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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Philosophy & theory of psychology > Behavioural theory (Behaviourism)
Why do people persist in commitments that threaten their happiness,
security, and comfort? Why do some of our most central,
identity-defining commitments seem to resist the effects of
reasoning and critical reflection? Drawing on real-life examples,
empirical psychology, and philosophical reflection, Paul Katsafanas
argues that these commitments involve an ethical stance called
devotion, which plays a pervasive-but often hidden-role in human
life. Devotion typically involves sacralizing certain values,
goals, or relationships. To sacralize a value is to treat it as
inviolable (trade-offs with ordinary values are forbidden),
incontestable (even contemplating such trade-offs is prohibited),
and dialectically invulnerable (no rational considerations can
disrupt the agent's commitment to the value). Philosophy of
Devotion offers a detailed philosophical account and defense of
these features. Devotion and the sacralization of values can be
reasonable; indeed, a life involving meaningful, sustained
commitment depends on these stances. Without devotion, we risk an
existential condition that Katsafanas describes as normative
dissipation, in which all of our commitments become etiolated. Yet
devotion can easily go wrong, deforming into the individual and
group fanaticism that have become pervasive features of modern
social life. Katsafanas provides an alternative to fanaticism,
investigating the way in which we can express non-pathological
forms of devotion. We can be devoted through affirmation and
through what Katsafanas calls the deepening move, which treats the
agent's central commitments as systematically inchoate. Each of
these stances enables a wholehearted form of devotion that
nevertheless preserves flexibility and openness, avoiding the
dangers of fanaticism on the one hand and normative dissipation on
the other. But this is inevitably a fragile and precarious
achievement: affirmation can slide into a focus on rejecting what
isn't affirmed, and the deepening move can ossify into rigidity.
Only the perpetual quest to maintain a form of existential
flexibility, which may require oscillation between affirmation and
deepening, can stave off these dangers
A complete reference to the fields of psychology and behavioral
science Volume 4 is the final volume in The Corsini Encyclopedia of
Psychology and Behavioral Science series. Providing psychologists,
teachers, researchers, and students with complete reference for
over 1,200 topics across four volumes, this resource in invaluable
for both clinical and research settings. Coverage includes
conditions, assessments, scales, diagnoses, treatments, and more,
including biographies on psychologists of note and psychological
organizations from across the globe. The Third Edition has been
updated to reflect the growing impact of neuroscience and
biomedical research, providing a highly relevant reference for the
highest standard of care.
In this classic work, John Steinbruner argues that the time is
ripe for exploration of a new theoretical perspective on the
decision-making process in government. He suggests that the
cybernetic theory of decision as developed in such diverse fields
as information theory, mathematical logic, and behavioral
psychology generates a systematic but non-rational analysis that
seems to explain quite naturally decisions that are puzzling when
viewed from the rational perspective. When combined with the basic
understanding of human mental operations developed in cognitive
psychology, the cybernetic theory of decision presents a striking
picture of how decision makers deal with the intense uncertainty
and fundamental value conflicts that arise in bureaucratic
politics. To illustrate the advantages of using cybernetic theory,
Steinbruner analyzes the issue of sharing nuclear weapons among the
NATO allies.
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.
Although there is extensive literature in the field of
behavioral ecology that attempts to explain foraging of
individuals, social foraging--the ways in which animals search and
compete for food in groups--has been relatively neglected. This
book redresses that situation by providing both a synthesis of the
existing literature and a new theory of social foraging. Giraldeau
and Caraco develop models informed by game theory that offer a new
framework for analysis. "Social Foraging Theory" contains the most
comprehensive theoretical approach to its subject, coupled with
quantitative methods that will underpin future work in the field.
The new models and approaches that are outlined here will encourage
new research directions and applications.
To date, the analysis of social foraging has lacked unifying
themes, clear recognition of the problems inherent in the study of
social foraging, and consistent interaction between theory and
experiments. This book identifies social foraging as an economic
interaction between the actions of individuals and those of other
foragers. This interdependence raises complex questions about the
size of foraging groups, the diversity of resources used, and the
propensity of group members to exploit each other or forage
cooperatively. The models developed in the book will allow
researchers to test their own approaches and predictions. Many
years in development, Social Foraging Theory will interest
researchers and graduate students in such areas as behavioral
ecology, population ecology, evolutionary biology, and wildlife
management.
'Smart, engaging and funny. It will make you question everything
you think you know about what you want' Caroline Criado Perez,
author of Invisible Women Be ambitious; find everlasting love; look
after your health ... There are countless stories about how we
ought to live our lives. These narratives can make our lives
easier, and they might sometimes make us happier too. But they can
also trap us and those around us. In Happy Ever After, bestselling
happiness expert Professor Paul Dolan draws on a variety of studies
ranging over wellbeing, inequality and discrimination to bust the
common myths about our sources of happiness. He shows that there
can be many unexpected paths to lasting fulfilment. Some of these
might involve not going into higher education, choosing not to
marry, rewarding acts rooted in self-interest and caring a little
less about living forever. By freeing ourselves from the myth of
the perfect life, we might each find a life worth living.
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.
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