On the Self-Regulation of Behavior

by Charles S. Carver, Michael F. Scheier

This book is a reader-friendly description of a viewpoint on human behavior which sees all behavior as aimed at attaining goals. A wide variety of topics are treated: ranging from goals, to emotion, to persistence and giving up, to living and dying. Both adaptive behavior and problems are examined. The book blends ideas that have long been part of self-regulation models with ideas that are recently emergent in psychology: dynamic systems and catastrophe theory. It also blends theoretical statement with wide-ranging discussion of issues.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

443 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Jenny Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is one of my top 10 favorite books of all time, although the majority of the universe would probably be yawning 5 pages into it. the authors explain how a self-regulating system outputs positive or negative emotions depending on the inputs and outputs of the system. see, i told you it would be boring for most people.

[Francis Djabri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A magnum opus on the role of goals in our lives and how they influence behavior, one that will be of particular value to those working in the design field. Carver and Scheier are old school cognitivists, but their range of influences are so broad that what emerges feels rich, profound and non-mechanistic. They do have a maddening tendency, however, to try and explain everything in terms of simple processes - the speculations can be interesting and thought-provoking but also a little clumsy and over-reaching.