Review of APA dictionary of psychology.

Abstract

GARY R.VANDENBOS (Ed.) APA Dictionary of Psychology American Psychological Association, 2006,1,008 pages (ISBN: 978-1-59147-380-0, US$49.95 Hardcover) Reviewed by LENORA N. BROWN The field of psychology is a multifaceted discipline that consists of subareas such as neuropsychology, socio-cultural, experimental, statistics, research methods, ergonomics, cognition, industrial and organizational, and neurosciences to name a few. Moreover, the field of psychology is multi- and interdisciplinary such that it encompasses the knowledge of other disciplines such as medicine, psychiatry, law, and ethics. Therefore, a useful dictionary for professionals working in the field of psychology should include definitions of the terms used in these overlapping disciplines. The American Psychological Association (APA) Dictionary of Psychology (2007) is an impressive comprehensive reference book that includes germane entries of these interrelated disciplines. This dictionary is a useful resource not only for professionals who work in the field of psychology, but also for the professionals who work in related and/or overlapping disciplines (e.g., social workers, psychiatrists, practitioners, lawyers). The development of this book took almost 10 years. The long list of editors and contributors shows that the making of this book was a major joint effort. The hard-covered book has 1,023 pages and more than 25,000 entries that are accompanied by thousands of cross-references. The dictionary provides a brief history of the book's development and a brief guide to its layout and format. The book has highquality paper, a double-column layout, large boldface headwords, and small boldface subentries, all of which make it easy to read. In addition, each entry is generously indented under the headword making the pages appear less crowded when compared to other dictionaries. The size of the book is very reasonable, which will be appealing to the reader. In order to test its comprehensiveness, I randomly selected 50 terms from various psychological readings, which included areas such as neuropsychology, neurosciences, neuroanatomy, psychophysics, and general psychology. I found 49 of the 50 terms in the book, which is quite impressive. A major strength of this book is the numerous cross-references provided to the reader, which significantly contributes to understanding the concepts. For instance, the definition of explicit memory includes a reference to declarative memory. The dictionary also provides cross-references between older terms that have been replaced by recent terms. For example, the entry manic-depressive illness in the dictionary refers the reader to the newer term bipolar disorder. I did find, however, that some recent changes in the terminology due to the reclassification of syndromes/diseases, were not always identified. For example, the reclassification of Pick's Disease to frontotemporal dementia (FTD) was not provided in the definition for Pick's Disease. The dictionary provides acronyms for the major psychological institutions, as well as for commonly used terms and phases. It also includes many of the names of the major figures in the history of psychology. However, I did find some minor inconsistencies such that the names of some major figures were not always indicated in the definition of the key concept associated with the person. …