Turning Psychology into Social Contextual Analysis (Exploring the Environmental and Social Foundations of Human Behaviour)

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Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Table of contents Figures Tables Preface Acknowledgements A note on referencing 1 Where psychology went wrong 60 years ago: An erroneous turn at the fork in the Gestalt road Turning psychology inside out What can we learn from a broken triangle? What did the Gestaltists do with this? Psychology at a fork in the road: where to from here? Pathway 1 Pathway 2 Where current psychology went wrong: back to the triangle, but from the outside A bit more about Pathway 1: neuropsychology, cognitive psychologies, and the many psychologies based on everyday terms The rise and rise of neuropsychology Early (and later) cognitivisms Stimulus–response behaviourisms The beginnings of cognitive psychology Miller, Galanter, and Pribram (1960) Later cognitive models Psychologies of everyday terms Our everyday words are dangerous for understanding what we do References 2 Going back to the ‘fork in the road’ and starting a fresh contextual approach Gibson and direct perception Skinner and environmental behaviourisms Whatever happened to the ‘soul’ and the ‘mental’? The social and cultural contexts for using language Social contextual analysis A brief overview of social contextual analysis What are resources? What are resource–social relationship pathways? Where to next? References 3 Language is a socially transitive verb—huh? How can language possibly arise from our environments? What you most need to know about language use What is language? Why language is a socially transitive verb How much is language use part of our lives and worlds? How do our uses of language arise from the world? What does language do in the world that has consequences? Summarizing the general properties of language use What is wrong with the other views of language use? How should we analyse conversations and other discourses? How sensitive is language use to social contexts? What are the functions of the main parts of language? What do we do to people with different forms of language use? What are the main types of language we use? References 4 How can thinking possibly originate in our environments? So, what is thinking? Some exercises Exercise on overlearning language responses Basic exercise on thinking Quick exercise Big set of exercises 1. Using ‘motor behaviours’ 2. Using talking 3. Beginnings of thinking Exercise for ‘serious’ thinking and for sampling ‘random’ thoughts/conversations through a Quaker meeting Sounds and images Finally “Why does it feel like ‘I am my thoughts’ and ‘my thoughts control my behaviour’?” A final set of exercises Summary of thinking as the product of a natural social ecology (Pathway 2) Taking the social ecology of thinking and talking even further References 5 Contextualizing perception: Continuous micro responses focus-engaging with the changing effects of fractal-like ... The hub of the problem: first attempt The hub of the problem: second attempt Perception and focus, differentiation, attuning, and discrimination Types of perceptual responding Caveat on methodology The hub of the problem: third attempt Perception is like focusing many telescopes at the same time into a fractal world Photos, paintings, hallucinations, and other environmental representations The problem for Gibson References 6 Contextualizing emotions: When words fail us The different views of emotion Emotive talk Emotional behaviours Summary: a contextual approach to emotional behaviours What to do about emotional behaviours? Some examples Humour Wonderment Those situations we call ‘mental health’ issues References 7 The perils of using language in everyday life: The dark side of discourse and thinking The 14 pitfalls of language use 1. We confuse words and reality 2. False assurances and nonchalance 3. Restricts our attention (socially) 4. Language–life gaps 5. Gaps from the world changing 6. Gaps from observing less with our senses 7. Distraction 8. Gaps when our normal talk gets challenged 9. Gaps when we cannot speak or name at all 10. Dissociation 11. Anxiety, rumination 12. Illusions of self 13. Effects of being socially biased 14. Rules (in law, governance, and bureaucracy) References 8 Weaning yourself off cognitive models The cognitive revolution Weaning yourself off cognitive models by considering new assumptions for alternative ecological, behavioural, or contextual ... Assumption 1 Assumption 2 Assumption 3 Assumption 4 Assumption 5 Assumption 6 Replacing some basic ‘cognitive processes’ Some general changes to ‘cognitive thinking’ Uncertainty reduction, catharsis, cognitive dissonance, prototypes, and ‘schema-driven thinking’ Cognitive biases and heuristics References Index