Template talk:Psychology sidebar.html



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More Categories

I would like more categories added to the template, such as "applied psychology" and maybe "counseling psychology"whicky1978 ^talk 20:31, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

One possible principle could be that the list of sub-areas in the template should correspond to those listed in the heading of the portal. Currently that list is: Applied · Behavioral · Biological · Clinical · Cognitive · Developmental · Educational · Evolutionary · Gestalt · Humanistic · Linguistics · Personality · Sensory · Social. Nesbit 20:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Educational Psychology belongs in the template

Hi Bacchiad: Educational psychology belongs in the template because it is not suitably classified within any of the other categories. It draws extensively from all forms of psychology listed in the current template (developmental, cognitive, etc.). It is indeed a form of applied psychology, but stands on its own because it has large professional and academic membership relative to other branches of psychology. Educational psychology has a relatively big footprint on the web -- by my count about twice as many google hits as developmental psychology and applied psychology, and eight times as many as evolutionary psychology (search with terms in quotes). The purpose of this sort of template is to aid navigation and reduce mouse clicks. Therefore, content which is likely to have higher traffic should have higher priority for listing in the template. cheers Nesbit 21:44, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Keep this template?

Hi everybody! Now, since there is a new navigation template for Psychology (see:Template:Psychology), which is more exhaustive and complete, i was wondering if this template is still useful. Before I put it for deletion, I would like to know your opinion about it. Please, leave your comments below or on my disscusion page. Thanks. Frédérick Lacasse 23:29, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I've seen a number of pages that have a brief template like this in the upper-right corner (appropriately unobtrusive, taking little horizontal space, and also having in this case the virtues of having stood the test of time and having been tweaked by quite a few editors) in addition to a more comprehensive navigation template at the bottom of the page. Both templates serve a purpose. This one should not be deleted. -DoctorW 00:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

This is an old item, but now that the emotion sidebar has been taken out of action, I want to reiterate my point that sidebars are good and that there is no reason not to have both. --Jcbutler (talk) 00:05, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Forensic psychology

Please take the ampersand out. Forensic psychology is a category. I do not know what Legal psychology is but the editor refuses to put in the Forensic psychology category. I object strongly to the linking of Forensic psychology with Legal. I have worked hard on the Forensic psychology article and will cease doing so if that is to be the fate of the category. --Mattisse 17:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I made my last edit before I noticed that you made a comment here. I can't understand the sentence "...the editor refuses to put in the Forensic psychology category" (word missing? what editor?). Not every "branch" (no matter how small) of psychology should necessarily be represented in a template (especially the smaller template). So for now, I'm deleting "Legal" from the template, until a strong argument can be made here (and consensus achieved) that it ought to be included. -DoctorW 04:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Data on Types of Psychology

I collected the number of google hits and the size of the wikipedia article for most types of psychology listed in the template. There is a low positive correlation between the two variables (.37)

The table possibly indicates that more content should be added to the articles on Neuropsychology, Experimental psychology, Cognitive psychology and Abnormal psychology. I think it also suggests criteria for selecting the subfields that should be represented in the psychology template.

Nesbit 16:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Arguing with Disease infobox

This is arguing with disease infobox on pages (see Psychopathy) where it appears (and there are plenty). Is there some way to fix that so it sits underneath or something? --Zeraeph 12:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Placement of this template

I've noticed editors placing this template on a lot of pages. I'm not always sure I agree with the placement of this template on ALL articles. Having the "Psychology" name at the top right sometimes implies that the subject is purely psychological or mostly psychological. If subjects are also related to or moreso related to psychiatry, social work, etc., wouldn't it be better to include the Template:Psychology template at the bottom? It seems like such a prominent template should only be included on pages that are linked to from the template, or purely psychological. Thoughts? Chupper 17:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable position to me. --Jcbutler (talk) 00:06, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Readability?

Seems to me that at default text size on Firefox 2.0.0.12, certain portions of the text are unreadable, see: [1]. Just letting you know. --85.5.47.205 (talk) 11:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Removing neuroscience

I'm removing the neuroscience link for the following reasons:

• A large part of neuroscience falls outside the scope of psychology.
• Presently, the link actually goes to cognitive neuroscience, which is described in WP as a subdivision of neuropsychology. There is already a link to neuropsychology in this sidebar template.
• Cognitive neuroscience is closely related to biological psychology, which already has a link in the sidebar.
• The sidebar template should be kept small so that it is more usable, and is differentiated from the much larger psychology template placed at the bottom of articles.

