Graduate

Carver
Description of Book
Carver publications

Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F.   (1998).
On the Self-Regulation of Behavior.
New York:  Cambridge University Press.

http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521572045

Complete Table of Contents:

1.  Introduction and Plan

WHAT MAKES BEHAVIOR HAPPEN?
     Some Limitations and Some Grandiosity
     Observations and Origins
THE BOOK’S PLAN
     Goal-Directed Action
     Emotion
     Confidence and Doubt, Persisting and Giving Up
     Problems in Behavior
     Newer Themes:  Dynamic Systems and Catastrophes
     Control versus Emergence of Behavior
     Goal Engagement and Life
 

2.  Principles of Feedback Control

CYBERNETICS, FEEDBACK, AND CONTROL
     Negative Feedback
     An Example:  The Ubiquitous Thermostat
ADDITIONAL ISSUES IN FEEDBACK CONTROL
     Sloppy versus Tight Control
     Lag Time
     Intermittent Feedback
DISTINCTIONS AND FURTHER CONSTRUCTS
     Positive Feedback Loops
     Open Loop Systems
     Feedforward
INTERRELATIONS AMONG FEEDBACK PROCESSES
     Interdependency
     Reference Value and Input Function:  How Do They Differ?
     Hierarchies
CONCLUDING COMMENT
 

3.  Discrepancy-Reducing Feedback Processes in Behavior

FEEDBACK CONTROL IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR
     Early Applications of Feedback Principles
     Our Starting Points
     Self-Directed Attention and Comparison with Standards
     Self-Directed Attention and Conformity to Standards
     Brain Functioning, Self-Awareness, and Self-Regulation
     How Does Attention Shift to the Self in Ordinary Life?
BROADENING THE APPLICATION OF FEEDBACK PRINCIPLES
     Sources and Nature of Feedback of the Effects of One's Behavior
     Use of Feedback for Self-Verification
     Social Comparison and Feedback Control
SUMMARY
 

4.  Discrepancy-Enlarging Loops, and Three Further Issues

DISCREPANCY-ENLARGING FEEDBACK LOOPS IN BEHAVIOR
     Downward Social Comparison
     Negative Reference Groups
     Feared Self and Unwanted Self
     Positive Feedback Process Constrained by Negative Feedback Process
     The Ought Self
     Reactance
FURTHER ISSUES
     Feedback Loops in Mutual Interdependence
     The Search for Discrepancies
     The Issue of Will
 

5.  Goals and Behavior

GOALS
     An Overview of Broad Goal Constructs
     Task-Specific Goals
HIERARCHICAL CONCEPTIONS OF GOALS
     Basic Premise: Goals Can Be Differentiated by Levels of Abstraction
     A Control Hierarchy
     Hierarchical Functioning Is Simultaneous
     Action Identification
COMPARISONS OUTSIDE PERSONALITY-SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
     Hierarchical Plans
     Hierarchical Models of Motor Control
COMPARISONS FROM PERSONALITY-SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
     Relations to Goal Models Outlined Earlier
     Hierarchicality behind Task Efforts
     Hierarchicality in Other Models
SUMMARY

6.  Goals, Hierarchicality, and Behavior:  Further Issues

CHALLENGES TO HIERARCHICALITY
     Hierarchies, Heterarchies, and Coalitions
     Are the Qualities of the Proposed Hierarchy the Wrong Sorts?
     Responsibility for Details
FURTHER ISSUES REGARDING HIERARCHICAL FUNCTIONING
     Which Level Is Functionally Superordinate Can Vary
     Multiple Paths to High-Level Goals, Multiple Meanings in Concrete Action
     Goal Importance
     Approach Goals and Avoidance Goals within a Hierarchy
     Approach and Avoidance Goals and Well-Being
MULTIPLE SIMULTANEOUS GOALS
     Conflict and Scheduling
     Multiple Goals Satisfied in One Activity
PROGRAMS SEEM DIFFERENT FROM OTHER GOALS
     Analog versus Digital Functioning
     Opportunistic Planning and Stages in Decision Making
GOAL HIERARCHIES AND TRAITS
     Traits and Goals
     Viewing Others in Terms of Traits versus Actions
     Traits and Behaviors in Memory
GOALS AND THE SELF
     Self-Determination Theory and the Self
 

