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Recently there has been growing awareness and acceptance of the proposition that people do not exist in a world of physically defined forces and events, but in a world defined by their own perceptions, cognitions, conclusions, and imaginations. We respond and react not to some objectively defined set of stimuli, but to our own apperceptions of stimuli that we define subjectively. The original essays in this volume center on one aspect of this process of attribution: The extent to which the perception of events and causes results in the determination, modification, or alteration of emotions, feelings, and affective states.This book is divided into five sections, each of which elucidates and extends these theoretical conceptions. Part 1 provides a historical background and analytical framework for the rest of the book. Part 2 presents chapters dealing with the sorts of internal cues which may give rise to a feeling state. Part 3 presents a chapter discussing the evaluative needs aroused by the internal cues. Part 4 is concerned with the process of explanation triggered by the evaluative needs. Part 5 deals with various external cues and how they are used to label the internal feeling state. There is a concluding discussion of the cognitive alteration of feeling states.The authors deal with aggression, boredom, obesity, the control of pain, and delusional systems. This volume is of continuing importance to clinical and experimental psychologists as well as social psychologists. Each of the authors takes the theoretical concept of cognition and relates it to research in biofeedback, physiology, social psychology, altered states of consciousness, etc. Thus, the book bridges the gap between cognitive theory and the use of that theory in applied research.

Un libro revelador que nos enseña a analizar problemas cotidianos aplicando las herramientas científicas más útiles para tomar mejores decisiones profesionales, empresariales y personales. Hay conceptos científicos y lógicos que cambian el modo en que solucionamos problemas cotidianos al ayudarnos a pensar de modo más claro acerca del mundo y de nuestras acciones. Sorprendentemente, pese a su utilidad, muchas de estas herramientas permanecen olvidadas por la mayoría de nosotros. En Mindware, el eminente psicólogo Richard E. Nisbett expone estos conceptos de manera clara y accesible. La distinguida carrera de Nisbett ha consistido en el estudio y la difusión de ideas tan potentes para resolver situaciones como la ley de los grandes números, regresiones estadísticas, análisis de coste y beneficio, costes de oportunidad y costes hundidos, o la causalidad y la correlación, en busca de la mejor manera de lograr que los demás los usen eficazmente en su día a día. En este libro, Nisbett nos enseña a analizar problemas habituales de manera que estos principios científicos y estadísticos sean aplicables. El resultado es una guía tan práctica como iluminadora a las herramientas de pensamiento más importantes; herramientas que se pueden emplear de modo inmediato para tomar mejores decisiones profesionales, empresariales y personales. Críticas: «El pensador que más me ha influido es el psicólogo Richard Nisbett. A él le debo mi visión del mundo.» Malcolm Gladwell «Mindware nos ofrece la oportunidad de comprender y reaccionar de modo más inteligente al caótico mundo que nos rodea.» Leonard Mlodinow, The New Yor Times Book Review

'The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world.'-Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times Book ReviewScientific and philosophical concepts can change the way we solve problems by helping us to think more effectively about our behavior and our world. Surprisingly, despite their utility, many of these tools remain unknown to most of us.In Mindware, the world-renowned psychologist Richard E. Nisbett presents these ideas in clear and accessible detail. Nisbett has made a distinguished career of studying and teaching such powerful problem-solving concepts as the law of large numbers, statistical regression, cost-benefit analysis, sunk costs and opportunity costs, and causation and correlation, probing the best methods for teaching others how to use them effectively in their daily lives. In this groundbreaking book, Nisbett shows us how to frame common problems in such a way that these scientific and statistical principles can be applied to them. The result is an enlightening and practical guide to the most essential tools of reasoning ever developed-tools that can easily be used to make better professional, business, and personal decisions.

This book examines two questions: Do people make use of abstract rules such as logical and statistical rules when making inferences in everyday life? Can such abstract rules be changed by training? Contrary to the spirit of reductionist theories from behaviorism to connectionism, there is ample evidence that people do make use of abstract rules of inference -- including rules of logic, statistics, causal deduction, and cost-benefit analysis. Such rules, moreover, are easily alterable by instruction as it occurs in classrooms and in brief laboratory training sessions. The fact that purely formal training can alter them and that those taught in one content domain can'escape'to a quite different domain for which they are also highly applicable shows that the rules are highly abstract. The major implication for cognitive science is that people are capable of operating with abstract rules even for concrete, mundane tasks; therefore, any realistic model of human inferential capacity must reflect this fact. The major implication for education is that people can be far more broadly influenced by training than is generally supposed. At high levels of formality and abstraction, relatively brief training can alter the nature of problem-solving for an infinite number of content domains.

Two psychologists, a computer scientist, and a philosopher have collaborated to present a framework for understanding processes of inductive reasoning and learning in organisms and machines. Theirs is the first major effort to bring the ideas of several disciplines to bear on a subject that has been a topic of investigation since the time of Socrates. The result is an integrated account that treats problem solving and induction in terms of rule­based mental models.Induction is included in the Computational Models of Cognition and Perception Series.A Bradford Book.