American Psychological Society Research Articles

Tatia Lee: Neuropsychology and human neuroscience research insights inform the theoretical and translational framework for fostering brain and psychological health

Tatia Lee, PhD, is Chair Professor of Psychological Science and Clinical Psychology at The University of Hong Kong, a clinical psychologist, and a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist. Her research focuses on the neuroplastic basis of neurocognitive and affective processes underpinning normal and pathological neurocognitive and psychological functions. She is an elected Fellow of esteemed international societies, including the World Academy of Sciences, Academy of Social Sciences (UK), American College of Professional Neuropsychology, Association for Psychological Science, and American Psychological Association. She is the Founding Chair of the Clinical Neuropsychological Society under the Chinese Cognitive Science Society of China. She has received numerous awards and recognition, including The University of Alberta Alumni Horizon Award, the Fulbright Hong Kong Scholar, the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award, and the Humanities and Social Sciences Panel Prestigious Fellowship Award. Acknowledging her substantial contributions and academic achievements in advancing neuropsychological sciences, The University of Hong Kong bestowed her the “May Endowed Professorship in Neuropsychology.” Professor Lee is happy to provide our readers with reflections on her life and career.

Introduction to Michael A. Hogg's SPSSI Kurt Lewin Award Address

Introduction to Michael A. Hogg's SPSSI Kurt Lewin Award Address

Upon Reflection

Upon Reflection

Integrated care and interprofessional education.

Integrated care and interprofessional education.

Mortimer Mishkin (1926-2021).

Memorializes Mortimer Mishkin (1926-2021). A systems neuroscientist, Mishkin's most well-known contributions involve sensory neocortical processing systems for vision, audition, and somatic sensation, and their relationship with the formation and storage of memory systems in the brain; specifically, his discoveries (a) that the visual system extended beyond the primary visual area, (b) that the visual system was divided into two-the ventral and dorsal-processing streams (with Leslie Ungerleider), and (c) of the role of the medial temporal lobe in memory. Mishkin was on two dozen journal editorial boards and committees and was fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, American Psychological Association (APA), American Psychological Society (APS), and Society of Experimental Psychologists (SEP). He was also past President of the Society for Neuroscience (SN) and of the APA Division 6. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Donald K. Routh (1937-2021).

Memorializes Donald K. Routh (1927-2021). He received a BA in English from the University of Oklahoma (1962), followed by a MS (1965) and PhD (1967) in psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his clinical internship at the Oklahoma Health Science Center (1967). Routh was board certified in clinical psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology (1975). Pursuing an academic career, he rose through the ranks at the University of Iowa (1967-1970, 1977-1985), Bowling Green University (1970-1971), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1971-1977), and the University of Miami (1985-2002) where he served as Director of the clinical psychology program. He was a Fellow of APA and the Association for Psychological Science. Throughout his career, Don emphasized historical foundations of psychology as a scientific discipline and profession. He also affirmed the importance of advocacy for children, families, and those with developmental disabilities and chronic conditions. Two of his books were particularly important contributions: his edited Handbook of Pediatric Psychology (1988) covered a field where he was a pioneer, and Clinical Psychology since 1917 (1994) demonstrated his prowess as historian. He was elected President of the Society of Pediatric Psychology (now Division 54), the Section on Clinical Child Psychology (now Division 53), Division 37, Division 12, and Division 33. He chaired the Behavioral Medicine Study Section of the National Institutes of Health (1983-1985) and performed a multitude of American Psychological Association accreditation site visits. In 1998 he founded the International Society of Clinical Psychology. He was a Fellow of APA and the Association for Psychological Science. In recognition of his career contributions, he received Presidential Awards from Division 54 (1981), the Academy on Mental Retardation (2001), and the American Association on Mental Retardation (2002) as well as an APA Presidential Citation (2002), the Nicholas Hobbs Award from Division 37 (1996), and the Edgar A. Doll Award from Division 33 (2001). Postretirement, as further evidence of his scholarly curiosity, Don earned BA (2008) and MA (2011) degrees in History from the Florida Gulf Coast University. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

APF Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in Psychology in the Public Interest: Vonnie C. McLoyd.

