Psychologist Quotes

To cope with this difficulty [of limited capacity], even a mechanical recognition system must have some way to select portions of the incoming information for detailed analysis.

The administrative function comes easily to conservatives for the principal requirement of administration is unquestioning conformity to the standards embodied by the particular institution.

The term rationalize refers to any situations in which a person's action is described with reference to some supporting reason or cause. The term legitimate refers to one criterion by which rationalizations are selected from the many possible explanations for action. Justifications or rationalizations are selected primarily when they are acceptable explanations in a given social context. This means they fit with the facts as known according to the rules of behavior generally followed.

Gerald R. Salancik

You should prepare to follow the program for 90 days. Why? Because behavioral research indicates that it takes 90 days to prepare for change, build a new behavior, become confident in the face of high-risk triggers, and move past the likelihood of relapse. Brain research also suggests that it takes a few months of practicing a new behavior to create permanent change.

John C. Norcross

The emotional findings, then, suggest that to gain the most benefit from writing about life's traumas, acknowledge the negative but celebrate the positive.

James W. Pennebaker

Forcing a dog into an alpha roll, or shaking the dog, both constitute physical aggression. Physical aggression is not communication. If there is good communication, then such confrontations need not occur.

Dreams are a reservoir of knowledge and experience yet they are often overlooked as a vehicle for exploring reality. In the dream state our bodies are at rest, yet we see and hear, move about and are even able to learn. When we make good use of the dream state it is almost as if our lives were doubled: instead of a hundred years we live to be two hundred — Tibetan Buddhist Tarthang Tulku from

Stephen LaBerge

The intelligence of the lower forms of animal life, like a great deal of human intelligence, does not involve a self.

George Herbert Mead

It would be most wholesome if for at least twenty years art historians were forbidden to refer to any derivations. If they were not allowed to account for a work of art mainly by tracing where it comes from, they would have to deal with it in and by itself--which is what they are most needed for.

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

Trust grows when babies and mothers establish that they can find each other again after the inevitable moments of losing touch. It is not the goodness of the mother or the relationship per se that is the basis for trust; it is the ability of mother and baby together to repair the breaks in their relationship that builds a safe house for love.

Success in life does not necessarily originate with academic success.

Robert Sternberg

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

Two kinds of reading can be distinguished. I call them reading like a reader and reading like a writer... when you read like a reader, you identify with the characters in the story. The story is what you learn about. When you read like a writer, you identify with the author and learn about writing.

Frank Smith (psycholinguist)

Science is showing us that there are neurological (brain) factors that contribute to self-control and willpower, along with learning and upbringing. And when these brain systems are functioning improperly or become damaged, normal levels of self-control and willpower are impossible.

Russell Barkley

Life is at its best when
love, money, and creativity
are growing in harmony.

I was born from nothing and to nothing I will return. And yet, when i say the word nothing, when i admit, at last, 'I am nothing,' i feel mysteriously like something again, ground zero, genesis, the pull of possibilities.

In principle, it might be possible to obtain evidence of focal-attentive processing in the absence of awareness of what is being processed... in practice, however, a complete dissociation of consciousness from focal-attentive processing is difficult to achieve.

Reconnecting to the animal means getting to a more sensitive, more artful and more humorous place in the psyche.

Marriage emerged some forty-five hundred years ago and evolved into a widespread and accepted institution that bonded families, maintained order, and created wealth. Unlike today, where many of us are searching for our romantic "soul mate," marriage was originally more about economics than deep emotion.

Biology can be said to define possibilities but not determine them; it is never irrelevant but it is also not determinant.

If you think something is missing in your life, it is probably YOU...

Robert Holden (author)

When a depressed person shrinks away from your touch it does not mean he is rejecting you. Rather he is protecting you from the foul, destructive evil which he believes is the essence of his being and which he believes can injure you.

People fall in love more easily when they are already troubled by another emotion because we know that any intense emotional state greatly increases the risk of falling in love.

François Lelord

If we ask for more and more material for the construction, i.e. more and more choice, we're likely to end up with a lot of combinations that don't do much for us or are far more complex than they need to be.