The impulse toward play is very ancient, not only pre-cultural but pre-human; zoologists have identified play behaviors in turtles and in chimpanzees. Games have existed since antiquity; ...5,000-year-old board games have been recovered from Egyptian tombs. And yet we still lack a critical language for thinking about play. Game designers are better at answering small questions ("Why is this battle boring?") than big ones ("What does this game mean?"). In this book, the game designer Brian Upton analyzes the experience of play -- how playful activities unfold from moment to moment and how the rules we adopt constrain that unfolding. Drawing on games that range from Monopoly to Dungeons & Dragons to Guitar Hero, Upton develops a framework for understanding play, introducing a set of critical tools that can help us analyze games and game designs and identify ways in which they succeed or fail.Upton also examines the broader epistemological implications of such a framework, exploring the role of play in the construction of meaning and what the existence of play says about the relationship between our thoughts and external reality. He considers the making of meaning in play and in every aspect of human culture, and he draws on findings in pragmatic epistemology, neuroscience, and semiotics to describe how meaning emerges from playful engagement. Upton argues that play can also explain particular aspects of narrative; a play-based interpretive stance, he proposes, can help us understand the structure of books, of music, of theater, of art, and even of the process of critical engagement itself.
In recent years, remarkable progress has been made in behavioral research on a wide variety of topics, from behavioral finance, labor contracts, philanthropy, and the analysis of savings and poverty, ...to eyewitness identification and sentencing decisions, racism, sexism, health behaviors, and voting. Research findings have often been strikingly counterintuitive, with serious implications for public policymaking. In this book, leading experts in psychology, decision research, policy analysis, economics, political science, law, medicine, and philosophy explore major trends, principles, and general insights about human behavior in policy-relevant settings. Their work provides a deeper understanding of the many drivers--cognitive, social, perceptual, motivational, and emotional--that guide behaviors in everyday settings. They give depth and insight into the methods of behavioral research, and highlight how this knowledge might influence the implementation of public policy for the improvement of society.
This collection examines the policy relevance of behavioral science to our social and political lives, to issues ranging from health, environment, and nutrition, to dispute resolution, implicit racism, and false convictions. The book illuminates the relationship between behavioral findings and economic analyses, and calls attention to what policymakers might learn from this vast body of groundbreaking work.
Wide-ranging investigation into people's motivations, abilities, attitudes, and perceptions finds that they differ in profound ways from what is typically assumed. The result is that public policy acquires even greater significance, since rather than merely facilitating the conduct of human affairs, policy actually shapes their trajectory.
The first interdisciplinary look at behaviorally informed policymakingLeading behavioral experts across the social sciences consider important policy problemsA compendium of behavioral findings and their application to relevant policy domains
Phishing for Phools Akerlof, George A; Shiller, Robert J
2015, 2015., 20150922, 2015-09-22
eBook
Phishing for Phools explores the central role of manipulation and deception in fascinating detail in each of these areas and many more. It thereby explains a paradox: why, at a time when we are ...better off than ever before in history, all too many of us are leading lives of quiet desperation. At the same time, the book tells stories of individuals who have stood against economic trickery - and how it can be reduced through greater knowledge, reform, and regulation.
Animal spirits Akerlof, George A; Shiller, Robert J
2009., 2010, 2009, 20090101
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The global financial crisis has made it painfully clear that powerful psychological forces are imperiling the wealth of nations today. From blind faith in ever-rising housing prices to plummeting ...confidence in capital markets, "animal spirits" are driving financial events worldwide. In this book, acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller challenge the economic wisdom that got us into this mess, and put forward a bold new vision that will transform economics and restore prosperity.
Unequal chances Bowles, Samuel; Bowles, Samuel; Gintis, Herbert ...
2005, 2005., 20091015, 2009, 2005-01-01, 20050101
eBook, Book
Is the United States "the land of equal opportunity" or is the playing field tilted in favor of those whose parents are wealthy, well educated, and white? If family background is important in getting ...ahead, why? And if the processes that transmit economic status from parent to child are unfair, could public policy address the problem? Unequal Chances provides new answers to these questions by leading economists, sociologists, biologists, behavioral geneticists, and philosophers.
Gender and Culture in Psychology introduces new approaches to the psychological study of gender that bring together feminist psychology, socio-cultural psychology, discursive psychology and critical ...psychology. It presents research and theory that embed human action in social, cultural and interpersonal contexts. The book provides conceptual tools for thinking about gender, social categorization, human meaning-making, and culture. It also describes a family of interpretative research methods that focus on rich talk and everyday life. It provides a close-in view of how interpretative research proceeds. The latter part of the book showcases innovative projects that investigate topics of concern to feminist scholars and activists: young teens' encounters with heterosexual norms; women and men negotiating household duties and childcare; sexual coercion and violence in heterosexual encounters; the cultural politics of women's weight and eating concerns; psychiatric labelling of psychological suffering; and feminism in psychotherapy.
