What is the latest development on Psychology? Please elaborate more exlanations and try to give examples.

-- Gowen G. De Castro (decastro_rukawa17@yahoo.com), July 05, 2003

Answers

You might find some possibilities by reading the APA Monitor or checking the headlines at the APA webiste at http://www.apa.org/psychnet/ But this seems like a rather nebulous question. Is there supposed to be a "right answer"? The most recently published research in a particular journal or field? The latest professional developments in professional organizations? Results of the latest lobbying effort in congress? The latest incident in which a psychologist's testimony affected a decision in a court of law? Each of these would require a different research approach.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), July 05, 2003.

Hi Gowen, I will take a try at your both interesting and difficult question of "what is the latest development in Psychology." I think if you use popular science magazines (e.g., Science News, Discover, Scientific American, New Scientist) over the last couple of years, as indicators of recent important developments in psychology, two particular developments will stand out. Before proceeding, I want to warn you that these magazines may have had an article selection bias and I might be biased in what I pay attention to or report. First I think you will find that many of the articles directly related to human psychology (note there are also many animal behavior articles), deal either with human brain imaging studies that correlate the brain structure or activity with behavior, perception, decision making, emotion, motivation, self-awareness, etc., or human brain/body chemistry studies that relates human chemistry to things like cognition, emotion, or behavior. These studies often reflect a general trend in contemporary science toward more interdiscipinary cooperation (e.g., brain science and cognitive psychology). The second major development is that many articles deal with investigations of human nature. What natural tendencies do most people have, or what are the natural tendencies of certain subsets ("types")of people (e.g., psychopaths). Many of these articles could be labeled as evolutionary psychology. These articles may (or should be) be tempered with the contemporary view in psychology that heredity and enviroment interact in complex and still little understood ways. I think what is emerging from these two developments (as well as other recent developments), is a view of humans as having strong natural tendencies (some of which we have little awareness of), but also being extremely plastic in many areas.

-- Paul R. Kleinginna (prklein@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu), July 08, 2003.