Nesbit (talk) 23:19, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

RfC: Should Occupational health psychology be included in Template:Psychology sidebar

Issue: Should Occupational health psychology be included as a category in the sidebar? Ward3001 (talk) 03:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Previous discussion

I would like to add occupational health psychology, a relatively new field that has its own journals, to the list of disciplines within applied psychology. How do I do that? Iss246 (talk) 20:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Not that it's an unimportant field, but I'm a little concerned about overspecification and a resulting oversized sidebar. There already is a category for Health psychology. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't occupational health psychology a subdiscipline, at least right now? I fear that if we start adding subdisciplines, the size of the sidebar will become unwieldy. Ward3001 (talk) 20:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I figured out how to add to the sidebar. Aside form that, occupational health psychology is an emerging discipline. It emerged out of two fields, industrial/organizational psychology and health psychology. It has its own organizations and journals. APA publishes it the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. It also has its own meetings.Iss246 (talk) 13:58, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I have reverted the addition (temporarily at least) pending the outcome of this discussion. We have only two opinions here, and there is no clear agreement. See WP:CON. Again, this appears (by your own statement) to be a subdiscipline, albeit emerging from two major areas. If we continue the trajectory of adding subdisciplines, we could add many others, such as "Clinical child psychology", "Group psychotherapy", "Clinical hypnosis", "Psychoanalytic psychotherapy", "Humanistic psychotherapy", "Clinical assessment", etc. The list could go on. Each of these has an organization (in some cases more than one), has its own publications, and has its own meetings. If we keep expanding with subdisciplines the template could extend longer than some articles. At this point I see no reason that occupational health psychology needs to be included any more than many other subdisciplines. Ward3001 (talk) 16:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with you. I do so for four reasons. First there is a growing literature within the OHP discipline. Moreover, the discipline has its own journals (the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and Work & Stress). Second, there are graduate programs in the discipline that are separate from health psychology. Third, OHP has developed its own organizations, e.g., the Society for Occupational Health Psychology and the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology. Fourth, just as we no longer list industrial/organizational psychology as a subdiscipline of social psychology or psychometrics (measurement plans a large role in I/O), we should not stifle the development of this new cross-disciplinary division of OHP. In fact, it is peopled by more researchers who come out of I/O psychology and experimental psychology than health psychology--the members of the discipline who come from NIOSH tend to be experimental psychologists. I therefore ask you to restore the term "Occupational Health" to the Psychology template. I will check in again in a day or so. Thank you. Iss246 (talk) 19:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

You really haven't added any new argument. As I said, all of the subdisciplines that I have listed above (and others) have their own organizations (some more than one), publications ("growing literature"), meetings, etc. Please specifically address why occupational health psychology is any more deserving of inclusion than the other subdisciplines that I have listed above.

I'm not trying to be hard to get along with, but I am concerned about the quality of the template and the potential for an unmanageable number of additions to it. The template is only for the very major areas within the field of psychology. I only ask that you step back and consider psychology as a whole instead of just a subdiscipline that you obviously are very devoted to and knowledgeable about. If we continue to disagree (and that's OK; it's common on Wikipedia) we may need to post an RfC to get more opinions. Thanks. Ward3001 (talk) 20:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I've added to the argument. The field is not as narrow as you assert. APA recognizes OHP. It supports the OHP journal, which has developed a high impact rate. APA's Practice Directorate co-underwrites the work, stress, and health conferences. APA provided seed money to start OHP graduate programs. There is constant change in psychology. Change occurs in the field. OHP is an emergent field that merits recogntion. A parallel expansion has occurred in European psychology. In fact the European and North American OHP organizations began to coordinate activities, including the aligning of European and North American conferences. Expanding the template recognizes that such change happens. I therefore ask you to restore "Occupational Health" to the Psychology template.Iss246 (talk) 20:33, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I still don't see any new argument. APA is very supportive of "Clinical child psychology", "Group psychotherapy", "Clinical hypnosis", "Psychoanalytic psychotherapy", "Humanistic psychotherapy", "Clinical assessment", and others. In fact, each of these has its own Division within APA. Again, I'm not trying to minimize the importance of occupational health psychology, but I am not seeing any argument that it is any more deserving of an item in the template than the other subdisciplines I have listed. And I agree that psychology is changing (it always will), but please read WP:RECENT; Wikipedia generally waits until after the changes occur before it makes major changes in its content. That's what distinguishes an encyclopedia from a newspaper. And adding an item to a template is a major change. If OHP reaches the status of neuropsychology, clinical psychology, school psychology, forensic psychology, etc., then it might be appropriate to add to the template. But I really don't think we're there yet.

