Social sciences and humanities print books and ebooks | Elsevier

The Psychology of Childhood to Maturity

1st Edition
October 22, 2013
J. Guilfoyle Williams
English
Paperback
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 1 2 6 4 7
Hardback
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 0 1 0 4 7
eBook
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 2 6 0 7 1

The Psychology of Childhood to Maturity covers the significant discoveries made in process of applying psychology to the problems of life and the so-called “art of living”. This 20-chapter text begins with an examination of the formation of the character in the infant. The next chapters deal with the wider aspects of education and of mid training during childhood and later life. These chapters review some of the mind training and mental health cases, such as worries, lack of concentration and mind wandering, irritability, depression, anxiety, and faulty memory. These topics are followed by discussions of the various problems common to nearly all human beings, with a particular emphasis on the period of adolescence. Other chapters explore the influence of sex elements, gender differences, love, and marriage on mental outlook. The last chapters consider the influence of religion and the problems of delinquency and death. This book will be of value to psychologists, psychiatrists, and researchers.

Sexual Attraction

1st Edition
October 22, 2013
Mark Cook + 1 more
English
Hardback
9 7 8 0 0 8 0 2 2 2 3 1 8
Paperback
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 1 2 4 8 4 1
eBook
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 1 5 7 2 6 9

Sexual Attraction explores different sides of mutual attraction between the sexes, especially why individuals are attracted to some people and not others who may themselves be generally well liked. This book also considers how sexual attraction is communicated to both people in a social encounter and argues that there is a strong but often disregarded prejudice against those who are physically unattractive. This monograph is comprised of eight chapters and opens with a discussion on sexual arousal in humans and its parallels with animal (particularly primate) behavior. The next chapter examines the process whereby we come to see others as beautiful and (sometimes) sexually desirable and how even very young children come to value looks. Examples of the privileges that the physically attractive are likely to enjoy in the classroom and the courtroom are given. The following chapters analyze the idea that we may not always make very accurate judgments about each other in relation to sexual behavior; popular misconceptions about personality and sexual behavior; how people behave towards each other during longer interaction sequences such as courtship and seduction; and the role of personality and behavior in attraction. The final chapter considers how physical attractiveness might be separated in people's minds from sexual attractiveness and social success. This text will be of interest to sociologists and psychologists.

Schizophrenia

1st Edition
September 17, 2013
Elaine F. Walker
English
Hardback
9 7 8 0 1 2 7 3 2 0 8 0 9
Paperback
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 0 7 1 0 0
eBook
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 2 0 5 3 6

Schizophrenia: A Life-Course Developmental Perspective covers research findings and ideas concerning the entire life course of schizophrenia. The book discusses research on life-span development in schizophrenia; the genetic and perinatal factors in the etiology of schizophrenia; as well as the neurobehavioral development of infants at risk for schizophrenia. The text also describes the early social and affective development in schizophrenic offspring; the clinical presentation, onset, early developmental patterns, course, and treatment of childhood-onset schizophrenia; and the prediction of psychiatric disorders in late adolescence. The cognitive and linguistic functions of adolescent children at risk for schizophrenia; longitudinal studies of premorbid development of adult schizophrenics; and the ontogenetic implications of sex differences in schizophrenia are also considered. The book further tackles emotion and attachment in families of schizophrenics; late-onset schizophrenia; and the development of liability to schizophrenia. The text then encompasses the developmental trajectories in schizophrenia. Psychiatrists, psychologists, and people working on the research about schizophrenia will find the book invaluable.

Forensic Victimology

2nd Edition
August 8, 2013
Brent E. Turvey
English
Hardback
9 7 8 0 1 2 4 0 8 0 8 4 3
eBook
9 7 8 0 1 2 4 0 7 9 2 0 5

Published in 2009, the first edition of Forensic Victimology introduced criminologists and criminal investigators to the idea of systematically gathering and examining victim information for the purposes of addressing investigative and forensic issues. The concepts presented within immediately proved vital to social scientists researching victims-offender relationships; investigators and forensic scientists seeking to reconstruct events and establish the elements of a crime; and criminal profilers seeking to link pattern crimes. This is because the principles and guidelines in Forensic Victimology were written to serve criminal investigation and anticipate courtroom testimony. As with the first, this second edition of Forensic Victimology is an applied presentation of a traditionally theoretical subject written by criminal justice practitioners with years of experience-both in the field and in the classroom. It distinguishes the investigative and forensic aspects of applied victim study as necessary adjuncts to what has often been considered a theoretical field. It then identifies the benefits of forensic victimology to casework, providing clearly defined methods and those standards of practice necessary for effectively serving the criminal justice system.

Medical Psychology

1st Edition
October 22, 2013
Charles K. Prokop + 1 more
English
Hardback
9 7 8 0 1 2 5 6 5 9 6 0 4
Paperback
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 4 4 9 8 3
eBook
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 6 2 1 4 7

Medical Psychology: Contributions to Behavioral Medicine discusses the relationship between medical psychology and behavioral medicine and includes critical reviews of the status of diagnostic, treatment, and preventive approaches to a wide variety of medical disorders such as hypertension, cancer, and chronic pain. A quantitative and qualitative approach to neuropsychological evaluation is also presented. Comprised of 26 chapters, this book begins by tracing the history of the relationship between psychology and medicine and assessing the status of psychology's role in the medical center. The second and third sections deal with approaches to the assessment, treatment, and prevention of various medical disorders including hypertension, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. The third section also examines several special problems within the provinces of medical psychology and behavioral medicine. The fourth section presents reviews of clinical and research topics of particular interest to all medical psychologists and behavioral medicine specialists, including adherence to health care regimens and professional services evaluation in a medical setting. This monograph will be of value to research investigators and practitioners within the behavioral sciences and medicine.

Critical Readings in Planning Theory

1st Edition
October 22, 2013
Chris Paris
English
Paperback
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 1 1 4 1 2 5
eBook
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 1 4 6 5 4 6

Urban and Regional Planning Series, Volume 27: Critical Readings in Planning Theory presents a critical perspective on urban and regional planning. This book provides an understanding of various theoretical perspectives on planning. Organized into five parts encompassing 19 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the economic and social theory of planning. This text then examines the procedural planning theory, which deals with the making and implementing of plans. Other chapters consider the introduction of the systems approach to planning. This book discusses as well the theoretical respecification of the nature of town planning as it has developed under capitalism. The final chapter deals with the ideology of planning that is consistent with the view that town planning can be objectively useful. This book is a valuable resource for students of planning who want to understand planning as it is. Urban planners and engineers will also find this book useful.

Parent–Child Interaction

1st Edition
October 22, 2013
Ronald W. Henderson
English
Paperback
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 4 0 5 2 7
Hardback
9 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 0 6 2 0 0
eBook
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 6 0 7 3 0

Parent-Child Interaction: Theory, Research, and Prospects is intended (a) to provide a synthesis of a segment of this growing body of literature on interrelationships between children and their parents; (b) to examine the theoretical implications of this research; (c) to review and assess common methodological approaches to the study of home environmental influences on the development of children; and (d) to identify directions future research must take if our understanding of family influences and their place in a broader sociocultural context is to be extended. The book is organized into three parts. Part I examines theory and research on major aspects of parent-child influence processes. Part II examines the methods employed in research on family environments and considers the unique features that distinguish research on home environmental influences from traditional educational research. Part III provides different perspectives on the application of psychological knowledge to socialization processes. This book is intended for educational and developmental psychologists with interests in socialization processes as well as for practitioners who design parental programs that minimize discontinuities between competing socialization influences. This volume will also prove useful in graduate courses in educational, developmental, and community psychology; as a reference for professionals involved in school psychology, school administration, and pupil personnel work; and for psychologists and social workers involved in youth service agencies, child guidance, diagnostic clinics, parent education, and family therapy.

