Creating Models in Psychological Research


Book Description

This concise reference serves as a companion to traditional research texts by focusing on such essentials as model construction, robust methodologies and defending a compelling hypothesis. Designed to wean Master's and doctorate-level students as well as new researchers from their comfort zones, the book challenges readers to engage in multi-method approaches to answering multidisciplinary questions. The result is a step-by-step framework for producing well-organized, credible papers based on rigorous, error-free data. The text begins with a brief grounding in the intellectual attitude and logical stance that underlie good research and how they relate to steps such as refining a topic, creating workable models and building the right amount of complexity. Accessible examples from psychology and business help readers grasp the fine points of observations, interviewing, simulations, interpreting and finalizing data and presenting results. Fleshed out with figures, tables, key terms, tips, and questions, this book acts as both a friendly lecturer and a multilevel reality check.




Project Psychology


Book Description

Sharon De Mascia's text uses human behaviour, established and emerging psychological models to provide perspectives on and tools for managing people in projects, including project team selection, people and team management, team cohesion, and much more.




Creating Models in Psychological Research


Book Description

This concise reference serves as a companion to traditional research texts by focusing on such essentials as model construction, robust methodologies and defending a compelling hypothesis. Designed to wean Master's and doctorate-level students as well as new researchers from their comfort zones, the book challenges readers to engage in multi-method approaches to answering multidisciplinary questions. The result is a step-by-step framework for producing well-organized, credible papers based on rigorous, error-free data. The text begins with a brief grounding in the intellectual attitude and logical stance that underlie good research and how they relate to steps such as refining a topic, creating workable models and building the right amount of complexity. Accessible examples from psychology and business help readers grasp the fine points of observations, interviewing, simulations, interpreting and finalizing data and presenting results. Fleshed out with figures, tables, key terms, tips, and questions, this book acts as both a friendly lecturer and a multilevel reality check.




The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety


Book Description

This book is the first practical, hands-on guide that shows how leaders can build psychological safety in their organizations, creating an environment where employees feel included, fully engaged, and encouraged to contribute their best efforts and ideas. Fear has a profoundly negative impact on engagement, learning efficacy, productivity, and innovation, but until now there has been a lack of practical information on how to make employees feel safe about speaking up and contributing. Timothy Clark, a social scientist and an organizational consultant, provides a framework to move people through successive stages of psychological safety. The first stage is member safety-the team accepts you and grants you shared identity. Learner safety, the second stage, indicates that you feel safe to ask questions, experiment, and even make mistakes. Next is the third stage of contributor safety, where you feel comfortable participating as an active and full-fledged member of the team. Finally, the fourth stage of challenger safety allows you to take on the status quo without repercussion, reprisal, or the risk of tarnishing your personal standing and reputation. This is a blueprint for how any leader can build positive, supportive, and encouraging cultures in any setting.




Model Behavior


Book Description

Mice are used as model organisms across a wide range of fields in science today—but it is far from obvious how studying a mouse in a maze can help us understand human problems like alcoholism or anxiety. How do scientists convince funders, fellow scientists, the general public, and even themselves that animal experiments are a good way of producing knowledge about the genetics of human behavior? In Model Behavior, Nicole C. Nelson takes us inside an animal behavior genetics laboratory to examine how scientists create and manage the foundational knowledge of their field. Behavior genetics is a particularly challenging field for making a clear-cut case that mouse experiments work, because researchers believe that both the phenomena they are studying and the animal models they are using are complex. These assumptions of complexity change the nature of what laboratory work produces. Whereas historical and ethnographic studies traditionally portray the laboratory as a place where scientists control, simplify, and stabilize nature in the service of producing durable facts, the laboratory that emerges from Nelson’s extensive interviews and fieldwork is a place where stable findings are always just out of reach. The ongoing work of managing precarious experimental systems means that researchers learn as much—if not more—about the impact of the environment on behavior as they do about genetics. Model Behavior offers a compelling portrait of life in a twenty-first-century laboratory, where partial, provisional answers to complex scientific questions are increasingly the norm.




The Great Mental Models, Volume 1


Book Description

Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.




