The Marvelous Learning Animal

The Marvelous Learning Animal PDF Author: Arthur W. Staats
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616145986
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
What makes us human? In recent decades, researchers have focused on innate tendencies and inherited traits as explanations for human behavior, especially in light of groundbreaking human genome research. The author thinks this trend is misleading. As he shows in great detail in this engaging, thought-provoking, and highly informative book, what makes our species unique is our marvelous ability to learn, which is an ability that no other primate possesses. In his exploration of human progress, the author reveals that the immensity of human learning has not been fully understood or examined. Evolution has endowed us with extremely versatile bodies and a brain comprised of one hundred billion neurons, which makes us especially suited for a wide range of sophisticated learning. Already in childhood, human beings begin learning complex repertoires—language, sports, value systems, music, science, rules of behavior, and many other aspects of culture. These repertoires build on one another in special ways, and our brains develop in response to the learning experiences we receive from those around us and from what we read and hear and see. When humans gather in society, the cumulative effect of building learning upon learning is enormous. The author presents a new way of understanding humanness—in the behavioral nature of the human body, in the unique human way of learning, in child development, in personality, and in abnormal behavior. With all this, and his years of basic and applied research, he develops a new theory of human evolution and a new vision of the human being. This book offers up a unified concept that not only provides new ways of understanding human behavior and solving human problems but also lays the foundations for opening new areas of science.

The Marvelous Learning Animal

The Marvelous Learning Animal PDF Author: Arthur W. Staats
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616145986
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 499

Get Book Here

Book Description
What makes us human? In recent decades, researchers have focused on innate tendencies and inherited traits as explanations for human behavior, especially in light of groundbreaking human genome research. The author thinks this trend is misleading. As he shows in great detail in this engaging, thought-provoking, and highly informative book, what makes our species unique is our marvelous ability to learn, which is an ability that no other primate possesses. In his exploration of human progress, the author reveals that the immensity of human learning has not been fully understood or examined. Evolution has endowed us with extremely versatile bodies and a brain comprised of one hundred billion neurons, which makes us especially suited for a wide range of sophisticated learning. Already in childhood, human beings begin learning complex repertoires—language, sports, value systems, music, science, rules of behavior, and many other aspects of culture. These repertoires build on one another in special ways, and our brains develop in response to the learning experiences we receive from those around us and from what we read and hear and see. When humans gather in society, the cumulative effect of building learning upon learning is enormous. The author presents a new way of understanding humanness—in the behavioral nature of the human body, in the unique human way of learning, in child development, in personality, and in abnormal behavior. With all this, and his years of basic and applied research, he develops a new theory of human evolution and a new vision of the human being. This book offers up a unified concept that not only provides new ways of understanding human behavior and solving human problems but also lays the foundations for opening new areas of science.

Animal Wise

Animal Wise PDF Author: Virginia Morell
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
ISBN: 0307461440
Category : Animal behavior
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Explores the frontiers of research on animal cognition and emotion, offering a surprising examination into the hearts and minds of wild and domesticated animals.

Clever as a Fox

Clever as a Fox PDF Author: Sonja Ingrid Yoerg
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674008700
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Researched, Clever as a Fox will challenge your previously held notions about animals and the measure of intelligence, both theirs and ours.

Tree of Wonder

Tree of Wonder PDF Author: Kate Messner
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452132119
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 37

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Book Description
Deep in the forest, in the warm-wet green, 1 almendro tree grows, stretching its branches toward the sun. Who makes their homes here? 2 great green macaws, 4 keel-billed toucans, 8 howler monkeys, 16 fruit bats, 32 fer-de-lance vipers, 64 agoutis, 128 blue morpho butterflies, 256 poison dart frogs, 512 rusty wandering spiders, 1,024 leafcutter ants. Count each and every one as life multiplies again and again in this lush and fascinating book about the rainforest.

Animal Wisdom

Animal Wisdom PDF Author: Linda Bender
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583947868
Category : Pets
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Scientific and spiritual, Animal Wisdom thoughtfully explores “the ways in which animals, if we will but watch them and listen to them, can help us to live our lives more fully”—Jane Goodall How is it that pets are able to travel thousands of miles through unknown territory to reunite with their beloved humans? How can dogs detect cancer with up to a 98 percent accuracy rate, and foresee epileptic or diabetic seizures in their owners? How do animals seem to know an earthquake is coming long before the world's best seismologists? In Animal Wisdom, veterinarian and animal advocate Linda Bender offers a wealth of amazing stories and research-based evidence indicating animals have deeply perceptive—even extrasensory—abilities. She shows us that animals are extremely perceptive, intuitive, and psychic and provides step-by-step practices for honing your natural ability to communicate with them, so that you too can learn to understand their urgent messages about peace, happiness, and the future of the planet. Animal Wisdom is for animal lovers and anyone who seeks a deeper, more spiritual connection to these beautiful creatures.

Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychotherapy

Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychotherapy PDF Author: Warren Tryon
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0124200982
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 693

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Book Description
Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychotherapy provides a bionetwork theory unifying empirical evidence in cognitive neuroscience and psychopathology to explain how emotion, learning, and reinforcement affect personality and its extremes. The book uses the theory to explain research results in both disciplines and to predict future findings, as well as to suggest what the theory and evidence say about how we should be treating disorders for maximum effectiveness. While theoretical in nature, the book has practical applications, and takes a mathematical approach to proving its own theorems. The book is unapologetically physical in nature, describing everything we think and feel by way of physical mechanisms and reactions in the brain. This unique marrying of cognitive neuroscience and clinical psychology provides an opportunity to better understand both. - Unifying theory for cognitive neuroscience and clinical psychology - Describes the brain in physical terms via mechanistic processes - Systematically uses the theory to explain empirical evidence in both disciplines - Theory has practical applications for psychotherapy - Ancillary material may be found at: http://booksite.elsevier.com/9780124200715 including an additional chapter and supplements

How and Why Thoughts Change

How and Why Thoughts Change PDF Author: Ian M. Evans
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199380856
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Cognitive therapy, a core approach within a collection of psychotherapeutic techniques known as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), is fundamentally about changing peoples' thoughts-helping them overcome difficulties by recognizing and changing dysfunctional thinking styles. Among other strategies, it requires encouraging the development of skills for rehearsing new habits of thought, modifying biases in judging and interpreting social and emotional information, and for testing assumptions underlying dysfunctional and negative, distorted thinking. In How and Why Thoughts Change, Dr. Ian Evans deconstructs the nature of cognitive therapy by examining the cognitive element of CBT, that is, how and why thoughts change behavior and emotion. There are a number of different approaches to cognitive therapy, including the classic Beck approach, the late Albert Ellis's rational-emotive psychotherapy, Young's schema-focused therapy, and newer varieties such as mindfulness training, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and problem-solving strategies. Evans identifies the common principles underlying these methods, attempts to integrate them, and makes suggestions as to how our current cognitive therapies might be improved. He draws on a broad survey of contemporary research on basic cognitive processes and integrates these with therapeutic approaches. While it may seem obvious that how and what we think determines how and in what manner we behave, the relationship between thought and action is not a simple one. Evans addresses questions such as: What is the difference between a thought and a belief? How do we find the cause of a thought? And can it really be that thought causes behavior and emotion, or could it be the other way around? In a reader-friendly style that avoids jargon, this innovative book answers some pertinent questions about cognitive therapy in a way that clarifies exactly how and why thoughts change. Evans demonstrates that understanding these concepts is a linchpin to providing and improving therapy for clients.

Animal Madness

Animal Madness PDF Author: Laurel Braitman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451627009
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
"For the first time, a historian of science draws evidence from across the world to show how humans and other animals are astonishingly similar when it comes to their feelings and the ways in which they lose their minds"--

Critical Thinking for Helping Professionals

Critical Thinking for Helping Professionals PDF Author: Eileen D. Gambrill
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190297301
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Critical Thinking for Helping Professionals, Fourth Edition draws on research concerning decision making, judgment, problem solving, and expertise to create 37 hands-on exercises designed to enhance critical thinking values, knowledge, and skills which are integral to evidence-based practice. Attention is devoted to ignorance as well as knowledge - including ignorance promoted by special interests and ignorance that is self-inflicted through lack of knowledge about common biases and fallacies that impede informed decision making. The text is ideal for graduate as well as undergraduate courses in research and practice.

Science and Pseudoscience in Social Work Practice

Science and Pseudoscience in Social Work Practice PDF Author: Bruce A. Thyer, PhD, LCSW, BCBA-D
Publisher: Springer Publishing Company
ISBN: 0826177697
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
"Science is a way of thinking about and investigating the accuracy of assumptions about the world. It is a process for solving problems in which we learn from our mistakes. Social work has a long history of social reform and helping efforts. Let us continue this by paying attention to the important message of this book. --Eileen Gambrill, PhD, School of Social Welfare University of California at Berkeley (From the Foreword) Although many psychosocial interventions used in social work practice have strong research evidence supporting their efficacy, a surprising number do not, potentially resulting in harmful outcomes. In this book, the authors cast a critical eye on the reality of commonly used scientific and pseudoscientific practices in social work today. Stressing the need for separating research-based practices from those not supported by adequate levels of evidence, they examine the scientific and pseudoscientific bases for popular social work interventions used in a variety of treatment settings. The text examines the misuse of legitimate research and describes how social work education training can and should discourage pseudoscience. The concluding chapter describes pathways through which social work practice can become more firmly grounded in contemporary scientific research. This engaging book is intended for courses in critical thinking and evidence-based practice and is a valuable resource for all social work students and practitioners. Key Features: Promotes critical thinking regarding the evidence-based research--or lack thereof--behind a variety of social work interventions Written by renowned social work educators Addresses the history and characteristics of pseudoscience Examines pseudoscience practices in assessment and work with children, adolescents, adults, and individuals with developmental difficulties