Quotes by Psychologists - Page 6

If you shatter the fish bowl so that everything is possible you don't have freedom you have paralysis. Everybody needs a fishbowl.
Barry Schwartz
It's easy to forget that anything is possible with these guys. That there really are no limits.
Kevin Dutton
It is not important who the leader is. It's important what and where he/she leads one to.
Amit Abraham
Child abuse damages a person for life and that damage is in no way diminished by the ignorance of the perpetrator. It is only with the uncovering of the complete truth as it affects all those involved that a genuinely viable solution can be found to the dangers of child abuse.
Alice MIller
Are Child Molesters Really Just Victims Themselves? "All victims are offenders," one professional challenged me at a conference, "and all offenders are victims. How does your work address that?"My work doesn't address that because I don't believe there's any evidence for that assertion. Obviously, not all victims are offenders, but it is also likely that most offenders weren't victims. The studies that find a high proportion of child molesters who were victims of child sexual abuse themselves are almost always based on self-report, and even there, study results differ dramatically. Studies show the number of child molesters who were themselves molested as children ranges from 22 percent in some studies to 82 percent in others.[101]
Anna C. Salter
Beyond telling and getting away however there are an awful lot of myths out there about how to move on or get justice. People may tell you to report the crime or confront you abuser- or even to forgive him. I don't necessarily advocate any of these things. I think counseling of some kind can be enormously useful, but the bottom line is that the main way to heal is to find people who will support you, to talk about what happened, and to ground yourself in the reality that the abuse was not your fault, that you have nothing to be ashamed of, and that you deserve great love and happiness in your life.
Patti Feuereisen
You may experience waves of disbelief after each memory you retrieve. Whether as a phase or waves, the disbelief is usually accompanied by massive self-hate and guilt. ‘How can I even think such a thing? I must really be warped,’ you tell yourself.
Renee Fredrickson
It doesn't matter if you come from money or you are poor: If your family has already made you feel that you are not worthy, you begin to believe it, and when someone comes along and tells you that you are beautiful/special/wonderful and showers you with attention and gifts, or offers you money when you desperately need it, you are vulnerable and ready to trust
Patti Feuereisen
But in any case, validity, offender self-reports have dubious validity, especially when the offender's self-interest is at stake. The only rule for deception in sex offenders I have ever found is this: If it is in the offender's best interests to lie, and if he can do it and not get caught, he will lie. Being victimized as a child has become a ready excuse for perpetrating child molestation. The offender who claims he himself was victimized gets seen as less of a "monster" than one who wasn't a victim, and he gains much more empathy and support. It is hard to trust self-reports of sex offenders about abuse in their past when such reports are in their best interest.Only a few studies on this topic have used objective measures, and they have found very different results.[102]
Anna C. Salter
The more we idealized the past, however, and refuse to acknowledge or childhood sufferings, the more we pass them on unconsciously to the next generation.
Alice MIller
One of the reasons a survivor finds it so difficult to see herself as a victim is that she has been blamed repeatedly for the abuse: "If you weren't such a whore, this wouldn't have to happen." Each time she is used and trashed, she becomes further convinced of her innate badness. She sees herself participating in forbidden sexual activity and may often get some sense of gratification from it even if she doesn't want to (it is, after all, a form of touch, and our bodies respond without the consent of our wills). This is seen as further proof that the abuse is her fault and well deserved. In her mind, she has become responsible for the actions of her abusers. She believes she is not a victim; she is a loathsome, despicable, worthless human being—if indeed she even qualifies as human. When the abuse has been sadistic in nature...these beliefs are futher entrenched.
Diane Mandt Langberg
Speaking and listening are a form of psychic breathing.
Carol Gilligan
The task of the moral philosopher-thinker is to support and strengthen the voice of human conscience, to recognize what is good or what is bad for people, whether they are good or bad for society in a period of evolution. May be a "voice crying in the wilderness", but only if that voice remains lively and uncompromising, it is possible to transform the desert into fertile land.
Erich Fromm
Sympathy is a characteristic trait of politicians and empathy an emotion of the masses.
Amit Abraham
Success comes to those who do not waste time looking and criticizing what others are doing but focusing on honest self-evaluation and what they have to do.
Amit Abraham
My point is that Satan uses our keenest appetites to tempt us.
