New York: Cambridge University Press.
Summary:
This book presents a thorough overview of a model of human
functioning
based on the idea that behavior is goal-directed and regulated by
feedback
control processes. It describes feedback processes and their
application
to behavior; considers goals and the idea that goals are organized
hierarchically;
examines affect as deriving from a different kind of feedback process;
and analyzes how success expectancies influence whether people keep
trying
to attain goals or disengage. Later sections consider a series of
emerging
themes, including dynamic systems as a model for shifting among goals,
catastrophe theory as a model for persistence, and the question of
whether
behavior is controlled or instead “emerges.” Three chapters
consider
implications of these various ideas for understanding maladaptive
behavior;
a closing chapter asks whether goals are a necessity of life.
Throughout,
theory is followed by raising of diverse issues linking the theory to
other
literatures.
This book is a reader-friendly description of a viewpoint on human behavior which sees all behavior as aimed at attaining goals. A wide variety of topics are treated (the theory is specific in type, but has very diverse applications)—ranging from goals, to emotion, to persistence and giving up, to living and dying. Both adaptive behavior and problems in behavior are examined. The book blends ideas that have long been part of self-regulation models with ideas that are recently emergent in psychology: dynamic systems and catastrophe theory. It also blends theoretical statement with wide-ranging discussion of issues.
This book is aimed at researchers and graduate students, primarily in personality-social psychology, but with application in health, clinical-counseling, organizational, and motivational psychology. The book is ideal for a graduate student who wants to start from zero knowledge and come up to speed in several different domains very quickly, as it assumes no prior technical knowledge or even knowledge of the research areas it addresses. It does, however, also incorporate information and discussions that will feel new and different even to people who have had extensive background in these areas.
A somewhat more abbreviated treatment of many of these themes is also available in a target chapter (followed by critique and commentary from a number of other authors, followed by our reply to the commentaries) in R. S. Wyer, Jr. (Ed.), Advances in Social Cognition, Volume 12, 1999. The reply chapter includes discussion of some issues that go beyond those raised in the 1998 book.
A complete table of contents of the 1998 book can be found here .
The Cambridge page on the book, including directions for ordering,
can
be found here: