How the Mind Explains Behavior

How the Mind Explains Behavior
Author: Bertram F. Malle
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2006-08-11
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780262250351

In this provocative monograph, Bertram Malle describes behavior explanations as having a dual nature—as being both cognitive and social acts—and proposes a comprehensive theoretical model that integrates the two aspects. When people try to understand puzzling human behavior, they construct behavior explanations, which are a fundamental tool of social cognition. But, Malle argues, behavior explanations exist not only in the mind; they are also overt verbal actions used for social purposes. When people explain their own behavior or the behavior of others, they are using the explanation to manage a social interaction—by offering clarification, trying to save face, or casting blame. Malle's account makes clear why these two aspects of behavior explanation exist and why they are closely linked; along the way, he illustrates the astonishingly sophisticated and subtle patterns of folk behavior explanations. Malle begins by reviewing traditional attribution theories and their simplified portrayal of behavior explanation. A more realistic portrayal, he argues, must be grounded in the nature, function, and origins of the folk theory of mind—the conceptual framework underlying people's grasp of human behavior and its connection to the mind. Malle then presents a theory of behavior explanations, focusing first on their conceptual structure and then on their psychological construction. He applies this folk-conceptual theory to a number of questions, including the communicative functions of behavior explanations, and the differences in explanations given for self and others as well as for individuals and groups. Finally, he highlights the strengths of the folk-conceptual theory of explanation over traditional attribution theory and points to future research applications.

The Behavioral and Social Sciences

The Behavioral and Social Sciences
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 1988-02-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309037492

This volume explores the scientific frontiers and leading edges of research across the fields of anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, sociology, history, business, education, geography, law, and psychiatry, as well as the newer, more specialized areas of artificial intelligence, child development, cognitive science, communications, demography, linguistics, and management and decision science. It includes recommendations concerning new resources, facilities, and programs that may be needed over the next several years to ensure rapid progress and provide a high level of returns to basic research.

How to Explain Behavior

How to Explain Behavior
Author: Sam S. Rakover
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2017-12-20
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1498536697

In How to Explain Behavior: A Critical Review and New Approach, Sam S. Rakover proposes a critical review of explanation models (procedures); presents explanation as an essential part of research methodology; depicts understanding as based on explanation models and other procedures; provides a list of basic ideas common to most explanation models; supplies an approach that unifies mechanistic explanations as used by the sciences with mentalistic explanations that are based on one's inner world; and provides a general procedure for explaining individual behavior.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Thinking, Fast and Slow
Author: Daniel Kahneman
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 511
Release: 2011-10-25
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1429969350

*Major New York Times Bestseller *More than 2.6 million copies sold *One of The New York Times Book Review's ten best books of the year *Selected by The Wall Street Journal as one of the best nonfiction books of the year *Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient *Daniel Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's best-selling The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds In his mega bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, world-famous psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Topping bestseller lists for almost ten years, Thinking, Fast and Slow is a contemporary classic, an essential book that has changed the lives of millions of readers.

Human Action, Deliberation and Causation

Human Action, Deliberation and Causation
Author: Jan Bransen
Publisher: Boom Koninklijke Uitgevers
Total Pages: 316
Release: 1998-09-30
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780792352044

Contributors explore the fact that our presence as reasonable agents makes a causal difference to the course of events in the world. While each contributor thinks differently about deliberation and causation in human action and the relation between these two processes, all agree that progress in philosophy of mind and action will depend on a better understanding of their relationship. Of interest to those working in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of psychology, and moral psychology. Essays were originally presented at an April 1996 conference, the Utrecht Conference on Human Action and Causality. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Representation and Behavior

Representation and Behavior
Author: Fred Keijzer
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2001-02-12
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0262263327

Keijzer provides a reconstruction of cognitive science's implicit representational explanation of behavior, which he calls Agent Theory (AT), the use of mind as a subpersonal mechanism of behavior. Representation is a fundamental concept within cognitive science. Most often, representations are interpreted as mental representations, theoretical entities that are the bearers of meaning and the source of intentionality. This approach views representation as the internal reflection of external circumstances—that is, as the end station of sensory processes that translate the environmental state of affairs into a set of mental representations. Fred Keijzer stresses, however, that representations are also the starting point for a set of processes that lead back to the external environment. They are used as theoretical components within an explanation of a person's outwardly visible behavior. In this book Keijzer investigates the usefulness of representation for behavioral explanation, irrespective of mental issues. Viewing representation solely in terms of its contribution to explaining behavior allows him to build a serious case for a nonrepresentational approach and to evaluate representation's role in cognitive science. Keijzer provides a reconstruction of cognitive science's implicit representational explanation of behavior, which he calls Agent Theory (AT). AT is the use of mind as a subpersonal mechanism of behavior. He proposes an alternative to AT called Behavioral Systems Theory (BST), which explains behavior as the result of interactions between an organism and its environment. Keijzer compares BST to related work in the biology of cognition, in the building of animal-like robots, and in dynamical systems theory. Most important, he extends BST to the difficult issue of anticipatory behavior through an analogy between behavior and morphogenesis, the process by which a multicellular body develops.