This award recognizes a distinguished career and enduring contribution to psychology in the public interest. Vonnie C. McLoyd has made outstanding contributions in the public interest as a scholar, mentor, and leader in professional affairs. Her scholarship advanced understanding of the processes through which poverty harms children and provided evidence of the protective effects of social support on parents and children experiencing poverty and neighborhood violence. Her work helped transform the study of African American children to one focused on normative development, contextual influences, and sources of within-group variation. She increased ethnic diversity in psychology through her extensive mentorship and activities undertaken as a leader in the Society for Research on Adolescence, the Society for Research in Child Development, and the Association for Psychological Science. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

K. Anders Ericsson (1947–2020).

Presents the obituary of K. Anders Ericsson (1947-2020). Anders received his PhD from University of Stockholm in 1976. His postdoctoral fellowship (1977-1980) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) with Nobel Laureate, Herbert A. Simon, helped set his research agenda. With Simon, he defined rigorous procedures for using think aloud verbal protocols, making that technique a potent tool for exploring cognitive processes, leading to their classic Psychological Review article on the topic of verbal reports as data, followed by a highly cited book, Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data (14,000+ citations) , revised a decade later. Anders moved to University of Colorado at Boulder from 1980-1986; teaming up with Walter Kintsch to develop an influential theory about long-term working memory. He took a leave from 1987-1989, becoming a research associate professor at the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education. There he cemented his reputation as one of the foremost "experts on expertise," with a study of the role of deliberate practice in expert music performance with Krampe and Tesch-Römer that became his second-most cited publication (11,000þ). He joined Florida State University (FSU) in 1992 as a Conradi Eminent Scholar. Once at FSU, he put FSU's psychology department on the map for cognitive psychology, specifically for the study of expert performance. He remained there until his death, supervising 11 doctoral students. Anders was appointed Fellow of Division 3, the Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science of the American Psychological Association (1997), and the Association for Psychological Science (2006). He was invited to spend a sabbatical as a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in 2002, and was proud to have been made a member of Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 2009. He was big brother to Lasse Ericsson and Kerstin Loden. He is survived by his wife, Natalie Sachs-Ericsson, daughter Lina and son Jens from his first marriage to Anna-Lena Malm, and grandson, Jakob Pahler. Despite his aggressive pursuit of truth in the practice of science, he will be remembered fondly by a multitude of people whose lives he changed for the better, as a kind and loving family member, loyal colleague, superb mentor, and faithful friend. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

“Pure” versus “Applied” Psychology: An Historical Conflict between Edward B. Titchener (Pure) and Ludwig R. Geissler (Applied)

There have been three significant breakaways from the American Psychological Association (APA) as a result of its emphasis on professional practice as opposed to “pure” or scientific psychology. In the first, Titchener organized “the Experimentalists” in 1904 (renamed “Society of Experimentalists,” 1929) as an alternative to APA. Following that, the Psychonomic Society (1959) and American Psychological Society (1989; renamed Association for Psychological Science, 2006) broke away from APA. Titchener’s conflict with Ludwig Geissler might be read as a case study of some of the early issues associated with such breakaways. For better understanding of Titchener and Geissler, biographical sections are included with more about Titchener as he is more prominent in the history of psychology literature. Their primary conflict, a private one, was revealed in 14 extant letters between Titchener and Geissler. Titchener was persistently critical of applied psychology. Geissler, Titchener’s student, was the principal founder of the Journal of Applied Psychology. A secondary conflict involved Titchener’s persistent effort to convince Geissler to leave his position in Virginia and return “East, up into the center of things again.” Geissler (1923) eventually responded with a critique of Titchener’s structuralism. In spite of several longstanding disagreements, the two maintained a cordial professional relationship, and in the end, Titchener showed increasing respect for applications of psychology.

Lorraine "Laurie" D. Eyde (1932-2019).

Presents an obituary for Lorraine "Laurie" D. Eyde (1932-2019). Lorraine "Laurie" Dittrich Eyde was born February 20, 1932, in New York City, New York, and grew up in Queens, New York. She died peacefully on July 10, 2019, in Arlington, Virginia. Laurie received her bachelor's degree in 1953 from Tufts University and doctorate in industrial/organizational psychology in 1959 from The Ohio State University. She married the botanist Richard Eyde in 1957 and they spent 1960-1961 in Lucknow, India. In 1961, Laurie and Richard moved to theWashington, DC, area, and Laurie began a more-than-50-year career in public service, first at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and, from 1971, as a personnel research psychologist at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). At OPM, she found a mentor in Ernest S. Primoff and went on to work with him on the job element method, one of the first job analysis approaches to focus on workers' competencies. Laurie's doctoral thesis compared attitudes toward workforce participation held by women in her own 1953 graduating class with attitudes of women who graduated 5 years later. In 1963, she recontacted both groups of women and, in 1968, published an article in Journal of Counseling Psychology reporting on that 5-year follow-up. Laurie is most widely known for her work on the ethical use of tests. In 1985, she helped organize the Joint Committee on Testing Practice, a collaboration between the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association (APA), and the National Council on Measurement in Education. She was an associate editor of Responsible Test Use: Case Studies for Assessing Human Behavior, based on the work of Joint Committee on Testing Practice's Test User Qualification's Working Group and Test User Training Work Group. Beginning in 1996, she was a member of the Psychological Assessment Work Group, established by APA's Board of Professional Affairs. In 1985, Laurie received a Distinguished Leadership Award from APA's Committee on Women in Psychology. She was also a charter fellow of the American Psychological Society and served on its board of directors. Laurie is survived by her son Dana and granddaughter, Rosemary. She was predeceased by her husband, Richard Eyde, and son Douglas. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