I think it's great that there is an article on Occupational health psychology, and I appreciate your additions and hope the article will continue to be improved and expanded. I just think we need to wait and see where things go before adding it to the template. Ward3001 (talk) 20:44, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

A key feature of this sidebar template is brevity. There is a larger and more comprehensive psychology template that appears at the bottom of some psychology-related pages. If the sidebar template becomes too large it will become less useful and more redundant. Therefore, we must be quite selective about the links that appear in the template. This implies that arguments to add a link should compare it to existing links, explaining why the candidate link is more important (i.e. would attract more clicks) than links already in the template. Number of google hits is probably the easiest way to measure the size and level of popular interest of a field in psychology. Occupational health psychology gets only about 40,000 hits from my location (results vary somewhat by the country from which the search originates, so try it yourself). I think this number of hits is well below the other fields listed in the template. For example, the field of psychophysics has about ten times as many hits. Unless other objective criteria are brought forward that demonstrate the relative importance of occupational health psychology, I would vote not to include it. Nesbit (talk) 21:08, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Good points. Other data that could be examined would be numbers of practitioners, graduate programs in the specific field, and graduates from those programs. I don't have those data in front of me, but I do think it's a safe bet that number of graduate programs in OHP is significantly smaller than the general disciplines of clinical, neuropsychology, school psychology, forensic psychology, etc. Ward3001 (talk) 21:13, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

The psychology of emotion is another respectable field of psychology that is probably too small to be listed in this template. It does seem to get fewer google hits than occupational health psychology. If the outcome of this discussion were to add OHP, I think we should eliminate the emotion link. Possibly we should do it anyway. Nesbit (talk) 21:18, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I counted OHP doctoral programs at these institutions (although the list may not be exhaustive): Bowling Green State University, Clemson University, Colorado State University, Kansas State University, Portland State University, Tulane University, UCLA, the University of Connecticut, the University of Houston, the University of Minnesota, the University of South Florida, the University of Texas, and University of Nottingham in the UK.Iss246 (talk) 21:22, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I add that there are no PhD programs to speak of in Emotion Psychology. By contrast there are legitimate PhD programs in OHP. I agree with Nesbit. I think Emotion Psychology should come off the list and Occupational Health Psychology should join the list. Iss246 (talk) 21:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I also add that there are not many doctoral programs in evolutionary psychology. When I look for them they are tucked in under another program or are in an anthropology department. I support the idea that evolutionary psychology remain on the template. But I think OHP is just as deserving of belonging on the template, and ask you to restore it. Iss246 (talk) 21:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

There are over two million google hits for evolutionary psychology. Unless there is more comparative information, my preference is exclude both emotion and OHP from the sidebar template. I notice that there are about twice as many psychology fields listed in Template:Psychology as the sidebar template. The sidebar template should list a subset of those listed in the larger template. Therefore I'd recommend that you make the pitch to include OHP in the larger template first. It should be much easier. It currently includes a couple of fairly obscure fields. Nesbit (talk) 22:01, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree completely with Nesbit unless compelling contradictory evidence emerges. I would suggest we wait a while to see if there are other opinions before removing anything. Ward3001 (talk) 22:05, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It's interesting to compare the two up-and-coming fields of OHP and evolutionary psychology. Looking at google scholar, google books, and PsycInfo, I get the following numbers of hits:

/////////////// OHP // EP

Google books // 623 // 1,607

Google scholar // 5,770 // 19,700

PsycInfo // 450 // 2,481

You have to put the terms in quotes to get more precise numbers. Sorry about not using a table. Nesbit (talk) 22:21, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I conducted a search of PsycInfo. On one line I entered "occupational health psychology". Then I entered "or" to concatenate OHP with what I inserted on the second line, the terms, "job", "and", and "stress". A great deal of OHP centers around job stress or work stress. I didn't use the word "work" as a synonym for "job"; I didn't use the word "burnout", which is also the subject of considerable OHP research and practice. Had I used those terms, I am positive that I would have gotten many more hits. As it stands, I got 9706 hits. That number of hits, together with the presence of doctoral programs, merits Ward3001's including Occupational Health Psychology in the template. Iss246 (talk) 23:40, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I followed everything you said immediately above until you went from 9706 hits to "merits Ward3001's including Occupational Health Psychology in the template". Maybe I missed something. Just as a point of comparison, I did a search of "clinical child psychology" on PsycINfo and got 18,064 hits. I wouldn't use that statistic to argue that "Clinical child psychology" should be added to the template. If I concatenate with "or" (as you did) and add "psychotherapy", the hits increases to 143,228. I still wouldn't argue for inclusion of clinical child psychology in the template. If I change the search to "clinical psychology" in the top line and then "or" and "psychotherapy" the hits jumps up to 238,657. Maybe I missed something in your argument. I don't think then 9706 hits you got is persuasive. Ward3001 (talk) 02:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I add that one of the two leading journals in occupational health psychology is called "Work and Stress." It is the journal of the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology. Given the journal and the large number of hits (9706) in PsycInfo, I believe occupational health psychology belongs in the psychology sidebar. Iss246 (talk) 01:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Again, all of the subdisciplines I list above have one and sometimes several related journals. Ward3001 (talk) 02:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I was responding to the comparison to evolutionary psychology and emotion psychology. You came in with the clinical child psychology analogy, it seems to me, because you are dead set against my suggestion regarding OHP, and you exercise some power over the sidebar in question. Since you brought up the matter, psychotherapy is not necessarily clinical psychology. By contrast work stress is OHP. Psychotherapy is not always clinical psychology because psychotherapy overlaps with psychiatry and social work. Some child clinicians call what they do applied behavior analysis. Complicating the picture, treatment of children is usually very different from treatment of adults. In psychiatry, there is a division between adult and child psychiatry. There are different sets of journals. Different organizations. But back to psychology. The different nature of the treatment may even warrant a separate heading for child clinical psychology. But that is not my concern here. My concern here is with OHP. It merits an entry. And I ask that you restore OHP to the sidebar. Iss246 (talk) 03:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

