The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior and the New Science of Socionomics [Hardcover]

Robert R. Prechter Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1999

What drives our social mood? Our actions? Our motivations? Can we look into the make-up of the universe and apply it to who we are and what we do? The answers to these questions are to be found in the new science of socionomics.

Socionomics evolved from the Wave Principle, a theory of patterns in financial markets. Now Robert Prechter proposes that this very same principle can be applied to our own social and cultural lives. Prechter shows that dominant aspects of our unconscious mentation are characterized by measurable patterns. Those patterns form the building blocks of humankind's social interaction, and in turn, the Wave Principle.

"WOW stuff! Prechter is doing the most creative work that I have seen in my career on Wall Street." –John R. Greeley, professional market analyst, co-founder, Market Technicians Association "Spectacular. I was absolutely impressed. A most brilliant work." –David Johnson, PhD, MD

"Congratulations to Robert Prechter for his interesting, insightful and trail-blazing work. Anyone willing to take the time to read this volume will be rewarded with a new understanding of human behavior, markets and events." –Tom Spradley, retired college mathematics professor

"Learning about socionomics has proven to be one of those rare intellectual epiphanies that results in an absolute change in the direction of my life. So much about the human experience that had mystified me all of my adult life seems so clear now, so understandable – even to the point of being predictable." –Jack Hobson-Dupont, President, Monadyne Corp.

"I love this theory. Socionomics is sure to be a primary reference source for quite some time. The volume and value of analysis that Prechter has conducted is something hard to over-appreciate. There should be university courses and degrees in the science of socionomics and perhaps Nobel Prize winners as well. I recommend many readings of the book to appreciate it in depth." Professor Valeri Safonov, PhD, former First Secretary of Ministry of External Affairs of USSR and economist with the Russian Embassies in Canada and India

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

Comments from the Author: Robert R. Prechter, Jr.

The social sciences today are where the physical sciences were three hundred years ago: on the verge of a revolution. Ralph Nelson Elliott discovered that social mood, impelled by an unconscious herding impulse, fluctuates in a recognizable pattern reflecting a natural growth principle, which he called the Wave Principle. Socionomics is the study of these patterns and their effects, i.e., social action and the events of history. Because it has a mathematical base, the Wave Principle is to sociology what Newton’s laws were to physics. It provides a basis and framework within which to study and quantify social behavior and thus serves as an anchor for the undertaking of true social science.

About the Author

Author Bio: Robert R. Prechter, Jr.

Robert R. Prechter, Jr. has achieved worldwide fame as an author, investment analyst, businessman and social commentator. In 1978, he co-authored with A.J. Frost Elliott Wave Principle: Key to Market Behavior. The book sold more than 300,000 copies and became a Wall Street Best Seller. Three other books have followed, all of them achieving similar success. In addition to his books, he is the editor of the Elliott Wave Theorist, an award-winning newsletter that has enjoyed immense popularity in its 20 years of publication. In 1984, Prechter disproved any doubters that the Elliott Wave Principle was a window to financial opportunity when he set an all-time record in the United States Trading Championship. Using the Wave Principle as his only method of analysis, he returned 444.4% in a monitored, real-money options account in the four-month contest period. His success did not go unnoticed, and in December 1989, Financial News Network named him, “Guru of the Decade.” A flood of radio, television, and written interviews followed, including the cover of Time Magazine and Fortune. On the heels of this success, he founded Elliott Wave International, a successful technical investment analysis company located near Atlanta, Ga. Now, after years researching and studying the psychology and science behind the Wave Principle, Prechter delves deeper than ever before into the reasons for its existence and its universal implications. In his most recent book, The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior he formulates his theories into a new branch of science he calls “socionomics.” The book is being hailed as a tremendous success by both general readers and academic scholars.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 463 pages
• Publisher: New Classics Library (March 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0932750494
• ISBN-13: 978-0932750495
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,591,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For Robert Prechter's full biography, please visit www.robertprechter.com.

Robert R. Prechter, Jr., is a financial and social theorist and a market analyst. He has written 14 books. Elliott Wave Principle with A.J. Frost (1978) forecasted the great bull market of the 1980s and 1990s. Conquer the Crash (2002, 2009), a New York Times bestseller, predicted the current global financial crisis in detail. Prechter's two-book set Socionomics (2003) shows how his social and financial theories weave together with his market forecasting approach: Waves of group mood determine the tenor of society's actions, from more inward, dark, bearish expressions to more outward, sunnier and bullish endeavors. Prechter's newest website, www.socionomics.net, explains his socionomics hypothesis and how it applies to various human arenas.
Prechter has dedicated much of his career to employing and enhancing R. N. Elliott's financial pricing model called the Wave Principle. He began his career as a Technical Market Specialist with the Merrill Lynch Market Analysis Department. Prechter is President of Elliott Wave International, the world's largest market forecasting firm. EWI serves institutional and private investors around the world.

