Chaos Theory in Psychology (Contributions in Psychology) - Hardcover

This collection of essays shows how chaos concepts have motivated theory, research, and applications in many areas of psychology, from neurophysiology to social psychology. While it includes chaos theory, fractals, and neural nets, its central theme is how dynamical modeling in psychology may provide for a proper balance of unification and diversity throughout the field. The volume provides not so much the technical details of the field, but rather examples of both research and professional applications of the many directions that innovations using this unifying approach can take. It is written at a level accessible to the lay reader, but sufficiently sophisticated to enlighten graduate and upper-level undergraduate students, as well as professionals seeking to employ this approach in psychology.

FREDERICK DAVID ABRAHAM has held academic positions at the University of California-Los Angeles, San Diego, and Irvine, and the University of Vermont. He has written extensively on the applications of dynamical systems theory to brain and behavior. He is co-author of A Visual Introduction to Dynamical Systems Theory for Psychology (1990). ALBERT R. GILGEN is Professor of Psychology at the University of Northern Iowa. Among his earlier publications are American Psychology Since World War II and International Handbook of Psychology (Greenwood Press, 1982 and 1987 respectively).