Bøger i SpringerBriefs in Psychology serien

This brief serves to educate readers about the sovereign citizen movement, presenting relevant case studies and offering suggestions for measures to address problems caused by this movement.

This brief presents an overview of Gregory BatesonΓÇÖs Constructivist method of Cognition. Bateson proposes a theory of cognition that is based on the abstract notion of difference that the mind distinguishes and perceives and represents information that constitutes and separates how different states are ordered, grouped, and classified. Bateson, however, does not clearly indicate how a cognitive system can develop a knowledge of reality from the perception of these differences. This book seeks to offer a scientific approach to Constructivism. Using BatesonΓÇÖs hypothesis, chapters discuss how our mind distinguishes and elaborates differences, allowing us to form perceptions of objects, and how these objects can be described and compared. Chapters also discuss how from differences, it is possible to construct concepts or ideas of how these can be defined and how to derive from these differences the meanings of the signs used for the structuring of languages.  The brief offers a coherent structure of propositions that form an interpretative theory of the modus operandi of the human mind, which will be useful not only in shedding light on our cognitive processes, but also in laying the formal groundwork for artificial intelligence.Constructing Reality is a must-have resource for researchers and students of the cognitive sciences, as well as education sciences, and researchers and scholars of artificial intelligence, learning theory, and intelligent automata programming.

This book is a theoretical account for general psychology of how human beings meaningfully relate with their bodies-- from the basic physiological processes upwards to the highest psychological functions of religiosity, ethical reasoning, and devotional practices.

Emerging policy changes are encouraging adoption of a team-based approach to healthcare, yet most healthcare professionals receive little training in how to practice integrated care.

This brief explores the current theories, trends, risk factors, and intervention efforts related to juvenile crime.

This brief examines the U.S. foster care system and seeks to explain why the foster care system functions as it does and how it can be improved to serve the best interest of children. It defines and evaluates key challenges that undermine child safety and well-being in the current foster care system. Chapters highlight the competing values and priorities of the system as well as the pros and cons for the use of foster care. In addition, chapters assess whether the performance objectives in which states are evaluated by the federal government are sufficient to achieve positive health and well-being outcomes for children who experience foster care. Finally, it offers recommendations for improving the system and maximizing positive outcomes.Topics featured in this brief include: Legal aspects of removal and placement of children in foster care.The effectiveness of prior efforts to reform foster care.The regulation and quality of fosterhomes.Support for youth aging out of the foster care system.Racial and ethnic disparities in the foster care system.Foster Care and the Best Interests of the Child is a must-have resource for policy makers and related professionals, graduate students, and researchers in child and school psychology, family studies, public health, social work, law/criminal justice, and sociology.

This book focuses on the small but disturbing percentage of homicides by children that occur each year, providing a brief overview of the legal, individual, and social aspects of this phenomenon.

Evolutionary psychology has recently made inroads in clinical psychology, bringing the understanding that, in some cases, mental symptoms are not manifestations of brain disorders, but rather evolved mechanisms that might function in overdrive or signal fitness problems.

This brief presents the case study of a hill in Czech Republic (Rip) and its region, and contributes to theorization in sociocultural psychology on three points, along three current debates. on the other, it also dialogues with a more general reflection in the social sciences on social dynamics at the scale of small regions.

This brief charts out principles for a cultural psychology of remembering. The idea at its core is a conceptualization of remembering as a constructive process--something that occurs at the intersection of a person and their social-cultural world. To do this, it moves away from the traditional metaphor of memory as storage and develops the alternative metaphor of construction as part of wider social and cultural developments in society. This new approach is developed from key ideas of Lev Vygotsky and Frederic Bartlett, in particular their concepts of mediation and reconstructive remembering. From this foundation, the authors demonstrate how remembering is conflictual, evolving, and transformative at both the individual and collective level. This approach is illustrated with concrete case studies, which highlight key theoretical concepts moving from micro-level processes to macro-level social phenomena. Among the topics covered are:The microgenesisof memories in conversationThe role of narrative mediation in the recall of historyRemembering through social positions in conflictsUrban memory during revolutionsHow memorials are used to channel grief and collective memoryRemembering as a Cultural Process traces our ongoing journey to answer the question of the different ways in which culture participates in and is constitutive of what it means for humans to remember. It will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students as well as researchers in the fields of memory studies or cultural psychology.

