Psychology and socialization research examine the workings of the human mind and human behavior; genetics, as a branch of biology, examines the way in which traits and predispositions are transmitted from parents to their children as a result of genetic recombination. The relationship between psychology, in contrast, and biology and genetics, has never been easy.
Due to the increased awareness of the important influences of emotional and behavioral factors on health and illness, the last two decades have seen a substantial increase in the number of psychologists working in medical settings. Although most are employed in departments of psychiatry, psychologists have also become valuable members of other medical specialties including
Pain is one of the most complex of human experiences. It is the most common reason for which patients seek medical care. More than 80% of all physician visits are due to pain. Pain accounts for over $70 billion annually in health care costs and lost productivity. It is defined by the International Association for
Pediatric psychology, the interface of health psychology and clinical child psychology, has grown over the past 35 years to become an independently recognized field. Pediatric psychology explores the interrelationship between the psychological and physical well-being of children, adolescents, and families, attending to developmental processes and physical, cognitive, social, and emotional functioning as they relate to
Discursive psychology examines how psychological issues are made relevant and put to use in everyday talk. Unlike traditional psychological perspectives, discursive psychology does not approach the question of what psychology comprises and explains from an analyst’s perspective. Instead the focus is on how psychological characteristics are made available, ascribed, and resisted by people themselves, as
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is the virus that causes AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). AIDS, the final stage of the infection process, is characterized by severe immunodeficiency. During this stage, an infected person’s immune system loses its ability to fight off “opportunistic” infections (e.g., pneumonia) that can lead to death. HIV/AIDS Epidemiology In the United States
For more than a quarter-century, health psychology approaches to dentistry and oral health have been active and productive areas of research. Among the topics that researchers have investigated are bruxism (night-time clenching or grinding of the teeth) and other oral habits (e.g., thumb sucking), taste disorders, the impact of craniofacial anomalies, oral health needs of
Eras in the History of Sport Psychology The history of sport psychology has often been organized into six key eras or time periods that mark the field’s development. These eras serve as rough guidelines for retrospectively examining events that have shaped sport psychology today. The eras include (1) the prehistory of the field from antiquity
Sport psychology professionals maintain an ethical obligation to ensure services are helping clients (and conversely, not harming them), and thus allowing clients the opportunity to provide feedback is a key element of effective service provision. Components of Evaluation There are a variety of subjective (or self-report) and objective measures available that consultants can select to
Vocational psychology, a specialty within applied psychology, is the study of vocational behavior and its development across the life cycle. Emerging in the first decade of the twentieth century as America became heavily industrialized, vocational psychology originally concentrated on the fit between a worker’s abilities and interests and a job’s requirements and rewards. The outcome