The "nature versus nurture" controversy dates back to at least the nineteenth century. How much of a role does genetics or environment play in accounting for reasoning skill and other intellectual aptitudes? At a time when the public school system in the United States is under attack, this debate has taken center stage in arguments about what accounts for differences in academic achievement. Maximizing Intelligence convincingly argues that, while both genetics and environment play...

The controversial book linking intelligence to class and race in modern society, and what public policy can do to mitigate socioeconomic differences in IQ, birth rate, crime, fertility, welfare, and poverty.

“[Nisbett] weighs in forcefully and articulately . . . [using] a thoroughly appealing style to engage . . . throughout.”—Publishers WeeklyWho are smarter, Asians or Westerners? Are there genetic explanations for group differences in test scores? From the damning research of The Bell Curve to the more recent controversy surrounding geneticist James Watson’s statements, one factor has been consistently left out of the equation: culture. In the tradition of Stephen J...

This book describes the reasoned action approach, an integrative framework for the prediction and change of human social behavior. It provides an up-to-date review of relevant research, discusses critical issues related to the reasoned action framework, and provides methodological and conceptual tools for the prediction and explanation of social behavior and for designing behavior change interventions.

Applied Social Psychology combines the science of social psychology with the practical application of solving social problems that exist in the real world. This exciting textbook provides a thorough explanation of how social psychologists can contribute to the understanding and management of different social problems. A highly prestigious team of contributors from across Europe and the United States illustrate how social psychological theories, research methods and intervention techniques ...

The Definitive reference on the important role fathers play in child development todayEdited by Dr. Michael Lamb—the recognized authority on the role of fathers in child development, The Role of the Father in Child Development, Fifth Edition brings together contributions from international experts on each subject to provide a thorough and current summary of the state of fatherhood across cultures, classes, economic systems, and family formations. This clas...

Children are the most criminally victimized segment of the population, and a substantial number face multiple, serious "poly-victimizations" during a single year. And despite the fact that the priority emphasis in academic research and government policy has traditionally gone to studying juvenile delinquents, children actually appear before authorities more frequently as victims than as offenders. But at the same time, the media and many advocates have failed to note the good news: rates o...

A comprehensive study that is also practical and realistic, New Directions in Special Education outlines principles for decisionmaking about special education at every level—from the family to the classroom, school, and district—and for state and federal policy.With this volume, leading scholar and disability advocate Thomas Hehir opens a new round of debate on the future of special education. Extending the conceptual framework developed in his seminal 200...

In this volume leading researchers offer an interesting and accessible overview of what we now know about risk and protective factors for family functioning and child adjustment in different kinds of families. They explore interactions among individual, familial, and extrafamilial risk and protective factors in an attempt to explain the great diversity in parents' and children's responses to different kinds of experiences associated with marriage, divorce, life in a single parent household...

Over the past two decades, violent crime has become one of the most serious domestic problems in the United States. Approximately 13 million people (nearly 5% of the U.S. population) are victims of crime every year, and of that, approximately one and a half million are victims of violent crime. Ensuring quality of life for victims of crime is therefore a major challenge facing policy makers and mental health providers.Helping Victims of Violent Crime grounds victim assista...

This book, a result of a conference sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, explores developmental and clinical evidence of how divorce, and the transition to single parenting and stepparenting affects children. Many of the articles collected here look at the legal measures being used to make such transitions easier for families.

For decades, the primary argument in justifying education has been based on its direct economic effects. Yet education also provides "social benefits" for individuals and society at large, including a better way of taking care of ourselves, and consequently creating a better society to live in. Though it is difficult to quantify these social benefits, a more systematic analysis would improve our understanding of the full effects of education and provide a basis for considering related poli...