An Analysis of Gordon W. Allport's The Nature of Prejudice (The Macat Library)

With his 1954 book The Nature of Prejudice, American psychologist Gordon Allport displays the crucial skill of reasoning, producing and organizing an argument that was persuasive enough to have a major impact not only in universities, but also on government policy. The question that Allport tackled was an old one: why are people so disposed to prejudice against those from other groups? Earlier psychologists had suggested a number of reasons, especially in the case of racial prejudice. Some had suggested that racism was a learned behaviour, conditioned by negative experiences of other races; others that there was an objective rationale to negative racial stereotypes. Allport, however, reasoned that prejudice is essentially a by-product of the necessary mental shortcuts the human brain uses to process the vast amount of information it takes in. Because our brains want to use as little effort as possible, they regularly fall back on simple stereotypes – which easily generate prejudice. Gathering strong evidence for this hypothesis, he reasoned, clearly and persuasively, that our natural cognitive approach is the most significant factor in accounting for prejudice. Going further still, Allport also reasoned that, once this was better understood, social scientists would be able to influence policy-makers to curb discrimination by law.

The Nature of Prejudice (The Macat Library)

Literature & Fiction

O’Connor, Alexander

History & Criticism

Macat

An Analysis of Leon Festinger's A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (The Macat Library)

Leon Festinger’s 1957 A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance is a key text in the history of psychology – one that made its author one of the most influential social psychologists of his time. It is also a prime example of how creative thinking and problem solving skills can come together to produce work that changes the way people look at questions for good. Strong creative thinkers are able to look at things from a new perspective, often to the point of challenging the very frames in which those around them see things. Festinger was such a creative thinker, leading what came to be known as the “cognitive revolution” in social psychology. When Festinger was carrying out his research, the dominant school of thought – behaviorism – focused on outward behaviors and their effects. Festinger, however, turned his attention elsewhere, looking at “cognition:” the mental processes behind behaviors. In the case of “cognitive dissonance”, for example, he hypothesized that apparently incomprehensible or illogical behaviors might be caused by a cognitive drive away from dissonance, or internal contradiction. This perspective, however, raised a problem: how to examine and test out cognitive processes. Festinger’s book records the results of the psychological experiments he designed to solve that problem. The results helped prove the existence for what is now a fundamental theory in social psychology.

Morvan, Camille

Arts & Photography

Macat Library

An Analysis of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (The Macat Library)

In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, neurologist Oliver Sacks looked at the cutting-edge work taking place in his field, and decided that much of it was not fit for purpose. Sacks found it hard to understand why most doctors adopted a mechanical and impersonal approach to their patients, and opened his mind to new ways to treat people with neurological disorders. He explored the question of deciding what such new ways might be by deploying his formidable creative thinking skills. Sacks felt the issues at the heart of patient care needed redefining, because the way they were being dealt with hurt not only patients, but practitioners too. They limited a physician’s capacity to understand and then treat a patient’s condition. To highlight the issue, Sacks wrote the stories of 24 patients and their neurological clinical conditions. In the process, he rebelled against traditional methodology by focusing on his patients’ subjective experiences. Sacks did not only write about his patients in original ways – he attempt to come up with creative ways of treating them as well. At root, his method was to try to help each person individually, with the core aim of finding meaning and a sense of identity despite, or even thanks to, the patients’ condition. Sacks thus redefined the issue of neurological work in a new way, and his ideas were so influential that they heralded the arrival of a broader movement – narrative medicine – that placed stronger emphasis on listening to and incorporating patients’ experiences and insights into their care.

Krpan, Dario

An Analysis of Philip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (The Macat Library)

What makes good people capable of committing bad – even evil – acts? Few psychologists are as well-qualified to answer that question as Philip Zimbardo, a psychology professor who was not only the author of the classic Stanford Prison Experiment – which asked two groups of students to assume the roles of prisoners and guards in a makeshift jail, to dramatic effect – but also an active participant in the trial of a US serviceman who took part in the violent abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the wake of the second Gulf War. Zimbardo’s book The Lucifer Effect is an extended analysis that aims to find solutions to the problem of how good people can commit evil acts. Zimbardo used his problem-solving skills to locate the solution to this question in an understanding of two conditions. Firstly, he writes, situational factors (circumstances and setting) must override dispositional ones, meaning that decent and well-meaning people can behave uncharacteristically when placed in unusual or stressful environments. Secondly, good and evil are not alternatives; they are interchangeable. Most people are capable of being both angels and devils, depending on the circumstances. In making this observation, Zimbardo also built on the work of Stanley Milgram, whose own psychological experiments had shown the impact that authority figures can have on determining the actions of their subordinates. Zimbardo's book is a fine example of the importance of asking productive questions that go beyond the theoretical to consider real-world events.

An Analysis of Alan D. Baddeley and Graham Hitch's Working Memory: Working Memory (The Macat Library)

The work of memory researchers Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch is a prime example of the ways in which good critical thinkers approach questions and the problems they raise.  In the 1960s, researchers into human memory began to understand memory as comprising not one, but two systems. The first was a short-term system handling information for mere seconds. The second was a long-term system capable of managing information indefinitely. They also discovered, however, that short-term memory was not simply a ‘filing cabinet,’ as many had thought, but was actively working on cognitive – or mental – tasks. This is how the phrase “working memory” developed. The hypothesis remained unproven, however, presenting Baddeley and Hitch with the problem of working out how to produce definitive evidence that short term memory was a working system that actively manipulated and processed information.  They responded by designing a series of ten experiments aimed at showing just this – presenting the results in their 1974 article, ‘Working memory.’ The research was a masterpiece of problem-solving that proved revelatory. The authors not only generated new solutions and made sound decisions between alternative possibilities – they also showed that short-term memory is indeed an active system responsible for information processing and managing, while also influencing attention, reasoning, reading comprehension and learning. While their work has since been refined by others, Baddeley and Hitch’s problem-solving approach helped to create the dominant understanding of working memory that underpins psychological research throughout the world today.

