Soncat News's Library tagged behavior →  View Popular

ean Piaget (1896-1980) always considered himself a natural scientist, not a psychologist. As a boy he quickly gave up play and pretend to take refuge in "work" -- exploring internal combustion engines, studying fossils, shells, and birds. "I have always detested any departure from reality, an attitude which I relate to my mother's poor mental health," he recalled.

Strangely enough, after his successful undergraduate and graduate studies concentrating on mollusks, he began to work with children and did so for the rest of his life. His godfather had introduced him to philosophy and he found it so compelling that he decided "to consecrate my life to the biological explanation of knowledge."

Aldous Huxley's inspired 1956 essay detailed the vivid, mind-expanding, multisensory insights of his mescaline adventures. By altering his brain chemistry with natural psychotropics, Huxley tapped into a rich and fluid world of shimmering, indescribable beauty and power. With his neurosensory input thus triggered, Huxley was able to enter that parallel universe described by every mystic and space captain in recorded history. Whether by hallucination or epiphany, Huxley sought to remove all controls, all filters, all cultural conditioning from his perceptions and to confront Nature or the World or Reality first-hand - in its unpasteurized, unedited, unretouched, infinite rawness.

Those bonds are much harder to break today, half a century later. We are the most conditioned, programmed beings the world has ever known. Not only are our thoughts and attitudes continually being shaped and molded; our very awareness of the whole design seems like it is being subtly and inexorably erased. The doors of our perception are carefully and precisely regulated. Who cares, right?

There are two types of unconscious, the personal unconscious and the collective. The personal unconscious is pretty much self defining and doesn't need to be perceived as mysterious or supernatural (though it is occult in the truest sense of the word - 'hidden'). The personal unconscious contains all the stuff that simply isn't conscious. It contains stuff that can be made conscious by simple act of will, stuff that requires some digging, as well as stuff that may never be recalled to consciousness ever again. It is made up of the things you've experienced every day of your life. I'm not sure if it is strictly true that nothing is ever really and truly lost, totally forgotten, but it seems that the psyche is very reluctant to let much go in the event that it might come in handy someday. The psyche is a pack rat, the unconscious full of its stuff.

Rogerian therapy involves the therapist's entry into the client's unique phenomenological world. In mirroring this world, the therapist does not disagree or point out contradictions (Shaffer, 1978). Neither does he/she attempt to delve into the unconscious. The focus is on immediate conscious experience. Rogers (1977) describes therapy as a process of freeing a person and removing obstacles so that normal growth and development can proceed and the client can become independent and self-directed. During the course of therapy the client moves from rigidly of self-perception to fluidity. Certain conditions are necessary for this process. A "growth promoting climate"requires the therapist to be congruent, have unconditional positive regard for the client as well as show empathic understanding (Rogers, 1961). Congruence on the part of the therapist refers to her/his ability to be completely genuine whatever the self of the moment. While it is necessary during therapy h/she is not expected to be a completely congruent person all the time, as such perfection is impossible (Rogers, 1959). Empathy refers to understanding the client's feelings and personal meanings as they are experienced and communicating this back to the person. While unconditional positive regard involves relating from therapist to client

not as a scientist to an object of study, but as a person to a person. He feels this client to be a person of self-worth; of value no matter what his condition, his behavior or his feelings. He respects him for what he is, and accepts him as he is, with his potentialities (Rogers, 1965, p.22)

Since the study of personality began, personality theories have offered a wide variety of explanations for behavior and what constitutes the person. This essay offers a closer look at the humanistic personality theory of Carl Rogers. Rogers' theory of personality evolved out of his work as a clinical psychologist and developed as an offshoot of his theory of client-centered (later called person-centered) therapy (Rogers, 1959). He was first and foremost a therapist, with an abiding respect for the dignity of persons and an interest in persons as subjects rather than objects. Rogers approach to the study of persons is phenomenological and idiographic. His view of human behavior is that it is "exquisitely rational" (Rogers, 1961, p.194). Furthermore, in his opinion: "the core of man's nature is essentially positive" (1961, p.73), and he is a "trustworthy organism" (1977, p.7). These beliefs are reflected in his theory of personality.

To examine this theory more closely, a summary of the key features follows, with subsequent exploration of Rogers' view of self, his view of the human condition and his rationale for improvement of this condition. A brief overall assessment will conclude the discussion. While Rogers' humanistic conception of personality has both strengths and weaknesses, it is a valuable contribution to the study of persons, recognizing agency, free will and the importance of the self.

It has long been known that behavior is affected by its consequences. We reward and punish people, for example, so that they will behave in different ways. A more specific effect of a consequence was first studied experimentally by Edward L. Thorndike in a well-known experiment. A cat enclosed in a box struggled to escape and eventually moved the latch which opened the door. When repeatedly enclosed in a box, the cat gradually ceased to do those things which had proved ineffective ("errors") and eventually made the successful response very quickly.

