James E Maddux

James E Maddux

James E Maddux

Emeritus Faculty

Clinical Psychology: Maddux's major scholarly interest is the interface of social, clinical, and health psychology, which is concerned with the ways that theory and research from social psychology can help us understand psychological adjustment, psychological disorders, and health-related behavior.

University Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar, Center for the Advancement of Well-Being.  

Maddux earned his Ph.D in clinical psychology (with a minor in social psychology) from the University of Alabama in 1981, including an internship in medical psychology at the former University of Oregon Health Sciences Center (now the Oregon Health and Science University).  At George Mason he served as the associate chair for graduate programs in psychology and director of the clinical psychology doctoral program.  He is the former editor of the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology and has served on the editorial boards of several other scientific journals in psychology.  For ten years he was a member of the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards' Examination Committee, which is responsible for the Examination for the Practice of Professional Psychology used throughout the US and Canada as a requirement for licensure in psychology.

Maddux is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association in the Divisions of General, Clinical, and Health Psychology and a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. In 2007 he received the George Mason University College of Humanities and Social Science's Celebration of Scholarship Award, and in 2008 was named a University Professor. In September of 2013 he was appointed a Senior Scholar in George Mason University's Center for the Advancement of Well-Being.  

Maddux was a Guest Professor in 2003 - 2004 at the Free University in Berlin, Germany and has been a guest lecturer at Sigmund Freud University in Vienna, Austria.  For five years he was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology at Klaipeda University in Lithuania where he taught cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy in their masters' program in counseling psychology and consulted on program development.

Maddux retired from full-time employment at George Mason in May of 2011. His mission since then has been to facilitate well-being around the world through the promotion of psychological science. His major professional activities have included lecturing, organizing and giving workshops, and teaching on evidence-based practice and supervision primarily in--but not limited to--the former communist bloc countries of Eastern Europe.  He also has presented workshops on publishing in English-language psychology journals for psychologists for whom English is a second language. These activities have been funded by George Mason University, the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, the European Union via the Lithuanian Science Foundation, the Fulbright Specialist Program, the various universities he has visited, and his own wallet. All of this work has been pro bono because he believes in "giving psychology away."  This includes taking advantage of invitations from journalists to discuss the science on psychological issues of interest and importance to the public.

His edited volume Subjective Well-Being and Life Satisfaction for the Routledge series "Frontiers in Social Psychology" was published in early 2018.  A second edition is in preparation for publication in 2024. 

The 6th edition of his textbook (co-edited with Barbara Winstead of Old Dominion University) Psychopathology: Foundations for a Contemporary Understanding is in preparation and scheduled to be published in the summer of 2024.

He continues to serve on occasion as a site visitor for the American Psychological Association's Commission on Accreditation, which is responsible for the accreditation of health service psychology doctoral programs.

 

Selected Publications

Books:

Maddux, J.E., & Tangney, J. P. (Eds). (2010). Social psychological foundations of clinical psychology. New York: Guilford.

Maddux, J. E. (Ed.) (2018). Subjective well-being and life satisfaction. New York: Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis.

Maddux, J.E., & Winstead, B.A. (Eds.) (2020). Psychopathology: Foundations for a contemporary understanding (5th edition.). New York: Routledge.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

Maddux, J. E., & Volkmann, J. R. (2010). Self-efficacy and self-regulation. In R. Hoyle (Ed.), Handbook of personality and self-regulation. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

Maddux, J.E., & Gosselin, J.T.(2012). Self-efficacy. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford.

Maddux, J.E., Feldman, D. B., & Snyder, C.R. (2014). Promoting mental health and psychological well-being. In T. Gullotta & M. Bloom (Eds), Encyclopedia of primary prevention and health promotion(2nd ed.). New York: Kluwer/Plenum.

Maddux, J.E., & Dawson, K. (2014). Promoting physical fitness in adulthood: A focus on exercise. In T. Gullotta & M. Bloom (Eds), Encyclopedia of primary prevention and health promotion (2nd ed.). New York: Kluwer/Plenum.

Maddux J. E. (2014). Mental health and self-esteem. In W. C. Cockerham, R. Dingwall, & S. Quah (Eds.). Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior and Society. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

Maddux, J. E., & Dawson, K. (2014).  Psychological models of exercise behavior:  How to reduce the information-intention-behavior gap.  In R. Gomes, R. Resende, & A. Albuquerque (Eds.), Positive human functioning from a multdimensional perspective. New York: Nova Science Publishers. 

Gelo, O. C. G., Vilei, A., Maddux, J. E., & Gennaro, A. (2015). Psychopathology as social construction: The case of anorexia nervosa. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 28 (2), 105-125.

Maddux, J. E., & Kleiman, E. (2016). Self-efficacy. In A. Wood & J. Johnson (Eds.), Handbook of positive clinical psychology. New York: Wiley

Maddux, J. E. (2016). Toward a more positive clinical psychology: Deconstructing the illness ideology and psychiatric diagnosis. In A. Wood & J. Johnson (Eds.), Handbook of positive clinical psychology. New York: Wiley. 

Maddux, J. E. (2021).  Stopping the madness: Positive psychology and the deconstruction of the illness ideology and the DSM.  In S. J. Lopez, L. M. Edwards, & S. C. Marques (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Maddux, J. E. (2021). Self-efficacy: The power of believing you can.   In S. J. Lopez, L. M. Edwards, & S. C. Marques (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Maddux, J. E. (2021). Foreword. In S. J. Lopez, L. M. Edwards, & S. C. Marques (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

 

Education

B.A., University of Richmond (1976).

M.A., University of Alabama (1979)

Ph.D., University of Alabama (1982)

Recent Presentations

 

Maddux, J. E. (2013, July). Social psychological foundations of clinical psychology: Basic principles and applications. Invited address at Department of Psychology, Titu Maiorescu University, Bucharest, Romania.

Maddux, J. E. (2013, July). (Chair). The science of well-being: Evidence-based interventions for children, adolescents, and families. (Three-day workshop series.) Department of Psychology, Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria.

Maddux, J. E. (2015, August). The social psychology of clinical perception and judgment: The inconvenient truth. Invited keynote address (Division 8: Society of Personality and Social Psychology), Annual meeting of the American Psychological Association; Toronto, Canada.

 Maddux, J. E. (2015, July). Writing for and publishing in English-language psychology journals. Workshop presented at Summer Institute for Clinical Psychological Science, University of Porto, Portugal.

Saunders, S., & Maddux, J. E. (2015, July). Clinical supervision: Theory, research, and what we think we’ve learned form 50+ years of doing it. Workshop presented at Summer Institute for Clinical Psychological Science, University of Porto, Portugal.

Maddux, J. E. (2015, November). Clinical psychology in the United States: History, training models, and standards of practice. Invited lecture at Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo, Uruguay.

Saunders, S., & Maddux, J. E. (2016, February). Clinical supervision: Theory, research, and what we think we’ve learned form 50+ years of doing it. One-day workshop presented at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.

Maddux, J. E. (2017, September). Innovations in the delivery of psychosocial mental health services: An overview. Invited address at Lithuanian Ministry of Health Forum on Mental Health across Different Life Stages.  Vilnius, Lithuania.

Maddux, J. E. (2018, March 13).  Self-efficacy as a foundational concept for positive psychology.  The Positive Psychology Leader Series.  International Positive Psychology Association.

 

 

Dissertations Supervised

Anne Marie Strauss, The Relationship Between Premarital Sexual History and Marital Satisfaction for Men (2011)