At this point we certainly don't have a consensus to make any changes in the sidebar. The usual procedure on Wikipedia in such cases is to wait a while to see if other editors weigh in. Then if necessary we post an RfC to get more opinions and wait to see if a consensus emerges.

By the way, please try not personalize the issue with statements such as "You came in with the clinical child psychology analogy, it seems to me, because you are dead set against my suggestion regarding OHP." I came up with the analogy because I misunderstood what you were trying to convey in your statements about your PsycInfo search. That was not a personal matter. I simply sought clarification. This is not (or should not be) a personal matter between you and me. This is about doing what is best for Wikipedia, and there are procedures to follow that I have outlined. We can disagree without being disagreeable. Thanks Ward3001 (talk) 03:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

As per the earlier comment by Nesbit, I added OHP to the Template:Psychology but left untouched the sidebar, which I think is more important because it has been inserted into many psychology entries. I would like to settle this business about including OHP in the sidebar. Iss246 (talk) 04:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

It almost certainly will be settled, but like many matters on Wikipedia, it will not be settled in a matter of hours. At this point we only have three editors expressing opinions. It is not unusual when there are disagreements on Wikipeida for consensus to require a week (or even more) to emerge. Keep in mind that some editors who may be interested in contributing to this discussion may not log in every day. It can take some time.

In the mean time, please consider my request for keeping the focus on the content and not on the contributors. If you haven't already, you might want to read WP:CON, Help:Edit conflict, and WP:AGF (I don't mean that as belittling if you are already familiar with those policies). I'm sincerely not trying to run roughshod over your opinions. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort and requires the cooperation of everyone involved. Thanks. Ward3001 (talk) 04:58, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

New discussion

I argue for the inclusion of occupational health psychology in the sidebar.

1. Sports psychology is on the sidebar. I'm agnostic about its remaining on the sidebar. Since I'm advancing the view that OHP should be on the sidebar, I don't want to start a movement to push sports psychology or another division off the sidebar. However, I underline that sports psychology content is weak, and remains weak after two years. The content of sports psychology contrasts with the strong content of OHP. OHP has deep historical roots in psychology, and strong research and practice content that is relevant to the well-being of people who work.

2. Literature in occupational health psychology is rich. Searches in PsycInfo under "occupational health psychology" go so far because much of the literature is under keywords such as "work" and "stress", where a vast literature will unfold. The work in OHP is particularly relevant because of the impact of work and financial stressors. OHP is a branch of psychology that is deeply concerned with those matters.

3. I also want to emphasize the contemporary relevance of the discipline in a couple of other ways. The readers of this may not have considered that OHP has relevance to the military (e.g., Lang, J., Thomas, J. L., Bliese, P. D., & Adler, A. B. (2007). Job demands and job performance: The mediating effect of psychological and physical strain and the moderating effect of role clarity. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12, 116-124.). OHP is also relevant to helping first responders (e.g., Stellman et al., Enduring mental health morbidity and social function impairment in World Trade Center rescue, recovery and cleanup workers: the psychological dimension of an environmental health disaster. Environmental Health Perspectives, 116, 1248–1253.)

In summary, I think OHP, on its merits, deserves to be on the sidebar. I've been working perhaps a sentence or two every day on the occupational health psychology entry in my spare time—although I don't have that much of it. As I add that sentence or two, I revise earlier material to ensure that article coheres. OHP is the world outside. More than sports psychology, to say the least. Iss246 (talk) 17:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I have a few responses to the above comments. Some of these I have previously stated on Iss246's talk page, and some may reiterate and expand on comments I have made earlier in this RfC:

• "sports psychology content is weak, and remains weak after two years": The length and quality of the Wikipedia article on a discipline or subdiscipline (whether sports psychology, OHP, or any other) should not determine whether that discipline or subdisclipine should be included in the sidebar. The sidebar should reflect the prominence of the discipline in the world in general, not just how the articles stack up on Wikipedia. There are a variety of reasons an article may not have as much length or substance on Wikipedia compared to other articles. Some of these may have little, if any relationship, to the relative positions of the two topics in the world outside of Wikipedia.
• "I've been working perhaps a sentence or two every day on the occupational health psychology entry": That is a very laudible and needed effort, for which I thank Iss246. But again, length and quality of OHP's Wikipedia article (or any other subdiscipline's article) is not an adequate basis for adding OHP or other subdiscipline to the sidebar and make the sidebar too long.
• "Literature in occupational health psychology is rich": Literature in many subdisciplines is rich (as I have noted elsewhere in this RfC), but that does not justify unnecessarily extending the size of the sidebar, which by definition should be extremely brief. Such subdisciplines may belong in the Psychology template, but not the sidebar.
• "OHP has relevance to the military ... Job demands and job performance ... helping first responders": I could provide numerous examples of relevance of many other subdisciplines. But that is not sufficient basis for including them in the sidebar. Ward3001 (talk) 23:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I respond to items 1, 2, and 3.

1. What evidence is the evidence that articles in Wikipedia are not related to the discipline's prominence in the real world? I contend that the sports psychology entry is weak because the discipline itself is either weak or not that important, relative to other disciplines, in the real world.

2. Laudable. The reward for hard work should be a place in the sidebar. If I didn't have solid content to mine, the occupational health psychology entry would be as paltry as sports psychology. Hard work should be rewarded.

Regarding subdisciplines. Psychology was a subdiscipline of philosophy. You can make the case, that psychology should fall under philosophy. Or neuroscience under neurology. Or clinical under abnormal. Subdisciplines get out from under. That is why OHP should get a place. This scholastic argument about subdisciplines is specious. Psychology changes and grows. It is not this static Aristotelean thing. It is dyanamic. It's Galilean. It grows. And splits. And recombines. And that is what should happen to the sidebar.

3. With regard to the numerous examples of many subdisciplines, then provide the numerous examples. Let's see them. Do the heavy lifting. I'm doing the heavy lifting. OHP earned a place at the sidebar. Iss246 (talk) 02:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Responses:

• "What evidence is the evidence that articles in Wikipedia are not related to the discipline's prominence in the real world?": I never said it is not related, I said the length or quality of a Wikipedia article is not necessarily an accurate reflection of prominence in the world outside of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not the entirety of the world. If Wikipedia's article on Barack Obama is better (or longer) than the article on John McCain, that does not mean that Obama should be President of the US. If there were a sidebar on psychological tests and I wrote a lengthy, first-rate article on test XYZ, that does not mean that XYZ deserves to be included in the sidebar more than prominent tests such as the Rorschach or the MMPI; it simply means I (one person) put more work into the article.
• "I contend that the sports psychology entry is weak because the discipline itself is either weak or not that important, relative to other disciplines, in the real world.": I contend that having an excellent article on occupational health psychology because (among other reasons) an editor is very dedicated to making it an excellent article does not make OHP more prominent in the world outside of Wikipedia. Neither OHP's nor sports psychology's prominence in the world is determined by how good the editors are in writing articles on them. Wikipedia is not the center of the universe.
• "The reward for hard work should be a place in the sidebar": That could not be farther from the truth, and if you really believe that I suggest that you go back and read some fundamental policies on Wikipedia, beginning with the five pillars. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort that operates by consensus. Those are core principles of Wikipedia. No one owns an article, another core principle. Show me the policy in Wikipedia that says an editor who writes a good article should be awarded the authority of sole decider (despite the policy of consensus) of changes in other articles. The reward is the satisfaction of making a quality contribution. Writing good articles is not a stepping stone to power over anything. Neither the most prolific editors, nor administrators, nor anyone else has that kind of authority. I've said this repeatedly. Nothing (except in cases of blatant policy violations) carries more weight in determining content in a dispute more than consensus. Nothing.
• "examples of many subdisciplines": Clinical child psychology has relevance to educational issues, political issues, pediatric medicine issues, mental health issues, economic issues, and third-world issues. Clinical child psychology should not be in the sidebar. Clinical hypnosis has relevance to forensic issues, pain management issues, memory issues, health psychology issues, and anesthesia issues. Clinical hypnosis should not be in the sidebar. Assessment psychology has relevance to employment issues, educational issues, psychiatric diagnostic issues, medication issues, and forensic issues. Assessment psychology should not be in the sidebar. I don't need to beat a dead horse and continue here.
• One last point: Consensus on Wikipedia is not determined by who can repeat the same arguments the most, who can shout the loudest, and who can come up with the most retorts that add nothing new to the discussion. Unless there are additional substantive matters that are raised, there is no point in my continuing to repeat myself. I have no problem with leaving this RfC in place for some length of time to see if there are other comments (although an admin may decide to remove it). The consensus may or may not change if other editors find this discussion and express an opinion. And if a consensus emerges to add OHP I will have no problem because that's the way it's done on Wikipedia. Until then, however, there is no consensus to add OHP (or any other subdiscipline) to the sidebar. I'm finished quibbling, but the absence of additional comments by me in no way changes the current lack of consensus to change the sidebar. Ward3001 (talk) 03:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Response The analogy with the Rorschach and the MMPI does not work. Both are personality measures and the MMPI is a measure of psychopathology although projective tests such as the Rorschach have questionable validity. Such personality measures would, however, be good candidates to be on a sidebar devoted to prominent personality tests. And that is what is important, and it could appear as one goes from one prominent personality test to another.

