Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2020 -

Floyd (Univ. of Arizona) provides an indispensable resource for scholars and students of interpersonal, relational, and family communication (as well as psychology, social psychology, and related areas) through a comprehensive review of research on the complex, multifaceted phenomenon of affectionate communication in human relationships. This volume updates and expands the 2006 volume Communicating Affection: Interpersonal Behavior and Social Contexts, and covers theoretical approaches like the groundbreaking affection exchange theory and its contributions to this field. The author also delves into conceptual and operational definitions of affectionate communication and related constructs, and acknowledges the role of both evolutionary/biological and environmental factors in shaping affectionate communication. He furthers this analysis by also recognizing the association of these factors with multiple outcomes ranging from relational satisfaction to mental and physical well-being, as well as the potential harms stemming from communicating affection. This lucid, well-organized, engaging, and timely resource will set the agenda for affectionate communication in relationships for years to come. A final summary chapter offers a concise, insightful look back on what we know and still need to learn about affectionate communication, and points to future directions for research, including recent developments in technology.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

This impressive and comprehensive handbook of family psychology is a badly needed and wonderful addition to the psychology reference collection. Editor Fiese (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) here brings together in three volumes the work of a comprehensive and impressive group of scholarly contributors. Volume 1 covers influential theories; contemporary issues; research methods; families across the lifespan; and contemporary families. Volume 2 includes family health; the intersection of family health with other systems; and family psychology and societal grand challenges. Volume 3 covers foundational issues in family therapy; family therapy models; couple therapy models; parenting programs; and education, training, and careers. One surprisingly shortchanged topic in this handbook is child sexual abuse and its role in the family system. The vast majority of substantiated sexual abuse cases involve a perpetrator within the family. Familial sexual abuse can unearth generational patterns and secrets, disrupt family patterns and functioning, and create significant trauma and stress. Users seeking reference material on this topic may turn to the Omnigraphics Child Abuse Sourcebook, (CH, Mar'05, 42-3793).Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

The focus of this interesting and unusual book is how the human mind changes across the life-span. Specifically, Kreuz (psychology, Univ. of Memphis) and Roberts (US Consulate General's Office, Osaka, Japan) explore how aging influences language and, in turn, how language affects aging. One of the intriguing qualities of language is that in comparison with cognition and various aspects of one's physical self, the ability to produce speech and communicate with others is less affected by the vagaries of age. Subtle and not-so-subtle changes in older people's speech are due not to language decline per se but to disruptions in memory or perceptual processes. The other good news is that a person's vocabulary and the quality of his/her writing may actually blossom with age. But what about the fact that many older folks morph into verbose raconteurs who willingly share tales from their past but often lose their bearings mid-story? According to the authors, such "down-the-rabbit-hole" moments in fact represent a sharing and display of communicative goals. Living longer, healthier lives is tied to increasingly complex verbal selves; just as tales grow in the telling, so too does the tale teller.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

Focused upon the period from 1850 to 1920, Diagnosing Madness provides penetrating insights into the discursive gestures through which patients, psychiatrists, and the state have tried to understand and manage mental illness in both Britain and the US. Employing an impressive array of source genres, including medical certificates, court documents, case notes, patient memoirs, and even novels based on wrongful confinement cases, the authors demonstrate that although the diagnosis of mental illness can be open to interpretation, its consequences have been severe and long lasting. The life stories retold here are fascinating, and individuals' struggles to assert individuality and personhood in the face of state and medical intervention should hold important lessons for current students and scholars of mental illness. The text also traces the efforts of psychiatrists to professionalize and gain the esteem other medical practitioners enjoy. Crucially, the study shows how incorrect diagnoses and wrongful confinement have become a public issue and helped erode public faith in psychiatry. This contestation still motivates public discussion concerning mental illness on both sides of the Atlantic. This is ultimately an interesting and readable book that will be enjoyed by all.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. General readers.

In this comprehensive, theoretically rich, accessible treatise, Parkinson (Univ. of Oxford, UK) challenges and reverses traditional psychological and individualistic accounts of emotions' origins. In a wholesale paradigmatic shift, he presents an approach to their understanding that is interpersonal, interactive, relational, and fundamentally social in nature, beginning from birth. In essence, the starting point in the study of human emotion is turned on its head. Parkinson then applies this approach to various facets of emotion, including how people communicate emotions to others via language and facial activity; emotions' effects on cueing, shaping, and reinforcing others' behaviors; the strategic effects of emotion and how people exploit these effects for interpersonal influence; how emotions enhance group solidarity; the presentation and regulation of emotion; and the variety of emotional labor practices among professionals in the caring and managerial fields. Scholars new to the study of emotion will appreciate the author's thorough reviews documenting the evolution of advances in different elements of the field. The overall result is a thought-provoking study that will certainly extend emotion research into several new directions for years to come.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty.

