Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An engaging and informative read, January 27, 1999
Bill Powers in virtually unknown outside a very small community of people interested in applying control theory to understanding human behavior, an activity that can be traced backed to Norbert Wiener's influential work in the 1940's. Powers' obscurity is particularly unfortunate because his work is truly revolutionary and deserves a much wider audience. In this book he gives a typically lucid presentation of the basics of his application of control theory to understanding everyday behavior. It's a wonderfully clear exposition of his ideas and provides invaluable insights into what makes us tick. Perhaps in the next millenium academic psychology will catch up to Powers. Until this happens, you couldn't ask for a better guide than this engaging book.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Making Sense of Behavior -- At Last!, January 30, 2000
If you buy only one book this year it should be Making Sense of Behavior by William T. Powers. Powers' book is subtitled The Meaning of Control and in it he presents, in plain and persuasive language, his view of human beings and their behavior. His view? We are all "autonomous control systems - it is our nature to seek goals and oppose disturbances [to the attainment and maintenance of our goals]." In his book Powers does what other theorists and theories don't, namely, he gives us an explanation of the human phenomenon that is technically satisfying and, at the same time, an explanation that resonates with our deeply held notions about ourselves. Who won't like this book? The same pompous airbags who have seen fit to saddle us all with one empty-headed theory after another about the nature of human beings and their behavior. The truth, like quality and beauty, is something we all know when we see it. You'll recognize the truth in Powers' book. Powers is no intellectual slouch. An engineer by training and a scientist by calling, his approach is as intellectually demanding and as scientifically rigorous as any to be found. Nor is his theory of recent or easy vintage. He has been hard at work developing it for almost half a century. He first articulated it in a 1973 book titled Behavior: The Control of Perception and he has elaborated it in various papers since then. Powers' central thesis is simple enough: All we know of our world we know through our perceptions. We act, then, not to control the world but to control our perceptions of it. Hence, behavior as the control of perception. Best of all, Powers provides a simple, elegant experiment requiring nothing more than two rubber bands and two people that we can use to test his theory. It is difficult to argue with. So what? What are the practical implications of Powers' theory? Well, for one thing, the transactions between employer and employee need to be negotiated instead of commanded or demanded. If that seems obvious, consider this: for the most part, so do the transactions between parent - or teacher - and child. Remember, we are - all of us - "autonomous control systems," even the children among us. For another, Powers offers an interesting if not novel approach to conflict resolution, namely, taking it "up a level." (I leave to the readers of Powers' book the fun of discovering of what that means.) Finally, in the midst of all this autonomy is the unavoidable conclusion that we are inescapably accountable for our own behavior. (Management will both love and hate that one.) The bottom line of Powers' message is plain and profound: I am in control of me. That's all there is and that's enough. Moreover, the inevitable consequence of attempting to control others is conflict. But why take my word for it? Buy it, read it and then you tell me what you think. Send me an e-mail and I'll post your reviews on my web site. nickols@worldnet.att.net.
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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Old stuff in old wrapping, November 12, 2005
The author argues that control theory should be in the centre of psychology and the social science. Further, he argues that Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) amounts to be a paradigm shift in the social sciences, to quote the foreword;
"... Perceptual Control Theory brings us mot merely a few unusual notions, not merely a "viewpoint," but a sea-change, a paradigm shift." (p. vii)
I found this claim quite inspiring, waiting to find what amazing wall-breaking insights the author had coming in the book. What a disappointment it was to read the rest of the book. The author claims that control was ignored by behaviorism and early cognitive science (in the 1960ies) because the circular causality involved in control was contrary to the (then) current linear understanding of cause and effect. This reasoning might be correct, but the author never presents any recent research done within psychology which have importance for control theory. The author seems to think that mainstream psychology still involves behaviorism and S-R based cognitive psychology as no other references to works done after 1960 is presented (in fact, the book has no references at all!).
The author's seemingly ignorance of current developments within psychology and related fields also puts his arguments in a new light. If these ideas had been presented in 1962 it would probably have had some new and quite refreshing ideas, but in 1998 the ideas of circular causality, the importance of perception and action, internal comparator modules and control systems are old news. Developments in related fields such as Ecological psychology (e.g. Gibson (1979) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception), Dynamic Systems Theory (Thelen & Smith (1995) A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action) and Movement Science (Latash & Turvey (1996) Dexterity and its Development) all present ideas and research developments which are newer, fresher and more to the point than the ones presented in 'Making Sense of Behavior'. If the ideas in 'Making Sense of Behavior' involves a paradigm shift or a scientific revolution, it is one which happened several decades ago.
It is, on the other hand, a book which attempt to take Control seriously, which is a good thing, only too bad the author does not include or discuss research from other traditions, or at least points to connections to other fields of research. But if he had done that, it would be clear that there is nothing new in this book. The only reason it did not get one star is because it takes serious the issue of circular causality and control (which have been mainly ignored by mainstream cognitive science).
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by William T Powers
by Philip Julian Runkel
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