7.  Public and Private Aspects of the Self

ASPECTS OF SELF
     Further Distinctions
     Recent Statements
     Aspects of Self and Classes of Goal
BEHAVIORAL SELF-REGULATION AND PRIVATE VERSUS SOCIAL GOALS
     Formation of Intentions
     Differential Valuation of Personal and Social Goals
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-AWARENESS IN SELF-REGULATION
     Anticipating Interaction
     Conformity
     Attitudes, Subjective Norms, and Behavior
     Private Preferences and Subjective Norms Vary in Their Content
 

8.  Control Processes and Affect

GOALS, RATE OF PROGRESS, AND AFFECT
     Discrepancy Reduction and Rate of Reduction
     Progress Toward a Goal versus Completion of Subgoals
EVIDENCE ON THE AFFECTIVE CONSEQUENCES OF PROGRESS
     Hsee and Abelson
     Lawrence, Carver, and Scheier
     Brunstein
     Affleck and Colleagues
QUESTIONS
     Is This Really a Feedback System?
     Does Positive Affect Lead to Coasting?
     A Cruise-Control Model of Affect
CHANGES IN RATE:  ACCELERATION AND DECELERATION
     Subjective Experience of Acceleration and Deceleration
     Surprise
     Research
AFFECT FROM DISCREPANCY-ENLARGING LOOPS
     Doing Well, Doing Poorly
     Activation Asymmetry between Dimensions
AFFECT AND BEHAVIOR
     Affect in the Absence of Action
     Affect from Recollection or Imagination
     Potential for Affect and Levels of Abstraction
     Merging Affect and Action
     Two Systems in Concert in Other Applications
BREADTH OF APPLICATION
 

9.  Affect:  Issues and Comparisons

META-LEVEL STANDARDS
     Meta-Level Standards Vary in Stringency
     Influences on Stringency
     Changing Meta-Level Standards
FURTHER ISSUES
     Stress as the Disruption of Goal-Directed Activity
     Goal Attainment and Negative Affect
     Conflict and Mixed Feelings
     Time Windows for Input to Meta-Monitoring Can Vary
     Are There Other Mechanisms that Produce Affect?
RELATIONSHIPS TO OTHER THEORIES
     Affect and Reprioritization
     Self-Discrepancy Theory
     Positive and Negative Affect
     Biological Models of Bases of Affect
 

10.  Expectancies and Disengagement

AFFECT IS LINKED TO EXPECTANCY
     Feelings and Confidence
     Mood and Decision Making
     Confidence and Brain Function
INTERRUPTION AND FURTHER ASSESSMENT
     Interruption
     Assessment of Expectancies
     Generality and Specificity of Expectancies
EFFORT VERSUS DISENGAGEMENT
     Theory
     Research:  Comparisons with Standards
     Research:  Responses to Fear
     Research:  Persistence
     Mental Disengagement, Impaired Task Performance, and Negative Rumination
     Self-Focus, Task Focus, and Rumination
EFFORT AND DISENGAGEMENT:  THE GREAT DIVIDE
     Is Disengagement Good or Bad?
 

11. Disengagement:  Issues and Comparisons

SCALING BACK GOALS AS LIMITED DISENGAGEMENT
     Problems with Limited Disengagement
     Scaling Back Goals as Changing Velocity Reference Value
WHEN GIVING UP IS NOT A TENABLE OPTION
     Hierarchicality and Importance Can Impede Disengagement
     Inability to Disengage and Responses to Health Threats
     Helplessness
WATERSHEDS, DISJUNCTIONS, AND BIFURCATIONS AMONG RESPONSES
     Other Disjunctive Motivational Models
DOES DISENGAGEMENT IMPLY AN OVERRIDE MECHANISM?
     Disengagement, or Competing Motives?
     Loss of Commitment
FURTHER THEORETICAL COMPARISONS
     Efficacy Expectancy and Expectancy of Success
     The Sense of Personal Control
ENGAGEMENT AND DISENGAGEMENT IN OTHER LITERATURES
     Goal Setting
     Social Facilitation
     Upward and Downward Social Comparison
     Self-Verification
     Performance Goals and Learning Goals
     Curiosity
     Stress and Coping
SUMMARY
 