An Analysis of Alan D. Baddeley and Graham Hitch's Working Memory (The Macat Library)

Koopmann-Holm, Birgit

With his 1954 book The Nature of Prejudice, American psychologist Gordon Allport displays the crucial skill of reasoning, producing and organizing an argument that was persuasive enough to have a major impact not only in universities, but also on government policy.  The question that Allport tackled was an old one: why are people so disposed to prejudice against those from other groups? Earlier psychologists had suggested a number of reasons, especially in the case of racial prejudice. Some had suggested that racism was a learned behaviour, conditioned by negative experiences of other races; others that there was an objective rationale to negative racial stereotypes.  Allport, however, reasoned that prejudice is essentially a by-product of the necessary mental shortcuts the human brain uses to process the vast amount of information it takes in. Because our brains want to use as little effort as possible, they regularly fall back on simple stereotypes – which easily generate prejudice. Gathering strong evidence for this hypothesis, he reasoned, clearly and persuasively, that our natural cognitive approach is the most significant factor in accounting for prejudice. Going further still, Allport also reasoned that, once this was better understood, social scientists would be able to influence policy-makers to curb discrimination by law.

The work of memory researchers Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch is a prime example of the ways in which good critical thinkers approach questions and the problems they raise. In the 1960s, researchers into human memory began to understand memory as comprising not one, but two systems. The first was a short-term system handling information for mere seconds. The second was a long-term system capable of managing information indefinitely. They also discovered, however, that short-term memory was not simply a ‘filing cabinet,’ as many had thought, but was actively working on cognitive – or mental – tasks. This is how the phrase “working memory” developed. The hypothesis remained unproven, however, presenting Baddeley and Hitch with the problem of working out how to produce definitive evidence that short term memory was a working system that actively manipulated and processed information. They responded by designing a series of ten experiments aimed at showing just this – presenting the results in their 1974 article, ‘Working memory.’ The research was a masterpiece of problem-solving that proved revelatory. The authors not only generated new solutions and made sound decisions between alternative possibilities – they also showed that short-term memory is indeed an active system responsible for information processing and managing, while also influencing attention, reasoning, reading comprehension and learning. While their work has since been refined by others, Baddeley and Hitch’s problem-solving approach helped to create the dominant understanding of working memory that underpins psychological research throughout the world today.

Leon Festinger's 1957 A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance is a key text in the history of psychology - one that made its author one of the most influential social psychologists of his time. It is also a prime example of how creative thinking and problem solving skills can come together to produce work that changes the way people look at questions for good. Strong creative thinkers are able to look at things from a new perspective, often to the point of challenging the very frames in which those around them see things. Festinger was such a creative thinker, leading what came to be known as the "cognitive revolution" in social psychology. When Festinger was carrying out his research, the dominant school of thought - behaviorism - focused on outward behaviors and their effects. Festinger, however, turned his attention elsewhere, looking at "cognition:" the mental processes behind behaviors. In the case of "cognitive dissonance", for example, he hypothesized that apparently incomprehensible or illogical behaviors might be caused by a cognitive drive away from dissonance, or internal contradiction. This perspective, however, raised a problem: how to examine and test out cognitive processes. Festinger's book records the results of the psychological experiments he designed to solve that problem. The results helped prove the existence for what is now a fundamental theory in social psychology.

What makes good people capable of committing bad – even evil – acts? Few psychologists are as well-qualified to answer that question as Philip Zimbardo, a psychology professor who was not only the author of the classic Stanford Prison Experiment – which asked two groups of students to assume the roles of prisoners and guards in a makeshift jail, to dramatic effect – but also an active participant in the trial of a US serviceman who took part in the violent abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the wake of the second Gulf War.  Zimbardo’s book The Lucifer Effect is an extended analysis that aims to find solutions to the problem of how good people can commit evil acts. Zimbardo used his problem-solving skills to locate the solution to this question in an understanding of two conditions. Firstly, he writes, situational factors (circumstances and setting) must override dispositional ones, meaning that decent and well-meaning people can behave uncharacteristically when placed in unusual or stressful environments. Secondly, good and evil are not alternatives; they are interchangeable. Most people are capable of being both angels and devils, depending on the circumstances. In making this observation, Zimbardo also built on the work of Stanley Milgram, whose own psychological experiments had shown the impact that authority figures can have on determining the actions of their subordinates. Zimbardo's book is a fine example of the importance of asking productive questions that go beyond the theoretical to consider real-world events.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by O’Connor, Alexander. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by O’Connor, Alexander

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by O’Connor, Alexander. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Nature of Prejudice (The Macat Library)

An Analysis of Leon Festinger's A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (The Macat Library)

An Analysis of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (The Macat Library)

An Analysis of Philip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (The Macat Library)

An Analysis of Alan D. Baddeley and Graham Hitch's Working Memory (The Macat Library)

An Analysis of Gordon W. Allport's The Nature of Prejudice (The Macat Library)

An Analysis of Alan D. Baddeley and Graham Hitch's Working Memory: Working Memory (The Macat Library)

An Analysis of Leon Festinger's A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (The Macat Library)

An Analysis of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (The Macat Library)

An Analysis of Philip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (The Macat Library)