Community-based Practices: Integrating Dissemination Theory with Critical Theories of Power and Justice

This paper critically reviews two diverse intellectual traditions concerned with community-based interventions: the literature on dissemination of community interventions and the critical psychology literature that is concerned with systemic power inequalities and structural injustice. The dominant dissemination-of-innovations framework has shifted toward an emphasis on community, yet it does not generally take into account issues of power and inequality within the diverse community spheres into which interventions are disseminated. On the other hand, critical psychologists, who have concerned themselves with both understanding and addressing issues of power and structural injustice, have tended to eschew the possibility of standardizing and making transferable practices, programs, and even processes that address these issues in particular settings. This paper traces and critiques both sides of this divide within community psychology, positing a framework to bring these diverse intellectual resources together so that community interventions might fruitfully be examined in terms of their community-based practices, or practices that bear on structural injustice. This framework is illustrated with a case study of the community-based practices of a widely disseminated evidence-based community intervention.     

Child’s Play: Anatomically Correct Dolls and Embodiment

Anatomically detailed dolls have been used to elicit testimony from children in sex abuse cases. However, studies have shown they often provide false accounts in young, preschool-age children. Typically this problem is seen as a cognitive one: with age, children can correctly map their bodies onto a doll due to greater intellectual ability to represent themselves. I argue, along with the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, that although cognitive developments aid in the ability to represent one’s own body, a discussion of embodiment is required in order to understand the use and abuse of anatomical dolls in forensic interviews. This paper examines these issues and maintains that a better understanding of embodied perception in both adults and children helps show how phenomenology can provide a more nuanced understanding to a troubling ethical and legal problem.

Evaluating the Meta-Slope: Is there a Slippery Slope Argument against Slippery Slope Arguments?

Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) have often been viewed as inherently weak arguments, to be classified together with traditional fallacies of reasoning and argumentation such as circular arguments and arguments from ignorance. Over the last two decades several philosophers have taken a kinder view, often providing historical examples of the kind of gradual change on which slippery slope arguments rely. Against this background, Enoch (2001, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 21(4), 629–647) presented a novel argument against SSA use that itself invokes a slippery slope. Specifically, he argued that the very reasons that can make SSAs strong arguments mean that we should be poor at abiding by the distinction between good and bad SSAs, making SSAs inherently undesirable. We argue that Enoch’s meta-level SSA fails on both conceptual and empirical grounds.     

Why psychology needs conceptual analysts: Wachtel's “discontents” revisited

Commenting on Wachtel's “Investigation and its Discontents” [Wachtel, P. L. (1980). Investigation and its discontents: Some constraints on progress in psychological research. American Psychologist, 35, 399–408], I agree that lack of support for a career path of conceptual analysis and critique is a serious problem. Psychology requires a strong conceptual component because it is subject to unusual distortions and self-deceptions in theory formation and evidential evaluation due to issues of power, self-esteem, and social ideology. I agree with Wachtel that pressures for quantity of publication are detrimental to scientific quality, but dispute his suggestion that excessive focus on quantity in assessing productivity can be addressed by having tenure and promotion candidates submit only their three best papers. Such reviews must be based on the entire record, so improvements must involve journals’ acceptance standards. Regarding Wachtel's concern about the influence of grants on reviews, I argue that grants should be relevant only to the extent they bear on the candidate's scholarly goals.     

应用层次析分法和模糊综合评判研究保健品消费心理

将层次分析方法与模糊综合评判理论相结合,以营养成分、包装情况、价格因素、广告宣传、售后服务为一级评判指标,以保健品专卖店、大型超市、小型超市、杂货店、厂家邮购五种销售渠道为二级评价指标,给出一种模糊判断的权重计算方法,建立了保健品消费心理的层次模糊决策模型。应用该模型对长春地区消费者的保健品消费心理进行了测试,结果表明：测试结果与实际销售情况相符。说明应用该方法建立起来的模型在了解消费者对保健品的消费心理方面是可行的,同时也为新型保健品的开发和市场推广提供了一定的依据。     

时代精神与当代心理学

时代精神是一个历史时期的社会、哲学和科学发展的总体思潮,即一个时代的意识形态。它影响着一个时期的学术思想倾向。在心理学的发展史中,时代精神的影响是明显的。文章从时代精神的视角对20世纪心理学的发展做出概述,谈到20世纪初行为主义如何顺应了美国的实用主义思想而产生和发展。20世纪下半叶,知识经济的时代精神孕育了认知心理学的诞生。当前的时代精神可以称为世界的全球化,这带来了心理学的广泛交流——心理学的国际化。文章最后讨论了心理学的现代特点及可能远景。     

值得运动心理学家探索的6个问题

长期以来,运动心理学在竞技运动领域面对的6个问题包括：1）哪些心理学指标可以标志和预测训练型和比赛型运动员？2）如何界定、监测和控制长时期大运动量训练和比赛中的心理疲劳？3）达到最佳竞技状态的必要心理条件是什么？4）运动员最佳竞技状态时大脑的工作情况有哪些特征？ 5）运动员精英与其他领域精英的自我发展有何异同？6）有运动智力吗？从理论和实践两个方面对这6个问题进行了分析,提出了解决这些问题的思路。同时指出,对这些问题的探索将有助于运动心理学为母科学心理学的发展做出贡献。     

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。     

论俄罗斯主体心理学的理论特征

主体心理学是俄罗斯心理学发展的新方向,其主要理论特征体现在:研究作为主体的人;强调主体积极性;具有鲜明的人文特征;注重对群体主体问题研究;关注社会问题;重视心理学的理论研究。     

Concurrent Validity of the Multidimensional Health Profile—Health Functioning Scales (MHP-H) in the Pre-operative Assessment of Applicants for Gastric Bypass Surgery

The concurrent validity of a brief screening test, the Multidimensional Health Profile-Health Functioning (MHP-H) was examined in conjunction with a much more lengthy pre-operative assessment procedure in 449 applicants for gastric bypass surgery (GBS). The MHP-H is a 69-item screening inventory that assesses five areas of health functioning: Adult Health History, Health Habits, Health Care Utilization, Health Beliefs and Attitudes, and Response to Illness. The more lengthy procedure included a comprehensive 273-item structured interview plus the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2), Basic Personality Inventory (BPI), and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The MHP-H showed significant correspondence with the more comprehensive assessment on measures of potential relevance to outcome in GBS, supporting the use of the MHP-H as a low-cost alternative to the more extensive procedure. The utility of the MHP-Psychosocial Functioning (MHP-P), a companion instrument to the MHP-H, was demonstrated in an earlier study.