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Books in Social sciences and humanities

  • Behaviour Modification with the Retarded Child

    • 1st Edition
    • John Comley
    • English
    Behaviour Modification with the Retarded Child compiles case studies demonstrating the application of certain standard techniques of behavior modification and methods used to eliminate anti-social behavior patterns in order to build up more desirable ones. The general method used in these case studies is the “operant training”, which was first investigated in depth by Professor B. F. Skinner. This book is an attempt to show how the ideas and arguments initially advanced by B. F. Skinner can be and are being used to help and train severely retarded children. This publication is valuable to teachers, psychologists, health visitors, social workers, and parents who wish to learn more of the techniques used to train children with behavioral disorders and mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.
  • Readings in the Sociology of Religion

    The Commonwealth and International Library: Readings in Sociology
    • 1st Edition
    • Joan Brothers
    • A. H. Richmond
    • English
    Readings in the Sociology of Religion is a collection of articles that examines the sociological aspects of religion. The title discusses the contemporary theories, concept, and studies about the sociology of religion. The text first details the concept of sociology of religion, along with the relationship between religion and sociological theory. Next, the selection covers the theoretical development of the sociology of religion and Weber's sociological theory, as well as the modern dilemma of value and belief in the social sciences. The last part tackles the types of research in sociology of religion. The book will be of great interest to sociologists and behavioral scientists. Individuals who have a keen interest in the interaction between religion and society will also benefit from the text.
  • The Structural Approach in Psychological Testing

    Pergamon General Psychology Series
    • 1st Edition
    • Marvin L. Kaplan + 2 more
    • Arnold P. Goldstein + 1 more
    • English
    The Structural Approach in Psychological Testing covers the basic concepts for various types of personality or for the specific relationships of treatment possibilities to personality disturbances. The book describes the structural approach in psychological evaluation and its relation to developments in psychology in general and clinical psychology; the psychoanalytic foundations of the structural theory; and structural concepts in test analysis and personality description. The text also discusses the structural concepts to schizophrenia in developing the theoretical framework of schizophrenia as faulty ego synthesis, as well as the structural approach using case materials. The vacillation between reality and psychosis and the system of warding off confusion are also encompassed.
  • Strategies for Cultural Change

    • 1st Edition
    • Paul Bate
    • English
    Strategies for Cultural Change develops a conceptual framework for thinking about cultural change. Starting with a discussion of the vocabulary (the concepts) of cultural change, the book moves on to the grammar (the thinking structures), and finally the ""oral"" practice (the applications) of cultural change in the organizational setting. Four main questions are addressed: Why change culture? Is planned cultural change possible? What kind of cultural change is envisaged? How does cultural change occur? The book contains 14 chapters organized into two parts. Part One examines the different types of cultural change strategy in some depth. ""Developmental"" and ""transformational"" strategies are then brought together into a single conceptual framework for cultural change. Part Two shifts from strategy to implementation; from thinking frameworks to frameworks for action. It begins by surveying current practice and examines the various, often strikingly different, ways in which people seek to effect cultural change in their organizations. Accounts are presented based both on the author's own first-hand experiences of working with private and public sector companies on cultural change programs, and on an extensive review of the available literature.
  • In Response to Aggression

    Methods of Control and Prosocial Alternatives
    • 1st Edition
    • Arnold P. Goldstein + 2 more
    • English
    In Response to Aggression: Methods of Control and Prosocial Alternatives describes and evaluates comprehensively what has been done in response to aggression, with emphasis on aggression controls and alternatives. The book is organized into four major parts. These parts deal with aggression controls and alternatives specific for individual, small group, community, and societal levels of intervention. The book will lead to enhanced utilization of methods for aggression controls and alternatives, and hence to widespread prosocial and constructive behaviors in response to aggression
  • Infant Perception: From Sensation to Cognition

