Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, Four-Volume Set: 1-4 - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0122269209 ISBN 13: 9780122269202

Publisher: Academic Press, 1994

Synopsis

The Encyclopedia of Human Behavior is a comprehensive four-volume reference source on human action and reaction, and the thoughts, feelings, and physiological functions behind those actions. Presented alphabetically by title, 250 articles probe both enduring and exciting new topics in physiological psychology, perception, personality, abnormal and clinical psychology, cognition and learning, social psychology, developmental psychology, language, and applied contexts. Written by leading scientists in these disciplines, every article has been peer-reviewed to establish clarity, accuracy, and comprehensiveness. The first reference source to provide both depth and breadth to the study of human behavior, the encyclopedia promises to be a much used reference source. This set appeals to public, corporate, university and college libraries, libraries in two-year colleges and some secondary schools.

Key Features* Comprehensive250 signed articles across disciplines in education, psychology, gerontology, physiology, and anthropology* 2500 pages* 15000 index entries* 275 figures and 50 Tables* 2000 glossary entries* 2000 bibliographic entries* Accurate* Written by established experts, every article has been peer-reviewed* Truly international collection of contributors from U.S.A., Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom* User-Friendly* More than 1200 cross-references to other entries, each article notes related articles for additional reading* Each article contains a table of contents, glossary, definition of topic, and bibliography

About this title

About the Author

V. S. Ramachandran is Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Distinguished Professor with the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute. Ramachandran initially trained as a doctor and subsequently obtained a Ph.D. from Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. Ramachandran's early work was on visual perception but he is best known for his experiments in behavioral neurology which, despite their apparent simplicity, have had a profound impact on the way we think about the brain. He has been called "The Marco Polo of neuroscience" by Richard Dawkins and "The modern Paul Broca" by Eric Kandel.

In 2005 he was awarded the Henry Dale Medal and elected to an honorary life membership by the Royal Institution of Great Britain, where he also gave a Friday evening discourse (joining the ranks of Michael Faraday, Thomas Huxley, Humphry Davy, and dozens of Nobel Laureates). His other honors and awards include fellowships from All Souls College, Oxford, and from Stanford University (Hilgard Visiting Professor); the Presidential Lecture Award from the American Academy of Neurology, two honorary doctorates, the annual Ramon Y Cajal award from the International Neuropsychiatry Society, and the Ariens-Kappers medal from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. In 2003 he gave the annual BBC Reith lectures and was the first physician/psychologist to give the lectures since they were begun by Bertrand Russel in 1949. In 1995 he gave the Decade of the Brain lecture at the 25th annual (Silver Jubilee) meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. In 2010 he delivered the annual Jawaharlal Nehru memorial lecture in New Delhi, India. Most recently the President of India conferred on him the second highest civilian award and honorific title in India, the Padma Bhushan. And TIME magazine named him on their list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2011.

Ramachandran has published over 180 papers in scientific journals (including five invited review articles in the Scientific American). He is author of the acclaimed book "Phantoms in the Brain" that has been translated into nine languages and formed the basis for a two part series on Channel Four TV (UK) and a 1 hour PBS special in USA. NEWSWEEK magazine has named him a member of "The Century Club" one of the "hundred most prominent people to watch in the next century." He has been profiled in the New Yorker Magazine and appeared on the Charlie Rose Show. His book, "The Tell Tale Brain" is a New York Times best-seller.

Reviews

Both the bright side (e.g., Altruism, Language Development, Social Support) and the dark side (e.g., Alzheimer's Disease, Suicide, War) of human nature and human experience are described and analyzed in this scholarly encyclopedia's 250 signed articles. A six-member editorial board helped editor Ramachandran select the topics. Ramachandran's academic credentials and appointments resemble the encyclopedia's scope. He has both a medical degree and a doctorate in neurophysiology and holds appointment as a professor in the neurosciences program of the department of psychology at the University of California, San Diego. Like its editor's training, the encyclopedia covers both the physiological and the psychological aspects of human behavior. All entries carry the names and institutional affiliations of their authors. Most are from North America; a few are European.

Article titles and scope tend toward the broad more than the specific. The outline that opens each article, as well as the thorough 15,000-entry index, allows users to locate discussion of specific topics. Each article adheres to a helpful four-part structure of article outline, glossary of key terms, article proper, and bibliography. Through the index this set can double as a makeshift glossary of psychological terms, since glossary entries within the articles are indexed; however, since nothing in the index differentiates glossary citations from other types of citations, this is not the encyclopedia's strength. Yet the glossary entries signify the editors' concern for clarity and intelligibility.

Entries range from five pages (Self-Esteem) to 17 pages (Schizophrenia). Topics covered include the senses (Taste), various emotions (Anger, Jealousy), developmental theory (Cognitive Development), medical subjects (Glial Cells, Hypothalamus), and disorders (Autism, Epilepsy). The bibliographies at the ends of all entries list scholarly books and journal articles.

Ramachandran has written for popular publications such as National Geographic and Discover; the encyclopedia shows that he understands what it takes to present complex knowledge to a diverse audience. Although the work displays the accoutrements of scholarship in its bibliographies and its see also references within articles, one does not need to be a scholar to reap knowledge from its pages. Even when presenting abstractions such as theories about why individuals make the vocational choices they make, the text is clear and readable. For this reason many users will prefer it to the academic prose, studded with numerous parenthetic references to its extensive bibliography, in Raymond Corsini's Encyclopedia of Psychology (also reviewed in this issue). Both sets supplement text with tables, charts, and diagrams; however these are more evident in Ramachandran. Whereas articles in Ramachandran address such broad topics as Creative and Imaginative Thinking, Criminal Behavior, or Crowd Psychology, Corsini favors more specific topics such as Computerized Adaptive Testing, Contamination (Statistical), and Cranial Nerves. While there is overlap between the two, neither encyclopedia can be considered a substitute for the other. From a collection-development point of view, the question about these encyclopedias is not an either-or proposition. Both serve a useful purpose and complement one another far more than they overlap. The same may be said of Frank Magill's Survey of Social Science: Psychology Series (Salem Press, 1993), whose 410 articles, written in a popular style for the benefit of students, address both broad and narrow topics.

Carefully crafted, well written, and thoroughly indexed, the Encyclopedia of Human Behavior will help people--whether they are specialists in a branch of psychology or students just beginning formal study of that broad field--understand the field as well as themselves and their fellow humans and how and why we behave as we do.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

One of Choice Magazine's and Reference Books Bulletin's Outstanding References of 1994! One of Library Journal's Best Reference Works of 1994! One of American Libraries' Outstanding References Sources of 1995!

Edition details

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0122269209
• ISBN 13: 9780122269202
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 2765
• Editor: Ramachandran MBBS PhD Hon. FRCP Vilayanur S.