With regard to another aspect of your argument, if some day the idea gets endorsed, perhaps there will be a separate entry for child clinical. That is for specialists in those areas to discuss. In psychiatry, there has been a division between adult and child psychiatry.

Finally, I don't argue that the Wikipedia entry is in exact proportion to the prominence of the field in the real world. That is a straw man. The relation of an entry to the real world, however, is nonzero. There is a rough relation. The relation depends a good deal on the quality of the content. And the content of occupational health psychology is an important part of psychology. At least as important as sports psychology. See for yourself.Iss246 (talk) 14:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I have taken the time to read everything above. I appreciate the fact that Iss246 has worked hard on the occupational health psychology article. On the other hand, and I'm hesitant to be so blunt, but I'm afraid I don't find his/her arguments for adding occupational health psychology to the sidebar persuasive in the slightest. The sidebar is about the right length in my opinion. It should be reasonably concise to make it easy to spot the most important fields in psychology as well as a few key psychology pages. It should not include any subdisciplines. We have Template:Psychology for important topics in psychology including key subdisciplines, and I think occupational health psychology qualifies there. One solution for making the occupational health psychology article more available to Wikipedia readers is to add that template to the bottom of psychology articles.

I would like to ask for suggestions. Maintaining Template:Psychology is more difficult than maintaining this one, because lots of editors want to add their pet psychology topic to it. This has been especially true of important psychologists, but in fact this is where we've had some success. A widely cited research study examined the question of who the most eminent psychologists were, detailed results are on the talk page, and we have stuck to that as a criterion. Where help is needed is in coming up with some guidelines, preferably somewhat objective, for inclusion of other items, particularly subdisciplines. There will obviously be more borderline topics needing a decision than for this sidebar.

Google results were mentioned above, which is an objective, though blunt, instrument. Google Scholar results are probably a bit better. If we use them (perhaps as one of several criteria?) we would have to make an allowance for the fact that in some cases adding the word "psychology" to the phrase will be necessary (e.g., "Evolutionary psychology"). Taking a stab at this, it looks like requiring about 10,000 Google Scholar results for a phrase that does not need to have "psychology" added, or about 5,000 results if "psychology" does need to be added. What do people think? What other objective criteria might we use? Having a division of APA? If there are a number of good, objective criteria, editors could argue for inclusion even if all criteria weren't met, but rather on the basis of being very strong on the others. Comments? -DoctorW 18:26, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Please post such suggestions to Template_talk:Psychology -DoctorW 18:28, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

In response to DoctorW, occupational health psychology is reflected under the terms work stress. That is the primary subject matter. In fact, one of the prominent OHP journals is called Work & Stress. I conducted a Google search under the terms work stress, and got 19,400,000 hits. I had 2,090,000 hits when I searched sports psychology. I don't think that that the number of hits should be the only criterion for a division of psychology making its way into the sidebar. I recognize that it is one of the criteria that editors/administrators such as yourself weigh. I also think content should also be a criterion, in which case the content of OHP is at least as substantial as, say, sports psychology, which is on the sidebar. Please consult the respective entries. I think OHP has as much right to be on the sidebar as sports psychology.Iss246 (talk) 23:30, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

We can selectively Google a specific topic pertaining to any subdiscipline and come up with millions of hits. That doesn't mean all of those hits have anything to do with the subdiscipline. For example, the subdiscipline "Assessment psychology" directly pertains to mental retardation because MR cannot be diagnosed without an assessment. If I Google "mental retardation" I get 6,720,000 hits. But that's not a credible argument for including "Assessment psychology" in the sidebar because not all of those hits have something to do with assessment. Similarly, pain management is an important focus in "Clinical hypnosis". If I Google "pain management" I get 23,100,000 hits. But it is absurd to then leap to the conclusion that all of those hits pertain to clinical hypnosis and, therefore, "Clinical hypnosis" should be in the sidebar. We could go on and on with this process and end up arguing to include every one of dozens of subdisciplines in the sidebar. The 19,400,000 hits for work stress may or may not relate to OHP; we simply don't know how many, just as we don't know for any of the subdisciplines that I mention above.

