Dynamical Systems In Social Psychology

Download or read book Dynamical Systems in Social Psychology written by Robin R. Vallacher and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 1994-01-11 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dynamical system refers to a set of elements that interact in complex, often nonlinear ways to form coherent patterns. Because of the complexity of these interactions, the system as a whole may evolve over time in seemingly unpredictable ways as new patterns of behavior emerge. This metatheory has proven useful in understanding diverse phenomena in meteorology, population biology, statistical mechanics, economics, and cosmology. The book demonstrates how the dynamical systems perspective can be applied to theory construction and research in social psychology, and in doing so, provides fresh insight into such complex phenomena as interpersonal behavior, social relations, attitudes, and social cognition.

Download or read book Chaos and Complexity in Psychology written by Stephen J. Guastello and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-11-10 with total page 1020 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While many books have discussed methodological advances in nonlinear dynamical systems theory (NDS), this volume is unique in its focus on NDS's role in the development of psychological theory. After an introductory chapter covering the fundamentals of chaos, complexity and other nonlinear dynamics, subsequent chapters provide in-depth coverage of each of the specific topic areas in psychology. A concluding chapter takes stock of the field as a whole, evaluating important challenges for the immediate future. The chapters are written by experts in the use of NDS in each of their respective areas, including biological, cognitive, developmental, social, organizational and clinical psychology. Each chapter provides an in-depth examination of theoretical foundations and specific applications and a review of relevant methods. This edited collection represents the state of the art in NDS science across the disciplines of psychology.

Download or read book Dynamic Patterns written by J. A. Scott Kelso and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: foreword by Hermann Haken For the past twenty years Scott Kelso's research has focused on extending the physical concepts of self- organization and the mathematical tools of nonlinear dynamics to understand how human beings (and human brains) perceive, intend, learn, control, and coordinate complex behaviors. In this book Kelso proposes a new, general framework within which to connect brain, mind, and behavior.Kelso's prescription for mental life breaks dramatically with the classical computational approach that is still the operative framework for many newer psychological and neurophysiological studies. His core thesis is that the creation and evolution of patterned behavior at all levels--from neurons to mind--is governed by the generic processes of self-organization. Both human brain and behavior are shown to exhibit features of pattern-forming dynamical systems, including multistability, abrupt phase transitions, crises, and intermittency. Dynamic Patterns brings together different aspects of this approach to the study of human behavior, using simple experimental examples and illustrations to convey essential concepts, strategies, and methods, with a minimum of mathematics. Kelso begins with a general account of dynamic pattern formation. He then takes up behavior, focusing initially on identifying pattern-forming instabilities in human sensorimotor coordination. Moving back and forth between theory and experiment, he establishes the notion that the same pattern-forming mechanisms apply regardless of the component parts involved (parts of the body, parts of the nervous system, parts of society) and the medium through which the parts are coupled. Finally, employing the latest techniques to observe spatiotemporal patterns of brain activity, Kelso shows that the human brain is fundamentally a pattern forming dynamical system, poised on the brink of instability. Self-organization thus underlies the cooperative action of neurons that produces human behavior in all its forms.

Download or read book Attracted to Conflict: Dynamic Foundations of Destructive Social Relations written by Robin R. Vallacher and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-07-08 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conflict is inherent in virtually every aspect of human relations, from sport to parliamentary democracy, from fashion in the arts to paradigmatic challenges in the sciences, and from economic activity to intimate relationships. Yet, it can become among the most serious social problems humans face when it loses its constructive features and becomes protracted over time with no obvious means of resolution. This book addresses the subject of intractable social conflict from a new vantage point. Here, these types of conflict represent self-organizing phenomena, emerging quite naturally from the ongoing dynamics in human interaction at any scale—from the interpersonal to the international. Using the universal language and computational framework of nonlinear dynamical systems theory in combination with recent insights from social psychology, intractable conflict is understood as a system locked in special attractor states that constrain the thoughts and actions of the parties to the conflict. The emergence and maintenance of attractors for conflict can be described by means of formal models that incorporate the results of computer simulations, experiments, field research, and archival analyses. Multi-disciplinary research reflecting these approaches provides encouraging support for the dynamical systems perspective. Importantly, this text presents new views on conflict resolution. In contrast to traditional approaches that tend to focus on basic, short-lived cause-effect relations, the dynamical perspective emphasizes the temporal patterns and potential for emergence in destructive relations. Attractor deconstruction entails restoring complexity to a conflict scenario by isolating elements or changing the feedback loops among them. The creation of a latent attractor trades on the tendency toward multi-stability in dynamical systems and entails the consolidation of incongruent (positive) elements into a coherent structure. In the bifurcation scenario, factors are identified that can change the number and types of attractors in a conflict scenario. The implementation of these strategies may hold the key to unlocking intractable conflict, creating the potential for constructive social relations.