How Behavioral Interventions Can Reduce the Climate Impact of Energy Use

Kristian S. Nielsen is a research associate in the Department of Zoology at University of Cambridge. He received a PhD from Copenhagen Business School in 2019 with a dissertation focused on the role of self-regulation in environmental behavior change. His current research focuses on bridging research in behavioral science and biodiversity conservation as part of an interdisciplinary project called Nudging for Nature. His other research interests revolve around behavior change as a climate change mitigation strategy, the dynamics of the behavior change process, self-regulation and self-control, and sustainable clothing consumption. Sander van der Linden is Reader in Social Psychology in Society and director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He is also a fellow in Psychological and Behavioral Sciences at Churchill College, Cambridge and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Environmental Psychology. His research on the psychology of human judgment and decision-making, especially in the context of climate change, has received numerous awards including the Rising Star award from the Association for Psychological Science and the Sage Early Career Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology . Paul C. Stern is president of the Social and Environmental Research institute and was previously a principal staff officer at the US National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine where he directed its Board on Environmental Change and Society. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychological Association. His research interests include the integration of social science into research and practice for governing environmental change and into risk assessment and management. Among his publications are Environmental Problems and Human Behavior (coauthor) and Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society (coeditor).

A snapshot look at replication and statistical reporting practices in psychology journals

ABSTRACTCurrent efforts started in 2012 by the Association for Psychological Science (APS) appear to be different from previous arguments against null hypothesis statistical testing (NHST), which remained largely rhetorical without specific actions for compliance by researchers in psychology. The APS advocacy involves specific promising implementation tactics. The present study examined the impact of those efforts on replication and statistical reporting practices in four psychology journals from 2011 and 2015. The results showed that amidst increased reporting of NHST statistics in 2015 compared to 2011 and an absence of power reporting in the behavioral journals, there was increased reporting of actual replications in Psychological Science, paradoxically surpassing Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, of CIs in all four journals, and of error bars on graphs in Cognition and Behavioural Processes. These trends suggest need for additional efforts at propagating the APS initiatives to ensure greater impact in the broader psychological community. Additionally, psychologists from all domains need to become advocates of best practices for sustainable impact.

Building community by serving the community.

Building community by serving the community.

Exploring Resilience: in the Face of Trauma

What exactly is that quality of resilience that carries people, organizations, and communities through traumatic times? As a construct, resilience is built on the underlying assumption that an individual or organization has undergone a situation of ‘significant adversity’ and has adapted positively, returning to or increasing in performance and psychological wellbeing (Riolli and Savicki Omega, 31(3): 227–233, 2003; Sutcliffe and Vogus 2003). Definitions of resilience range on a continuum from survival to adaptation to competence to healing to hardiness to robustness to wellness (Werner American Psychological Society 81–85, 1995; Masten and Coatsworth American Psychologist, 53(2): 205–220, 1998; Luthar et al. Child Development, 71(3): 573–575, 2000; Coutu Harvard Business Review, 80(5): 46–52, 2002; Maddi 2002). Resilience is an important quality for leaders who are committed to the health of organizations. Organizational health is negatively impacted by organizational trauma; parallel to individuals’ experiences, group and organizational cultures and dynamics are wounded by trauma. While leaders cannot always protect organizations from trauma, leaders can strengthen resilience, recognize when trauma occurs, address the trauma effectively, and protect the system from spiraling into traumatization (Vivian and Hormann O.D. Practitioner, 34(4): 52–57, 2002). This paper offers recommendations for addressing organizational trauma as well as strengthening resilience, individually and collectively. Stories are shared from several organizations, demonstrating the importance of leadership and resilience in the face of trauma.

