Environmental complexity, cerebral change, and behaviorRosenzweig, Mark R.
doi: 10.1037/h0023555pmid: 5910063
The overall program relating brain processes to behavior in animals concerns both hereditary and environmental factors that have been demonstrated to affect learning ability. Rats subjected to an enriched environment (involving environmental complexity and training) "consistently develop greater weight of cerebral cortex than do their impoverished littermates . . . [and] the cortical/subcortical weight ratio is consistently greater for the enriched than for the restricted rats . . . ." The average diameter of capillaries in the cortex is greater in enriched than in impoverished animals. The total activity of acetylcholinesterase is found to increase slightly but consistently in the enriched animals. (23 ref.)
Some sources of divisiveness among psychologistsChein, Isidor
doi: 10.1037/h0023534pmid: 5910064
"Psychology is suffering from growing sociopolitical schism in its ranks." Major lines of cleavage occur between psychologists who are labeled as scientists as opposed to others labeled as practitioners. This development is irrational and destructive to psychology. 3 factors are involved: "a social process, a political conflict, and a not widely understood methodology-related clash of 2 subcultures."
Fads, fashions, and folderol in psychologyDunnette, Marvin D.
doi: 10.1037/h0023535pmid: 5910065
Fads include brain-storming, Q technique, level of aspiration, forced choice, critical incidents, semantic differential, role playing, and need theory. Fashions include theorizing and theory building, criterion fixation, model building, null-hypothesis testing, and sensitivity training. Folderol includes tendencies to be fixated on theories, methods, and points of view, conducting "little" studies with great precision, attaching dramatic but unnecessary trappings to experiments, grantsmanship, coining new names for old concepts, fixation on methods and apparatus, etc. (27 ref.)
Clinical psychology and the search for identityGarfield, Sol L.
doi: 10.1037/h0023529pmid: 5910066
Students "are not given an integrated model with which to identify but are confronted instead by 2 apparently conflicting models––the scientific-research model and the clinical-practitioner model." To resolve the dissonance "most students tend to identify with either the research or the practitioner model, and to blot out or defend . . . against the other." There are severe identity problems for the clinical psychologist. " . . . the most pressing need in clinical psychology pertains to a reorganization of training, practice, and research in our approved university settings" to help provide a sound identity for clinical psychology and for eventually allowing a worthwhile contribution to be made to problems of personality maladjustment and change. Psychology requires its own clinical facility where research and practice are intimately related and tied together. "The psychological center would not only emphasize both research and practice, but would demonstrate the mutual interaction and reciprocal relationship of the 2." (17 ref.)
Functions of APA: An Exchange of LettersMcKeachie, Wilbert J.
doi: 10.1037/h0021143pmid: N/A
At the Chicago meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA) Council, Howard Kendler read from a letter of Arthur Melton inviting a group of the members of the Division of Experimental Psychology to meet with him to give careful thought to the APA. In his letter Melton stated that, "the character of APA has taken a sharp turn toward the AMA-type professional society or guild and away from the scientific and professional society that is concerned with the advancement of a body of knowledge and its technological applications." McKeachie responded to the Melton statement on the floor of Council. Because the issues raised are so crucial to the future of APA, Melton expanded his remarks into an open letter to Melton. In the letter Melton discussed APA's contributions to the science of psychology.
Teaching the Psychological Aspects of International Relations: An SPSSI Questionnairede Rivera, Josepii
doi: 10.1037/h0021145pmid: N/A
In 1964, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) Committee on International Relations conducted a survey to establish the present extent of teaching in the psychology of international relations and the possibilities for its expansion. A questionnaire was mailed to the chairmen of the 194 psychology departments with graduate programs, and to a random sample of 41 departments with only undergraduate programs. Returns were received from 74% of the former and 54% of the latter departments. 75 of the 144 graduate departments and 8 of the 22 undergraduate departments sampled would appear interested in teaching material bearing on the psychological aspects of international relations. The SPSSI Committee on International Relations will, therefore, attempt to obtain support for a fellowship program designed to provide instruction in political science, a review of pertinent psychological material, and the opportunity to develop a course on the psychological aspects of international relations.
Testimony of an Expert WitnessShearn, Charles R.
doi: 10.1037/h0021146pmid: N/A
Having testified as an expert witness in about half a dozen jury trials where the question of legal insanity was at issue, C. R. Shearn was quite astonished by the examples of psychologists' testimony in similar situations, as given by R. Jeffery ("The Psychologist as an Expert Witness on the Issue of Insanity"; . Shearn offers four suggestions for psychologists called to testify as expert witnesses.