal's role in research and the way rats were later used as a laboratory "standard" to assure scientific generality. This comparison highlights the changes that occurred in comparative psychology in the twentieth century, and it further clarifies some of the concerns associated with the use of animal models today.     

Whig and anti-whig histories- and other curiosities of social psychology

In successive editions of the Handbook of Social Psychology (Lindzey, 1954), the focus of the history of the field shifted from the substantive ideas of nineteenth-century thinkers to the successful emergence of a psychological experimental social psychology in the twentieth. Countering this whiggish account, the dominant themes in the present issue involve attempts to portray two parallel paradigm shifts: from a "social" to an "asocial" social psychology, and from a broad-ranging theoretical-philosophical subject to a narrow experimental (psychological) science-changes initiated by Floyd Allport. But such a formulation may be called into question as another version of retrospective history-with inverted, anti-Whig valuations.     

FEMINISM AND DIVERSITY IN PSYCHOLOGY

The contributions of feminist psychology to diversity are highlighted, focusing on the example of women of color. A historical overview of the confluence of feminism and ethnicism is provided, stressing the dynamic interplay between these two movements. The relevance of feminist psychology to women of color is assessed in addition to women of color's contributions to feminism. The role of women of color in the transformation and reformulation of an integrative feminist psychology is examined.     

Bayesian latent variable models for the analysis of experimental psychology data

In this paper, we address the use of Bayesian factor analysis and structural equation models to draw inferences from experimental psychology data. While such application is non-standard, the models are generally useful for the unified analysis of multivariate data that stem from, e.g., subjects’ responses to multiple experimental stimuli. We first review the models and the parameter identification issues inherent in the models. We then provide details on model estimation via JAGS and on Bayes factor estimation. Finally, we use the models to re-analyze experimental data on risky choice, comparing the approach to simpler, alternative methods.     

Contexts and experimentalism in the psychology of Gabriele Buccola (1875-1885)

Gabriele Buccola, since his untimely death, often has been mentioned as the first Italian psychologist who developed a strict program of laboratory research. Buccola, a Sicilian of Albanian ancestry, is a "case" in the history of Italian psychology. A self-taught positivist, he established a relation with the major representatives of the European positivism. Kraepelin mentions him as one of the precursors of his project of applying experimental psychology to psychopathology. Buccola actually carried out research on the psychological, chemical-biological, and psychopathological "modifiers" of reaction times, following an experimental program dealing mainly with the differential study both of basic and superior psychological processes, with mental hygiene ends. Historians of psychology agree in considering Buccola the first Italian laboratory psychologist to plan a program of research that was close to European psychological experimentalism.The present article, starting from an outline of Buccola's role in the rising Italian scientific psychology, recontextualizes his experimentalism in an international sphere. This operation, which is carried out through a careful survey of Buccola's entire production-both theoretical and more properly scientific-is based on the search of the Darwinian, Spencerian, and Haeckelian evolutionist themes emerging from Buccola's program of research-a program that was influenced by the variegated European experimental panorama and characterized by the vision of science as a knowledge capable of transforming the nature of man and of society.     

The formalising tendency in philosophy and experimental psychology

This paper is an exercise in the phenomenology of science. It examines the tendency to prefer formal accounts in a familiar body of experimental psychology. It will argue that, because of this tendency, psychologists of this school neglect those forms of human cognition typical of the humanities disciplines. This is not a criticism of psychology, however. Such neglect is compatible with scientific rigour, provided it does not go unnoticed. Indeed, reflection on the case in hand allows us to refine the characterisation of the formalising tendency.     