I agree completely with DoctorW that none of the subdisciplines belong in the sidebar. At most some should be included in the Psychology template at the bottom of the page. Ward3001 (talk) 00:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Response. I don't claim that all the Google hits reflect OHP, only that they reflect real-world interest in the subject matter that is at the center of OHP. Ward3001 said that real-world relevance matters. Many people around the world are concerned about how their jobs are affecting their well-being. At least as much as they are concerned with using psychology to improve gymnastics performance, which is important in its own right. A PsycInfo (EBSCO) search in which on one line I entered the synonyms work or job or occupation and another line I entered the word stress produced 21528 articles. I don't claim that these results are the only reason for putting occupational health psychology on the sidebar. I think the quality of the content matters for sports psychology and occupational health psychology. Check the content. I still content that OHP belongs on the sidebar. Iss246 (talk) 00:58, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a "real-world interest in the subject matter that is at the center of" every subdiscipline, but none of them belongs in the sidebar. And that's my last word of this particular issue so that we don't again get into the pattern of repeating the same arguments and responses over and over. Ward3001 (talk) 01:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Against both occupational health psychology and sports psychology being included. There are endless sub fields. What about attachment therapy? And so on. In my opinion we should stick with the major traditional divisions for the template. Currently my division is on the template, but I would not die if it were removed. Our objective should be to clarify, no confuse with an ungainly array of specialties, many of which do not require a doctoral level psychologist. That is like saying a psychiatrist does not require a medical degree. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:06, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Response to Ward001. You mentioned real-world as a criterion. The degree of real-world interest is the concern. There is great real-world interest in question of work's impact on human well-being. Response to Mattisse. I don't think the sidebar is ungainly. Attachment therapy is not a division within psychology. It is aptly taken up within the framework of psychotherapy although I don't know if it is a doctoral level field. Occupational health psychology is a doctoral level field. If one includes being doctoral level field as a criterion, OHP meets the criterion. If you include a great deal of real-world interest as a criterion, OHP meets the criterion of inclusion. If you include substantial content that matters as a criterion, OHP meets the criterion.Iss246 (talk) 02:33, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think "real-world" interest in a subject necessarily coincides with established subdivisions of Psychology and therefore is a criteria for inclusion in the template. "Real-world" interest is apt to be topical and therefore wax and wane with the times. Also, I/O covers issues related to job stress. Perhaps Occupational health psychology can be see as a subdivision of I/O. —Mattisse (Talk) 15:32, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I understand the source of your concern. However, I point out that I/O Ψ is the offspring of social Ψ and psychometric Ψ. That does not mean we should not include I/O as a separate entity because I/O has those sources. Health psychology has its origins in social Ψ, the sociology of medicine, and medicine itself. Health Ψ nonetheless should stand as an entry. (Parenthetically, the health Ψ entry a couple of months ago was very weak, and I completed a good deal of editorial work and conducted library research to upgrade the entry although it could benefit from additional effort--I don't have that much time--; my work on the health psychology entry motivated me to create and develop the OHP entry.) OHP is the offspring of I/O, health Ψ, the medical field of occupational health, and, maybe even, clinical Ψ (see Everly, G. S., Jr. [1986]. An introduction to occupational health psychology. In P. A. Keller & L. G. Ritt (Eds.), Innovations in clinical practice: A source book, Vol. 5 (pp. 331-338). Sarasota, FL: Professional Resource Exchange). Arguing, therefore, that OHP is the descendant of I/O Ψ doesn't work against excluding OHP from the sidebar because all the current fields come from somewhere.

I also underline that the general public is interested in work, stress, and the impact of occupational stress on physical and psychological well-being. OHP is directly concerned with that very important area of research. In fact, OHP has developed its own journals, professional organizations, and international conferences. One of those conferences, the ICOH-WOPS conference Quebec (you can get abstracts of the meeting to see for yourself http://www.icoh-wops2008.com/program.aspx) just concluded a couple of weeks ago and in two months the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology is running an international conference in Valencia, Spain on work, stress, and health. Scientific meetings are the important grounds on which scientific ideas are shared and debated. OHP has come into its own with these scientific meetings. They make the discipline.

I appeal to you to join my side in supporting the addition of OHP to the sidebar.Iss246 (talk) 02:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Oppose ... sort of. This side bar could easily grow taller than any article on which it is included. That said, it could be useful to arrange a series of expanded sub-boxes like the taxonomy boxes. Readers interested in Health psychology and related sub-fields would be presented with OHP, but readers of Cognitivism (psychology) would be presented with links like Behaviorism. - Eldereft (cont.) 21:50, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Oppose/Include per Eldereft. Expandable boxes, what a great idea. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 01:25, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Question: Eldereft, could you give us a link to the example you're referring to so we can see how it looks? I'm wondering if this will change the sidebar to the point that it no longer looks like a sidebar. Maybe not, but I think we need to see how it looks so editors can express informed opinions. This might be a good alternative to the way the sidebar is now, but if it is a radical change (as opposed to adding or deleting one item from the sidebar), we'll need to set up a new RfC to get a wider consensus beyond this more narrow RfC about whether OHP should go in the sidebar. Thanks. Ward3001 (talk) 01:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It is not a perfect analogy since taxonomy has a better defined hierarchical structure, but look at the respective taxoboxes at the beginning of Triturus, Salamandridae, and Amphibian - each contains a level of detail appropriate to how "zoomed out" the article is. A list of species at class level would be completely unmanageable, and very few people looking for newts would find a link to Seychelles Frogs to be relevant.

