Psychologists From The United States

"How you think matters more than what you think."

"An evolutionary approach provides powerful lenses that correct for instinct blindness. It allows one to recognize what natural competences exist, it indicates that the mind is a heterogeneous collection of these competences and, most importantly, it provides positive theories of their designs. Einstein once commented that "It is the theory which decides what we can observe". An evolutionary focus is valuable for psychologists, who are studying a biological system of fantastic complexity, because it can make the intricate outlines of the mind's design stand out in sharp relief. Theories of adaptive problems can guide the search for the cognitive programs that solve them; knowing what cognitive programs exist can, in turn, guide the search for their neural basis."

"beliefs are hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be guarded."

"The preceding analysis shows that a manager who has high performance goals and excellent job organization but who relies solely on economic needs and direct pressure to motivate his men is very likely to be to be disappointed by their achievements. The noneconomic motives must be used fully, along with the economic needs, to create high performance goals and establish the level of motivational forces which yield high productivity. Since the principle of supportive relationships and group methods of supervision enable a manager to make effective use of the noneconomic motives, some valuable insights can be obtained by examining how these managerial principles appear to affect the motivations, satisfactions, and behavior of the members of an enterprise. A substantial body of research findings demonstrates that the greater the loyalty of the members of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater is the probability that the group will achieve its goals."

"The management system of an organization must have compatible component parts if it is to function effectively. This conclusion has a very important implication; experiments in organizations must involve internally consistent changes. The traditional atomistic research design is not appropriate for experiments involving organizational theory or management systems. Every aspect of a management system is related to every other part and interacts with it. The results obtained by altering a single variable or procedure while keeping all others the same usually will yield quite different results from those obtained when that variable is changed along with simultaneous and compatible changes in all other aspects of the management system. The true influence of altering one aspect of the system cannot be determined by varying it and it alone... In experiments involving organizational theory and management systems, therefore, a systems approach must be used. The organic integrity of each system must be maintained while experimental variations are being made."

"To be effective in leading his own work group, a superior must be able to influence his own boss, that is he needs to be skilled both as a superior and as a subordinate."

"All component parts of any system of management must be consistent with each of the other parts and reflect the system's basic philosophy."

"A variety of studies in widely different fields show that supervisors who are getting the best production, the best motivation, and the highest levels of worker satisfaction are employee-centred appreciably more often than production-centred."

"The superior in one group is a subordinate in the next group, and so on through the organization."

"[Each person] is a member of one or more functioning workgroups that have a high degree of group loyalty, effective skills of interaction and high performance goals."

"Interaction and decision making rely heavily on group processes."

"As people acquire more education, their expectations rise as to the amount of responsibility, authority, and income they receive."

"Research reveal that managers achieving better performance (i.e., greater productivity, higher earnings, lower costs, etc. ) differ in leadership principles and practices from those achieving poorer performance."

"[It remains to be seen whether the newer management theories, based as they are on research in industrial concerns, will be] equally applicable to other kinds of organized human activity, such as schools, voluntary organizations, unions, hospitals, governmental agencies, scientific and professional organizations, and the like."

"Conflict is viewed as the active striving for one's own preferred outcome which, if attained, precludes the attainment by others of their own preferred outcome, thereby producing hostility."

"Katz and Kahn's (1966) The Social Psychology of Organizations has been the most influential. It remains one of the most widely read texts on organizational behaviour. Katz and Kahn develop a perspective in which the systems metaphor is used to mediate approaches as diverse as Marxism, human relations and event-structure theory.... In the synthesizing of structural-functionalism with the principles of general systems theory, Katz and Kahn develop a process model for interpreting organizational actions in terms of input, throughput and output. Their thesis revolves around the notion that formal social systems are homoeos- tatic, possessing qualities of negative entropy, feedback, differentiation and equifinality."

"In the most general sense, organizational psychology is the scientific study of individual and group behavior in formal organizational settings. Katz and Kahn, in their classic work, The Social Psychology of Organizations (1978), stated that the essence of an organization is “patterned” human behavior. When behavior is patterned, some structure is imposed on individuals. This structure typically comes in the form of roles (normative standards governing behavior) as well as a guiding set of values. An organization cannot exist when people just “do their own thing” without any awareness of the behavior of others."