Psychologists and psychiatrists who violate the Goldwater Rule are guilty of malpractice

ABSTRACTA number of psychiatrists and psychologists declared in the past year that the newly elected president was unfit to hold office due to mental illness, or being dangerous. Such declarations were made even though the subject had not been personally interviewed or tested and, consequently, they are guilty of malpractice. This has aggravated the already toxic milieu, wherein various prominent individuals have called for a coup d’etat to take place and families have broken up over election choices. Historical precedents for the current actions of these psychiatrists are presented, both in the United States and overseas. Dissenting psychiatrists brought up the Goldwater Rule that was created after the 1964 presidential election, which states that a psychiatrist may not make pronouncements of mental health on an individual that they have not personally examined. It is urged that the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science adopt the ethical Goldwater Rule.

Place of behavior analysis in the changing culture of replication and statistical reporting in psychological science

ABSTRACTThe “new” psychological science seeks to promote a culture of replication in response to rampant publication bias and some controversial failures to replicate. Two of the solutions adopted are the emphases on the New Statistics by Psychological Science and the growing use of replication repositories. Where does behavior analytic research fit in this effort? Although experimental and applied research methods in behavior analysis naturally are replication focused and replication friendly, trending growth in group designs in different areas of behavior analytic research suggests that we should be sharing the concerns in the broader psychological science community. What measures, if any, are behavior analytic journals taking or should be taking to address these concerns? Not all of the solutions under consideration in the “new” psychological science are amenable to behavior analytic research. How do we proceed? Recommendations include formulating editorial policies in behavior analytic journals and organizational programming collaborations, for example, between Association for Behavior Analysis International and the Association for Psychological Science.

Scholarly Merit in a Global Context: The Nation Gap in Psychological Science

Psychologists from the United States are extremely prominent in psychological science, publishing more articles and receiving more citations than researchers from other nations. In this brief article, I review some previous research on this “nation gap” in psychology and highlight relevant data from journals published by the Association for Psychological Science. I then discuss some possible explanations for the nation gap and touch on some of its implications for thinking about scholarly merit and scientific eminence. I hope that the research and data discussed here will stimulate further consideration of the role of author nationality for both judgments of scholarly merit and psychological science more generally.

Paul W. Thayer (1927–2017).

Presents an obituary for Paul W. Thayer, who died on January 25, 2017, at the age of 89. Thayer was an industrial and organizational psychologist probably most distinguished by his professional service. He was a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), American Psychological Society (APS), and Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). He received multiple awards for his service, including SIOP's Distinguished Professional Contributions Award (1986) and its Distinguished Service Award (1990), as well as the APA Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science (2014). Paul's most recognized scientific contribution was in industrial training. He coauthored (with William McGehee) the first scientific book on the topic titled, Training in Business and Industry (New York, NY: Wiley), in 1961, which is considered a classic in the field. (PsycINFO Database Record

Becoming a Bridge: Collaborative Autoethnography of Four Female Counseling Psychology Student Leaders

Women with multiply-marginalized identities remain underrepresented in the American Psychological Association and Society of Counseling Psychology leadership. As early entrants into the leadership pipeline, female student leaders can potentially shift that trend; however, we know little about their leadership emergence processes. In this study, we employed collaborative autoethnography to analyze the positional standpoints of four diverse female counseling psychology leaders. We identified themes in their leadership narratives, which began when they were students. The results focused on factors associated with participants’ leadership emergence processes, the role of marginalized identities in participants’ leadership emergence, and the interplay between counseling psychology values and leadership through the theoretical framework of bridge leadership. We found themes of (a) Leadership Attributes, including future orientation, determination, and connection; as well as (b) Opportunities and Mentorship. Other themes included counseling psychology values of Advocacy, Social Justice, Inclusion, Multiculturalism, and Enhancing Training. Recommendations for students and trainers are highlighted.

Janet Taylor Spence: A Model Role Model

The article summarizes and reflects on the contributions of Janet Taylor Spence in the areas of editing, service to her institutions, and service to her profession. It is based on both the objective record and on the personal experience and observations of the author, a long-time colleague. It reviews the many editorial positions Janet Taylor Spence held, including being editor of the Annual Review of Psychology and Contemporary Psychology, and the award she received from the National Academy of Sciences. It also sketches many of the leadership positions she held, including being president of the American Psychological Association and the first elected president of the Association for Psychological Science. It emphasizes both her outstanding professional and personal qualities.