Everyday Problem Solving: Theory and Applications

(Hardback)

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Psychological, educational, gerontological, marketing, and other literatures all report recent research in everyday problem solving, yet few sources have made these various types of results available in one state-of-the-art volume. Everyday Problem Solving makes accessible many of these points of view for all readers, coordinates them, and provides directions from which to formulate new studies. The wide but methodical scope of this work will interest researchers, clinicians, philosophers, marketing specialists, administrators, artificial intelligence scientists, educators, guidance counselors and psychologists. Undergraduate and graduate students in these fields will also find this an invaluable source. The collection of reports includes an examination of models from information processing theory and postformal cognitive developmental theory, and an overview of the tasks used in everyday problem solving research. Several leading theories, including Sinnott's, are applied to describe the thoughts and emotions of adults as they solve illstructured problems. Reports on applied research include: techniques of master teachers; the ways adults resolve conflicts; consumer behavior; academic intelligence; the connection of memory to problem solving; intervention strategies and the elderly.

Reviews

This quite interesting book on problem solving should be useful in the domains of developmental, educational, cognitive, and clinical psychology. Chapters run the gamut from theoretical and conceptual accounts of problem solving, to application of theory, to a variety of particular problems, issues, and tests. Especially in the second part of the book, the reader encounters a bit of disjointedness since the applications are so diverse. But that is part of the nature of problem solving--the definition of "problem" is so wide-ranging. Chapters are uniformly well written.-Choice
"This quite interesting book on problem solving should be useful in the domains of developmental, educational, cognitive, and clinical psychology. Chapters run the gamut from theoretical and conceptual accounts of problem solving, to application of theory, to a variety of particular problems, issues, and tests. Especially in the second part of the book, the reader encounters a bit of disjointedness since the applications are so diverse. But that is part of the nature of problem solving--the definition of "problem" is so wide-ranging. Chapters are uniformly well written."-Choice

Author Bio

JAN D. SINNOTT is Associate Professor of Psychology at Towson State University, Maryland. She is a well known researcher in lifespan cognitive development and publishes frequently on aging. She is both contributor to and editor of Beyond Formal Operations I, II, and III (Praeger, 1984).