Supervision in the Psychological Professions: Building Your Own Personalised Model


Book Description

A truly innovative gem of a book, Supervision in the Psychological Professions empowers psychologists in all fields to become highly skilled and successful in their application of supervisory processes and methods. As the psychological professions move toward mandating supervision, this book expertly bridges the gap between philosophy and practice. It offers a practical, accessible and conceptual approach for those wanting to hone their knowledge and skills in this increasingly important area. Inviting the reader to reflect on their own practice through reflective questions, case studies and exercises, Lane, Watts and Corrie skilfully highlight how the supervisor and supervisee can negotiate an effective relationship within agreed frameworks. Covering the new supervision regulation at local, national and international levels, this practical guide is a must have read for practitioners across psychological niches from forensic to mental health and from coaching to educational and industrial psychology. “In this useful text the many contributing authors thread their respective views together toward the development of a personalised and fit for purpose approach … A valuable and significant contribution to the field.” Marc Simon Kahn, author of Coaching on the Axis, Clinical Psychologist, Chartered Business Coach and Global Head of HR & OD for Investec, London, UK “This is a rich book that provides much food for thought about both giving and receiving supervision and it offers a sense of coherence whilst respecting diversity.” Sheelagh Strawbridge, Chartered Psychologist, Self-employed, UK “This book should be of great value and encouragement for psychologists currently engaging in supervision practice … It should also provide badly needed orientation and stimulation for professional and academic training settings". Michael Bruch, University College London, UK




Developing a Model of Islamic Psychology and Psychotherapy


Book Description

At a time when there is increasing need to offer psychotherapeutic approaches that accommodate clients’ religious and spiritual beliefs, and acknowledge the potential for healing and growth offered by religious frameworks, this book explores psychology from an Islamic paradigm and demonstrates how Islamic understandings of human nature, the self, and the soul can inform an Islamic psychotherapy. Drawing on a qualitative, grounded theory analysis of interviews with Islamic scholars and clinicians, this unique volume distils complex religious concepts to reconcile Islamic theology with contemporary notions of psychology. Chapters offer nuanced explanations of relevant Islamic tradition and theological sources, consider how this relates to Western notions of psychotherapy and common misconceptions, and draw uniquely on first-hand data to develop a new theory of Islamic psychology. This, in turn, informs an innovative and empirically driven model of practice that translates Islamic understandings of human psychology into a clinical framework for Islamic psychotherapy. An outstanding scholarly contribution to the modern and emerging discipline of Islamic psychology, this book makes a pioneering contribution to the integration of the Islamic sciences and clinical mental health practice. It will be a key resource for scholars, researchers, and practicing clinicians with an interest in Islamic psychology and Muslim mental health, as well as religion, spirituality and psychology more broadly.




Qualitative Methods


Book Description

This book aims to provide researchers who are new (or relatively new) to qualitative research with the methodological tools and conceptual maps they need to navigate their way through the process. It describes the uncertainties surrounding qualitative research and the many dilemmas faced by researchers. It illustrates these by drawing on the experiences of researchers with varying degrees of expertise in qualitative research. It also provides readers with the necessary background knowledge and raises their awareness of the questions they will need to address to help them make informed decisions about how to deal with these uncertainties and dilemmas. The contents of the book are organized in a way that reflects the three main objectives that the authors had in mind. The first objective was to provide readers with the necessary background knowledge and an awareness of the questions they will need to address in order to make informed decisions about whether to conduct qualitative research and if they decide to follow a qualitative path, which particular qualitative approach(es) would be suited to their research goals. The second objective was to equip readers with the basic tools to carry out their analysis by providing detailed, contextualized coverage of the practicalities of the qualitative methods/approaches. In addition, the book includes accounts of an actual analysis of a specific data set in a step-by-step manner using the approaches. The third objective was to provide the reader with guidance as to how to write up qualitative research in general and the ethical considerations of qualitative inquiry in the concluding chapter.




Project Feasibility


Book Description

This book presents a set of tools that will aid in deciding whether a project should go ahead, be improved, or abandoned altogether by pinpointing its vulnerabilities. It offers a review of project feasibility analysis, and more critically, psychodynamic aspects that are often neglected, including how stakeholders interact. It provides a complement to the common techniques used for analyzing technical, financial, and marketing feasibility. The goal is to identify "hidden truths" and eliminate those gray areas that jeopardize the success of a given project. The focus is on uncovering points of vulnerabilities in four key aspects of a project: People, Power, Processes, and Plan.