This brief sets out on a course to distinguish three main kinds of thought that underlie scientific thinking. Current science has not agreed on an understanding of what exactly the aim of science actually is, how to understand scientific knowledge, and how such knowledge can be achieved.

The term chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has recently gained a significant amount of media coverage. However, a large proportion of the information disseminated through the media pertaining to the etiology, neuropathology, and clinical manifestations of CTE are not corroborated by empirical research, and are disputed by prominent researchers who study sports related head injury. This book reviews the existing literature pertaining to these components of CTE and includes unique case studies of several retired NFL players that received a comprehensive neuropsychological battery from a board certified neuropsychologist, among other populations. It investigates the claim that CTE causes depression, violent behavior, and an increased risk for suicide by providing an in depth discussion using empirical data. Highlighting the importance of adhering to post concussion protocol and appreciating the long-term consequences of repeated head trauma, this unique review of the current research on CTE will be useful to students and professionals in psychology and neurology.

This Open Access Brief analyzes the dynamics in which childrenΓÇÖs selves emerge through their everyday activities of meaning construction, both in their relationships with family and within school education. It begins with a discussion of new psychological inquiries into children''s selves and builds upon the innovative theoretical notion of the Presentational Self, developed by the author over the last decade.The book illustrates how the observation of childrenΓÇÖs meaning construction in their everyday lives becomes a starting point for theoretical and empirical inquiries into child development and gives a framework that promotes new inquiries in this area. The book describes the Presentational Self Theory as a sense of how the notion of the Self is being worked upon in everyday life encounters. Chapters feature in-depth analyses of exchanges between adults and children in the Japanese cultural context. Meaning-Making for Living will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in the fields of cognitive, social, developmental, educational, and cultural psychology. 

This brief offers understanding and insight into how to define, establish, and maintain personal safety to minimize risks of negative encounters with psychopaths. The author, through a behavioral science research lens sprinkled with autobiographical anecdotes, details causes of psychopathy, links between crime and psychopathy, and focuses particular attention on strategies and preventative measures that individuals who encounter psychopathic others can employ to assert their own personal mental and physical well-being.

The brief provides an overview of Dr. Penelope K. Trickett's work and explores her innovations in the areas of theory, measurement, and methodology in the study of child maltreatment. It offers a summary of Dr. Trickett's seminal longitudinal studies on child maltreatment, including their influence on understanding the impact of sexual abuse and child maltreatment on female and adolescent development. Chapters examine the impact of her work on policy and practice and offer present four new empirical studies that have been directly influenced by Dr. Trickett's contributions. The brief concludes with further research recommendations to bridge the current policy and practice gaps.Topics featured in this brief include:Childhood sexual abuse and its effect on eating disorder development in females.The traumatic nature of reporting maltreatment in adolescents.Associations between adolescents' community violence exposure (CVE) and the development of aggressive behavior problems. Child sexual abuse experiences in Korea.Child Maltreatment Research, Policy, and Practice is a must-have resource for policy makers and related professionals, graduate students, and researchers in child and school psychology, family studies, public health, social work, law/criminal justice, and sociology.

Cognitive - behavior therapies (CBT) are considered the gold standard for empirically validated forms of psychotherapy in the treatment of clinical and subclinical depression, showing short- and long-term effects (see Barlow, 2001;

This book offers a new standpoint to understanding tolerance to human diversity by approaching it from the perspectives of cognitive, developmental and prosocial psychology.

