This book, originally published in 1970, concerns the new technique of computer simulation in psychology at the time. Computer programs described include models of learning, problem-solving, pattern recognition, the use of language, and personality. More general topics are discussed including the evaluation of such models, the relation of the field to cybernetics, and the problem posed by consciousness. Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context.

This book, originally published in 1970, concerns the new technique of computer simulation in psychology at the time. Computer programs described include models of learning, problem-solving, pattern recognition, the use of language, and personality. More general topics are discussed including the evaluation of such models, the relation of the field to cybernetics, and the problem posed by consciousness. Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context.

In order to gain a clearer understanding of stress and its physical and psychological consequences, reversal theory takes into account the fact that many people need stress in their lives in order to operate. This text organizes stress and health research that has been undertaken within the reversal theory framework. The first two chapters outline and provide a focus about reversal theory, thus acting as a bridge to the rest of the text. For those new to reversal theory, tables and figures are included which summarize some of the characteristics of the metamotivational states identified in the theory, and show how they can be applied systematically. The following section deals with the effects of stress, including: stressful events; academic stress; and back pain and work stress. It then tackles the subjects of the physiology and psychology of smoking and attempts to quit this sort of addiction, and the risk-taking behaviours of parachuting and unsafe sexual practice. Finally the book examines health-promoting behaviours and the factors which facilitate or inhibit them.

First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Why do we slow down to look at car accidents? Why would rich people shoplift? What draws people to parachuting, military service, and sadistic sex? These are just some of the questions this book unravels in its investigation of our paradoxical liking of danger. Using the concept of a 'protective frame', drawn from Reversal Theory, Danger: Our Love of Living on the Edge explains how, even in dangerous situations (often because of them!) anxiety becomes excitement and fear, exhilaration--transforming the horrifying into the heavenly. Examining different kinds of protective frames and how they affect our behaviour, as well as how they are institutionalized in our culture, this book explores how excitement-seeking can lead to disaster for ourselves or others, how it opens us to manipulation-but also how it can be uniquely creative and life-enhancing. An intellectual tour de force, Danger throws light on a critically important but often neglected force of human nature and culture.

Grand theories in psychology, you might think, have been out of fashion for quite some time. However, since its inception in the early 1980s, reversal theory has attracted a great deal of professional attention and scholarly interest has seen rapid growth in recent years. In this seminal work, Michael J. Apter puts forward a new framework for understanding the structure of mental experience, rejecting many widely-accepted psychological assumptions. Behaviour, he says, can only be understood by reference to the subjective meaning assigned to it by the actor. Cognition as the sole focus of psychological analysis is erroneous - motivation and emotion must be reinstated as equally central concerns, and understood on their own terms. Furthermore, he argues, personality is not a conglomeration of static traits, but rather a dynamic, interactive matrix of change. Demystifying behaviour, cognition, emotion, motivation and what it is to be a person, reversal theory is a revolutionary take on the psyche of man. Including chapters on past research and where the future is headed, this book represents its most concise and complete statement to date.