"How best to organize the efforts of individuals to achieve desired objectives has long been one of the world's most important, difficult, and controversial problems."

"A number of statistical assumptions are made in the application of his (Thurstone's) attitude scale e.g. that the scale values of the statements are independent of the attitude distribution of the readers who sort the statements assumptions which as Thurstone points out, cannot always be verified. The method is more over laborious. It seems legitimate to enquire whether it actually does its work better than the simple scales which may be employed and the same breath to ask also whether it is not possible to construct equally reliable scales without making unnecessary statistical assumptions."

"Overload could be regarded as a kind of inter-sender conflict in which various role senders may hold quite legitimate expectations that a person perform a wide variety of tasks, all of which are mutually compatible in the abstract. But it may be virtually impossible for the focal person to complete all of them within given time limits. He [sic] is likely to experience overload as a conflict of priorities; he must decide which pressures to comply with and which to hold off. If it is impossible to deny any of the pressures, he may be taxed beyond the limits of his abilities. Thus overload involves a kind of person-role conflict and is perhaps best regarded as a complex, emergent type combining aspects of inter-sender and person-role conflicts."

"Certain information is required for adequate role performance, that is, in order for a person to conform to the role expectations held by members of his role set."

"Social relations with one's work associates tend to deteriorate under the stress of conflict. In part, this reaction reflects the person's general dissatisfaction with the work situation. Attitudes toward those role senders who create the conflict become worse, just as do those toward the job and the organization in general."

"[A is] ... the simultaneous occurrence of two (or more) sets of pressures such that compliance with one would make more difficult compliance with the other."

"Innovative roles represent ... The intra-role conflicts of the innovator stem from his engagement and commitment to the creative, non-routine aspects of his job and his corresponding disinterest and disdain for the routine or uncreative demands placed upon him."

"The prescriptions and proscriptions held by members of a role set are designated as role expectations. ... The role expectations held for a certain person by some member of his or her role set will reflect that member's conception of the person's office and his or her abilities. The content of these expectations may include preferences with respect to specific acts and personal characteristics or styles; they may deal with what the person should do, what kind of person he should be, what he should think, or believe, and how he should relate to others."

"Each sent pressure can be regarded as arousing in the focal person a psychological force of some magnitude and direction. Such forces will be called role forces. This is not to say that these motivational role forces are identical in magnitude and direction with the role pressures which evoked them. Especially when role pressures are seen as illegitimate or coercive, they may arouse strong resistance forces which lead to outcomes different from or even opposite to the expected behavior. Pressures to increase production rates sometimes result in slowdowns. Moreover, every person is subject to a variety of psychological forces in addition to those stimulated by pressures from his role set in the work situation. Role pressures are thus only a partial determinant of behavior on the job. In addition, to the motivational forces aroused by role pressures, there are important internal sources of motivation for role performance. One of these stems from the intrinsic satisfaction derived from the content of the role."

"As tasks become more varied and require greater training and skill, the relationship (between job attitudes and performance) appears to change progressively from the negative to positive."

"The concept of leadership has an ambiguous status in organizational practice, as it does in organizational theory. In practice, management appears to be of two minds about the exercise of leadership. Many jobs are so specified in content and method that within very broad limits differences among individuals become irrelevant, and acts of leadership are regarded as gratuitous at best, and at worst insubordinate"

"We define successful aging as including three main components: low probability of disease and disease-related disability, high cognitive and physical functional capacity, and active engagement with life."

"When you’re 90 years old, you are somewhere near the end of your life; got to be... It doesn’t feel like the end yet, but statistically, demographically, there can’t be much left. But that’s not part of my daily baggage."

"Associated with each office is a set of activities, which are defined as potential behaviors. These activities constitute the role to be performed, at least approximately, by any person who occupies that office."

"The leadership and other processes of the organization must be such as to ensure a maximum probability that in all interactions and all interactions and all relationships with the organization each member will, in the light of his background, values, and expectations, view the experience as supportive and one which builds and maintains his sense of personal worth and importance."

