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Includes bibliographical references (275-298) and index. ; Forms of methodology in political psychology -- Theoretical concepts in political psychology -- Cognitions and attitudes : what we think we know and why -- Behavior : do actions speak louder than words? -- Emotion : why we love to hate -- Psychobiography -- Leadership -- Group processes. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Bibliography: leaves 240-257. ; This thesis proposes to answer a single question: do the stylistic features of cognition operate independently of cognitive contents? The question itself has a history, and the way it has been framed, and the types of answers it has attracted have been related to ideological and political interests. Chapter 1 reviews four social psychological theories of the relationship between cognitive style and ideological beliefs - authoritarianism, extremism theory, context theory, and value pluralism theory. It argues that these (empiricist) accounts have been bedeviled by a tension between theoretical universalism and political critique, and have fostered the view that cognitive traits are stable, general, and pervasive properties of individual psychology. Chapter 2 focuses on the construct of intolerance of ambiguity, and shows how - in the manner of Danziger's (1985) "methodological circle" - universalistic assumptions have become incorporated into measurement instruments; and how all evidence of individual variability in cognitive style has been accommodated by interactionist models of personality, leaving the empiricist view intact. Roy Bhaskar's critical realism is used as an alternative to a empiricist psychology, and Michael Billig's rhetorical psychology is used as an alternative to universalistic theories of cognitive style. A measurement procedure is developed which can assess cross-content variability in ambiguity tolerance. Three studies are performed in order to justify a move towards an anti-universalistic conception of cognitive style. Study l evaluates the hypothesized generality of ambiguity tolerance on a sample of university students. Factor analysis and correlational matrices show that ambiguity tolerance toward different authorities is domain specific, and that different factors are related to each other positively, negatively, and orthogonally. Study 2 employs the same sample, and uses polynomial regression analysis to show that the relationship between ambiguity tolerance and ideological conservatism is highly variable across content domain. Study 3 replicates these central findings with another student sample and with different scale contents. The results of all three studies arc contrary to the predictions of the social psychological accounts of cognitive style. They show that expressions of cognitive style are context- and content-dependent, and suggest that the empiricist "thing-like" ontology be replaced with a praxis- and concept-dependent ontology.

This transcript considers the origins and impact of the MRC Applied Psychology Unit's work from 1944 to 1998. Psychologists, clinicians, and industrial, ergonomic and occupational psychologists discuss the evolution of work from quite narrow postwar industrial and military concerns to more recent applications in, for example, ageing, dyslexia, depression, form design, information and semantics. Those who contributed included Professor Alan Baddeley, Dr Philip Barnard, Dr Ivan Brown, Professor Sergio Della Sala, Mr David C Duncan, Professor Richard Gregory (Chair), Professor John Groeger, Professor Graham Hitch, Professor Robert Logie, Dr Brandon Lush, Professor William Marslen-Wilson, Professor Peter McLeod, Professor Pat Rabbitt, Professor Graham Richards, Dr David Tyrrell, Professor John West. Introduction by Geoff Bunn and Lois Reynolds, 19 illus, biographical notes, subject and name index, 111pp.

This inquiry focuses on (a) the character of school psychology services that are provided in this culturally complex society by 10 education autonomous provinces and two federally dependent territories, (b) problems of service delivery occasioned by unusual economic as well as diverse demographic and geographic conditions. (c) the diversity of training and accreditation standards that obtain across political jurisdictions, (d) aspects of the way this profession interacts with other psychology-based disciplines that serve public school systems, and (e) difficulties that face the practitioner that are generated by problems intrinsic to the profession as weil as to the society in which it is taking shape. RÉSUMÉ Cette étude porte (a) sur les services de psychologie scolaire offerts dans notre société culturellement complexe par dix provinces autonomes sur le plan de l'éducation et deux territoires tributaires du fédéral; (b) sur les problèmes posés par la présentation de ces services en raison d'une conjoncture économique inhabituelle et de conditions démographiques et géographiques diverses; (c) sur la diversité des normes de formation et d'accréditation en vigueur dans différentes juridictions politiques; (d) sur les façons dont cette profession interagit avec d'autres disciplines basées sur la psychologie que l'on retrouve dans les écoles publiques, et (e) sur les difficultés provenant de problèmes intrinsèques à la profession ainsi qu'à la société où ils se façonnent.

