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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Philosophy & theory of psychology > Behavioural theory (Behaviourism)
Why are people often so unpredictable? Why do they do things which can often cause great personal harm even whey they know this to be the case? This volume seeks to address these and many other enduring questions through a detailed discussion of the chaotic nature of human existence. It explores three general areas, the first of which is neurobiology and genetics. The evolution of the mind is examined from a Darwinian perspective, drawing attention to the way chance and uncertainty in development are structured by natural selection. Key findings from current biological and medical research are reviewed, the interrelationship between genetics and experience is explored, and Gerald Edelman's theory of the evolution of the mind through natural selection is discussed. The second theme, cognition and collective action, is considered in the light of evidence indicating that the way we think is also subject to natural selection. Furthermore, it is argued that there is a meaningful distinction between reason (adaptive rationality) and formal rationality. Finally, recent research into chaos theory, order and complexity is reviewed.
This volume is intended to fill a niche in the statistical toolbox of behavioural scientists. Most know two important concepts - how to analyze continuous data from randomly assigned treatment groups of subjects and how to assess practice effects for a single group of subjects given a constant treatment at each of several stages of practice. However, except in the case of the repeated measures Latin square design, researchers are not facile in analyzing data from different subjects receiving different treatments at various times in an experiment. As the opening chapter states and later chapters elaborate, randomization of treatment sequences for different subjects may lead to unbiased conventional estimates of treatment effects and of time-related effects. Yet, the standard errors of such estimates may be unduly large because the error sums of squares include contributions from nuisance variables such as stage-of-practice effects when treatment effects are of interest.
Cognitive style may well turn out to be the missing element in the study of individual differences. This book reviews and integrates research on style differences in learning and behavior and describes the Cognitive Styles Analysis, which provides a simple and effective method of assessing style in children and adults. As both a textbook and a source of reference for professionals working in a range of contexts, it will help teachers and trainers reflect on and assess their effectiveness. The authors provide insights into personal and professional behavior for counselors and personnel professionals and offer a framework for future research for psychologists.
Interactional dilemmas occur when participants are required to
engage in two contradictory activities at the same time or orient
to two conflicting goals. The existence of such dilemmas provides a
context for interactants to be creative, pro-active, and indeed
strategic as they maneuver between the numerous demands placed on
them and produce behavior that fits the ongoing communication
episode. Trials are one such episode in which the various
participants -- in this case, the judge, the defendant, and lawyers
-- experience interactional dilemmas and work to resolve these
through their behavior.
"I know my own mind. "From the Hardcover edition."
This book is about reactions to interpersonal conflict such as avoiding, negotiating, and fighting. It breaks away from the prevailing assumption that conflict behaviours are mutually isolated reactions having mutually isolated effects. Instead, reactions are viewed as components of complex conflict behaviour that influence each other's impact on the substantive and relational outcomes. The simultaneous and sequential occurrence of, for example, problem solving and fighting should therefore be studied together and not separately. The author presents a ladder of stepwise increases in theoretical quality, and designs the sequence of chapters in such a way that the theoretical value increases step by step. The lower steps lead to the description of behavioural components and to a model of integrative and distributive dimensions. The upper steps lead to the dimensions of dual concern for one's own and the other's goals and to complexity explanations in terms of the novel paradigm of conglomerated conflict behaviour. The chapters are summarised into thirty-four interrelated propositions. Six empirical studies demonstrate the validity of crucial propositions at each level of the theoretical framework. This monograph primarily reaches out to an academic readership. However, due to its clear structure, its comprehensive propositions, its frequent use of figures, and its glossary, the book will also provide an invaluable resource for any student and practitioner interested in conflict management and negotiation.
This scholarly yet highly readable and practical text
systematically covers the importance, development, assessment, and
treatment of social skills of children and adolescents. Combining
scientific rigor with a highly approachable and readable style of
writing to create a practical and unique book, this volume provides
a comprehensive overview of the increasingly important topic of
child and adolescent social skills. A wide variety of tables,
figures, and practical step-by-step guides enhance the material
presented, making it particularly useful for practitioners while
offering an extensive array of recent research and models of
interest to researchers. The authors present a solid foundation of
scientific knowledge written in a manner accessible to
nonscientists and having ample practical implications and examples
for educational and clinical practice. The book is divided into two
parts--the first features a foundation for conceptualizing and
assessing child and adolescent social skills, whereas the second
focuses on the arena of intervention. An up-to-date and unique
addition to the literature, this volume will be of interest to
professionals who work with or study children across several
disciplines including school and clinical child psychology, special
education, counseling, and social work.