"Marston’s work opened the door for those in his profession to be more actively involved in the legal system. This perhaps begs the question: Is it a good thing for psychologists to be allowed to testify in court? There is certainly evidence to suggest that psychologists have something to offer the legal process above and beyond what their medically trained psychiatric colleagues might offer. Clinical psychologists typically have substantially more training in research than psychiatrists do and also spend several more years in formal study of human behavior. Likely as a result of this extra training, judges, attorneys, and law professors performing blind reviews rated forensic reports by psychologists to be more thorough and of higher quality than those completed by psychiatrists. Thus, William Moulton Marston, by tipping the first domino in a line that allowed psychologists to testify as recognized experts, directly contributed to better information and higher-quality work being used in the legal process. In this respect, much like his famous creation, he was a warrior for truth and justice."

"I always thought this Marston was a phony."

"If Marston is whipping up comics stories while Rome burns, there must be a reason."

"He believes the sexes have changed their professional status, that the hunted has become the huntress, that men have more ideas about women than about themselves and that a majority of men prefer to be 'unhappy masters' rather than 'happy slaves'."

"This noted scientist is the most genuine human being I’ve met. He isn’t fat—that is, in the ordinary way. He’s just enormous all over. We walked through the garden and about the grounds. The doctor asked me about my work and myself, and I told him more in 15 minutes than I’d tell my most intimate friend in a week. He’s the kind of person to whom you confide things about yourself you scarcely realize."

"The literary story is hard enough, heaven knows. It calls for a thorough understanding of the kinds of people you set out to depict. It cannot be of high quality unless the author can plot well. And, of course, it must be cast in distinctive style. The picture of the silent screen does not demand literary abilities, but it does require insight into character as well as drama; furthermore, it is founded upon a high order of visual imagination. The stage play, in a certain sense, calls for all the chief abilities of literary stories and silent pictures; and, in addition, it must be managed with dialogue, which is some thing very different from literary language. But the sound picture goes beyond all of these other art forms. To invent a good one, you must grasp character, drama, settings, and dialogue. But you must go beyond these. You need a fanciful ear. The backgrounds of your story now cry out. The tale is filled with noises. And every least sound adds a unique quality to the total effect."

"People go to moving pictures to be made to weep or laugh, to be happy or unhappy as they watch what hap pens to the screen characters before them. They become completely absorbed in the screen action. They follow the story, willy-nilly. And in so doing, they are forced to feel the emotion/ aroused by the dramatic situations.Pictures makes millions of people, day after day, feel glad or sad, courageous or fearful, righteous or angry. He, can do this, that is to say, within limits, and these limits largely depend upon the story of the picture. If the producer has a powerful enough story, these millions for get themselves and their little joys and woes and escape into the scenes on the screen before them. Small wonder then, that, with such stupendous power over the thinking and feeling of myriads of men, women, and children, the moving picture producer is willing, even eager, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars — or even a cool mil lion or so — to secure and produce a picture for this world of movie-goers. But the story selected must itself have power enough to arouse the emotions of an audience. Excellent photography and good acting can help to carry successfully any story, but they can never put emotional meaning into a story that is built without emotional appeal."

"The task of depicting character in the sound picture is, in one sense, far easier than in the silent picture. The latter, being essentially pantomime clarified with titles, is cruelly restricted as a medium of depicting human nature. Few of us express ourselves in postures and gestures. Our natural manner finds itself freer and surer in spoken words and, most of all, in decisive acts involving such forms of language as promises, commands, prohibitions, and so on, all of which readily lends itself to reproduction in talk and scene combined. To this extent, character drawing in sound pictures seems to offer pretty much the same opportunities and difficulties as in the drama of the Broadway stage. But a closer study brings out the somewhat startling fact that a sound picture, skillfully handled, can reveal more of a personality than any other device of art or science. The actor on the stage can talk, gesticulate, and move to and fro; but there his powers end. The actor of the talking screen can do all of these things and then carry on his subjective life in the presence of the spectators. We can show pictorially his memories, his fears, his hopes, and his cunning schemes. We can reveal his clenched fist in a close-up. We can show the beads of perspiration on his brow, as he trembles with suppressed rage."

"The talkies are the only art that would attract Leonardo da Vinci were he alive to-day. It is the only art that excites a scientist's curiosity, the only art that challenges the engineer, the only art that offers the great artist a medium capable of expressing every human thought and emotion, as well as the pure aesthetic effects of color and music. It is a baby giant, as clumsy as all babies are. Its noises are, we grieve to admit, often as inartistic as the squalling of a baby. But squalling babies have a way of growing up into soft-voices women and great singers. This is why we, the authors, have gladly played the role of nursemaids. We don't know what the baby will be doing and saying when it grows up. But we are sure it will make its mark in the world."