    Perception of Space, Speech, and Sound
    • 1st Edition
    • Leslie B. Cohen + 1 more
    • English
    Infant Perception: From Sensation to Cognition, Volume II: Perception of Space, Speech, and Sound covers comprehensive programmatic examinations, which are arranged along a continuum from basic sensory and neurophysiological functioning to information processing and memory. This volume is organized into two parts encompassing six chapters, and begins with the difficulties prior research has had in assessing infant perception of depth or space. The next chapters provide a link between infants' perception of space and their perception of objects and evaluate both psychometric studies of object concept development and studies focusing specifically on Piaget's theory. These topics are followed by discussions of the infant's development of the concept of self, and that concept is used to explain the infant's perception of other persons. The final chapters deal with the infant vision and audition. These chapters specifically describe the developmental anatomy of the auditory pathway and the electrophysiological functioning and capacity. A series of studies on the infant's receptiveness for the segmental units of speech, the ability to perceive phonemic feature contrasts, and the manner in which this perception occurs is also provided. This book will prove useful to developmental psychologists and biologists.
  • Soviet Economic Thought and Political Power in the USSR

    Pergamon Policy Studies on The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
    • 1st Edition
    • Aron Katsenelinboigen
    • English
    Soviet Economic Thought and Political Power in the USSR examines the evolution of economic theory in the Soviet Union from uniformity under Josef Stalin to diversity in the post-Stalin period. The reasons for uniformity and diversity in Soviet economics are analyzed, along with the structure of this diversity, the paradoxes in its development, and the conditions under which it will continue. The connection between leaders of Soviet economics and the Communist Party rulers is also discussed. Emphasis is placed on one of the principal trends in Soviet economics in the post-Stalin period: mathematical economics. This book is comprised of six chapters and begins with a discussion on the development of the economic-mathematica... trend in the USSR. The social environment in the Soviet Union is examined in macro terms, along with the role of various mutations among the economists and the institutionalization of such mutations, especially in the framework of the existing research institutes and universities. The book also considers the attitudes of various factions of economists such as reactionaries, conservatives, and modernizers toward the question of the limitation of the leaders' power and toward some areas of economics, such as problems of mathematical modeling and institutional economics, and toward the Marxist ideology. The final chapter highlights the confusing struggle among the various trends in Soviet economics and the ways in which this struggle is supported by the country's political leaders. This monograph will be of interest to economists, political scientists, politicians, and economic policymakers.
  • Congress, the Presidency and American Foreign Policy

    Pergamon Policy Studies on International Politics
    • 1st Edition
    • John Spanier + 1 more
    • English
    Congress, the Presidency and American Foreign Policy provides a critical look at the resulting executive-legislativ... relations in the conduct of American foreign policy. This book explores the capacity of American political institutions to conduct a foreign policy that will meet the nation's many needs. Organized into eight chapters, this book begins with an explanation of the Jackson-Vanik amendment; the congressional participation in US-Middle East Policy; and the implication of the domestic politics of SALT II for the foreign policy process. Subsequent chapters explore the negotiations and ratification of the Panama Canal treaties; the Turkish Embargo problem; economic sanctions against Rhodesia; and the energy policy. Lastly, the dilemmas of policy-making in a democracy are addressed.
  • Patterns of Personality Judgment

    • 1st Edition
    • Rudolf Cohen
    • English
    Patterns of Personality Judgment focuses on the significant lines of development that deals with systematic tendencies in personality judgments. This book consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 deals with the meaning of judgments in terms of their structural interrelations. The second chapter examines what degrees of agreement and extent different judges evaluate one another or evaluate persons whom they know only by photographs, handwriting, and self-descriptions. The utilization of individual items of information in judgment is deliberated in Chapter 3, while the subjective patterns of judgment are described in Chapter 4. This publication is a good source for students and researchers intending to acquire knowledge of personality judgment.
  • Predictive Simplicity

    Induction Exhum'd
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 5
    • George J. Klir
    • English
    The book attempts to develop an account of simplicity in terms of testability, and to use this account to provide an adequate characterization of induction, one immune to the class of problems suggested by Nelson Goodman. It is then shown that the past success of induction, thus characterized, constitutes evidence for its future success. A qualitative measure of confirmation is developed, and this measure - along with the considerations of simplicity - is used to provide an account of the consilience of inductions, and also an inductivist account of the structure and progress of scientific theory. An appendix extends the treatment of simplicity to statistical distributions and provides a reasonable interpretation of the maximum entropy principle. Thus, this book is an attempt to characterize induction in terms of a well-defined notion of simplicity and to use that characterization as a basis of an account of empirical, and in particular, scientific reasoning.