This book showcases papers presented at the annual Advertising and
Consumer Psychology Conference. The contributors -- active scholars
with both practitioner and academic backgrounds -- share an
interest in the general area of psychographics, values, and
lifestyle in advertising.
This book challenges the assumptions of the event-dominated DSM
model of posttraumatic stress disorder. Bowmam examines a series of
questions directed at the current mental health model, reviewing
the empirical literature. She finds that the dose-response
assumptions are not supported; the severity of events is not
reliable associated with PTSD, but is more reliably associated with
important pre-event risk factors. She reviews evidence showing the
greater role of individual differences including trait negative
affectivity, belief systems, and other risk factors, in comparison
with event characteristics, in predicting the disorder. The
implications for treatment are significant, as treatment protocols
reflect the DSM assertion that event exposure is the cause of the
disorder, implying it should be the focus of treatment. Bowman also
suggests that an event focus in diagnosis anad treatment risks
increases the disorder because it does not provide sufficient
attention to important pre-exisiting risk factors.
This volume provides a primarily nontechnical summary of
experimental and theoretical work conducted over the course of 35
years which resulted in a developmental framework capable of
integrating causal influences at the genetic, neural, behavioral,
and ecological levels of analysis. It describes novel solutions to
the nature-nurture problem at both the empirical and theoretical
levels. Following field observations, laboratory experiments led to
the discovery of the nonobvious prenatal experiential basis of
instinctive behavior in two species--ground-nesting mallard
ducklings and hole-nesting wood ducklings. This work also describes
the experiences that lead to the rigid canalization of behavioral
development as well as the social and sensory experiences that
favor the continuance of flexibility. The author also describes in
detail a developmental psychobiological systems view that supports
a behaviorally and psychologically mediated pathway to evolutionary
change in humans and other species. Written in a way that is
readable to even the nonspecialist, the text is accompanied by
numerous photographs that illuminate and add personal meaning to
the written words. Readers will be engaged by the emphasis on the
human aspect of the scientific enterprise.
As Skinner argued so pointedly, the more we know about the
situational causes of psychological phenomena, the less need we
have for postulating internal conscious mediating processes to
explain those phenomena. Now, as the purview of social psychology
is precisely to discover those situational causes of thinking,
feeling, and acting in the real or implied presence of other
people, it is hard to escape the forecast that as knowledge
progresses regarding social psychological phenomena there will be
less of a role played by free will or conscious choice in
accounting for them. In other words, because of social psychology's
natural focus on the situational determinants of thinking, feeling,
and doing, it is inevitable that social psychological phenomena
increasingly will be found to be automatic in nature.
There is a tremendous concern and interest in the number of
chemical dependents with co-existing compulsive behaviors. However,
no one has developed a theory that can explain the high prevalence
of compulsive behaviors in chemical dependents, and more
importantly, describe the treatment and recovery implications. The
literature and professionals are divided with the
counselors/clinicians on one side and the researchers on the other.
The authors try to bridge this obvious gap by writing a book that
can bring recent genetic/biochemical research to the
counselor/clinician in a way that will help them diagnose and treat
their patients.
Why do some young adults substantially change their patterns of
smoking, drinking, or illicit drug use after graduating from high
school? In this book, the authors show that leaving high school and
leaving home create new freedoms that are linked to increases in
the use of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. They also
show that marriage, pregnancy, and parenthood create new
responsibilities that are linked to decreases in drug use.
Everyday conversations including gossip, boasting, flirting,
teasing, and informative discussions are highly creative,
"improvised" interactions. Children's play is also an important,
often improvisational activity. One of the most improvisational
games among 3- to 5-year-old children is "social pretend
play"--also called fantasy play, sociodramatic play, or role play.
Children's imaginations have free reign during pretend play.
Conversations in these play episodes are far more improvisational
than the average adult conversation. Because pretend play occurs in
a dramatized, fantasy world, it is less constrained by social and
physical reality.