The chapters in this book have been written, reviewed and revised by psychologists and economists united by their interest in the dialogue between the two disciplines. The idea of contributing to this volume came up when the authors cooperated during a period of three weeks in the teaching staff of a summer school of the International Association for Research in Economic Psychology (IAREP). Each of the three workshops of the summer school running over 20 days and focusing on economic policy, consumer behavior, and entrepreneurial behavior was conducted by a professor of economics and a professor of psychology. Thus, there was a clear necessity and ample opportunity for an interdisciplinary dialogue. Of course, the chapters do not cover the whole field of economic psychology, but represent selected topics of the authors' research activities which are of a more general interest to psychologists, economists, or other social scientists who want to or have to deal with economic behavior in research, teaching, or consulting. An encouraging sign of the rapprochement of psychology and economics is provided by the fact that there are a number of chapters in the book in which the reader can not easily tell whether the author is (or was originally) an economist or a psychologist. We hope that crossing the borders between psychology and economics in both directions is encouraged by the book and that it contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of people's reactions to events and structural changes in the economic environment and of people's production of the economic environment and its changes. Finally, we want to thank Christian Miiller and Sandra Kopfberger for their assistance in our editorial work. They proved to be very careful and skilled in putting the manuscripts into a unified format, compiling the subject and author indices and checking the lists of references.

This dissertation consists of a case study of Swedish psychology during a specific period of time. It focuses psychology as a scientific discpline, as a professionalised occupation and as a cognitive resource for policy-making. From a general science studies perspective, it aims to provide a sociological and historical analysis of the development of psychological research, psychological practice and psychology's relation to social policy-making in key areas of the welfare state in general. The case study utilises discourse analysis, analysis of archival and documentary material, interviews and bibliometric analyses. It is argued that psychologists have changed their image from being primarily academics to being clinical practitioners whose expertise has moved from differential diagnostics to psychotherapy. Professional discourse has evolved similarly to that shown to be the case in other countries, drawing extensively on rhetorics of economics, humanitarianism and facilitation and control. A critical assessment of discourse analysis and constructionism is provided, arguing for a restricted application of constructionism in science studies. Further, professional action and organisation is analysed. It is argued that the professional project pursued by psychologists is characterised by power struggles within the profession, and is an outcome of adaptation to institutional demands stemming from the labour-market. It results in a pattern of professionalisation which deviates from what is hypothesised by much professionalisation theory. Psychology's role as a cognitive resource for social policy-making is analysed in relation to claims to decisive influence made by psychologists. It is argued that psychology has played a negligible role in key areas of policy-making. The case illustrates the politicisation of science rather than the scientization of policy-making. Finally, psychology's development as a a discipline is analysed. It is argued that the changes in the system of research and higher education illustrates the increasing influence of non-cognitive factors on disciplinary development. It has provided academic psychology with potential for growth but at the same time weakened its disciplinary core. Academic psychology has been more theoretically and methodologically diverse than is usually claimed, but a rivalling knowledge ideal to the traditional academic one has been introduced by sectorial research policy.

Die Psychologie erfuhr im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert in vielen Ländern eine starke Entwicklung. Dieses Wachstum war am stärksten in industrialisierten, urbanisierten, westlichen Demokratien, was zur Folge hatte, dass die Disziplin wegen ihrer westlichen Beschränkung in die Kritik geriet. Obwohl diese Beschränkung nicht verneint werden soll, wird im Folgenden dargelegt, dass die historische Analyse zu einer tiefer gehenden Erklärung der Beziehung zwischen der Psychologie und diesen Gesellschaften führt, als es die `kulturalistische' Kritik vermag. Es gibt eines besondere Affinität zwischen Psychologie und der Art von Subjekten, wie sie in liberalen Demokratien leben, sowie deren Selbstverständnissen. Daraus ergibt sich, dass der Gegenstand der Disziplin selbst historisch variabel und dass die Psychologie reflexiv in diesen Prozess eingebunden ist. Wie die menschliche Subjektivität im Wechselspiel zwischen den herrschenden politischen Verhältnissen, der Psychologie und deren Gegenstand in diesen Gesellschaften konstruiert wird, bleibt unvorhersehbar. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion

In this article, we present an overview of the political context of vocational psychology and career counseling in Portugal. The essence of our position is that career counseling needs to encompass all the major tasks of personal and social development, beyond the traditional focus on primarily vocational/occupational goals. Given the importance of social and political factors that are apparent in an analysis of the Portuguese climate within career development, we propose that vocational psychology must go beyond a concep- tualization of vocational behavior and intervention based on a person– environment fit model and must try to enhance strategies for the development of persons in a broader sense. We further propose that we need to provide career counseling not only at critical decision points, but throughout the life-span, and should not focus merely on occupational details, but on all matters of the development of the person as a whole. Finally, we suggest a perspective on career counseling and vocational psychology that is more responsive to our cultural and historical context and which is sensitive to the reality of a new political era in Portugal

Hobhouse viewed comparative psychology as playing a key role in his politically liberal, social-ethical worldview. The main feature of evolving mind was the increased capacity for democratic self-direction. Political reaction, identified with imperialism, attempts ideologically to obscure this fact, and thus to impede social progress. Its instruments are philosophical idealism and pseudo-scientific biologism or Social Darwinism. Comparative psychology, conceived as an essentially human psychology, could counteract this reactionary ideology with genuine scientific knowledge of present human capacity and future potential. These can only be revealed by a correct scientific approach, which, Hobhouse maintained, had to be evolutionary and comparative.

Economics and social psychology come from different traditions in social science, and in the past they seldom met. Their territories seemed to be well delimited. The former discipline's mainstream focused on market mediated interactions, making sense of an asocial concept of action by referring it to "the ordinary business of life" (Marshall, 1920, I.II.1) where agent's choices supposedly are independent from those of other parties in the transactions (Sugden, 2002); on the other hand, the second discipline descends from the more romantic view of man as a social being, and was stimulated by questions on why and how the immersion of individuals in the multitude, or the simple presence of others, appeared to transform behaviour. Lately, however, economics has started moving in a direction that reduces this gap. In a double but interrelated move, economics is adopting experimental methods familiar to those of social psychology, and is becoming more concerned with the relevance of rational choice in contexts where there is clear inter-individual dependence, raising questions to which social psychologists have already devoted considerable time and effort. As a part of this movement, social dilemmas, that is, "situations in which (a) individual group members can obtain higher outcomes (at least under some circumstances) if they pursue their individual interest while (b) the group obtains higher incomes if all group members further the group interest" (Dijk and Wilke, 1998: 110) have become the focus of shared interest of both economists and social psychologists. The motivation for the study of social dilemmas does not differ much in economics and social psychology and it arises out of two major types of challenges. The first (Fontaine, 2002) is related to the growing consciousness of the pervasiveness of market failures (combined with government failures) concerning issues of major social urgency like pollution and the use of scarce resources. The second, (Dawes, 1991) cropped up out of the finding that people both in real-life and experimental contexts fail to behave systematically in the way depicted by standard game theory, often opting for more benign strategies. Interest in social dilemmas is thus related, on the one hand, with the concern with problems that the market cannot solve, and, on the other, with understanding the reasons that may drive people to act in ways that are not in line with rational self-interest. For economics those questions are arcane questions 1 that were never ignored by the best minds in this discipline. Marshall's sentence in epigraph is a clear instance of this concern. This essay does not intend to cover the whole scope of existing approaches to social dilemmas since it only deals with dilemma situations that somehow fit into the economist's category of public good provision problems and with the experimental studies in economics and social psychology2. On the basis of an exploratory joint survey of experimental literature from both disciplines, it focuses on their differences in theoretical framing and their use of the experimental method. The following points will be argued: (a) Twenty five years of experimental research in both disciplines have produced an impressive accumulation of coherent results showing that in spite of the free-riding prediction, there is a tendency to voluntary contribution in "small" groups; (b) Notwithstanding the abundance of experimental studies, several interesting problems remain unexplored. In economics, the research focus has been on "are the game theoretical predictions corroborated by experimental evidence?", whereas in social psychology it has been on "what may cause the voluntary disposition to contribute". Questions pertaining to "what institutional contexts might hinder or foster voluntary contribution" still offer a vast domain of unexplored possibilities. (c) In spite of all efforts, the conceptual framework that may account for the contributive disposition in public good dilemma situations and help "discover how this latent social asset can be developed" remains rather sketchy.