A more centralized solution that might be more applicable would be to use a {{Sidebar with collapsible lists}}. Negative liberty has a collapsed sidebar, but Liberalism displays the full topic list. The template includes a parameter (for some reason not mentioned on the template page, but described at {{Liberalism sidebar}}) to allow one subheading to be expanded while the rest remain collapsed - inviting but not intruding.

I am not as familiar with psychology, but a similar classification scheme has been established for physics so I expect it should be possible to divvy up the subdivisions reasonably accurately and amicably. If it comes to it, there is no reason a particular subfield should not be included in different branches of the discipline tree. For a working example of such a classification, see {{Physics-footer}}, which links to Condensed matter physics which displays {{Condensed matter physics}} as a sidebar. - Eldereft (cont.) 18:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the info. I looked at the examples, and at this point I'm not sure whether either approach would be feasible (I'm not saying either wouldn't, I'm just not sure). {{Sidebar with collapsible lists}} is the closest to the way the Psychology sidebar is currently set up, but I'm not sure whether it's feasible to use it with each major discipline (Clinical, Educational, etc.) that has a collapsible list of subdisciplines. But this looks like a major change that would require a separate RfC since we would be venturing beyond the issue of OHP in the sidebar and looking at a complete overhaul of the sidebar. I'll wait a couple of days to see if other opinions show up here before starting a new RfC. Ward3001 (talk) 19:00, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Please find in the section below a mock-up with one section displayed. It has some crappy formatting and is not necessarily fully vetted, so use at your own risk. Such a change would be definitely beyond the scope of this particular RfC, so I created a new section to discuss the change. If you decide to use it or a modified version, please move it from my userspace and leave a note on my talkpage. Everyone should feel free to edit that page before taking the template live. - Eldereft (cont.) 20:00, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Collapsible lists

Here is a mock-up using {{Sidebar with collapsible lists}}, mentioned in the preceding section. For a side-by-side comparison with the old one, click here. - Eldereft (cont.) 20:00, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Psychology

RESEARCH Abnormal Clinical Clinical Associate (Psychology) Clinical neuropsychology Clinical psychology Cognitive behavioral therapy Cognitive therapy Biological Cognitive Developmental Emotion Experimental Evolutionary Mathematical Neuropsychology Personality Positive Psychophysics Social Transpersonal

APPLIED Clinical Educational Forensic Health Industrial and Organizational School Sport

LISTS Publications Topics Therapies

v • d • e

Many thanks again. If "Research", "Applied", and "Lists" are the major categories, that wouldn't help the OHP issue because only major disciplines (e.g., Clinical) and not subdisciplines (e.g., OHP) would be included. But I get the idea. Is it possible to use the current disciplines (Clinical, Educational, Forensic, Health, etc.) for the uncollapsed items, then list subdisciplines under each? Even if it's possible, we would need to get a broader consensus to make the change. Thanks so much for your help, Eldereft. You've done a lot for a field that isn't even your primary interest (I assume). Ward3001 (talk) 20:11, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Not a problem - the advantage of volunteer labour is that if I felt like doing something else then I would (but thanks are always appreciated :)). The lists can be named and arranged howsoever you like, I just modeled the current sidebar. I grabbed a couple examples from Category:Clinical psychology to make a nested collapsible list under Research. Purge your cache if it does not display. Colors, entries, and all whatnot should of course be fixed prior to implementation.

Also, I should note that the v · d · e links are generated by the template to match the name parameter and assume templatespace - they misleadingly link here. This mock-up currently resides at User:Eldereft/Psychology sidebar and should be edited by visiting that page. - Eldereft (cont.) 06:32, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I think I may have made a mistake in trying to undo vandalism to the site. Someone wrote "Roxie rocks my socks" at the site. I tried to undo it. I may have mistakenly done some damage. Perhaps one of you, for example Ward3001, could look at the entry.Iss246 (talk) 20:31, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I think I know what happened. I think I got to the template at fractionally the same time as Ward3001, and saw the vandalism disappear faster than I could enter a keystroke, and was concerned that more was disappearing than I intended. Anyway the site looks okay. I may not agree with Ward3001 one matter, but I share the antipathy toward vandalism.Iss246 (talk) 20:39, 9 November 2008 (UTC)