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Best texts on psychology

Preferred approach to understand human psychology?

  • Religious texts

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Workplace and/or school

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  • Social life [Normal] [Going with the flow]

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  • Total voters
    8

BurnedOut

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This can range from being literatures to hardcore philosophical discourses.

What, in your opinion, were awe-evoking psychology texts that you ever led your hands upon?

Texts on psychology I can never forget:
1) Thinking Fast And Slow
2) Games People Play
3) Bodywatching
4) Wiser: Getting beyond Group Thinking
 

Hadoblado

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Depends what you're interested in I guess.

I've heard really good things about Oliver Sacks, but haven't read them myself. I think the most value for your time is probably just flat out reading a uni text book, but keep in mind that psychology is a young field and a lot of what is considered "canon" by textbooks is already at odds with current evidence.

You probably want to know the various schools of thought and what their strengths and weaknesses are. For example, evocation does lots of damage but behaviourism tends to have reliable methodology but ignores a lot of what makes people interesting.
 

Cognisant

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I was going to say animal studies but I suppose that's just behaviorism.

The problem with going beyond that is that it all changes with culture, what a snake symbolizes could vary wildly depending on someone's age, nationality, the media they're exposed to or even just what they choose it to mean. For example I could say that religion is a neurosis but what defines a religion varies wildly by culture and even within a particular religion there's usually many denominations and cults.

Furthermore what people tell you they're thinking isn't likely to be what they're actually thinking, either because they're lying or its a misinterpretation on your part.

If religious thinking became an official disorder all the religious people will stop calling it religion and instead call it spirituality or speculative philosophy.
 

BurnedOut

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@Hadoblado and @Cognisant I agree with you both. I consider BF Skinner to be a very dangerous man. Behaviourism is routinely ridiculed and now it is the basis of much of human exploitation in capitalism.
 

Hadoblado

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Oh, I don't agree with that.

I don't see behaviourism as dangerous, just limited. Personally I think it's one of the most valuable perspectives in psychology because it doesn't make many assumptions beyond what is observed, and psychology is a field that is primarily held back by spurious claims.

It's just not very interesting on its own.

I don't really understand how it links to human exploitation - I mean yes marketing, consumer behaviour etc. would likely be derived from these principles but that's a specific application; so is training dogs or treating phobias.

I don't know who you're talking about re: ridicule. I can understand ridiculing the rejection of the existence of the mind, but that's not what modern behaviourism is about. It's more like a parametric intention not to assume what a mind is doing.
 

Black Rose

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behaviorism is behind the opposition to a.i. because people think a.i. is a linear mapping x to y of cognition. in truth a.i. is nonlinear it is not behavioral x to y.

a.i. is recurrent feedback, not feedforward.
 

Hadoblado

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I am unaware of behaviourism being in opposition to ai.
 

EndogenousRebel

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I think he means node based decision networks of AIs contrast what behaviorism is commonly limited to. The integration of psychology and biochemistry would pick up where behaviorism leaves off, if we assume that chemical components of our mind such as predispositions of dopamine and serotonin are what control our actions. Behaviorism is a level of analysis that doesn't really tell us much but is cool and fun as fuck to bask in.

The problem always is someone thinking they have acquired apex knowledge and then poorly implementing it without the scaffolding to build something from it. The idea of conditioning has lead to a gross amount of dehumanization because it promises a brute force way to make a human work a certain way, reducing us to automatons that can be bred and trained like a dog, bird, or horse. (which is fucked too tbh)

My Answer
If you have reason to believe that you have a hefty amount of psychological knowledge, I would recommend you study what has shaped ours, and in fact, everything's psychology indefinitely, and that is the environment. Ecology is very underrated, and honestly very fucking hard. You don't have to be limited to just forest's and and deserts either, there are various ecological studies and books on many contemporary environments.
 

Hadoblado

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I mean, I guess? Most of the establishment of behaviourism predates computers. I don't think opposing AI is what they had in mind.

I do agree behaviourism can dehumanise, though it seems we see in completely opposite terms regarding its utility and how fun it is.
 

EndogenousRebel

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Well, it's one of those subjects that are so old and vast that we may not be thinking of the same thing. Found a simplifying graphic
1615400916036.png

I think the biggest issue is that people play build a bear workshop and make behaviorism fit the mold of their own thinking.

Digressing, I think behavioral psychology should be classified as it's own thing and shouldn't be lumped in with vocabulary that is by this point, I think is 100s of years old. Anyone can be a behaviorist by looking at the behavior of an agent, and intuitively connect what they are doing to some outcome or association in the environment, that doesn't mean they are right. (and that doesn't mean it's not useful as I bet it's been our primary use of applying game theory) It's fun and maybe thrilling when we make a good estimations, but most of the time we will be projecting our own essence into what it is we're looking at.
 

Black Rose

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The most recent advancements in a.i. is meta hierarchical reinforcement learning but it is still limited. It is still focused on mapping states to actions or most known as behaviors.

Behaviorism denies imagination which is an internal property of mind.
because of this behaviorism is limited to linear regression.
the analogy is that a.i. is limited to linear regression thus no imagination.
people that deny a.i. has imagination believes a.i. is limited to behaviorism.

There is no conception of imagination in behaviorism. that is why people opposed to a.i. deny a.i. is capable of the same.

X0SXL4g.jpg
 

ThousandTeethOfSun

Master of reading and walking at the same time.
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Outsiders guide to humans by Cammila Pang
Unwritten rules of social relationships by grandin, temple.
Social rules for kids: the top 100 social rules kids need to succeed by Sussan Diamo
What, in your opinion, were awe-evoking psychology texts that you ever led your hands upon?
 
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