Max Wertheimer on seen motion: Theory and evidence

Summary Max Wertheimer, the chief founder of an experimentally based Gestalt psychology, conducted his pioneering studies in motion perception on new theoretical grounds. Since the influence of this approach may be greater in today's cognitive psychology than it has ever been during the half-century of introspectionism and radical behaviorism, it is appropriate to review the actual roots of Wertheimer's (1912) seminal publication and his continuing research on apparent and real motion perception in the light of past and recent work. Illustrative examples, especially of Wertheimer's early research, are provided in this paper. The implications of his experimentation and biopsychological theorizing are still of major interest for present psychological inquiry. Nevertheless, the need for more future systematic comparative research on motion perception must be emphasized. The Epilogue of this paper examines why important parts of Wertheimer's experimental contributions to psychology may have been underrated or neglected by many contemporary psychologists.Some of the issues dealt with here are treated at length in a three-part laudatio (Sarris, 1987a, b, 1988a). When this article was prepared for print, its original title, Max Wertheimer on Seen Motion: The Significance of Sound Experimentation for Present and Future Research, as presented at the Wertheimer Memorial Symposium, was changed to the present title. Under the present title, a brief version of this paper was presented at the APA Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, August 11–15, 1989.I am grateful for the comments and cooperative help provided by Carl F. Graumann, Michael W. von Grünau, Eckart Scheerer, and Michael Wertheimer.     

Evolutionary models of color categorization based on discrimination

Specifying the factors that contribute to the universality of color categorization across individuals and cultures is a longstanding and still controversial issue in psychology, linguistics, and anthropology. This article approaches this issue through the simulated evolution of color lexicons. It is shown that the combination of a minimal perceptual psychology of discrimination, simple pragmatic constraints involving communication, and simple learning rules is enough to evolve color-naming systems. Implications of this result for psychological theories of color categorization and the evolution of color-naming systems in human societies are discussed.     

Reflections on intersections between cognitive and social psychology: A personal exploration

I appreciate the opportunity offered by the editor to reflect on the relationship between cognitive and social psychology. This topic has interested me my entire professional life, because I was admitted to graduate school to study social psychology and then eventually migrated to cognitive psychology. The organization of this paper is as follows: I first relate my (somewhat puzzling) personal experiences that led me to wonder about relations between cognitive and social psychology. I suggest that, for many topics, the placement of a topic of study in one field or the other is arbitrary. Next I selectively review some common historical influences on the development of both fields, ones that have made them similar. Both grew from common seeds, which include Gestalt psychology as it became applied to a wider array of topics, experimental psychologists becoming interested in attitude change during and after World War II, and Bartlett's famous book on Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Next I review some research from my lab that picked up themes from Bartlett's work and that, in some aspects, combines cognitive and social approaches. I also discuss the issue of memory conformity or the social contagion of memory, and conclude with thoughts about how social and cognitive psychologists might collaborate on an exciting new arena, creating empirical studies of collective memory. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Uneasiness with facet analysis: time for a reappraisal

Although already several decades old, the facet analysis (also called facet theory) has not been able to assert itself in the field of psychology. Here the reasons for the widespread uneasiness with the facet analysis will be presented starting with an outline of the approach. This will make it clear that the facet analysis does not represent a research method in the narrower sense and definitely not a "theory" but a method with the status of a logical principle of thought. In experimental psychology this principle has been used successfully for a long time in the form of multifactorial experimental designs. However, multifactorial measurement designs are still few and far between in differential and diagnostic psychology. This can be explained especially by the fact that an important aspect of validity--the validity of construct differentiations--has been ignored. Because of a principle rejection of factor analytic methods, even the proponents of the facet analysis have overlooked the central contribution of their approach with respect to the validity of measurement methods.     

Mediation of the negative effect of red on intellectual performance

This research examines the hypothesis that an attentional process grounded in avoidance motivation-local relative to global processing-mediates the negative effect of red on intellectual performance. This hypothesis was tested in a series of experiments using two approaches to documenting mediation. Experiment 1 established that the perception of red undermines IQ test performance. Experiments 2a and 2b documented mediation via the experimental causal chain approach, and Experiment 3 documented mediation via the measurement of mediation approach. This represents the first demonstration of a mediational process in the domain of color psychology. A call is made to broaden priming research to include color stimuli.     

Finding "meaning" in psychology: a lay theories approach to self-regulation, social perception, and social development

Much of psychology focuses on universal principles of thought and action. Although an extremely productive pursuit, this approach, by describing only the "average person," risks describing no one in particular. This article discusses an alternate approach that complements interests in universal principles with analyses of the unique psychological meaning that individuals find in their experiences and interactions. Rooted in research on social cognition, this approach examines how people's lay theories about the stability or malleability of human attributes alter the meaning they give to basic psychological processes such as self-regulation and social perception. Following a review of research on this lay theories perspective in the field of social psychology, the implications of analyzing psychological meaning for other fields such as developmental, cultural, and personality psychology are discussed.     

