| Description |
xi, 290 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. |
| Note |
"A Bradford book." |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (p. [267]-277) and index. |
| Contents |
Theories of Behavior: From Psychic and Purposeful to Materialist and Purposeless -- Philosophical Perspectives on Behavior: From Animism to Materialism -- Psychological Perspectives on Behavior: From Purposeful to Purposeless -- Purpose without Spirit: From Constancy of the Internal Environment to Perceptual Control of the External Environment -- A Biological Perspective on Purpose: The Physiology of Bernard and Cannon -- The Engineering of Purpose: From Water Clocks to Cybernetics -- A Psychological Perspective on Purpose: Organisms as Perceptual Control Systems -- Behavior and Evolution: Then and Now -- The Evolution of Animal Behavior: The Impact of the Darwinian Revolution -- The Evolution of Human Behavior: The Darwinian Revolution Continued -- Evolution within the Body: The Darwinian Lesson Extended -- Bernard and Darwin Meet Behavioral Science: Implications and Applications -- Understanding Adaptive Behavior and Thought as Purposeful Evolution: Combining Bernard and Darwin -- Behavioral Science and the Cause-Effect Trap -- Applying the Lessons of Bernard and Darwin to Behavioral Theory, Research, and Practice. |
| Summary |
"Approaching living organisms as purposeful systems that behave in order to control their perceptions of the external environment provides a new perspective for understanding what, how, and why living beings, including humans, do what they do. Cziko examines in particular perceptual control theory, which has its roots in Bernard's work on the self-regulating nature of living organisms and in the work of engineers who developed the field of cybernetics during and after World War II. He also shows how our evolutionary past together with Darwinian processes currently occurring within our bodies, such as the evolution of new brain connections, provides insights into the immediate and ultimate causes of behavior." "Cziko shows how the lessons of Bernard and Darwin, updated with the best of current scientific knowledge, can provide solutions to certain long-standing theoretical and practical problems in behavioral science and enable us to develop new methods and topics for research."--BOOK JACKET. |
| Subject |
Social psychology.
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Sociobiology.
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Behavior evolution.
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Social Darwinism.
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| ISBN |
0262032775 (hc : alk. paper) |
|
9780262032773 (hc : alk. paper) |
|