Posted on Friday, September 9, 2005. This essay on the relationship between disasters, authority, and our understanding of human nature went to press as Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. The excerpt below is followed by a postscript, available only on the Web, that specifically addresses the disaster in New Orleans. Originally from a forthcoming issue of Harper's Magazine, October 2005. By Rebecca Solnit.

The current bird flu scare being broadcast throughout the world is an interesting phenomenon when one studies it closely as it reveals that barbaric people will resort to any behavior to protect themselves and their meat supply. Seeing abused birds grabbed by the legs, carried upside down and thrown into raging fires or gas chambers is a sign to such people that their food supply and lives will be protected. It is because people treat their animal brethren like this and worse that there is always the need for world cleansing in the form of plagues and natural storms.

We got lots of wonderful comments about our appearance on Art Bell’s Coast to Coast AM Saturday night, and I’d like to share some of them with you.

One listener writes: “I witnessed a television interview between Diane Sawyer and Roy of Siegfried and Roy. What I remember the MOST was Roy's memories of HIS NDE with his tigers. When he was at the point Anne was, Roy's tigers were in his Near Death Experience. No doubt, when it is MY time, my cats should greet me—they ARE my family!”

I have always been puzzled by Christians who oppose the idea of disabled and severely ill people ending their lives. I feel this way about Terri Schiavo, the brain dead Florida woman whose parents oppose the removal of her feeding tube. One of the wisest things I ever heard about this was said by a woman whose husband had just died of prostate cancer: "At least he finally got rid of that awful body." If these people believe in the existence of the soul, as they say they do, why are they so afraid to let the souls of those who are so damaged leave their bodies and journey to a better place?

My wife recently published a diary entry about her views on the Terri Schiavo case, which elicited a ton of email response. Like my recent journal on the Rapture, or the non-existence thereof, the vast majority of the letters were positive.

Jan. 27, 2005 | Washington -- Twenty-seven Americans have been abducted in Mexico's northern border region over the past six months and two have been killed, the State Department said Thursday.

Spokesman Richard Boucher cited those numbers in defending an alert to American citizens about the risks of traveling in the area.
Click here

Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez had said the State Department public announcement, issued Wednesday, exaggerated the danger.

WASHINGTON - If you look into the eyes of someone who is frightened, your brain will pick up on the fear in a split second, well before you can consciously put a name to the emotion, scientists say.

Are you brainwashed? What about some of your neighbors, are they brainwashed? Before you answer that, let us ask you a few preliminary questions: Do you believe that the United States was struck by a terrorist attack on Sept. 11? Do think that the people behind that attack were "Arabs" and that its "mastermind" was this fellow Osama bin Laden, operating from a cave in Afghanistan? Do you believe that the way to stop terrorism is to hit them hard, to hit them at their "bases" in such places as Afghanistan, and to hit the nations who might sponsor them, like, say Iraq?

Ever been cut off by a Hummer while chugging along the interstate? Tailgated by a Honda while motoring to the mall? Thoroughly ticked off by a Toyota as you cruise to the beach?

Agriculture may be the sector most closely associated with the idea of community, of mutual aid, and self-reliance. Throughout history, healthy and enduring democracies often emerged from nations of independent farmers

Today the agricultural sector is experiencing a severe and long term distress. The statistics are disheartening. Fewer than 1 million Americans now list their principal occupation as farming. Seven percent of all farms receive almost three quarters of the revenue from all agricultural products sold. Farm commodity prices are at near historic lows. Farmers now get less than 10 cents on the food dollar spent at the retail level. In virtually every segment of the food sector--beef, chickens, cereals, grains--three or four companies control 80 percent of the market.

By Paul Proctor

December 25, 2004

NewsWithViews.com

“On November 2, 2004, the American electorate voted into office a Republican President, Republican House, Republican Senate and a majority of Republican Governors. The Supreme Court is made up of a super-majority of Republican appointees. We have, in America, undeniable Republican Party Rule. If the Republican Party is pro-life, now is the best and only time to effectuate any real pro-life legislation.” – Covenant News Wire Service

I remember saying to my wife, after learning the election results in November, something to the effect: “Well, the republicans finally have it all; I wonder what they’ll use for an excuse now?”

By Paul Walter

December 25, 2004

NewsWithViews.com

Members of a Christian group called "Repent America" went to a homosexual event in Philadelphia, called "Outfest" on October 10 2004. They started quoting verses out of the Bible. Event organizers The Pink Angels immediately surrounded them. They shouted and blew whistles at the Repent America members who remained peaceful at all time. Guess who the cops arrested? You guest it! The Christians!

Is there really life out there? Was a kinder, wetter Mars once dotted by bacterial blooms whose progeny now await our discovery? Do unseen, alien microbes swim in the buried oceans of Europa, Callisto, or Ganymede? What about Titan’s sub-zero methane lakes?