The Basics of Hacking and Penetration Testing

2nd Edition
June 24, 2013
Patrick Engebretson
English
Paperback
9 7 8 0 1 2 4 1 1 6 4 4 3
eBook
9 7 8 0 1 2 4 1 1 6 4 1 2

The Basics of Hacking and Penetration Testing, Second Edition, serves as an introduction to the steps required to complete a penetration test or perform an ethical hack from beginning to end. The book teaches students how to properly utilize and interpret the results of the modern-day hacking tools required to complete a penetration test. It provides a simple and clean explanation of how to effectively utilize these tools, along with a four-step methodology for conducting a penetration test or hack, thus equipping students with the know-how required to jump start their careers and gain a better understanding of offensive security.Each chapter contains hands-on examples and exercises that are designed to teach learners how to interpret results and utilize those results in later phases. Tool coverage includes: Backtrack Linux, Google reconnaissance, MetaGooFil, dig, Nmap, Nessus, Metasploit, Fast Track Autopwn, Netcat, and Hacker Defender rootkit. This is complemented by PowerPoint slides for use in class.This book is an ideal resource for security consultants, beginning InfoSec professionals, and students.

Anxiety

1st Edition
October 22, 2013
Bozzano G Luisa
English
eBook
9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 8 8 5 8 1