This book provides an overview and discussion of Cultural Psychology of Semiotic Dynamics (CPSD) as a general developmental science. It discusses the challenging interplay between the sophisticated abstract concept of a holistic-dynamic understanding of the psyche and the concrete human experience. Chapters begin by framing the specific topics discussed in the book and elaborating on the border "zone" in between individual and collective-societal meanings. Subsequent chapters and a final conclusion discuss CPSC as an abstractive conceptual enterprise. The book is divided into sections, each beginning with a chapter written by Jaan Valsiner. The individual sections focus on (I) the nature of psyche as a semiotic constructive process; (II) the primacy of affect as semiotic constructive processes, highlighting the role of the sublime as a border between mundane and aesthetic experience; and (III) the ambivalent core of the human mind, marked by the constructive and destructive semiosis for encountering the sublime as locus of novelty emergence.Cultural Psychology as Basic Science will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students as well as researchers and professors in the fields of psychology, anthropology, history, philosophy, and research branches of the social sciences.

This book contributes to a better understanding of street children and youth within Sub-Saharan Africa. It achieves this by first comparing children and youth on the street (those who have homes to return to at night), with children and youth of the street (those who both work and live on the street).

This first-of-its-kind volume revisits current findings on ADHD in terms of classic thinking on developmental neuropsychology for a more rounded concept of brain disorganization. Insights from Freud, Janet, John Hughlings Jackson, and other pioneers help identify mechanisms (e.g., the primitive reflexes) that can cause children with ADHD to be prone to cognitive dissociation when exposed to stressful environments. The authors' model of the developing distracted brain pinpoints effects of stress on cognitive and affective functions, most notably attention and memory, and suggests situations in which stimuli may facilitate integration between brain and mind. This expanded knowledge opens out new educational possibilities for vulnerable students as well as new opportunities for therapeutic breakthroughs for children with ADHD.Included in the coverage:· Definition, diagnosis, and epidemiology of Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder.· Historical and recent research on ADHD.· Attentional functions, executive dysfunctions, and stress, implications for ADHD.· Neural dissolution, dissociation, and stress in ADHD. · Attention, brain-mind integration and ADHD.· Implications for education and therapy of ADHD children. ADHD, Stress, and Development ably synthesizes past and current understanding into a robust framework with implications for real-world practice. It offers practitioners and researchers new perspectives and future directions in neuropsychology, psychiatry, child and school psychology, and pediatrics.

This book presents results from a BAU study including 259 active, animal cruelty cases. The offenders were all male, ranging in age from 17-years old to 82 years old (mean age of 34 years) and 73.44% had arrests for various other crimes prior to and/or following the instant animal cruelty arrest.

This Brief introduces two empirically grounded models of situated mental phenomena: contextual social cognition (the collection of psychological processes underlying context-dependent social behavior) and action-language coupling (the integration of ongoing actions with movement-related verbal information).

This concise book reviews the various types of neglect in childhood, providing an operational definition that incorporates existing viewpoints. The book aims to facilitate conceptualization and treatment of adult clients who have suffered neglect as well as treatment plans for at risk home environments.

This book retrospectively analyzes the notorious 1924 case of Leopold and Loeb, in which two college students murder a young boy just to prove they could do it. Not just of historical interest, this volume serves as a case study for students and professionals alike, and a review of procedures used in such difficult cases.

This volume presents a manual for a new method of studying implicit attitudes, the Test of Implicit Associations in Relationship Attitudes (TIARA). Next, the volume reports on six psychometric studies, which provide substantial evidence that TIARA is a valid and reliable measure to study implicit attitudes in relationship research.

This Brief brings together empirical accounts that contribute to the investigation of the cultural phenomena of deep personal experiences.

The end point is a new vision of humanity and its development from a cultural context. Social and Cultural Dynamics will be of interest to social scientists, sociologists, and psychologists as well as professionals in these disciplines.