Adolescents and War Barber, Brian K
2008, 2009-10-22, 2008-09-04, 20090101
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Hundreds of thousands of children are forced or legally recruited combatants in no fewer than 70 warring parties across the world. In addition to these child soldiers, thousands of youth voluntarily ...participate in politically related conflict. Why, how, and in what capacities are such large numbers of teenagers involved in war, and how are they affected? This book brings together world experts in an evidence-based volume to thoroughly understand and document the intricacies of youth who have had substantial involvement in political violence. Contributors argue that the assumption that youth are automatically debilitated by the violence they experience is much too simplistic: effective care for youth must include an awareness of their motives and beliefs, the roles they played in the conflict, their relationships with others, and the opportunities available to them after their experiences with war. The book suggests that the meaning youth make of a conflict may protect them from mental harm.
In Israel, gates, fences, and walls encircle public spaces while guards scrutinize, inspect, and interrogate. With a population constantly aware of the possibility of suicide bombings, Israel is ...defined by its culture of security.Security and Suspicionis a closely drawn ethnographic study of the way Israeli Jews experience security in their everyday lives.
Observing security concerns through an anthropological lens, Juliana Ochs investigates the relationship between perceptions of danger and the political strategies of the state. Ochs argues that everyday security practices create exceptional states of civilian alertness that perpetuate-rather than mitigate-national fear and ongoing violence. In Israeli cities, customers entering gated urban cafés open their handbags for armed security guards and parents circumnavigate feared neighborhoods to deliver their children safely to school. Suspicious objects appear to be everywhere, as Israelis internalize the state's vigilance for signs of potential suicide bombers. Fear and suspicion not only permeate political rhetoric, writes Ochs, but also condition how people see, the way they move, and the way they relate to Palestinians. Ochs reveals that in Israel everyday practices of security-in the home, on commutes to work, or in cafés and restaurants-are as much a part of conflict as soldiers and military checkpoints.
Based on intensive fieldwork in Israel during the second intifada,Security and Suspicioncharts a new approach to issues of security while contributing to our appreciation of the subtle dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This book offers a way to understand why security propagates the very fears and suspicions it is supposed to reduce.
In this revised esition, Thomas Attig tells tales of survival to illustrate the poignant suffering that the loss of a loved one entails. Dr. Attig shows how through grieving we meet daunting ...challenges, make choices, and reshape our lives forever. In so doing, he redefines grief as an active, coping process rather than a stage to be endured, or a problem to be overcome. The book's many valuable lessons inform and instruct a wide audience of clinicians, caregivers, friends and family members of bereaved persons, and those who seek a general, non-clinical perspective on their own experience of grief.This version includes updated references and a new introduction.
How do we develop musical creativity? How is musical creativity nurtured in collaborative improvisation? How is it used as a communicative tool in music therapy? This comprehensive volume offers new ...research on these questions by an international team of experts from the fields of music education, music psychology and music therapy. The book celebrates the rich diversity of ways in which learners of all ages develop and use musical creativity. Contributions focus broadly on the composition/improvisation process, considering its conceptualization and practices in a number of contexts. The authors examine how musical creativity can be fostered in formal settings, drawing examples from primary and secondary schools, studio, conservatoire and university settings, as well as specialist music schools and music therapy sessions. These essays will inspire readers to think deeply about musical creativity and its development. The book will be of crucial interest to music educators, policy makers, researchers and students, as it draws on applied research from across the globe, promoting coherent and symbiotic links between education, music and psychology research.
Contents: Introduction, Oscar Odena; Part I Conceptualising Musical Creativity: Rethinking 'musical creativity' and the notion of multiple creativities in music, Pamela Burnard; Teachers' perceptions of creativity, Oscar Odena and Graham Welch. Part II Examples from Practice: Preparing the mind for musical creativity: early music learning and engagement, Margaret S. Barrett; Music composition as a way of learning: emotions and the situated self, Ana Luísa Veloso and Sara Carvalho; Towards pedagogies of revision: guiding a students' music composition, Peter R. Webster; The nature of the engagement of Brazilian adolescents in composing activities, José Soares; Empathetic creativity in music making, Frederick A. Seddon; Cognition and musical improvisation in individual and group contexts, Su-Ching Hsieh; Music therapy: a resource for creativity, health and well-being across the lifespan, Leslie Bunt. Part III Paths for Further Enquiry: Action-research on collaborative composition: an analysis of research questions and designs, Gabriel Rusinek; Perspectives on musical creativity: where next?, Oscar Odena; Index.
Oscar Odena is Reader in Education at the University of Glasgow, UK. He is past Co-Chair of the Research Commission of the International Society for Music Education (2012-14) and a member of the editorial boards of leading journals including the British Journal of Music Education, Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa and Research Studies in Music Education.