Download or read book Dynamic systems theory and embodiment in psychotherapy research. A new look at process and outcome written by Sergio Salvatore and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2016-04-11 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an attempt to cease from reducing the world and its (emergent) phenomena to linear modeling and analytic dissection, Dynamic Systems Theories (DST) and Embodiment theories and methods aim at accounting for the complex, dynamic, and non-linear phenomena that we constantly deal with in psychology. For instance, DST and Embodiment can enrich psychology’s understanding of the communicative process both in clinical and non-clinical settings. In psychotherapy, an important amount of research has shown that – next to other ingredients – the therapeutic relationship is the most important active factor contributing to psychotherapy outcome. These findings give communication a central role in the psychotherapy process. In the traditional view, the underlying model of understanding psychotherapy processes is that of a number of components summatively coming together enabling us to make a linear causal prediction. Yet, communication is inherently dynamic. A shift to viewing the communication process in psychotherapy as a field dynamic phenomenon helps us to take into account nonlinear phenomena, such as feedback processes within and between persons. We thus propose an embodied enactive dynamic systems view as a new theoretical and methodological perspective that can more realistically capture what happens among and between two persons in psychotherapy. This view reaches beyond the current narrow model of psychotherapy research. DST and Embodied Enactive Approaches can offer solutions to the loss of non-linear phenomena, the complex dynamics of reality, and the holistic level of analysis. DST and Embodied Enactive Approaches have developed not in a single discipline but in a joined movement based on various fields such as physics, biology, robotics, anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, neuroscience, and psychology, and have only recently entered clinical theorizing. The two new paradigms have already triggered a rethinking of the therapeutic exchange by recognizing the embodied nature of psychological and communicative phenomena. Their integration opens up a promising scenario in the field of psychotherapy research, developing new, profoundly transdisciplinary, theoretical concepts, methodologies, and standards of knowledge. The notion of field dynamics enables us to account for the role of the communicational context in the regulation of intra-psychological processes, while at the same time avoiding the pitfalls of an ontologization of the hierarchy of systemic organization. Moreover, the new approach implements methodological strategies that can transcend the conventional opposition between idiographic and nomothetic sciences.

Download or read book Complex Dynamical Systems in Education written by Matthijs Koopmans and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-02-19 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book capitalizes on the developments in dynamical systems and education by presenting some of the most recent advances in this area in seventeen non-overlapping chapters. The first half of the book discusses the conceptual framework of complex dynamical systems and its applicability to educational processes. The second half presents a set of empirical studies that that illustrate the use of various research methodologies to investigate complex dynamical processes in education, and help the reader appreciate what we learn about dynamical processes in education from using these approaches.

Download or read book Dynamical Social Psychology written by Andrzej Nowak and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 1998-10-09 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional approaches to social psychology have proven highly successful in identifying causal mechanisms underlying human thought and behavior. With the recent advent of the dynamical approach, it is now possible to assemble sets of such mechanisms into coherent systems. This book uses innovative concepts and tools to illuminate the processes by which individuals, groups, and societies evolve and change in a systemic, self-sustaining manner, at times seemingly independent of external influences. Readers learn how the dynamical approach facilitates novel predictions and insights into such social psychological phenomena as attitudes, social judgment, goal-directed behavior, attraction, and relationships. Featuring a wealth of charts and figures derived from original research and computer simulations, the volume is grounded in classic and contemporary theories of social psychology.