Behavioral Laws in Histories of Psychology: Psychological Science,Metascience, and the Psychology of Science

Histories of psychology frequently include statements that explicitly or implicitly express behavioral laws. Usually these "meta-historical generalizations" provide "covering laws" for explanatory accounts, contextual frames, or paradoxical con- trasts. These abstract propositions come from many sources, vary immensely in scientfic validity, and are found in several psychological publications besides histories, including book reviews, obituaries, journal articles, monographs, and trade books. Not only could the authors of these nomothetic claims make better use of empirical results in the metasciences, but these assertions themselves offer an inventory of valuable hypotheses that should inspire future research in the behavioral sciences and especially in the psychology of science.     

心理和行为研究中的学科交叉

现代心理学研究中许多的科学问题都需要多学科的共同努力。虽然研究者们能够认识到学科交叉中蕴藏着巨大的科学机会,但也还存在着一些阻碍学科交叉的因素。主要包括:对待学科交叉研究的态度、学术交流渠道不畅、现有的学科体系、基金评审体系的不适应以及从事交叉学科研究的学者的职业发展前景等。在现阶段,充分利用信息技术提供的便利条件,针对国家需求开展合作研究和学术交流是推动交叉学科研究发展的方向之一。     

Psychology and the National Medal of Science

When Congress created the National Medal of Science in 1959 to be awarded by the president of the United States, psychology was not among the eligible sciences. A concerted lobbying effort in the late 1970s changed that situation, adding social and behavioral sciences to the listing of eligible disciplines. This article describes how the award program was created with more restricted eligibility and the behind-the-scenes actions that led to eligibility being broadened, noting particularly the efforts of one very prominent psychologist who was angry about the exclusion of his science.     

Semantic Determinants and Psychology as a Science

One central but unrecognized strand of the complex debate between W. V. Quine and Donald Davidson over the status of psychology as a science turns on their disagreement concerning the compatibility of strict psychophysical, semantic-determining laws with the possibility of error. That disagreement in turn underlies their opposing views on the location of semantic determinants: proximal (on bodily surfaces) or distal (in the external world). This paper articulates these two disputes, their wider context, and argues that both are fundamentally misconceived. There is no special tension between error and strict semantic-determining laws; moreover, the purported bearing of that issue on the dispute over the location of semantic determinants depends upon a mistaken conception of the relation between the nomic status of generalizations and degree of distance between explanans and it explananda. Finally, the wider significance of these conclusions for related contemporary debates is noted. And independent considerations about the possibility of communication, also present in Quine's and Davidson's thinking, are brought to bear on the question of the location of semantic determinants. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

心理学全球化的趋势

全球化心理学或心理学全球化是当代心理学的一个新取向。它产生的基本动力是当今世界全球化浪潮的出现,主流心理学的局限以及本土心理学的兴起,其基本目标是研究全体人类的心理和行为,力图建构起最具统合性的心理学。     

Ecology And The Science Of Psychology

This study explored the feasibility of discriminating among subtypes of mental retardation on the basis of observable behavior. The major focus was on discrimination between Ss whose low I.Q. could be attributed to normal chromosomal or single locus genetic defects. Concurrently the study sought t o distinguish among diagnostic subgroups of the second category. Three groups of institutionalized subjects were used: Undifferentiated (presumed polygenic segregants), PKU, and Down's Syndrome.     

把握当代心理学的发展趋势

本文认为,开展心理学的科学研究与学术交流,必须把握当代心理学的发展趋势,作者提出当前的主要趋势是：1．心理学的综合化;2．心理学的本土化或中国化;3．心理学的实用化     

Advancing Psychology as a Bio-behavioral Science

Concerns for the integrity of psychology as an independent discipline have caused some psychologists to object to introducing any knowledge from the biological sciences into the training of psychologists. However, calls for the greater incorporation of the behavioral sciences in medical education, increased attention to research on the mechanisms of bio-behavioral interaction, and initiatives in translational medical research and clinical care, have prompted increased interest in interdisciplinary research, health care, and teaching. These changes, in turn, are resulting in a re-conceptualization of the structure of academic medicine with increasing emphasis upon multidisciplinary knowledge and interdisciplinary collaboration, and less emphasis upon disciplinary insularity and competitiveness. If clinical health psychology is to play a role in this evolving concept of academic health care, it must adequately prepare its trainees to function in interdisciplinary academic health care settings. This will require not only expertise in the role of behavioral factors relevant to medical disorders, but also some basic familiarity with the biological processes to which those behavioral factors relate. With the evolution of its fund of knowledge, clinical health psychology has the potential to utilize its science to discover, describe, interpret, teach and clinically apply knowledge of the mechanisms of interaction between biological functions and behavioral, learning, cognitive, socio-cultural and environmental processes. By failing to seize this initiative, clinical health psychology risks becoming irrelevant to the evolving model of medical research, education and health care. Presented, in part, to the Association of Psychologists in Academic Health Centers, Minneapolis, MN, May 2007.     

Introducing Science to the Psychology of the Soul: Experimental Existential Psychology

ABSTRACT— Humans live out their lives knowing that their own death is inevitable; that their most cherished beliefs and values, and even their own identities, are uncertain; that they face a bewildering array of choices; and that their private subjective experiences can never be shared with another human being. This knowledge creates five major existential concerns: death, isolation, identity, freedom, and meaning. The role of these concerns in human affairs has traditionally been the purview of philosophy. However, recent methodological and conceptual advances have led to the emergence of an experimental existential psychology directed toward empirically investigating the roles that these concerns play in psychological functioning. This new domain of psychological science has revealed the pervasive influence of deep existential concerns on diverse aspects of human thought and behavior.     

当代人格心理学的发展趋势

本文在回顾20世纪人格心理学发展历程的基础上,提出了21世纪人格学科的五个发展趋势：1)人格理论研究的交融趋势,2)人格实证研究的整合趋势,3)人格功能的完善化趋势,4)人格研究方法的多样化趋势,5)人格研究的动态化趋势;通过归纳一些未来人格研究的思考课题与研究方法,力求为今后人格心理学研究提供可参照性的思考方向。     

现代认知心理学关于图式模型的研究

对现代认知心理学关于知识图式的研究作了系统的阐述,分析了产生式系统取向和联结主义取向的优缺点。指出：图式模型研究的整合观是近来及以后认知心理学研究的主要课题之一。     

关于实验心理学中推理的现代心理测量方法(英文)

推理测验与推理实验不同。推理测验用来衡量智商;而推理实验则用来研究推理的心理过程。测验旨在找出能力的个体差异;而实验则意在突出所有个体的一般性心理过程。近年来,心理学中的推理已经发生了变化,我们在理论进化方面简要地总结了如下这些变化:关注点从推理任务中的反应过程变为个体对不同任务做反应时的差异和其中稳定的反应模式,开始考虑不同推理者的组织差异和数量差异(犹如不同游泳运动员的游泳动作和肌肉数量)。然而,这些理论创新必须有精确的建模技术的支持。我们将以条件推理材料为例,展示了现代心理测量方法可以帮我们解决理论创新中产生的三类主要的研究问题。