Recognition of names of eminent psychologists

Faculty members, graduate students, undergraduate majors, and introductory psychology students checked those names they recognized in the list of 228 deceased psychologists, rated for eminence, provided by Annin, Boring, and Watson. Mean percentage recognition was less than 50% for the 128 American psychologists, and less than 25% for the 100 foreign psychologists, by the faculty subjects. The other three groups of subjects gave even lower recognition scores. Recognition was probably also influenced by recency; median year of death of the American psychologists was 1955, of the foreign psychologists, 1943. High recognition (defined as recognition by 80% or more of the faculty group) was achieved by only 34 psychologists, almost all of them American. These highly recognized psychologists also had high eminence ratings, but there was an equal number of psychologists with high eminence ratings that were poorly recognized.     

Psychologists versus psychologists: evaluating the claims of psychologists who publicly criticize their profession

Since the 1990s, 7 psychologists have written books for a public audience expressing great dissatisfaction with mental health practitioners. These critics represent 4 English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Those psychologists make 3 basic arguments: (a) any improvements attributed to psychotherapy are due to placebo effect, (b) psychological assessments have little value, and (c) clinicians do not meet the legal standards to qualify as experts in a court of law. The present author examines these arguments and concludes that these concerns are unfounded. The exception is that several forensic psychologists had been using tests that were invalid for legal purposes, but this situation has shown gradual improvement in the past 15 years.     

Academic and nonacademic community psychologists: An analysis of divergence in settings,roles, and values

Differences between academic and nonacademic psychologists may be viewed as immutable, worthy of encouragement, or as a situation which the latter group must remedy by becoming “more scientific.” We contend that for community psychology, which perceives theory, application, and action as valid aspects of its broad paradigm, it would be most adaptive toexplicitly address the challenge of managing a balance between diversity and cohesion. There are signs that the present leadership of Division 27 recognizes aspects of this problem and is reconsidering the role and purpose of the Division as an organizing framework for the discipline (Trickett, Note 3). It is our view that engendering a commitment from various subgroups within the membership to addressing the disparities revealed by our respondents is required for resolving what we see as major obstacles to future development of the discipline. The conceptual and empirical approach presented in this study can be an important tool in forging constructive solutions to the challenges we have presented.     

A comparison of the personal values and operative goals of school psychologists and school superintendents

A survey of 96 school psychologists and 75 school superintendents throughout the state of Ohio showed the two groups to have generally similar personal value systems and to be in overall agreement in their respective rankings of school psychology goals. Both groups held the traditional school psychologist's goal of conducting individual testing to be lower relevance than acting as an internal consultant or resource person. Of those differences identified, superintendents assigned greater relevance to values which were consistent with their administrative concerns, while psychologists held values preferring individualism as more relevant. Superintendents held goals associated with increased learning efficiency and interacting with community agencies as more relevant, while psychologists assigned higher relevance to goals associated with parent-psychologist interactions.     

Transmission of values from adolescents to their parents: the role of value content and authoritative parenting

The intergenerational transmission of values is a bidirectional process. To date, however, adolescents' influence on parental values has rarely been investigated. In the present study, we analyzed the transmission of values from adolescents (aged 11 to 17 years) to their mothers and fathers across a one-year interval in 431 mother-child dyads and 346 father-child dyads. Transmission of values from adolescents to parents was observed regarding topics that are salient in adolescence (the usefulness of new technology, beliefs concerning the traditional way of life, the importance of religion) but not regarding topics that become salient later. In addition, the transmission of adolescents' values to their parents was mainly observed in families with above-average levels of authoritative parenting (i.e., parents are receptive and supportive). However, adolescents' religious values were also transmitted to their parents in families with below-average levels of authoritative parenting. Transmission of values from parents to adolescents was also investigated.     

Nonsexual relationships between psychotherapists and their former clients: obligations of psychologists

This article examines the issue of nonsexual relationships between psychologists and their former therapy clients. What little research is available concerning nonsexual relationships with former clients suggests that psychologists have clear reservations about some of these relationships, especially personal ones and intentional social interactions. Relationships immediately following termination are seen as particularly suspect. Drawing on the literature dealing with multiple relationships in general, and sexual relationships with former clients in particular, a number of arguments are made outlining why psychologists should avoid significant nonsexual relationships with former clients for at least some period of time following termination.     

Remembering autobiographically consequential experiences: content analysis of psychologists' accounts of their lives

The autobiographies of 49 eminent psychologists were content analyzed in terms of autobiographically consequential experiences (ACEs). Most memories for ACE were not single episodes. Episodic ACEs did, however, share many characteristics of "flashbulb" and vivid memories elicited in studies using more traditional experimental procedures. Memories were concentrated during the college and early adult years. Thus, as in other autobiographical memory studies that have used older subjects, there was a pronounced reminiscence effect. These results were considered in light of Erikson's theory of adult personality development.     

Business owner-managers' descriptions of entrepreneurship: A content analysis

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is one of the most researched topics in business research. Findings have been mixed regarding the traits of entrepreneurs, and interest has grown in examining the behavioral aspects and business operations elements necessary for effective entrepreneurship, branching out from the focus on personality traits that has dominated the literature. We explored the area of entrepreneurship with the goal of developing a useful framework for viewing this domain. Content analysis was used to build the framework from business owner-managers' observations of entrepreneurial effectiveness. The construct categories and the overall dimensions and their relationships to entrepreneurship are reported. The result is the beginning of a process to describe an entrepreneurship system. Suggestions for future research and the continuation of entrepreneurship model development are offered.     

Chronic sorrow: A content analysis of parental differences

Sixty-eight mothers and 64 fathers of children with a neural tube defect responded to a questionnaire about chronic sorrow. Mothers reported a mood state change in very intense category from more pessimistic at time of diagnosis to more optimistic at current time. Fathers, although indicating a mood change in the very intense category to more optimistic, also had more pessimistic responses. Parental similarities and differences were also reported in both times and events that triggered the sorrow response. Categories across times and events were primarily related to health care, school/development concerns and social significance. Clinical and research implications of these findings are discussed.     

Nurse psychologists: A unique group within health psychology

Since the mid-1980s commonalities between nursing and psychology have been explored, with subsequent establishment of a Nursing and Health Psychology Committee within the American Psychological Association's Division 38. A survey was undertaken to study this little-known, unique cadre of individuals with dual preparation in both nursing and psychology. Participants were queried regarding their educational preparations in both disciplines, current employment, theoretical and/or research interests, and current projects. Results of the survey provide information about the characteristics of this group. Dual preparation appears to offer certain advantages for the practice of health psychology.     

Words: A computer system for the analysis of content

WORDS is a computer-oriented system for content analysis designed to elicit major content themes without recourse to a priori categorization systems. The system consists of a number of modular and independent programs that the user can configure in any fashion to process the data to be analyzed. This paper presents current information on WORDS, WORDS programs, WORDS systems logic, and on the availability of the system.