James C. Dobson
Instead, every precaution was taken not to violate his rights. Remember, many administrators have no difficulty in expelling a student who utters an unwelcome opinion about the immorality of homosexuality.
James C. Dobson
Social change doesn’t happen overnight: It takes decades for momentum to build and for the once-radical edge to become mainstream.
Dr. Jean M. Twenge
Once the primary bonds which gave security to the individual are severed, once the individual faces the world outside of himself as a completely separate entity, two courses re-open to him since he has to overcome the unbearable state of powerlessness and aloneness. By one course he can progress to “positive freedom”; he can relate himself spontaneously to the world in love and work, in the genuine expression of his emotional, sensuous and intellectual capacities; he can thus become one again with man, nature, and himself, without giving up the independence and integrity of his individual self. The other course open to him is to fall back, to give up his freedom, and to try to overcome his aloneness by eliminating the gap that has arisen between his individual self and the world. This second course never reunites him with the world in the way he was related to it before he merged as an “individual,” for the fact of his separateness cannot be reversed; it is an escape from an unbearable situation which would make life impossible if it were prolonged. This course of escape, therefore, is characterized by its compulsive character, like every escape from threatening panic; it is also characterized by the more or less complete surrender of individuality and the integrity of the self. Thus it is not a solution which leads to happiness and positive freedom; it is, in principle, a solution which is to be found in all neurotic phenomena. It assuages an unbearable anxiety and makes life possible by avoiding panic; yet it does not solve the underlying problem and is paid for by a kind of life that often consists only of automatic or compulsive activities.
Erich Fromm
The person who said that it is lonely at top has no idea what the view looks like from above. ~ Aarush Kashyap
Kirtida Gautam
What you read in the newspapers, hear on the radio and see on television, is hardly even the truth as seen by experts; it is the wishful thinking of journalists, seen through filters of prejudice and ignorance.
Hans Jürgen Eysenck
We have already seen that when positive authority suggests a change in behavior, the recipient will accept it provided he is capable of doing so and provided it does not require drastic modification of belief or frustrate important needs. By carrying out the suggestion, one can simultaneously reduce dissonance and preserve intact one's relation to positive authority. But what can reasonably be expected when the suggestion to change is beyond the recipient's capability or frustrates his deep needs or predispositions? In such a situation, a conflict arises between his desire to comply with authority and the abilities or needs which make compliance impossible.One way to resolve such a conflict situation (or to reduce the dissonance) is to change one's conception of authority. If a suggestion emanating from positive authority is unacceptable, the conflict may be removed by becoming disaffected with the authority and transforming it either into a negative authority or into a nonexistent one. This is exactly what Leon and Joseph did.
Milton Rokeach
Authority is not a quality one person 'has,' in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him.
Erich Fromm
When the locus of evaluation is seen as residing in the expert, it would appear that the long-range social implications are in the direction of the social control of the many by the few.
Carl R. Rogers
Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities, the political, the religious, the educational authorities who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open-mindedness; chaotic, confused, vulnerability to inform yourself.
Timothy Leary
But the culture has failed, almost entirely, in inculcating internal controls on actions that have their origin in authority. For this reason, the latter constitutes a far greater danger to human survival.
Stanley Milgram
If a stranger saying we are "dependable" activates the reward system, imagine what praise from a boss, a parent, or even an unaccomplished slightly older graduate student will do. Of course, we all know that praise is a good thing, as long as it isn't too unconditional, but until very recently, we had no idea that praise taps into the same reinforcement system in the brain that enables cheese to help rats learn to solve mazes. And positive social regard is a renewable resource. Rather than having less of something after using it, when we let others know we value them, both parties have more.
Matthew D Lieberman
Praising children's intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance.
Carol S. Dweck
Boredom can be just another construct of the mind....There is always something new to notice.
Ellen Langer
Something doing every minute' may be a gesture of despair--or the height of a battle against boredom.
B.F. Skinner
When what we say doesn't match how we act, we are lying to ourselves.
Cortney S. Warren
If you can't make a mark make a dent.
Amit Abraham
Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation.
William James
When people can afford necessities in life, an increase in income dones not result in a significantly happier life.
Richard Wiseman
We generally describe the most repulsive examples of man's cruelty as brutal or bestial, implying that such behavior is characteristic of less highly developed animals than ourselves. In fact, however, the extremes of brutal behavior are confined to us: there exists no parallel in nature to our savage treatment of each other. The unmistakable truth is that man is the most vicious and cruel species that ever walked the earth.
Hans Askenasy
Severe punishment unquestionably has an immediate effect in reducing a tendency to act in a given way. This result is no doubt responsible for its widespread use. We 'instinctively' attack anyone whose behavior displeases us - perhaps not in physical assault, but with criticism, disapproval, blame, or ridicule. Whether or not there is an inherited tendency to do this, the immediate effect of the practice is reinforcing enough to explain its currency. In the long run, however, punishment does not actually eliminate behavior from a repertoire, and its temporary achievement is obtained at tremendous cost in reducing the over-all efficiency and happiness of the group. (p. 190)
B.F. Skinner
The most effective alternative process [to punishment] is probably extinction. This takes time but is much more rapid than allowing the response to be forgotten. The technique seems to be relatively free of objectionable by-products. We recommend it, for example when we suggest that a parent 'pay no attention' to objectionable behavior on the part of his child. If the child's behavior is strong only because it has been reinforced by 'getting a rise out of' the parent, it will disappear when this consequence is no longer forthcoming. (p. 192)
B.F. Skinner
Control the manner in which a man interprets his world, and you have gone a long way toward controlling his behavior. That is why ideology, an attempt to interpret the condition of man, is always a prominent feature of revolutions, wars, and other circumstances in which individuals are called upon to perform extraordinary action.
Stanley Milgram
One can't live mindfully without being enmeshed in psychological processes that are around us.
Philip G. Zimbardo
Behavior has consequences, and stupid behavior often has terrible consequences.
James C. Dobson
If we conform our behavior to God’s ancient moral prescription, we are entitled to the sweet benefits of life. But if we defy its imperatives, then death is the inevitable consequence. AIDS is only one avenue by which sickness and death befall those who play Russian roulette with God’s eternal moral law.
James C. Dobson
If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples.
Philip G. Zimbardo
The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.
Philip G. Zimbardo
The level of shyness has gone up dramatically in the last decade. I think shyness is an index of social pathology rather than a pathology of the individual.
Philip G. Zimbardo
Human behavior is incredibly pliable, plastic.
Philip G. Zimbardo
Time perspective is one of the most powerful influences on all of human behavior. We're trying to show how people become biased to being exclusively past-, present- or future-oriented.
Philip G. Zimbardo
I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?
Philip G. Zimbardo
Situational variables can exert powerful influences over human behavior, more so that we recognize or acknowledge.
Philip G. Zimbardo
There is nothing more secure in a relationship than a sense of insecurity.
Amit Abraham
Time is not money because it never returns.
Amit Abraham
Don't spend time its very precious - utilize it constructively.
Amit Abraham
Morality often involves tension within the group motivated by competition between different groups.
Jonathan Haidt
Most times you only have to be Brave ENOUGH.
andrea T Goeglein
The paradigm of Western culture is that the essence of persons is dangerous; thus, they must be taught, guided and controlled by those with superior authority.
Carl R. Rogers
After all is said and done, it is the commitment of love that transcends time and space. So often, we seek answers in places where there is little light. It is when we choose to go within that we find all that we need.
Susan Barbara Apollon
At some point, when we have been blessed with profoundly moving, touching and special moments, it is important to stop questioning and to begin accepting the gift of the experience. Such moments add only richness and great joy to this journey called life.
Susan Barbara Apollon
Love, prayer and miracles go hand in hand. Every great master who has come forth to teach humanity has spoken of love.
Susan Barbara Apollon
We are eternal beings who are connected to God, Source, or whatever you feel comfortable labeling the Divine. What this means is that we are here for joy and for love.
Susan Barbara Apollon
Extraordinary moments often involve a sense of connection, as well as communication, with something that we intuitively know goes well beyond this plane of reality.
Susan Barbara Apollon
We are all spiritual beings, having a spiritual experience, while in physical bodies. What this means is that we continue to be through eternity, always changing and expanding. When we accept this, we realize that there are no limitations, other than those that we impose upon ourselves. Mastery is within our power—if we wish it to be.
Susan Barbara Apollon