David Marks (psychologist)

This article is about the psychologist. For others with the same name, see David Marks (disambiguation).

David F. Marks (born 1945) is a psychologist who is largely concerned with four areas of psychological research - health psychology, cognitive psychology, parapsychology and IQ score variations. His late brother Jon Marks was a jazz musician.

Career

After completing a BSc at Reading University and a PhD at Sheffield University he migrated to New Zealand where he taught at the University of Otago. In 1986 he returned to the UK as Head of the School of Psychology at Middlesex Polytechnic before working at City University from 2000-10. He founded and edits the Journal of Health Psychology (A more detailed biography is published in Who's Who).

Health psychology

In his work on health psychology Marks advocates a greater understanding of the socio-political context affecting individual behaviour (Marks et al., 2005). With Michael Murray and colleagues he has actively promoted a critical-theoretical approach, including the foundation of the International Society of Critical Health Psychology. This organisation has included the consideration of social justice, community approaches, and arts projects for the reduction of health inequalities. Marks has also been interested in new research methods for clinical psychology and health psychology (Marks & Yardley, 2004).

Marks has promoted the use of cognitive behaviour therapy as an effective clinical approach to smoking cessation. This research began in New Zealand where Paul Sulzberger and he developed the Isis Smoking Cessation Programme (Sulzberger & Marks, 1977). After returning to England in 1986 Marks developed a UK-version of the programme which was originally published by the British Psychological Society in 1993 as The QUIT FOR LIFE Programme (Marks 1993, 2005). The approach was developed further and re-published in the Overcoming series by Robinson as "Overcoming Your Smoking Habit" (Marks 2005).

Cognitive psychology

Marks' research into cognitive psychology and mental imagery led to the development of the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ), a tool for the assessment of individual differences in visual imagery. Marks (1973) reported that high vividness scores correlate with the accuracy of recall of coloured photographs. In 1995 he published a new version of the VVIQ, the VVIQ2. This questionnaire consists of twice the number of items and reverses the rating scale so that higher scores reflect higher vividness. Rodway, Gillies and Schepman (2006) found that high vividness participants were significantly more accurate at detecting salient changes to pictures compared to low vividness participants, replicating an earlier study by Gur and Hilgard (1975). Recently Cui et al. (2007) found that reported image vividness correlates with increased activity in the visual cortex. This study shows that the subjective experience of forming a mental image is reflected by increased visual cortical activity.

Parapsychology and skepticism

With the late Denis Dutton Marks co-founded the New Zealand Skeptics in 1986. In his work on parapsychology Marks adopts a sceptical analysis of paranormal claims. For example, Marks said that the original claims of remote viewing experiments were based on flawed experimental procedures. Marks also said that Uri Geller was able to hoodwink scientists, journalists and the many members of the public with a series of simple but audacious sleights of hand. Marks book, co-authored with the late Richard Kammann, The Psychology of the Psychic (Marks & Kammann 1980; 2nd edn. Marks 2000; Forewords to both editions by Martin Gardner) describes these case studies of paranormal claims together with a set of principles for explaining how people may believe so strongly in paranormal claims, such as psychological phenomena for the generation of paranormal beliefs is subjective validation, a process through which people find a correspondence between randomly paired events, including coincidences (Marks, 2000).

Literacy and IQ

Marks (2010) published a new explanation of why IQ scores systematically vary across time, race and nationality. Marks (2010) hypothesizes that IQ differences across time, race and nationality are all caused by differences in literacy. Intelligence test performance requires literacy skills not present in all people to the same extent. In eight different analyses mean full scale IQ and literacy scores yielded correlations ranging from .79 to .99. Racial differences in IQ and the Flynn effect both have a similar explanation: literacy differences across race and across time could be the cause of both. Racial IQ differences are converging as the literacy skills within two populations become more equal. Thus racial differences have an environmental cause, just like the Flynn effect.

