Word: psychologistic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Sugar-Coated. The principles that underlie reinforcement therapy go back to Russia's Ivan Pavlov, whose classic experiments with salivating dogs first proved that human and animal reflexes could be conditioned. His theories were expanded by the greatest living exponent of behaviorism, Harvard Psychologist B. F. Skinner, who demonstrated that rats, pigeons and even men are influenced by the consequences that their actions have. This principle, the reinforcement therapists insist, applies also to mental patients previously thought to be beyond psychiatric help...
...early experiment, Psychologist Ivar Lovaas of U.C.L.A. tried out reinforcement on a small group of vegetable-like psychotic children who were capable of no other utterances than guttural noises in their throats. Lovaas waited until they were hungry, then gave them a taste of sugar-coated cornflakes. Next, he held up a few flakes before the children and waited for them to make a sound. When they did, he immediately gave each of them another flake and said "Good!" After a few more attempts, he pressed their lips together, demonstrated the sound of "mmmm" and rewarded the children with praise...
...practical level, behaviorists concede that reinforcement techniques have not so far been fully effective in teaching the full range of skills needed to cope with many daily strains. Some reinforcement experts go further and admit that behavior therapy probably cannot replace other techniques completely. Allen Bergin, a Columbia University psychologist says that "the behavioral therapist can handle a few things quite well. But what can he do when a totally depressed, alienated person comes into his office and bemoans the purposelessness of his life...
Leon Mann, a social psychologist at Harvard, and K. F. Taylor of the University of Melbourne, report in the Jour nal of Personality and Social Psychology that people in lines are possessed of a curious sixth sense that subconsciously spots the "critical point" when the sup ply of tickets will give out. Yet instead of giving up and going home, late comers succumb to an ersatz optimism and delude themselves into thinking that the line is shorter than it really...
...Given that need-and his new intellectual credentials-the director has become the focal point of film making. Henry Hathaway (True Grit), Howard Hawks (Red River) and John Ford (Cheyenne Autumn) have been reappraised as the prime movers of the west ern. Alfred Hitchcock has been called an eminent psychologist for his shrewd manipulation of audiences as well as actors. Some of the praise seems fulsome: Jerry Lewis has been compared favorably with Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles. Still, general acceptance of the auteur theory has given American directors new power with major studios and fresh rapport with audiences. Though...