This volume analyses the perplexing and often disabling form of distress known as anxiety from a psychological rather than a biomedical perspective, illustrating the rich contribution that psychological theory has made and is making to this topic.**The first section extensively examines the clinical literature, describing and delineating with case examples the cluster of characteristic features termed panic-anxiety. Research findings in other clinical areas such as alcohol dependence are shown to have conceptual and empirical links with panic-anxiety. The second section of the book reviews and evaluates the main theoretical approaches to anxiety, including specific models of panic and agoraphobia, challenging many traditional assumptions and advocating the analysis of anxiety as a socially constructed meaning imposed on experience rather than a theoretical concept or psychopathological state. The methodological implications are discussed and a schematic model of panic-anxiety is proposed.**The theoretical integration represents a major contribution to the resurgence of interest in this field and will be of relevance to all researchers and postgraduate students within the mental health professions.**FROM THE PREFACE: This book has two main objectives. The first is to describe a dimension of psychological distress I have called panic-anxiety. This takes up the first part of the book, which surveys literature that is primarily descriptive and psychiatric. The second objective is pursued in the second part of the book, in which I examine a large number of theories of anxiety to see what they might have to offer in explaining the panic-anxiety cluster of complaints. I am therefore concerned to apply psychological theory to a real-world problem, that is, to what people who seek professional help loosely describe as panic, anxiety and fears of public situations.**The theoretical and experimental literature on anxiety is so vast that I have had to be disciplined and in no small measure prejudiced in favour of a particular theoretical perspective. I have attempted as far as possible to treat anxiety as a lay construct, that is, as a social construction and not a scientific concept. For this reason, I have endeavoured to refer to reports of anxiety or to complaints of anxiety in order to avoid the common tendency to reify anxiety as a an entity which exists independently of the social origins of the term. Accordingly, I believe that the relevant question to ask is not, What is anxiety? but, What are the antecedents of reports (or complaints) of anxiety?**It is intended that this book should provide a coherent perspective on a common form of psychological distress, of value to therapists, researchers and students of abnormal psychology. In many ways, the problems for which people seek help do not define 'natural' areas of scientific research, and so it is difficult to combine theoretical and practical interests in one book. The complaints with which I am particularly concerned--panic and fears of public places--can be analysed to reveal scientific questions which have a significance much wider than the explanation of particular complaints made to professionals working in a clinical context. Apart from its obvious social significance, a clinical area is therefore simply a point of departure for scientific investigation. My intention, then, is to use this clinical area as an illustration of how such problems might be tackled from a theoretical perspective which is essentially psychological.**The theoretical position I have adopted owes much to the views of Sarbin (1964, 1968), Mandler (1975) and Averill (1980a,b). In taking anxiety to be a lay construct, I assume that the 'What is?' questions rightly belong to the sociology of knowledge. Of course, the applied psychologist also has substantive issues to consider. For example, How can this individual be helped to report calmness rather than anxiety? or, How can that individual be helped to travel freely on public transport? I suggest that the most positive contribution a social constructivist position has to offer is to dissuade researchers from regarding these real-life problems as reflecting an underlying emotion of anxiety, or, even less helpful, an anxiety disorder.**Biologica... and medical research on anxiety is also considered in this light. Reductive biological and pathological hypotheses are rejected, but an attempt is made to integrate the biological aspects at a higher level of analysis. For this reason, the book differs from others which tend to confine themselves to a description and explanation of postulated disorders or syndromes. Because the emphasis of this book is essentially conceptual, there is relatively little discussion of assessment and therapy, apart from a general critique of current approaches.**Most experiences described as fear or anxiety in an everyday context have an identifiable source or object. When these experiences are reported as unbearably intense or lead to the avoidance of various situations, they are generally referred to as phobias. In the past 20 years there has been a considerable advance in the technology of reducing and eliminating unwanted phobias. The new methods of imaginal and real-life confrontation are successful in the majority of cases when anxiety is reported in connection with specific eliciting stimuli. The same success cannot be claimed for methods of dealing with complaints of anxiety that appear to be unrelated to identifiable circumstances. In one form of these complaints, a person may suddenly feel overwhelmed by unpleasant sensations which are usually described as a panic attack. Panic and other complaints of anxiety which are perceived as irrational form the principal interest of this book. A second major concern is the problem of fears of public places, often referred to as agoraphobia. Typically, the person who complains of these fears is unable to leave the home unaccompanied, although travel by car, a 'safe' environment, is usually possible. Although agoraphobia is tied to situations, the fear is not reported to be about these situations but is usually expressed as a fear of experiencing a panic attack in these situations. As I will argue, fears of public situations appear to be associated with panic and complaints of anxiety of a nonspecific kind.**FROM THE FOREWORD: This book is a welcome addition to a growing literature that treats perplexing and sometimes disabling conduct from a psychological rather than a biomedical perspective. It is one of an increasing number of treatises that boldly assume that psychological events may be studied in their own right without reducing the phenomena to biological or mentalistic categories. Among other topics, Hallam critically reviews the clinical and experimental work on self-reported anxiety, panic and agoraphobia. He demonstrates with considerable force the disutility of the traditional practice of assigning such phenomena to a world of disordered minds.**Anxiety has been employed as a key concept in many psychoanalytic and psychological theories. Before its use as a theoretical construct, anxiety was a lay construct, a metaphor invented to communicate about vaguely perceived and poorly understood sensory experience. This lay construct, or metaphor, was metonymically transformed by certain theorists seeking a universal intervening variable to account for puzzling conduct. That is to say, the theorists transfigured anxiety to a cause from its original use as a metaphor for effects of interpersonal actions and physiological responses. As a staple of biomedical research and practice, anxiety is a reified metaphor. One of the results of the uncritical use of the reified metaphor was the creation of such unproductive diagnostic categories as anxiety neurosis, anxiety hysteria and anxiety state. Hallam's review of research and practice makes abundantly clear that this metaphor-to-myth transformation has little utility, either as a heuristic for research or as a model for therapy.