Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr. (1924–2022).
This article memorializes Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr. (1924–2022), a distinguished clinical and research psychologist whose career spanned multiple areas of research and practice. Born in Los Angeles on April 26, 1924, he received degrees from Oberlin College (BA, 1949; MA, 1950) and the University of Iowa (PhD, 1954). He served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II and as a first lieutenant in the USMC during the Korean War. For most of his career, he was based at a university and involved in research, training and teaching, and practice. Highlights of Heilbrun's career and professional contrib...
Source: American Psychologist - December 22, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Lack of conceptual clarity impedes progress in cognitive intervention research: Reply to Kira (2023).
American Psychologist, Vol 77(8), Nov 2022, 966-967; doi:10.1037/amp0001075In a commentary on Moreau (2022), Kira (2023) emphasizes the importance of clarifying the conceptual basis of cognitive interventions and discusses a number of adverse circumstances known to impair cognitive function. In this reply, I focus on three points of clarification. First, I contend that one needs to make a distinction between interventions focusing on healthy individuals and those targeting clinical populations, as the postulated mechanisms of improvement in typical settings may differ from those underlying impairment. I further argue that ...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The importance of clarifying the conceptual basis underlying cognition-optimizing interventions: Commentary on Moreau (2022).
American Psychologist, Vol 77(8), Nov 2022, 963-965; doi:10.1037/amp0001043Clarifying the conceptual basis of cognition-optimizing interventions is essential to advancing toward a precise intervention science. Interventions to enhance executive functions aim to optimize the individual cognitive functions that are critically suppressed by intersected discrimination, other traumas, and peri-/post-traumatic disorders. Traumatic stress and its mental health outcomes suppress executive function and prevent the expression of the total cognitive potential of the individual. The goal of cognition-optimizing interventions, includin...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Context reconsidered: Complex signal ensembles, relational meaning, and population thinking in psychological science.
This article considers the status and study of “context” in psychological science through the lens of research on emotional expressions. The article begins by updating three well-trod methodological debates on the role of context in emotional expressions to reconsider several fundamental assumptions lurking within the field’s dominant methodological tradition: namely, that certain expressive movements have biologically prepared, inherent emotional meanings that issue from singular, universal processes which are independent of but interact with contextual influences. The second part of this article considers the scien...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Censoring and punishing free speech is unethical: Reply to Jackson (2022) and Smith (2022).
American Psychologist, Vol 77(8), Nov 2022, 892-893; doi:10.1037/amp0001040The ethically proper response to problematic speech is more speech and not censorship. To the extent that Jackson (2022) and Smith (2022) advocate for all to be able to criticize all, for example, for unempowered undergraduates to criticize privileged White male professors or for anyone to criticize racist or hate speech, we are in agreement. The speech involved in criticism can be risky and hence ought to be protected by the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2017). However, except in very c...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A solution in search of a problem: Commentary on O'Donohue and Fisher (2022).
American Psychologist, Vol 77(8), Nov 2022, 890-891; doi:10.1037/amp0001008O’Donohue and Fisher (2022) make some good arguments about how free speech has been jeopardized in recent years, but few if any of those arguments concern psychologists directly. Furthermore, because free speech is codified in the First Amendment, it is unclear why or how its inclusion in the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2017), would add anything meaningful. The arguments posed by O’Donohue and Fisher are far ranging but seldom specific to the work of psychologists. While the additi...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Racism and free speech: Commentary on O’Donohue and Fisher (2022).
American Psychologist, Vol 77(8), Nov 2022, 887-889; doi:10.1037/amp0001014In arguing for the addition of an enforceable section on free speech to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2017; hereinafter, referred to as the Ethics Code), O’Donohue and Fisher (2022) rely on insufficient evidence of a threat to free speech. They also privilege individualistic over communitarian values and calibrate the risks of racist speech narrowly, and at the individual level. A recent resolution by the American Psychological Association (2021) calls upon all psychologists to “...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Lack of conceptual clarity impedes progress in cognitive intervention research: Reply to Kira (2023).