Guidelines for education and training at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels in consulting psychology/organizational consulting psychology

The purpose of these "Guidelines for Education and Training at the Doctoral and Postdoctoral Levels in Consulting Psychology/Organizational Consulting Psychology" is to provide a common framework for use in the development, evaluation, and review of education and training in consulting psychology/organizational consulting psychology (CP/OCP). The intent of these guidelines is to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the area of the practice of CP, especially OCP, within the scientific discipline and profession of psychology. Towards these ends, this document is intended as guidance for psychologists who teach or plan curricula for teaching CP/OCP at doctoral or postdoctoral levels of professional education and training in psychology. The guidelines are structured in the form of overarching principles, general competencies, and domain-specific competencies that are ideally obtained by persons receiving training at the doctoral or postdoctoral level in CP/OCP.     

The Other Self: Psychopathology and Literature

The figure of the "double" or the other self is an important topic in the history of literature. Many centuries before Jean Paul Richter coined the term, "doppelg?nger," at the beginning of the Romantic Movement in the year 1796, it is possible to find the figure of the double in myths and legends. The issue of the double emphaszses the contradictory character of the human being and invokes a sinister dimension of the psychological world, what has been called in German as "umheimlich." However, does multiciplicity always involve pathology? Related to this figure in literary history, a new perspective from clinical psychology called "dialogical self" defines the self as a multi-voice reality. Along the same line, postmodernist psychology considers the self a discursive construction. From these perspectives, the "self" is situated a long way away from the classical essential conception of the self. In this paper, we review briefly some important landmarks of the figure of the double in the literature, and we compare the coincidences of the "double" experiencies described in literature with the experiences of our patients. Finally, we discuss how this literary tradition can help us to understand new psychological perspectives.     

Increasing the number of psychologists of color: public policy issues for affirmative diversity

This article identifies the key issues involved in the debate about affirmative action. The June 2003 Supreme Court decisions allowing consideration of race to ensure that there is a "critical mass" of African American, Latino/Latina, and Native American applicants to higher education are addressed. Social psychologists have identified key myths and provided clarifications about the need for and consequences of strategies used to promote equal opportunity for persons of color and women. A brief history of affirmative action and of the problems it was designed to solve is provided. The accomplishments, benefits, and compelling interest of diversity and affirmative action are described, as well as the concerns and counterpoints. The lack of a substantial applicant pool in psychology hinders progress toward diversity. Alternative strategies for remedying this lack beyond affirmative admissions policies in psychology are briefly discussed.     

R. B. Cattell: An Integration of Psychology and Ethics

Cattell has sought continually to bring psychology into dialogue with ethics. In the space available for this essay it is impossible to adequately review all of this work. The aim is to provide a brief overview by, first, discussing how Cattell has included morals and values in his theory of personality, and second, describing some features of his ideas for improving ethical reasoning and ethical systems. I will close w"ith some evaluative comments of Cattell's integration of psychology and ethics.     

Margaret F. Washburn (1871–1939): First Woman Ph.D. in Psychology

Margaret Floy Washburn was one of the first generation of leading psychologists trained in America and became an eminent and influential psychologist during the first third of the 20th century. She was recognized for significant contributions in theory development, experimental work, teaching, and professional service, but this paper focuses on her activities as director of the psychology program at Vassar College and author of the classic text in comparative psychology, The Animal Mind . Although full biographical details are not given, a listing of bibliographic sources is provided so that scholars might more readily obtain access to information omitted from the paper. The discussion also considers Washburn's professional life and personal characteristics and how she might be viewed as a role model.
"Nothing in the world is so compelling to the emotions as the mind of another human being" (Washburn, 1916b, p. 606). This statement, tucked away in an essay on the psychology of esthetic experience in music, provides an insightful clue to one of the motivations which sustained Margaret Floy Washburn's significant career as one of the most influential psychologists in psychology's first half–century as a distinct discipline. She held a life long fascination with the minds of humans and animals and was convinced that experimental psychology provided the appropriate methodology for exploring the topic. She devoted her unflagging energy and outstanding ability to the newly evolving science throughout a 43–year career which covered the period 1894–1937.