Studying children's imaginary friends helps in understanding various aspects of individual development. This unique account combines the scholarly and the personal. Wigger first became aware of such friends through his young daughter's invisible companion. Many years later he decided to study this subject, about which relatively little has been written. Given his background in theology, he was interested in the religious as well as the psychological implications of the phenomenon. He interviewed young children who currently had invisible friends (as distinguished from older children and adults recalling their imaginary friends), and when conducting interviews he always referred to invisible friends rather than imaginary friends. Many of the children drew pictures of their friends, and these are reproduced in the book. Recognizing that the results he received might be limited by cultural bias, Wigger interviewed children in Kenya, Malawai, Nepal, and the Dominican Republic (using translators) as well as children in the US. His insights about the relationship between children's invisible friends and religious experiences are thoughtful and nondogmatic. Scholars of childhood studies will find this delightful, informative book is well worth reading on many levels.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

This interdisciplinary volume edited by Ogolsky (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) and Monk (Univ. or Missouri) provides an important, up-to-date account of the theoretical and research traditions that explain the processes and context used to preserve romantic relationships. Following a short, carefully structured introduction to the present state of relationship scholarship in part 1, part 2 presents five theoretical summary articles, one from each of the major traditions presently dominating the field, including exchange/interdependence, life history, attachment, relational uncertainty, and self-expansion perspectives. Part 3 addresses research on the interpersonal processes involved in relationship maintenance: communication, attributional style, social networks, dyadic coping strategies, conflict management, sex, and bias. Part 4 then turns to the larger social context, exploring race, gender, culture, technology, age, and therapy as they affect relationship maintenance. Daniel Perlman (coauthor of The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships, now in its second edition) wrote the concluding chapter, which offers reflections and critical commentary on many of the major issues raised in the book. Focusing on recent research and written by acknowledged experts in the field, this ably constructed, well-organized review and critique is a must for any academic library serving scholars and clinicians working in this area of social psychology.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

In this fascinating work, Kaag (Univ. of Massachusetts, Lowell) takes the reader on a sometimes tragic and always entertaining but most especially informative journey into the sometimes tortured soul and mind of William James. While every psychology major will recognize this iconic name, probably few are aware of the profound impact his constant struggles with depression, thoughts of suicide, and almost morbid preoccupation with self had on the ideas and theories he would develop. Kaag, a prolific interpreter of American thought (Thinking through the Imagination, CH, Apr'15, 52-4131), enables readers to see why James addressed the topics he did, creating a body of work that many consider the foundation of American psychology. This text humanizes the iconic figure and provides much-needed context for his works. More importantly, though, Kaag provides a framework through which individuals asking the same soul-searching questions James asked may find solace, despite the imperfection of the answers they may formulate. For those who want to know the historical foundations of James's ideas, and for any therapist or clinician looking for a new and refreshing approach to helping clients in existential crisis, this work will become an important resource.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students and professionals. General readers.

There is no shortage of fascination in attempts to understand the man known as Donald J. Trump. From tell-all books written by family members and past White House colleagues to sometimes sensational works of journalists, readers have yet to gain a fully comprehensible view of the complexities behind this remarkable persona. Psychologist McAdams (Northwestern Univ.) analyzes Trump's personality in terms of contemporary psychological concepts. In his first chapter, "Story," McAdams pieces together life information along with experiences reported by journalists and other individuals who have been given access to Trump's private world. In later chapters he extends the analysis under broad themes such as "Deal," "Reward," "Love," and even "Primate" and "Redemption." In a departure from the binary Jekyll and Hyde rationale, McAdams encourages readers to place Trump within the modern perspective that humans have different, multiple selves, including hidden or private ones. At the same time, the author also hints at a notion that there may not be much more to Trump beyond the public persona. Interest in Trump is sure to persist, regardless of whether he serves another term as president or not, and this monograph will remain a monumental gift, helpful for shaping thoughtful discussion and reflection on a conspicuous public figure.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students and faculty/researchers. General readers.

Coedited by Ekman (emer., Univ. of California, San Francisco) and his protege Rosenberg (Univ. of California, Davis; Nyingma Institute of Tibetan Studies), this is the third edition of what remains the state-of-the-art collection on the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. This ensemble of 28 essays brings together basic and applied studies of spontaneous expression using the FACS, a tool that measures facial movement. Facial action can be interpreted to reveal rich dimensions of human psychology, including deception, shame, pain and disgust, psychopathology (e.g., depression and schizophrenia), and suicidal ideation. As several essays attest, the facial actions of animals can also demonstrate something important about the evolution of human emotions. The final section (section 7, chapters 24-28) deals with social and health psychology and is particularly suggestive. Essays take up, among other topics, the links between alcohol, social exchange, and bonding and include a fascinating essay on how meditation training influences responsiveness to suffering. In this revised edition, 50 percent of the contributions are new, making the book a crucial update to the literature on facial measurement that should interest researchers of all levels in affective science and, more generally, psychology.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.