Financial Theory
Prechter's theory of financial causality proposes a separation between finance and economics. In the economic realm, goods and services have utility value and mostly are priced rationally via the Law of Supply and Demand. This leads to rough equilibrium. In the financial realm, investments are priced non-rationally, with changes fueled by uncertain future demand and according to the Law of Patterned Herding. This approach generates speculation and unceasing dynamism. Only once the analyst recognizes this divergence can he properly view financial pricing, Prechter asserts.

Socionomics
Prechter's theory of socionomics says that trends and events across a broad spectrum of human interaction are impelled by a common immutable force: social mood. With its claim that mood impels action and events, socionomics is unique; most social theories posit the reverse.
The Wave Principle
As a market analyst, Prechter applies the Wave Principle, a financial pricing model identified and described by Ralph Nelson Elliott in the 1930s. According to this model, financial market prices develop in a series of five- and three-wave forms and produce a fractal. Prechter has written and/or edited a dozen books on the Wave Principle. Prechter began applying the Wave Principle to financial markets in 1972. Prechter's firm, Elliott Wave International, analyzes every major financial market in the world, 24 hours a day, according to the Wave Principle.

Awards
Using the Wave Principle, Prechter won the U.S. Trading Championship in 1984 with a then-record 444% return in four months in a monitored, real-money options trading account. Prechter has won numerous speaking, timing and publishing awards, and in 1989, he was named "Guru of the Decade" by the Financial News Network (now CNBC). In 1999, Prechter received the Canadian Society of Technical Analysts' first annual A.J. Frost Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Development of Technical Analysis. In 2003, Traders Library granted him its Hall of Fame award.

Miscellaneous
Prechter was born in 1949. He attended Yale University on a full scholarship. In 1979, Prechter founded Elliott Wave International and began publishing monthly market analysis under the masthead, The Elliott Wave Theorist. He was a nine-year member the Market Technicians Association's board and was the MTA's President in 1990-1991. Prechter employs a staff of analysts who apply the Wave Principle, real-time, to every major market in the world. He recently created the Socionomics Institute, which elucidates socionomics, and he underwrites the Socionomics Foundation, which is dedicated to supporting socionomics-related academic research. Elliott Wave Principle has been translated into a dozen languages, and Conquer the Crash was a New York Times bestseller. Prechter has made multiple speeches and media appearances around the globe. In 2008, the Georgia state legislature asked Prechter to testify before the legislature's Joint Economic Committee regarding the developing real estate crisis. Bob is a member of the Triple Nine Society, the Shakespeare Oxford Society and the Shakespeare Fellowship.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible book!, August 4, 2000

By 

"spuddonna" (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior and the New Science of Socionomics (Hardcover)

As someone who is extremely interested in how the brain works and why we 'do what we do', as "rational" human beings, I found this book to be extremely compelling. I simply could not put it down. Prechter takes a huge compilation of material (from neuroscience, psychology, fractal anaylsis to technical stock market analysis) and boils it down into a beautifully written and fascinating look at how our mind and society is shaped and guided by an underlying mathematical pattern that is the foundation for all living systems.

We are lead by Prechter through a basic understanding of Ralph N. Elliott's Wave Principle - a technical method of stock market analysis Elliott discovered during the 1930's - and come to find that this pattern is fractal based, and not only indicates where the NASDAQ is going to go tomorrow, but shows us where we will go as a society!

This book is a must read for anyone studying brain function, psychology, or philosophy AND for the beginning and seasoned trader! I wish I had found this type of information years ago.

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spooky feeling of a breakthrough into the unknown, August 10, 2000

By 

Eugene Morrow (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior and the New Science of Socionomics (Hardcover)

Imagine you were one of the first people to look through a telescope - and you suddenly found out that the sky was not merely wallpaper. You would have known that the discovery was a breakthrough, but what would happen would be spooky to think about.

That's how I feel reading Prechter's book about the new science of Socionomics. The telescope made sense of the jumble of lights in the night sky, as well as strange events like eclipses. The new science of Socionomics makes sense of a huge jumble of information in financial markets as well as strange events like crashes, manias, fads and fashions. The personality of markets and societies is linked directly to how our brains respond to certain types of input.

It is also a book that stirs up the back of your mind - are we really as independant in thinking as we imagine ourselves to be: how strongly are we influenced by the society around us? The book shows frightening evidence that our brains are hard wired to respond immediately to impulses stimulated by the human herd.

Overall, the book is like reading about the first observations from telescopes - it is a spooky glimpse into a world right in front of our faces that we've not understood until now. If you read it thoughtfully, the book will be both unsettling and inspiring in its implications.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flat Earthers vs: Round Earthers, August 5, 2000

By 

Donald N. Mazeau (Old Lyme, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior and the New Science of Socionomics (Hardcover)

If you use Elliott Wave in your investment analysis you know it works. If you try to point this out to a non-waver you feel like the round earth advocates must have felt 500 years ago defending their position to the flat earthers. After all it does look flat; and stock charts do just look like a bunch of squiggly lines.

After reading this book you begin to understand the science that is at work in Elliott Wave Theory, and believe me, they are not just a bunch of squiggles. Mr. Prechter makes his case brilliantly.