Talk:Differential psychology

Article title
"Individual differences psychology" searched for as a phrase has 350 google hits, and "differential psychology" has 29,000 hits. Any objections to moving the article to the latter title?--Nectar 02:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, differential psychology is the correct term for the field of study concerning individual differences. I created a "differential psychology" page and I think this one should just be deleted as it isn't very good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by User: (talk • contribs)

The standard phrase would be "(psychology of) individual differences". It is difficult to count google hits for this because "psychology of" is usually omitted and "individual differences" may refer to other than psychological differences.

"Differential psychology" is a very old-fashioned expression. Nobody uses it any more except historians.

In standard use, "(psychology of) individual differences" refers to the study ofpersonality and intelligence, which, for historical reasons, are treated as the two subfields of psychology that are mainly concerned with individual differences. There are two objections to this: (a) neither personality nor intelligence are exclusively about individual differences, and (b) there are individual differences in all areas of psychology (memory, attention, development, social behavior, etc).

This article should describe these ambiguities rather than pretending that "individual differences psych" exists as a separate subfield of psychology. The "(psychology of) individual differences" has some relevance today as an interdisciplinary programme. See, for example the "about" section on the homepage of Journal of Individual Differences:

''The Journal of Individual Differences publishes manuscripts dealing with individual differences in behavior, emotion, cognition, and their developmental aspects. This includes human as well as animal research. The Journal of Individual Differences is conceptualized to bring together researchers working in different areas ranging from, for example, molecular genetics to theories of complex behavior. Moreover, it places emphasis on papers dealing with special methodological and conceptual issues in basic science as well as in their applied fields (assessment of personality and intelligence).

Lebatsnok 16:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Let me add to the discussion of the title: I am not a native speaker, but I think that either "psychology of individual differences" or "differential psychology" would be a more appropriate title than "individual differences psychology", but I won't at this time opt to move the article. The "Journal of Individual Differences" was originally published in German and actually named "Zeitschrift für Differentielle und Diagnostische Psychologie", which translates as "Journal of differential psychology and psychological assessment" before they changed the publishing language into English.

Wolf rauch (talk) 10:16, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

'"Differential psychology" is a very old-fashioned expression. Nobody uses it any more except historians.' This sweeping statement is belied by the fact that "Differential psychology" is currently used in university courses about the subject, for example at the University of Sydney where I have worked for the past five years. Furthermore, "The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Individual Differences" published in 2011 has a chapter entitled "Individual Differences and Differential Psychology". This chapter my be viewed here and explains why differential psychology is considered a subject in its own right. It is true that individual differences occur in all areas of psychology, and differential psychology specifically focuses on these differences, whereas specialised areas of psychology tend to focus on what people have in common within a particular area. Therefore, I think it is appropriate to move the article to a new title. Smcg8374 08:14, 11 December 2011 (UTC)   — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smcg8374 (talk • contribs)

What happened to the very convincing argument made above to change the article name? As someone currently taking a 'differential psychology' course at Edinburgh University i can vouch for the fact that it's still in common usage. Moreover is there anyone with the time to edit this article's tone, which is biased towards emphasising the significance of individual differences through the choice presentation of evidence and use of language rather than any demonstration with evidence. 95.145.88.109 (talk) 17:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Merge
I agree that it would be appropriate to merge individual differences and differential psychology. Individual differences is the most common term of the two in psychology.--Jtneill 10:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
 * So your opinion is differential psychology should be moved to individual differences?--Nectar 10:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Nectar - Yes - my view is based on having taught several undergrad psych courses on personality and individual differences e.g., journal titles in this field use personality and individual differences; differential psychology is less common Jtneill 10:42, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
 * My impression also is that individual differences is far more commonly used than differential psychology. I suggest merging differential psychology into individual differences Pete.Hurd 07:05, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds good.--Nectar 08:37, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I hope if the two pages are merged the content from the differential psyc site is kept as the content on the ID psyc page is really random and nothing like what I think of as the focus of research in this area (which I study).--Parkerjackson 21:54, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

First Line
"Individual differences psychology focuses on this second level of study."

On its own, that makes no sense. It looks like a paragraph was deleted above it, the paragraphs were reordered, or this article was split from another one. It would be nice if someone who actually knows what "this second level of study" refers to would clarify. --67.110.213.253 06:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I added back in the first paragraph, which I actually added in the first place. I think the quote is a good opener, it captures the level of study that ID focuses on and distinguishes it from general psychology research. If someone doesn't like it, they can change it, but please change the next paragraph to make sense also.

Intelligence Citations Bibliography for Articles Related to IQ Testing
You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of  Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 02:56, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved and talk pages merged. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:32, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Individual differences psychology → Differential psychology – As per WP:COMMONNAME. For example, if you search for "individual differences psychology" and "differential psychology" in Google Scholar, you get 448 and 4,770 hits, respectively. In the previous discussion about the title, it was claimed that "differential psychology" is an old-fashioned term, but if you limit the search to this year, there are still 104 hits for "differential psychology" versus 13 for "individual differences psychology", i.e., the former has been and remains about an order of magnitude more common. "Psychology of individual differences" is somewhat more common than the current name, but it's still much less common than "differential psychology".--Victor Chmara (talk) 13:16, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. Google books shows the same results for the most recent decade for the three alternatives you mention. Earlier "Psychology of individual differences" seems to have been more popular but this has changed more recently. Academica Orientalis (talk) 17:40, 14 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The Ngram viewer suggests that differential psychology has always been more popular in books, too, although it was close in the first half of the 20th century.--Victor Chmara (talk) 18:09, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Subject importance rating
I have changed the importance rating from low to high. This is a major discipline in psychology with a wealth of published research. Considering the heated and enduring controversy surrounding research on intelligence testing, a central concern of differential psychology, it seems clear that this is a very well-known field within the discipline of psychology. Additionally, any introductory textbook on psychology will have whole chapters devoted to personality and intelligence respectively. Not a trivial or minor area by any means.-Smcg8374 (talk) 03:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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To name just a few
The phrase "to name just a few" which is used in the section on topics studied in differential psychology sounds rather colloquial for an encyclopedia article. Vorbee (talk) 12:46, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Suggestions for Improvement
Hello All,

One thing that I have noticed is that the sections are not as long and I feel like there is opportunity for links or more explanations such as the section neurons. For example: this section could elaborate on the findings of psychologists have found about serotonin inhibiting responses to harmful stimuli, dopamine's affiliation to pleasurable, exciting stimuli, epinephrine's role in responding to past pleasures. This is just an example, and I understand that Wikipedia wants the information to be more summarized in general. The role that differential psychology plays in determining medical evaluation and job selection (Ashton, 2018). Thank you!

Ashton, M. C. (2018). Individual differences and personality. London: Academic Press, an imprint of Elsevier Ltd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SummerBurnes (talk • contribs) 05:53, 23 February 2020 (UTC)