{"title":"Michael J Apter","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"dangerous-edge-book-michael-j-apter-9780029007655","title":"The Dangerous Edge","description":"Apter examines the reasons why people take part in dangerous activities, and explores the complex relationship between excitement, anxiety, panic and euphoria. He discusses the psychological mechanisms which court danger and the counter-instincts which seek to contain the risk. This seeking of risky but limited excitement is, he argues, an important social safety valve and channels energies and desires that would otherwise find expression in criminal and wantonly destructive activities. However, this craving for excitement can escalate and lead people to attempt ever more risky, foolhardy and ultimately fatal feats. 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Why would rich people shoplift? What draws people to parachuting, military service, and sadistic sex? These are just some of the questions this book unravels in its investigation of our paradoxical liking of danger. Using the concept of a 'protective frame', drawn from Reversal Theory, Danger: Our Love of Living on the Edge explains how, even in dangerous situations (often because of them ) anxiety becomes excitement and fear, exhilaration - transforming the horrifying into the heavenly. Examining different kinds of protective frames and how they affect our behaviour, as well as how they are institutionalized in our culture, this book explores how excitement-seeking can lead to disaster for ourselves or others, how it opens us to manipulation - but also how it can be uniquely creative and life-enhancing. An intellectual tour de force, Danger throws light on a critically important but often neglected force of human nature and culture.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49664879493393,"sku":"GOR003905188","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50754909700369,"sku":"GOR006515371","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52585250685201,"sku":"NLS9781851684816","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1851684816.jpg?v=1751454183"},{"product_id":"reversal-theory-book-michael-j-apter-9781851684809","title":"Reversal Theory","description":"Grand theories in psychology, you might think, have been out of fashion for quite some time. However, since its inception in the early 1980s, reversal theory has attracted a great deal of professional attention and scholarly interest has seen rapid growth in recent years. In this seminal work, Michael J. Apter puts forward a new framework for understanding the structure of mental experience, rejecting many widely-accepted psychological assumptions. Behaviour, he says, can only be understood by reference to the subjective meaning assigned to it by the actor. Cognition as the sole focus of psychological analysis is erroneous - motivation and emotion must be reinstated as equally central concerns, and understood on their own terms. Furthermore, he argues, personality is not a conglomeration of static traits, but rather a dynamic, interactive matrix of change. Demystifying behaviour, cognition, emotion, motivation and what it is to be a person, reversal theory is a revolutionary take on the psyche of man. Including chapters on past research and where the future is headed, this book represents its most concise and complete statement to date.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50391721476369,"sku":"CIN1851684808G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51023228076305,"sku":"GOR007389102","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1851684808.jpg?v=1750930963"},{"product_id":"zigzag-book-michael-j-apter-9781788038867","title":"Zigzag","description":"The conventional assumption in psychology is that our personalities consist of fixed traits that endure over time.  The present book takes issue with this over-simple idea and suggests something much more interesting and surprising, known as Reversal Theory. This proposes that we tend to switch back and forth between opposing personalities in the course of our everyday lives. For example, sometimes we are serious and sometimes playful, sometimes we are conforming and sometimes rebellious. And we switch (reverse) backwards and forwards, from one to another, over time.     Our personalities are therefore dynamic rather than static and can even be self-contradictory. Personality is about the characteristic ways we navigate such change and contradiction: we are dancers rather than statues and dance to our own music. This can lead to puzzling paradoxes and problems but can also, handled appropriately, help us to achieve productive and happy lives, because it shows how rich in possibilities we all are. It has been said that Reversal Theory liberates rather than limits, and in this respect goes beyond most self-help theories.    Illustrated with case histories of well-known celebrities and historical figures, with the results of psychological studies, and with personal anecdotes, Apter brings the provocative ideas of Reversal Theory to life and is a highly relevant contribution to the contemporary psychology of motivation and personality. In the process he deals coherently with a variety of interesting topics including: risky sport, terrorism, domestic violence, art and humour.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50692313940241,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50692314202385,"sku":"GOR009657299","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51769897386257,"sku":"GOR014396007","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/178803886X.jpg?v=1751248520"},{"product_id":"computer-simulation-of-behaviour-book-michael-j-apter-9781138496743","title":"The Computer Simulation of Behaviour","description":"This book, originally published in 1970, concerns the new technique of computer simulation in psychology at the time. 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