References

• Cui, X., Jeter, C.B., Yang, D., Montague, P.R.,& Eagleman, D.M. (2007). "Vividness of mental imagery: Individual variability can be measured objectively". Vision Research, 47, 474-478.

http://www.hnl.bcm.tmc.edu/articles/ScienceDirect2007.pdf

• Francome, C. & Marks, D.F. (1996). Improving the Health of the Nation: The Failure of the Government's Health Reforms. London: Middlesex University Press. ISBN 978-1-898253-05-1
• Gur, R.C. & Hilgard, E.R. (1975). "Visual imagery and discrimination of differences between altered pictures simultaneously and successively presented". British Journal of Psychology, 66, 341-345.
• Marks, D.F. (1973). "Visual imagery differences in the recall of pictures". British Journal of Psychology, 64, 17-24.
• Marks, D.F. (Ed.) (1986). Theories of Image Formation. Bronx, N.Y.: Brandon House. ISBN 0-913412-18-X (cloth).
• Marks, D.F. (1993). The QUIT FOR LIFE Programme: An Easier Way To Quit Smoking and Not Start Again. Leicester: British Psychological Society.
• Marks, D.F. (1995). "New directions for mental imagery research". Journal of Mental Imagery, 19, 153-167.
• Marks, D.F. (2000). The Psychology of the Psychic (2nd Ed.). New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 1573927988
• Marks, D.F. (2002). The Health Psychology Reader. London: SAGE Publications. ISBN 9780761972716 ISBN 9780761972709
• Marks, D.F. (2005). Overcoming Your Smoking Habit. London: Robinson. ISBN 978-1-84529-067-2
• Marks, D.F. (2009). Reussir a surmonter le Reflex cigarette (French edition). Paris: InterEditions-Dunod. ISBN 978-2-7296-0979-5
• Marks, D.F. & Kammann, R. (1980). The Psychology of the Psychic. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-87975-121-5 (cloth) ISBN 0-87975-122-3 (paper)
• Marks, D.F., Murray, M., Evans, B. & Willig, C. (2003). Health Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice (Chinese Edition). Taiwan. ISBN 957-0420-78-2
• Marks, D.F., Murray, M., Evans, B., Willig, C., Woodall, C. & Sykes, C. (2005). Health Psychology. Theory, Research & Practice (2nd Ed.). London: SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-1-4129-0336-3 ISBN 1-4129-0336-X
• Marks, D.F., Murray, M., Evans, B., Willig, C., Woodall, C. & Sykes, C.M. (2007). Health Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice (Indian Edition). New Delhi: SAGE Publications.
• Marks, D.F., Murray, M., Evans, B., Willig, C., Woodall, C. & Sykes, C.M. (2008). Psicologia de la Salud. Mexico: Manual Moderna. ISBN 970-729-332-2 ISBN 978-970-729-332-8
• David F. Marks, Michael Murray, Brian Evans & Emee Vida Estacio (2011) Health Psychology. Theory-Research-Practice (3rd Ed.) Sage Publications. ISBN 1848606222 (hbk) 978-1848606227 (pbk).
• Marks, D. F. & Sykes, C.M. (2000). Dealing with dementia: Recent European research. London: Middlesex University Press. ISBN 1898253323
• Marks, D.F. & Yardley, L. (2004). Research Methods for Clinical and Health Psychology. London: SAGE Publications. ISBN 0761971912 (pb)
• Marks, D.F. (2010). "IQ variations across time, race, and nationality: an artifact of differences in literacy skills". Psychological Reports, 106, 643-664.
• Rodway, P., Gillies, K. & Schepman, A. (2006). "Vivid imagers are better at detecting salient changes". Journal of Individual Differences 27, 218-228.
• Sulzberger, P. & Marks, D.F. (1977). The Isis Smoking Cessation Programme. Dunedin, New Zealand:Isis Research Centre.
• Who's Who (2011). London:A & C Black.

External links

• ISCHP2011: 7th Biennial ISCHP Conference, Adelaide (South Australia)
• Review of The Psychology of the Psychic (2nd ed.)
• Review of The Psychology of the Psychic
• Review of The Psychology of the Psychic
• Review of The Health Psychology Reader
• PDF of controlled trial of the QUIT FOR LIFE Programme