As we begin a new century, the astonishing spread of nationally and internationally accessible computer-based communication networks has touched the imagination of people everywhere. Suddenly, the Internet is in everyday parlance, featured in talk shows, in special business "technology" sections of major newspapers, and on the covers of national magazines. If the Internet is a new world of social behavior it is also a new world for those who study social behavior. This volume is a compendium of essays and research reports representing how researchers are thinking about the social processes of electronic communication and its effects in society. Taken together, the chapters comprise a first gathering of social psychological research on electronic communication and the Internet. The authors of these chapters work in different disciplines and have different goals, research methods, and styles. For some, the emergence and use of new technologies represent a new perspective on social and behavioral processes of longstanding interest in their disciplines. Others want to draw on social science theories to understand technology. A third group holds to a more activist program, seeking guidance through research to improve social interventions using technology in domains such as education, mental health, and work productivity. Each of these goals has influenced the research questions, methods, and inferences of the authors and the "look and feel" of the chapters in this book. Intended primarily for researchers who seek exposure to diverse approaches to studying the human side of electronic communication and the Internet, this volume has three purposes: * to illustrate how scientists are thinking about the social processes and effects of electronic communication; * to encourage research-based contributions to current debates on electronic communication design, applications, and policies; and * to suggest, by example, how studies of electronic communication can contribute to social science itself.
Speech and language therapists are becoming increasingly involved in working with people who have progressive neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease. This management pack encompasses initial assessment, regular reviews, support for both client and carer and the possibility of individual or group therapy. The programme is designed to give a framework for setting up and running a comprehensive speech/language therapy service for those with Parkinson's disease and related conditions. The first section considers some theoretical issues associated with Parkinson's disease and Parkinsonism explaining terminology and common drugs used for these conditions. It also describes the management programme insome detail, and gives suggestions for increasing referral rates to speech/language therapy. The second section provides all the information needed to run the course, including helpful hints on do's and don'ts, a timetable of all the necessary activities and photocopiable standard letters and forms. The final section is the information pack that is given to participants. It includes exercises to improve facial expression, breathing, volume of voice, speed of speech and stress, intonation and some ideas to help eating and drinking.
The novelist Joseph Conrad expressed a great truth when he said: "The mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as the future," Our evolutionary history of noble acts and foul deeds, leading to survival and reproduction, guarantees that we understand the most essential facets of our physical and social environment. The nature of our struggles--our lusts, our fears, our objectivity, our irra-tionality--lies embedded in our cellular DNA and the neurons of our mind, there to play itself out much like it did in the past and much like it will in the future. Many have seen the links between our minds and the universe, the common thread of our existence and the inevitability of our loves and hates. This book includes many demonstrations that our nature has been on the minds and lips of many--poets, play-wrights, philosophers, historians, novelists, kings, slaves, religious leaders, and the great-est of knaves. From Ralph Waldo Emerson to Arthur Schopenhauer, from Aldous Huxley to Arthur Conan Doyle, from Aristotle to William Shakespeare, the truths about our-selves have come tumbling out. Reflecting on their thoughts we see ourselves. The universal nature of our being reflects our common origins and our bittersweet destiny. In A Sociobiology Compendium, Del Thiessen mines the richness of biological inves-tigations of human behavior, comparing current views of human behavior with expres-sions by non-scientists who have, in one way or another, touched the evolutionary strings of men and women. He begins each section with a brief account of biological notions of human behavior. The book shows in astonishing ways how the earlier thoughts of men and women from all cultures anticipate the biological observations about our being. A Sociobiology Compendium will be engaging reading for all psychologists, sociologists, and biologists.
The opening of the former Soviet Union to the West has provided an
opportunity to describe Russian human factors/ergonomics and to
compare American theories and methods with it. Although this book
is principally dedicated to describing the theory of activity as it
applies to issues of design and training, it is also offered to a
general audience of psychologists and interested lay readers. This
theory studies the goal-directed behavior of man and attempts to
integrate the cognitive, motivational, and behavioral aspects of
activity into a holistic system. Such fundamental notions as goal,
action, and self-regulation are described and analyzed from totally
different theoretical points of view.
Seen in modern perspective, the concept of national character poses fundamental problems for social science theory and research: To what extent do conditions of life in a particular society give rise to certain patterns in the personalities of its members? What are the consequences? Alex Inkeles surveys various definitions of national character, tracing developments through the twentieth century. His approach is to examine the regularity of specific personality patterns among individuals in a society. He argues that modal personality may be extremely important in determining which new cultural elements are accepted and which institutional forms persist in a society. Reviewing previous studies, Inkeles canvasses the attitudes and psychological states of different nations in an effort to discover a set of values in the United States. He concludes that, despite recent advances in the field, there is much to be done before we can have a clear picture of the degree of differentiation in the personality structure of modern nations. Until now, there were few formal definitions and discussions on national character and the limits of this field of study. This book will be of great interest to psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and political theorists.
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