12.  Applications to Problems in Living

REGULATING WITH THE WRONG FEEDBACK
     Automatic Distortion of Feedback
GOALS OPERATING OUT OF AWARENESS
DOUBT AS A ROOT OF PROBLEMS
     Automatic Use of Previously Encoded Success Expectancies
PREMATURE DISENGAGEMENT OF EFFORT
     Test Anxiety
     Social Anxiety
FAILURE TO DISENGAGE COMPLETELY WHEN DOING SO IS THE RIGHT RESPONSE
     “Hanging On” Is Related to Distress
WHEN IS DISENGAGEMENT THE RIGHT RESPONSE?
LIVES OUT OF BALANCE
     Complexity of the Self
RUMINATION
     Rumination as Problem Solving and Attempted Discrepancy Reduction
     Rumination as Dysfunctional
 

13.  Hierarchicality and Problems in Living

LINKS BETWEEN CONCRETE GOALS AND THE CORE VALUES OF THE SELF
     Hierarchicality as an Impediment to Disengagement
     Problems as Conflicts among Goals
     Problems as Absence of Links from High to Low Levels
     Reorganization of the Self
MAKING LOW LEVELS FUNCTIONALLY SUPERORDINATE
     Reduction of High-Level Control by Deindividuation and Alcohol
     Relinquishing or Abandoning High-Level Control as Escape from the Self
     Relinquishing or Abandoning High-Level Control as Problem Solving
     Further Comparisons
     Failure of High-Level Override:  Symmetry in Application
RESIDING TOO MUCH AT HIGH LEVELS
 

14.  Chaos and Dynamic Systems

DYNAMIC SYSTEMS
     Nonlinearity
     Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions
     Phase Space, Attractors, and Repellers
     Another Way of Picturing Attractors
     Variability and Phase Changes
SIMPLE APPLICATIONS OF DYNAMIC SYSTEMS THINKING
     Goals as Attractors
     Shifts among Attractors and Motivational Dynamics
     Variability in the Construing of Social Behavior
     Variability and Consciousness
     Consciousness, Attractors, and Importance in Day-to-Day Life
     Chaotic Variation as Frequency Distributions
     Variability of Behavior in Iterative Systems
 

15.  Catastrophe Theory

THE CUSP CATASTROPHE
     Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions
     Hysteresis
     Catastrophes in Physical Reality
     Variability
APPLICATIONS OF CATASTROPHE THEORY
     Perception
     Dating and Mating
     Relationship Formation and Dissolution
     Groups
     Persuasion and Belief Perseverance
     Rumination versus Action
     Expectancies
EFFORT VERSUS DISENGAGEMENT
     Importance or Investment as a Critical Control Parameter
 

16.  Further Applications to Problems in Living

CATASTROPHES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
     A Remedy: Care Less
     Chaotically Caring
     Further Possible Manifestations of the Cusp Catastrophe
DYNAMIC SYSTEMS AND THE CHANGE PROCESS
     Attractors, Minima, Stability, and Optimality
     Stability, Adaptation, and Optimality
     Minima in Specific Problems
     Therapy
     Destabilization and the Metaphors of Dynamic Systems
EXTENSIONS
     Destabilization, Reorganization, and Beneficial Effects of Trauma
     Psychological Growth
 

17.  Is Behavior Controlled or Does It Emerge?

COORDINATION AND COMPLEXITY EMERGENT FROM SIMPLE SOURCES
     Some Apparent Complexity Need Not Be Created
     Properties Emergent from Social Interaction
     Does Emergence of Some Imply Emergence of All?
     Two Modes of Functioning?
CONNECTIONISM
     Need Everything Be Distributed?
     Planning and Goal-Relevant Decisions
     Dual-Process Models
TWO-MODE MODELS IN PERSONALITY-SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
     Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory
     Deliberative and Implemental Mindsets
     Comparisons among Theories
     Two Automaticities
AUTONOMOUS ARTIFICIAL AGENTS
     Complexity and Coordination
     Another View of Goals in Autonomous Agents
     Comparison with Two-Mode Models of Thinking
CONCLUSIONS

18. Goal Engagement, Life, and Death

CONCEPTUALIZATION
     Goal Engagement and Well-Being
DISENGAGEMENT AND DEATH
     Doubt, Disengagement, and Self-Destructive Behavior
     Disengagement and Passive Death
DISENGAGEMENT, DISEASE, AND DEATH
     Disengagement and Disease Vulnerability
     Doubt, Disengagement, and Adverse Responses to Disease
     Disengagement, Recurrence, Disease Progression, and Death
     Conclusions
DYNAMICS AND ENGAGEMENT
     Aging and the Reduction of Importance