20th-century Psychologist Quotes

Deconstructing the concept of race not only goes against the tendency of virtually every known culture to classify and build family histories according to some measure of common descent, it also ignores the work of biologists studying non-human species.

J. Philippe Rushton

When the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is giving in a form each mind that seeks for it in honesty can understand.

In the integrated relational model presented here, sexuality and relational issues are not seen as alternative foci. Rather, sexuality is regarded as a central realm in which relational conflicts are shaped and played out.

Stephen A. Mitchell

Sexual conduct is learned, acquired and assembled in human interaction, judged and performed in specific cultural and historical worlds.

The truth is, people don't stay the same. People either get better or they get worse.

Richard Bandler

beliefs are hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be guarded.

We cling to hierarchies because our place in a hierarchy is, rightly or wrongly, a major indicator of our social worth.

For the sensory thinker, the world of the mind bears a direct physical resemblance to the world outside.

For some of the large indignities of life, the best remedy is direct action. For the small indignities, the best remedy is a Charlie Chaplin movie. The hard part is knowing the difference.

Scientists, especially when they leave the particular field in which they have specialized, are just as ordinary, pigheaded and unreasonable as anybody else.

In insecure relationships, we disguise our vulnerabilities so our partner never really sees us.

People do not marry people, not real ones anyway; they marry what they think the person is; they marry illusions and images. The exciting adventure of marriage is finding out who the partner really is.

When you gossip about another person, listeners unconsciously associate you with the characteristics you are describing, ultimately leading to those characteristics' being transferred to you. So, say positive and pleasant things about friends and colleagues, and you are seen as a nice person. In contrast, constantly complain about their failings, and people will unconsciously apply the negative traits and incompetence to you.

Richard Wiseman

When people say women can't be trusted because they cycle every month, my response is that men cycle every day, so they should only be allowed to negotiate peace treaties in the evening.

In some instances, you may care so much about the person who has hurt you, or be so unable to be angry with him (or with anyone), that you rationalize his hurtful acts by finding some basis in your own actions for his hurtful behavior; you then feel guilty rather than angry. Put in other terms, you become angry with yourself rather than with the one who hurt you.

The advantages of having decisions made by groups are often lost because of powerful psychological pressures that arise when the members work closely together, share the same set of values and, above all, face a crisis situation that puts everyone under intense stress

When we inject people with positivity, their outlook expands. They see the big picture. When we inject them with neutrality or negativity, their peripheral vision shrinks. There is no big picture, no dots to connect.

Barbara Fredrickson

Atheism may be, in some cases, just verbal behavior masking personal feelings that may be very different, perhaps even deeply religious.

Children often have been likened to scientists. Both ask fundamental questions about the nature of the universe. Both also ask innumerable questions that seem utterly trivial to others. Finally, both are granted by society the time to pursue their musings.

Robert S. Siegler

Unconscious decisions for action go on constantly inside the head.

Robert E. Ornstein

Reducing complexity by order formation is the number one skill needed by all leaders in the twenty-first century

Imagine how dull life would be if variables assessed for admission to a graduate program really did predict who would succeed and who would fall. Life would be intolerable - no hope, no challenge

Growth and change are never easy...If it were easy, you would have done it long ago.

Lawrence LeShan

Misleading may be the claims that procedures [of animal testing] are carried out under anaesthesia. Restraining devices and paralysing drugs can today be so effective that an anaesthetic is often unnecessary from the purely practical point of view. The risk of giving a dose too large and thereby losing an expensive chimpanzee, for example, may often tempt a scientist or technician, inexperienced with sophisticated anaesthetic techniques, to give a dose too small, from which the animal quickly recovers — but not of course until after it has been strapped securely to the operating table.

Richard D. Ryder

Our own vitality as well as that of others frightens us, if it still manages to surface, we respond with rage and turn against our own freedom. It is vitality itself that we are opposing.