"The social value of freeing women from a harem-enclosed existence to a life of activity can be questioned only by those advocates of a "man's world" who wish to perpetuate its butchers and savage jungle law."

"Oh yes, but not until women control men. Wonder Woman – and the trend toward male acceptance of female love power, which she represents, indicates that the first psychological step has actually been taken. Boys young and old satisfy their wish thoughts by reading comics. If they go crazy for Wonder Woman it means they're longing for a beautiful exciting girl who's stronger than they are. These simple, highly imaginative picture stories satisfy longings that ordinary daily life thwarts and denies. Superman and the army of male comics characters who resemble him satisfy the simple desire to be stronger and more powerful than anybody else. Wonder Woman satisfies the subconscious, elaboratedly disguised desire of males to be mastered by a woman who loves them."

"Women now fly heavy planes successfully; they help build planes, do mechanics' work. In England they've taken over a large share of all material labor in fields and factories; they've taken over police and home defence duties. In China a corps of 300,000 women under the supreme command of Madame Chiang Kai-shek perform the dangerous function of saving lives and repairing damage after Japanese air raids. This huge female strong- arm squad is officered efficiently by 3,000 women. Here in this country we've started a Women's Auxilary Army and Navy Corps that will do everything men soldiers and sailors do except the actual fighting. Prior to the First World War nobody believed that women could perform these feats of physical strength. But they're performing them now and thinking nothing of it. In this far worse: war, women will develop still greater female power; by the end of the war that traditional description the weaker sex" will be a joke-it will cease to have any meaning."

"Men actually submit to women now, they do it on the sly with a sheepish grin because they're ashamed of being ruled by weaklings. Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to and they'll be proud to become her willing slaves."

"Comics, they say, are not literature – adventure strips lack artistic form, mental substance, and emotional appeal to any but the most moronic of minds. Can it be that 100,000,000 Americans are morons? Possibly so; but there seems to be a simpler explanation. Nine humans out of ten react first with their feelings rather than with their minds; the more primitive the emotion stimulated, the stronger the reaction. Comics play a trite but lusty tune on the C natural keys of human nature. They rouse the most primitive, but also the most powerful, reverberations in the noisy cranial sound-box of consciousness, drowning out more subtle symphonies. Comics scorn finesse, thereby incurring the wrath of linguistic adepts."

"A woman character without allure would be like a Superman without muscle."

"The picture story fantasy cuts loose the hampering debris of art and artifice and touches the tender spots of universal human desires and aspirations. Comics speak, without qualm or sophistication to the innermost ears of the wishful self."

"If, as psychologists, we follow the analogy of the other biological sciences, we must expect to find normalcy synonymous with maximal efficiency of function. Survival of the fittest means survival of those members of a species whose organisms most successfully resist the encroachments of environmental antagonists, and continue to function with the greatest internal harmony. In the field of emotions, then, why would we alter this expectation? Why should we seek the spectacularly disharmonious emotions, the feelings that reveal a crushing of ourselves by environment, and consider these affective responses as our normal emotions? If a jungle beast is torn and wounded during the course of an ultimately victorious battle, it would be a spurious logic indeed that attributed its victory to its wounds. If a human being be emotionally torn and mentally disorganized by fear or rage during a business battle from which, ultimately, he emerges victorious, it seems equally nonsensical to ascribe his conquering strength to those emotions symptomatic of his temporary weakness and defeat. Victory comes in proportion as fear is banished. Perhaps the battle may be won with some fear still handicapping the victor, but that only means that the winner's maximal strength was not required."

"If children will read comics [...] isn't it advisable to give them some constructive comics to read? [...] The wish to be super strong is a healthy wish, a vital compelling, power-producing desire. The more the Superman-Wonder Woman picture stories build this innner compulsion by stimulating the child's natural longing to battle and overcome obstacles, particularly evil ones, the better the better chance your child has for self-advancement in the world. Certainly there can be no argument about the advisability of strengthening the fundamental human desire, too often buried beneath stultifying divertisments and disguises, to see good overcome evil."