**Many lessons are to be learned from this book, not the least of which is the demonstration that the lay construct, anxiety, is multireferential. When a clinician asks a client for referents for such complaints as, 'I am anxious' (or 'panicky' or 'agoraphobic'), the client's response is drawn from a limitless pool of vague and ambiguous descriptors. Examples of the interpretations offered by clients include such diverse referents as 'I had the feeling I was about to die', 'I was suffocating, gasping for air', 'My legs became rubbery', 'I was about to faint', 'My brain was racing ahead of my thought', and so on.**From Hallam's detailed analysis of the multireferential nature of anxiety complaints, one could formulate the following rule for praxis: When a client employs 'anxiety' or a similar descriptor in his or her self-report, regard it as metaphoric utterance, not as a statement that demands causal analysis. The metaphoric utterance, that is, the complaint, is a social construction whose building blocks include the client's beliefs, linguistic skills, purposes and concurrent existential or identity problems.**Another lesson to be learned from this book is the continuity of anxiety complaints as reported in clinical settings with those of persons who do not come to the attention of professional helpers. Such continuity is an argument against the identification of anxiety complaints as a psychiatric disorder. For example, the fear of strange places may be universal and not restricted to a clinical population if the definition of strange places is broad enough.**The author holds that the client, like the rest of us, constructs his or her world from perceptions, beliefs, imaginings and rememberings. Thus anxiety is a construction, and it is communicated to others (and to the self) with the aid of metaphoric and metonymic translations. This constructivist view is fast displacing the entrenched biomedical view that treats human beings as passive reactors to stimuli according to still-to-be discovered mechanistic laws. Metaphors drawn from physics, geology and technology, so tightly woven into the texture of the mechanistic world view, have lost the power to stimulate meaningful research and theory about the complexities of human action. As a result, social scientists are turning to humanistic disciplines for their working metaphors, among them, game playing, narrative, drama and rhetoric.**The use of such descriptive metaphors reflects a world view that is in sharp contrast to the mechanistic world view that has dominated scientific thought, including that of psychology and psychiatry, for so long. Contextualism is the name assigned to this alternative world view, and its root metaphor is the historical act. Among other things, this root metaphor entails that the actors who participate in the creation of historical acts are agents. They engage in intentional actions not only to solve problems of a practical nature, but also to maintain or enhance their identities. Toward this end, they construct their worlds. Some constructions provide the backdrop for personal drama, one outcome of which may be the self-report of anxiety. Another element of the contextualist metaphysic is that change and novelty, rather than invariance, are to be expected.**Hallam's critical review of the scientific literature on anxiety and emotion supports the conclusion that the failure of modern science to formulate a general theory of anxiety is traceable to the slavish (and often unrecognized) adherence to the biomedical model. The users of this model seek causality within the organism, either in the somatic networks or in the assumed mind-space. It is not an inappropriate strategy, given their stance that the objects of their attention are regarded as passive, not as active agents. The supporters of the biomedical model have failed to achieve a consistently workable theory as a basis for therapy because human beings are, in fact, agents. Thus, a clinican who reads this book and elects to apply its wisdom would not address a person's complaint of anxiety with the question, What is the cause of the anxiety? but rather with questions of this sort: What are the antecedent and concurrent interpersonal conditions that influence a person as agent to turn his or her attention to vaguely defined internal events, to choose the sick role or to describe perplexing happenings with particular metaphors or metonymies? What are his or her concerns about death and dying, being abandoned or loss of face? What are the person's power relations and how does the sick role influence his or her relative power? How does the person's self-narrative fit into the self-narratives of significant others?**In my own experience, I have found it useful to look upon complaints of anxiety as a form of attention deployment, not unlike the attention deployment of the classical hypochondriac. The broad focus on bodily symptoms, besides providing the basis for adopting the sick role, effectively supports efforts in the context of significant social relationships not to spell out certain imagined or perceived flaws in one's character. The question that guides the search for understanding is, What are the client's reasons for turning attention to complaints of anxiety? In this respect, the clinician might entertain the hypothesis of self-deception and its implications for discovering and formulating reasons for the client's attention deployment to events described as anxiety.**The foregoing remarks are but a sample of the clinical and theoretical notions generated in my reading of Hallam's treatise. A bountiful harvest of insights awaits both the practicing clinician and the laboratory scientist engaged in solving the mystery of anxiety. The rich yield is due in no small measure to the author's ability simultaneously to reflect his experience as clinician and as scientist. As clinician*b1scientis... he illuminates many puzzling observations and opens the way for a better understanding of human problems.

The Effects of Drug Abuse on the Human Nervous System

1st Edition
November 15, 2013
Bertha Madras + 1 more
English
Hardback
9 7 8 0 1 2 4 1 8 6 7 9 8
eBook
9 7 8 0 1 2 4 1 8 6 8 5 9

Drug use and abuse continues to thrive in contemporary society worldwide and the instance and damage caused by addiction increases along with availability. The Effects of Drug Abuse on the Human Nervous System presents objective, state-of-the-art information on the impact of drug abuse on the human nervous system, with each chapter offering a specific focus on nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, sedative-hypnotics, and designer drugs. Other chapters provide a context for drug use, with overviews of use and consequences, epidemiology and risk factors, genetics of use and treatment success, and strategies to screen populations and provide appropriate interventions. The book offers meaningful, relevant and timely information for scientists, health-care professionals and treatment providers.

Life Sciences

Physical Sciences & Engineering

Social Sciences & Humanities

Health

Books in Social sciences and humanities