Social Thinking and Interpersonal Behavior

Social Thinking and Interpersonal Behavior
Author: Joseph P. Forgas
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2013
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1848729901

This book reviews some of the most recent advances in research exploring the links between how people think and behave in interpersonal situations. This cutting-edge volume will interest those in the social and behavioral sciences, clinical and counseling psychology, and sociology, communication studies, and social work.

The Neurobiology of Brain and Behavioral Development

The Neurobiology of Brain and Behavioral Development
Author: Robbin Gibb
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2017-10-23
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 012804084X

The Neurobiology of Brain and Behavioral Development provides an overview of the process of brain development, including recent discoveries on how the brain develops. This book collates and integrates these findings, weaving the latest information with core information on the neurobiology of brain development. It focuses on cortical development, but also features discussions on how the other parts of the brain wire into the developing cerebral cortex. A systems approach is used to describe the anatomical underpinnings of behavioral development, connecting anatomical and molecular features of brain development with behavioral development.The disruptors of typical brain development are discussed in appropriate sections, as is the science of epigenetics that presents a novel and instructive approach on how experiences, both individual and intergenerational, can alter features of brain development. What distinguishes this book from others in the field is its focus on both molecular mechanisms and behavioral outcomes. This body of knowledge contributes to our understanding of the fundamentals of brain plasticity and metaplasticity, both of which are also showcased in this book. - Provides an up-to-date overview of the process of brain development that is suitable for use as a university textbook at an early graduate or senior undergraduate level - Breadth from molecular level (Chapters 5-7) to the behavioral/cognitive level (Chapters 8-12), beginning with Chapters 1-4 providing a historical context of the ideas - Integrates the neurobiology of brain development and behavior, promoting the idea that animal models inform human development - Presents an emphasis on the role of epigenetics and brain plasticity in brain development and behavior

The Marvelous Learning Animal

The Marvelous Learning Animal
Author: Arthur W. Staats
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 499
Release: 2012-06-12
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1616145986

What makes us human? In recent decades, researchers have focused on innate tendencies and inherited traits as explanations for human behavior, especially in light of groundbreaking human genome research. The author thinks this trend is misleading. As he shows in great detail in this engaging, thought-provoking, and highly informative book, what makes our species unique is our marvelous ability to learn, which is an ability that no other primate possesses. In his exploration of human progress, the author reveals that the immensity of human learning has not been fully understood or examined. Evolution has endowed us with extremely versatile bodies and a brain comprised of one hundred billion neurons, which makes us especially suited for a wide range of sophisticated learning. Already in childhood, human beings begin learning complex repertoires—language, sports, value systems, music, science, rules of behavior, and many other aspects of culture. These repertoires build on one another in special ways, and our brains develop in response to the learning experiences we receive from those around us and from what we read and hear and see. When humans gather in society, the cumulative effect of building learning upon learning is enormous. The author presents a new way of understanding humanness—in the behavioral nature of the human body, in the unique human way of learning, in child development, in personality, and in abnormal behavior. With all this, and his years of basic and applied research, he develops a new theory of human evolution and a new vision of the human being. This book offers up a unified concept that not only provides new ways of understanding human behavior and solving human problems but also lays the foundations for opening new areas of science.

Handbook of Neuroscience for the Behavioral Sciences, Volume 2

Handbook of Neuroscience for the Behavioral Sciences, Volume 2
Author: Gary G. Berntson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 818
Release: 2009-10-12
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0470083573

As technology has made imaging of the brain noninvasive and inexpensive, nearly every psychologist in every subfield is using pictures of the brain to show biological connections to feelings and behavior. Handbook of Neuroscience for the Behavioral Sciences, Volume II provides psychologists and other behavioral scientists with a solid foundation in the increasingly critical field of neuroscience. Current and accessible, this volume provides the information they need to understand the new biological bases, research tools, and implications of brain and gene research as it relates to psychology.