American Psychologist, Vol 77(8), Nov 2022, 966-967; doi:10.1037/amp0001075In a commentary on Moreau (2022), Kira (2023) emphasizes the importance of clarifying the conceptual basis of cognitive interventions and discusses a number of adverse circumstances known to impair cognitive function. In this reply, I focus on three points of clarification. First, I contend that one needs to make a distinction between interventions focusing on healthy individuals and those targeting clinical populations, as the postulated mechanisms of improvement in typical settings may differ from those underlying impairment. I further argue that ...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The importance of clarifying the conceptual basis underlying cognition-optimizing interventions: Commentary on Moreau (2022).
American Psychologist, Vol 77(8), Nov 2022, 963-965; doi:10.1037/amp0001043Clarifying the conceptual basis of cognition-optimizing interventions is essential to advancing toward a precise intervention science. Interventions to enhance executive functions aim to optimize the individual cognitive functions that are critically suppressed by intersected discrimination, other traumas, and peri-/post-traumatic disorders. Traumatic stress and its mental health outcomes suppress executive function and prevent the expression of the total cognitive potential of the individual. The goal of cognition-optimizing interventions, includin...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Context reconsidered: Complex signal ensembles, relational meaning, and population thinking in psychological science.
This article considers the status and study of “context” in psychological science through the lens of research on emotional expressions. The article begins by updating three well-trod methodological debates on the role of context in emotional expressions to reconsider several fundamental assumptions lurking within the field’s dominant methodological tradition: namely, that certain expressive movements have biologically prepared, inherent emotional meanings that issue from singular, universal processes which are independent of but interact with contextual influences. The second part of this article considers the scien...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Censoring and punishing free speech is unethical: Reply to Jackson (2022) and Smith (2022).
American Psychologist, Vol 77(8), Nov 2022, 892-893; doi:10.1037/amp0001040The ethically proper response to problematic speech is more speech and not censorship. To the extent that Jackson (2022) and Smith (2022) advocate for all to be able to criticize all, for example, for unempowered undergraduates to criticize privileged White male professors or for anyone to criticize racist or hate speech, we are in agreement. The speech involved in criticism can be risky and hence ought to be protected by the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2017). However, except in very c...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A solution in search of a problem: Commentary on O'Donohue and Fisher (2022).
American Psychologist, Vol 77(8), Nov 2022, 890-891; doi:10.1037/amp0001008O’Donohue and Fisher (2022) make some good arguments about how free speech has been jeopardized in recent years, but few if any of those arguments concern psychologists directly. Furthermore, because free speech is codified in the First Amendment, it is unclear why or how its inclusion in the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2017), would add anything meaningful. The arguments posed by O’Donohue and Fisher are far ranging but seldom specific to the work of psychologists. While the additi...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Racism and free speech: Commentary on O’Donohue and Fisher (2022).
American Psychologist, Vol 77(8), Nov 2022, 887-889; doi:10.1037/amp0001014In arguing for the addition of an enforceable section on free speech to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2017; hereinafter, referred to as the Ethics Code), O’Donohue and Fisher (2022) rely on insufficient evidence of a threat to free speech. They also privilege individualistic over communitarian values and calibrate the risks of racist speech narrowly, and at the individual level. A recent resolution by the American Psychological Association (2021) calls upon all psychologists to “...
Source: American Psychologist - November 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
“More is better” or “better near the middle”? A U.S.-based individual participant data meta-analysis of socioeconomic status and depressive symptoms.
American Psychologist, Vol 78(3), Apr 2023, 305-320; doi:10.1037/amp0001076Socioeconomic status (SES) is a widely researched construct in developmental science, yet less is known concerning relations between SES and adaptive behavior. Specifically, is the relation linear, with higher SES associated with better outcomes, or does the direction of association change at different levels of SES? Our aim was to examine linear (“more is better”) and quadratic (“better near the middle”) associations between components of SES (i.e., income, years of education, occupational status/prestige) and depressive symptoms (Center fo...
Source: American Psychologist - November 3, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
William H. Tucker (1940–2022).
American Psychologist, Vol 78(1), Jan 2023, 65; doi:10.1037/amp0001071Memorializes William H. Tucker (1940-2022). Tucker made invaluable contributions to understanding the history of scientific racism. Bill joined the psychology faculty at Rutgers University–Camden where he remained until retirement. In The Science and Politics of Racial Research (1994), he surveyed the history of race science from the late 19th century to the 1980s, documenting the persistent lack of scientific value in the search for innate racial differences, and the continuing use of racial comparisons for oppression, especially in support of segrega...
Source: American Psychologist - October 31, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
