|
|
Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Philosophy & theory of psychology > Behavioural theory (Behaviourism)
People with OCD may be unable to leave their homes, to touch
doorknobs that might be covered with germs, to drive down a block
without turning back to see if they have run over a child. With a
focus on the practical, this book integrates behavioral and
pharmacological approaches to OCD and related disorders, such as
hypochondriasis, eating disorders, and compulsive self-harm. It
covers behavioral, cognitive, biological, and pharmacological
treatments.
This book provides a solution to the ecological inference
problem, which has plagued users of statistical methods for over
seventy-five years: How can researchers reliably infer
individual-level behavior from aggregate (ecological) data? In
political science, this question arises when individual-level
surveys are unavailable (for instance, local or comparative
electoral politics), unreliable (racial politics), insufficient
(political geography), or infeasible (political history). This
ecological inference problem also confronts researchers in numerous
areas of major significance in public policy, and other academic
disciplines, ranging from epidemiology and marketing to sociology
and quantitative history. Although many have attempted to make such
cross-level inferences, scholars agree that all existing methods
yield very inaccurate conclusions about the world. In this volume,
Gary King lays out a unique--and reliable--solution to this
venerable problem.
King begins with a qualitative overview, readable even by those
without a statistical background. He then unifies the apparently
diverse findings in the methodological literature, so that only one
aggregation problem remains to be solved. He then presents his
solution, as well as empirical evaluations of the solution that
include over 16,000 comparisons of his estimates from real
aggregate data to the known individual-level answer. The method
works in practice.
King's solution to the ecological inference problem will enable
empirical researchers to investigate substantive questions that
have heretofore proved unanswerable, and move forward fields of
inquiry in which progress has been stifled by this problem.
'Packed with fresh and clear insights that will change the way you
think about the world' Uri Gneezy 'One of those books that you pick
up and then can't put down' Steve Stewart-Williams 'This is a book
I will come back to again and again' Nichola Raihani How game
theory - the ultimate theory of rationality - explains irrational
behaviour. In Hidden Games, MIT economists Moshe Hoffman and Erez
Yoeli find a surprising middle ground between the hyperrationality
of classical economics and the hyper-irrationality of behavioural
economics. They call it hidden games. Reviving game theory, Hoffman
and Yoeli use it to explain our most puzzling behaviour, from the
mechanics of Stockholm syndrome and internalised misogyny to why we
help strangers and have a sense of fairness. Fun and powerfully
insightful, Hidden Games is an eye-opening argument for using game
theory to explain all the irrational things we think, feel, and do
and will change how you think forever.
Compulsory voting is widely used in the democratic world, and it is
well established that it increases electoral participation. Beyond
Turnout: How Compulsory Voting Shapes Citizens and Political
Parties assesses the effects of compulsory voting beyond turnout.
Singh first summarizes the normative arguments for and against
compulsory voting, provides information on its contemporary use,
reviews recent events pertaining to its (proposed) adoption and
abolition, and provides an extensive account of extant research on
its consequences. He then advances a theory that compulsory voting
polarizes behavior and attitudes, and broadens gaps in political
sophistication levels, among those with negative and positive
orientations toward democracy. Recognizing the impact of mandatory
voting on the electorate, political parties then alter the ways in
which they seek votes, with mainstream parties moderating their
platforms and smaller parties taking more extreme positions. Singh
uses survey data from countries with compulsory voting to show that
support for the requirement to vote is driven by individuals'
orientations toward democracy. The theory is then comprehensively
tested using: cross-national data; cross-cantonal data from
Switzerland; and survey data from Argentina. Empirical results are
largely indicative of the theorized process whereby compulsory
voting has divergent effects on citizens and political parties. The
book concludes with a discussion of future directions for academic
research, implications for those who craft electoral policy, and
alternative ways of boosting turnout. Comparative Politics is a
series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science
that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in
scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on
comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series
is published in association with the European Consortium for
Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The
series is edited by Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of
Political Science, University of Houston, and Jonathan Slapin,
Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics,
Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.
|
|