The conventional assumption in psychology is that our personalities consist of fixed traits that endure over time. The present book takes issue with this over-simple idea and suggests something much more interesting and surprising, known as Reversal Theory. This proposes that we tend to switch back and forth between opposing personalities in the course of our everyday lives. For example, sometimes we are serious and sometimes playful, sometimes we are conforming and sometimes rebellious. A...

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...

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 guide covers the basic principles of psychology for introductory courses. It includes information on sensation, perception, memory, personality, abnormal behavior and much more.

Our understanding of how the human brain performs mathematical calculations is far from complete, but in recent years there have been many exciting breakthroughs by scientists all over the world. Now, in The Number Sense, Stanislas Dehaene offers a fascinating look at this recent research, in an enlightening exploration of the mathematical mind. Dehaene begins with the eye-opening discovery that animals--including rats, pigeons, raccoons, and chimpanzees--can perform simple mathem...

Based on former FBI Special Agent Joe Navarro's experience as a criminal profiler and behavior specialist, this short booklet/checklist – "Narcissists Among Us" – provides the average person with the tools necessary to spot and assess Narcissistic personalities.This is a must read for anyone who wants to protect themselves, their children, or their loved ones. The short booklet offers practical guidance and a comprehensive checklist of over 100 typical behaviors and traits that are...

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience to better understand emotion.We are hardwired to connect with one another, and we connect through our emotions. Our brains, bodies, and minds are inseparable from the emotions that animate them.Normal human development relies on the cultivation of relationships with others to form and nurture the self-regulatory circuits that enable emotion to enrich, rather than enslave, our lives. And just as emotionally traumatic events can tear apart...

When historian Charles Weiner found pages of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman's notes, he saw it as a "record" of Feynman's work. Feynman himself, however, insisted that the notes were not a record but the work itself. In Supersizing the Mind, Andy Clark argues that our thinking doesn't happen only in our heads but that "certain forms of human cognizing include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward and feed-around loops: loops that promiscuously criss-cross t...

Explore the human condition through the great thinkers in psychology.This brand new edition of the bestselling 50 Psychology Classics includes new classics like Thinking, Fast and Slow; Quiet and The Marshmallow Test.In a journey spanning 50 books, hundreds of ideas and over a century, 50 Psychology Classics looks at some of the most intriguing questions relating to what motivates us, what makes us feel and act in certain ways, h...

Addresses the flurry of questions about the practical application of neuroscience in clinical treatment.Recent advances in research in the fields of attachment, trauma, and the neurobiology of emotion have shown that mind, brain, and body are inextricably linked. This new research has revolutionized our understanding of the process of change in psychotherapy and in life, and raised a flurry of questions about the practical application of neuroscience in clinical tr...

Understanding Consciousness, 2nd Edition provides a unique survey and evaluation of consciousness studies, along with an original analysis of consciousness that combines scientific findings, philosophy and common sense. Building on the widely praised first edition, this new edition adds fresh research, and deepens the original analysis in a way that reflects some of the fundamental changes in the understanding of consciousness that have taken place over the last 10 years.T...

Lying is an intrinsic part of our social fabric, but it is also a deeply problematic and misunderstood aspect of what makes us human. Ian Leslie takes us on a fascinating journey that makes us question not only our own relationship to the truth, but also virtually every daily encounter we have. On the way he dissects the history of the lie detector, how parents affect their children's attitude to lying (and vice versa), Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the philosophical ambiguity of telling...