A descriptive, qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews involving six high school teachers of psychology was carried out in order to ascertain the factors contributing to the outcome of education in the discipline. The Empirical Phenomenological Psychological method (EPP-method) was used. Eighteen categories of "meaning units" were derived from the analysis of the interview materials and are described together with representative quotations taken directly from the raw material. Didactic image but also school leadership, governors, politicians and students all influenced content, organisation and teaching of the psychology course, which is viewed not only as an autonomous subject in its own right but also a necessary preparation of young people for the realities of adulthood.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the field of political psychology; like the social sciences more generally, is being challenged. New theoretical direction is being demanded from within and a greater epistemological sophistication and ethical relevance is being demanded from without. In response, direction for a reconstructed political psychology is offered here. To begin, a theoretical framework for a truly integrative political psychology is sketched. This is done in light of the apparent limits of cross-disciplinary or multidisciplinary inquiry. In the attempt to transcend these limits, the theoretical approach offered directly addresses the dually structured quality of social life as the singular product of both organizing social structures and defining discourse communities on the one hand and motivated, thinking individuals on the other. To further this theoretical effort, meta-theoretical considerations are addressed. The modernist-postmodernist debate regarding the status of truth and value is used as a point of departure for constructing the epistemological foundation for a truly political psychology. In this light, structural pragmatic guidelines for theory construction, empirical research and normative inquiry are presented.

Interdisciplinary interest, learning and integration, as we would say it today in our contemporary language, was a central feature in Thomas Aquinas' s life as from his early studies in Naples, where he encountered and studied the recently rediscovered suspect writings of Aristotle. The undertaking of an open-minded interdisciplinary career was continued throughout his studies under Albert, already called "the Great", Albertus Magnus, Doctor universalis and Doctor expertus in his lifetime. Albert had the intention to "make Aristotle's works on natural science intelligible to the Latins" and discussed "all the branches of human knowledge, adding contributions from the Arabs, and even creating entirely 'new sciences'. These sciences ranged from logic, natural science, rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy, ethics, economics, politics, and metaphysics" (WeisheipI1983: 41). Thomas drew a lot of profit from this teacher. "The four years during which Thomas studied under Albert (1248-52) were the most propitious years both in Albert's life and in the life of young Thomas" (WeisheipI1983: 47). Albert surpassed Thomas as to the breadth of scholarship, knowledge and maybe typically Germanic thoroughness (cf. Weisheipl 1983: 39). Aquinas, however, managed to order and structure the sheer compilation of knowledge received from his major teacher into an open philosophical and theological system. 1 This open system is distinguished and impressing by the clarity, brevity and simplicity explicitly intended by Thomas in the start of his Summa Theologiae (I, prol.) without reducing the complexity of the subjects to be treated. I call it an "open" system for it is a system that is able to assimilate new knowledge and to accommodate itself to new developments without losing its identity of thought and conviction. ; N/A

A number of scholars during the 1980s and early 1990s questioned the relevance of psychology in South Africa. In this paper we characterise the nature of what became known as the 'relevance debate', and then investigate whether South African psychology has become more relevant during the nation's first ten years of democracy. Themes which are identified with respect to this issue include the apparent increasing representation of marginalised groups within South African psychology, the conscious responsiveness of psychologists to post-apartheid policy imperatives and issues, their alignment with international theoretical trends, and finally, an increasing recognition of the political nature of South African psychology. The authors conclude that a more productive approach within future debates regarding relevance in psychology would be to examine the nature of knowledge production within the discipline.

Mit diesem Beitrag soll die Beziehung zwischen Wilhem Wundt und der Spanischen Psychologie dargelegt werden. Das besondere Augenmerk gilt den Arbeiten und Autoren vor dem Spanischen Bürgerkrieg (1936-1939). Zwei wichtige Schulen, die von Madrid und Barcelona, werden untersucht; hierbei werden Unterschiede in deren Wundt-Bild festgestellt, ebenso Unterschiede bei den Psychologen, die vor der Jahrhundertwende und denen, die im ersten Jahrzehnt unseres Jahrhunderts arbeiteten. Die wichtigsten Unterschiede sind in Lehrbüchern, wie z.B. von F. Giner, M. Navarro, F. Herrero-Bahillo und E. Luis-André, sowie in den historischen Arbeiten von J. V. Viqueira zu finden. Der Einfluß Wundts war bedeutsam, obwohl er keine praktischen oder institutionellen Wirkungen hatte. Dieser eigenartige Sachverhalt ist vielleicht darauf zurückzuführen, daß das Hauptinteresse der spanischenPsychologie in der ersten Hälfte unseres Jahrhunderts im Bereich angewandtpsychologischer Fragen lag. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion