This guide was created by Dag Forssell. Updated June 5, 1995
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PCT INTRODUCTION AND RESOURCE GUIDE
UNDERSTANDING PURPOSEFUL BEHAVIOR
Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) offers a clear explanation for thepervasive phenomenon of control, which is also known as purposeful behavior.Hierarchical PCT (HPCT) outlines a hierarchical arrangement as a likelyorganization of multiple control systems, which can explain the purposefulbehavior of living organisms. PCT focuses on how we look at and experiencethings, and the way these perceptions are compared with experiences we want.The difference produces action and physiology. Thus PCT explains how thoughtsbecome actions, feelings and results. PCT improves our understanding ofbehavior, conflict, cooperation, leadership, and personal relationships ineducation, business, society and families.
LOOK UNDER THE HOOD OR TAKE A TEST RIDE?
If this is your first encounter with PCT, you might think of yourself andothers as experienced with horses when the newfangled PCT automobile drivesinto town, introducing a new science and new possibilities. Some people willstick with the familiar horse, some will want to kick the tires and learn allabout how the engine works to evaluate the auto, and some will want a testride.
If you would rather take a test ride first, to get a feel for the PCTapproach to travel, I suggest you go to Freedom From Stress by Edward E.Ford (page 14 and 16). You tour the landscape and watch Ed drive while he givesyou a summary explanation of how a car works and why he teaches driving the wayhe does, in an easy-to-readcounseling story that deals with relationships at work, in marriage, and withchildren.
To become an expert driver yourself, able to think and deal with conflictlike Ed does in real time, you may want more in-depthunderstanding. Proceed to other books and programs in this guide for a morecomplete education. You might be inspired to become a PCT engineer yourself,join the Control Systems Group to do research and find better ways to drive onthe many roads of human experience.
WHAT PCT IS (PCT in a nutshell, p. 8, The nature of HPCT, p. 12).
Let me explain what PCT and HPCT is by relating to "reverse-engineering."Suppose you manufacture electronic products and your competitor has justintroduced a marvelous, very capable, product of unknown design. It isdifficult to figure out how the new device was made, because it is made up ofmillions of components.
To "reverse-engineer"it you 1) describe what the device does (how it behaves), and 2) suggestphysical explanations which allow you to design a circuit or mechanism whichwill perform just like the unknown product in all circumstances. Now theexplanations work satisfactorily. You can say you understand how the deviceworks.
As a science explaining or "reverse-engineering"human beings, contemporary psychology has spent most of its time on step 1) andhas tried but failed with step 2). PCT proposes an organization or physicalmodel of the nervous system. We can test the PCT model by letting it behave byitself, and compare the result with the behavior of the real thing --people.Since it is ourselves we reverse-engineer,we naturally require that the explanation and model we come up with feelsright; that it intuitively makes sense to us when we are told how we work.Simulations and personal experience indicate that PCT is a valid model. PCTappears to be the first approach to step 2) that holds up to criticalscientific scrutiny and is worth refining.
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APPLYING PCT
To drive a car, it is important to know how the controls work, but it isnot necessary to understand how the engine works--youcan leave that to the engineers. To apply PCT in daily life, it is important tounderstand the basic concept, but it is not necessary to understand all thetechnical details--youcan leave that to the PCT engineers.
You drive a horse without understanding how the mind of the horse works.You learn from experience how the horse responds to your commands, butsometimes it does not respond the way you expect, and that can be frustrating.The PCT auto is really the same horse (any living organism or a human being--yourself),but with a different understanding. When you understand the basic concept ofPCT, you will observe yourself and others and at the same time visualize theinternal mechanism in action. Your understanding of the internal mechanismgives you greater ability to have an enjoyable ride through life and to showothers how to enjoy theirs, too.
WHERE PCT COMES FROM
PCT is the creation of one mans background, curiosity and determination.William T. (Bill) Powers learned about control systems and analog computers--keyfor the development of PCT. He studied physics and other applied physicalsciences necessary to reverse--engineer the human nervous system. Bill's seminal book Behavior: The Controlof Perception, published in 1973, is still in print and is must reading forthe serious PCT student. When you order it, you will no longer get a jacket, soI have reproduced the original book jacket on page 3-4.Note comments by Russell L. Ackoff, Carl R. Rogers, and Thomas S. Kuhn amongothers. A prolific, lucid writer, Bill has also collaborated in the creation ofa college text. Living Control Systems I & II are collections of hispapers. Page 15.
Seeing how control works is better than reading about it. For demonstrationprograms simulating an analog control system on a digital PC, tutorials,simulations, explanations and discussions, see PCTdemos and PCTtexts, page14.
In this guide, I have included two short essays: An essay on theobvious, p. 9-10and Things I'd like to say if they didn't think I'm a nut, p. 11. Billwrites about what is required for psychology to progress as an applied physicalscience.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
An introduction to the Control Systems Group (CSG) and E-mailnetwork (CSG-L,address on page 20) is included in the book Management and Leadership:Insight for effective practice. and computer diskette PCTtexts, page14.
APPLICATIONS AND LITERATURE
The information on books, articles, seminars, video tapes and computer diskavailable should be self-explanatory.Welcome to PCT!
Dag C. Forssell
Valencia, California May, 1995
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BEHAVIOR: THE CONTROL OF PERCEPTION by William T. Powers
A reproduction of the original book jacket:
"Powers' Behavior: The Control of Perception gives social scientists--finally--analternative to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis. It provides a way, bothelegant and sophisticated, to include the basic contributions of both withoutbeing partisan or converted. It allows us to bring the soma, culture, society,behavior, and experience into a single framework. We now know much more than wedid before this book was published.
--PaulJ. Bohannan, Stanley G. Harris Professor of Social Science, NorthwesternUniversity; author of Divorce and After, Social Anthropology, and otherbooks.
The highly original thesis of this remarkable book is deceptively simple:that our perceptions are the only reality we can know, and that the purpose ofall our actions is to control the state of this perceived world. This simplethesis represents a sharp break with most traditional interpretations of humanbehavior. The theory set forth and developed in detail in this book proposes atestable model of behavior based on feedback relationships between organism andenvironment, which can reconcile the conflict between behaviorists andhumanists and for the first time put us on the road to an understanding ofourselves that is at once scientific and humane.
The model advanced here explains a range of phenomena from the simplestresponse of a sensory nerve cell to the construction of a code of ethics, usingcybernetic concepts to provide a physical explanation not only for physicalacts but also for the existence of goals and purposes. A hierarchical structureof neurological control systems is proposed that is at least potentiallyidentifiable and testable, in which each control system specifies the behaviorof lower level systems and thus controls its own perceptions.
The model incorporates the "programming" of behavior in the course of humanevolutionary history, the nature and significance of memory, and thereorganizations of behavior brought about by education and experience.
Written with verve and wit, with many illuminating examples and interestingthought questions, Behavior: The Control of Perception may well prove tobe one of the truly seminal works of our time; at least, this is suggested bythe distinguished scholars who read the manuscript in advance of publication(see back cover).
The book suggests many new interpretations of neurological, behavioral, andsocial data, an immense range of new experiments that will modify the modeladvanced here, and much new insight into such crucial psychological and socialprocesses as education, the resolution of conflict, and the problems of mentalillness.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William T. Powers received his B.S. in physics and did his graduate work inpsychology at Northwestern University. He has consulted for The Center for theTeaching Profession, and was formerly Chief Systems Engineer of the Departmentof Astronomy at Northwestern. He has published articles in psychology,astronomy and electronics, and has invented and designed a number of electronicinstruments.
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For ordering information, see page 15.
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The original book jacket, continued:
Russell L. Ackoff, Silberberg Professor of Systems Sciences, University ofPennsylvania; Past President of the Operations Research Society of America;author of The Design of Social Research, co-authorof On Purposeful Systems, fundamentals of Operation Research, and otherbooks.
"Publication of William Powers' book, Behavior: The Control ofPerception, is, in my opinion, a major event in the development of thepsychology of perception. The completely new approach he has developed usingcybernetic concepts cannot help but be seminal, instigating a new and importantline of investigation of a wide range of psychological phenomena in addition toperception. His new way of looking at and conceptualizing old things will helpto open the way for a series of important discoveries, and these--becauseof the rigorous framework he provides--arelikely to be sounder scientifically than most of the earlier work that theywill displace."
Donald T. Campbell, Professor of Psychology, Northwestern University; PastPresident Of the Division of Personality and Social Psychology of the AmericanPsychological Association, co-authorof Unobtrusive Measures and other books and articles.
"Powers' book is, I am convinced, the very best job to date in theapplication of feed-backtheory (servo-systemtheory, cybernetics) to psychology. Unlike all of its many predecessors,Powers' book comes up with elegant, relevant, and novel detail. It is the firstto really capture the promise of cybernetics. It achieves this by bringing topsychology the concept of the 'reference signal' from servo-systemtheory, and by an explicit hierarchy of 'orders' of control systems."
Thomas S. Kuhn, Professor of the History of Science, Princeton University;author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
"Powers' manuscript, Behavior: The Control of Perception, is amongthe most exciting I have read in some time. The problems are of vastimportance, and not only to psychologists; the achieved synthesis is thoroughlyoriginal; and the presentation is often convincing and almost invariablysuggestive. I shall be watching with interest what happens to research in thedirections to which Powers points."
John R. Platt, Research Biophysicist and Associate Director of the MentalHealth Research Institute, University of Michigan; author of Perception andChange: Projections for Survival and Step to Man.
"Powers has made an important new synthesis in applying the concept ofhierarchical levels of feedback-controlsystems to brain organization and behavior. His ideas throw new light on neuraland brain structure, the role of reafferent stimulation in perception andbehavior, hierarchical control mechanisms, goal-seekingand feedback at different levels of organization, and epistemology. The book iswritten in an easy and personal tone with numerous illuminating examples toillustrate the main new points, and with interesting thought-questionsat the end of each chapter."
Carl R. Rogers, Resident Fellow of the Center for Studies of the Person, LaJolla, California; Past President of the American Psychological Association andrecipient of its Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 1956; author ofFreedom to Learn, On Becoming A Person, and other books.
"Here is a profound and original book with which every psychologist--indeedevery behavioral scientist--shouldbe acquainted. It is delightful to have a person of such varied and unorthodoxbackground come forth with a unique theory of the way in which behavior iscontrolled in and by the individual, a theory which should spark a great dealof significant research."
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FOREWORD TO LIVING CONTROL SYSTEMS II (see page 15).
In 1979, Bill Powers wrote a prophecy: "A scientific revolution is justaround the corner, and anyone with a personal computer can participate init.... [T]he particular subject matter is human nature and in a broader scope,the nature of all living systems. Some ancient and thoroughly acceptedprinciples are going to be overturned, and the whole direction of scientificinvestigation of life processes will change." (William T. Powers, "The Natureof Robots: Part 1: Defining Behavior," BYTE 4(6), June, p. 132) Powers foresawthe overthrow of the idea that either stimuli from the environment, or commandsfrom the mind or brain, are sole causes of behavior. In its place, he offeredthe concept that people (and in their own ways all other organisms) intend thatthey will experience certain perceptions and behave to cause the perceptionsthey intend. The social, behavioral, and life sciences had simply missed thefact that living things control many features of their environments. Powersacknowledged that fact, and he realized that to an organism the environmentexists only as perceptions, hence his insight that organisms act to controltheir own perceptions. His formal statement of the new concept was controltheory, and he said amateurs, working with personal computers on their tablesat home, would be major players in the revolution. Thirteen years later, therevolution is not accomplished, but it is underway.
Powers' perceptual control theory is new, but he is not the first todescribe many of the key ideas in the theory. Over 2200 years ago, Aristotlewrote about intention--"thatfor the sake of which," the desire or wish that causes actions that result in aparticular end. Aristotle used many examples in which a person acts to producean intended object, such as a bed, statue, tray, or house. The person'sintention to create the object is the "final cause" of the actions that producethe object. Aristotle wrote that, depending on the condition of the world andthe intention of the person, the same actions sometimes produce different ends,and different actions sometimes produce the same end. All of that sounds likegood control theory, so why are those ideas considered revolutionarytoday?
For many centuries, Aristotle's ideas disappeared from Europe and werepreserved by scholars in the Arab world. They returned, in altered form, to aEurope dominated by Christian theology. Theologians changed "final cause,"which to Aristotle often meant only a person's intention to manufacture a bedout of wood, into God's original plan for the linear unfolding of history, fromcreation, to Calvary, to Apocalypse, to the end of time. Aristotle's originalidea was unrecognizable.
Most early European scientists worked within Christian theology, embracingits notion of linear time and its implication of linear cause and effect. Manyof these scientists mistakenly assumed that the original concept, that a finalcause is a goal, implied that the future influences the present--aclear violation of the assumed linear flow of cause and effect. Eventually,potentates of The Church and potentates of Science came to a falling out overdogma. Those who established the canon for Science had yet another mistakenreason to reject final cause: they said it represented an appeal to thesupernatural, in the form of God as agent. The idea that there is purpose orintention in the behavior of any living thing was pronounced "unscientific."Most aspiring behavioral and biological scientists still affirm thatcredo.
When William James wrote one hundred years ago, the ideas of purpose andintention were popular again. James said purposive behavior is thedistinguishing feature of intelligence--oflife. He said that in a variable world an organism's behavior necessarilyvaries to produce unvarying intended results. James wrote that people do notintend their specific actions; they intend to experience perceived consequencesof their actions, then they vary their actions any way necessary to producethose perceptions. For a while, it looked as though the idea of intention mighttake hold,
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but once more the idea was purged from the sciences of behavior and life.Orthodox scientists asserted that intention implies final cause, whichnecessarily implies an appeal to supernatural forces and to a temporal reversalof causality. Purposive behavior was banished, on the one hand by behaviorists,environmentalists, and reflexologists who claimed that events in theenvironment determine behavior, and on the other by those who claimed thatinstincts acting as internal stimuli cause behavior. People on either extremebelieved their positions were dramatically different, but they all portrayedbehavior as the end result of a linear chain of cause and effect.
Powers writes at a time when purpose and intention remain unacceptable tomost scientists. Behaviorists still believe environmental "stimuli" have the"power" to control behavior; and most cognitive scientists and neuroscientistssay the mind-brainissues "commands" that cause muscles to produce appropriate behavior.Cognitive-neuroscientists frequently claim behaviorism is dead and a cognitiverevolution has swept the behavioral and life sciences; in return, behavioristspronounce themselves very much alive, and some portray cognitive theorists as"creation scientists," bent on keeping alive the concept of soul-as-mind.Once again, each camp believes its views differ markedly from those of theother, but both embrace the wearisome model of linear cause and effect--amodel that was necessary a few hundred years ago to establish the physicalsciences, but a model that mistakenly rejects what Powers recognizes as thedefining properties of life. Neither wing of the cause-effectorthodoxy recognizes the abundant evidence that organisms control many parts oftheir world. But revolutions have a way of changing the minds of theorthodox.
Powers turned the millennia-oldidea that living systems act to produce intended perceptions into a formaltheory of behavior: perceptual control theory. Perceptual control theoryidentifies behavior as the necessarily variable means by which organismscontrol their perceptions of the world. Working first on a build-it-yourselfcomputer (the one he used when he wrote his prophecy), then on afirst-generation IBM personal computer, Powers created elegant demonstrationsin which the simple-idea-turned-formal-model generates remarkably accuratequantitative simulations and predictions of behavior and its consequences. Heidentified a first principle for behavioral, social, and life sciences andshowed the way to a new foundation of theory and method.
For several years, only a few people followed Powers' lead, and even fewergathered the data and performed the modeling that could establish controltheory as an alternative to traditional science. But interest in the theorygrew --a tribute to the dogged efforts of William and Mary Powers, over three decades,to maintain the visibility of the theory. During most of that time, Powerspublished only one book and a few papers. More recently, information aboutcontrol theory burst into wider circulation through two functions of personalcomputers that no one predicted in 1979: desktop publishing and electronic-mailnetworks. Those applications freed perceptual control theory from the heavyhands of editors and reviewers who routinely rejected manuscripts on thetheory. They were true defenders of cause-effectorthodoxy, rejecting control theory as uninteresting and unnecessary, or asmerely another way to describe things that were already understood. The newmedia let many people see control theory, then judge it on its own merits. Theonce-small circle of people aware of the theory grew into a network spanningthe world, including people from many disciplines, specialties, andprofessions. And the demand for Powers' writings grows.
In the Foreword to the first volume of Living Control Systems, RichardMarken wrote about the difficulty he experienced several years ago when hetried to locate published material by Powers. Volume I was a collection ofPowers' published work But Powers has
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written far more than he has published. When he writes, Bill does notrevise his drafts. If he encounters a block or is dissatisfied, he starts over.He has cast aside several beginnings of books and many drafts of chapters andpapers that he never submitted, or that were rejected by editors and reviewers.Most of us would be happy if any of our publications equalled the quality ofthe work Bill put away in drawers and boxes and, more recently, ondisks.
Over the years, only a few people have had a chance to read parts of BillPowers' unpublished work. The opportunity to rummage about, looking for thosegems, was at least part of "that for the sake of which" some of us travelled tohis 'laboratory" in the back room of his home in Northbrook, Illinois. WhenMary and Bill decided to move to Colorado, Edward Ford, a counselor in Arizona,suggested that the mandatory gathering of possessions into boxes provided anexcellent chance to select part of Bill's unpublished work for an editedvolume. Greg Williams, a frequent visitor to Northbrook, journeyed there fromKentucky for the last time to gather the pages and disks and take them away sohe could select the pieces in this volume.
This volume contains a small sample of the previously unpublished materialfrom the years when Bill and Mary Powers were in Northbrook. If you want torummage through the next accumulation, you must travel to the new site of TheLaboratory of William T. Powers. That is the locus of many of today's clearestinsights into purposive behavior. Over the millennia, that locus has moved fromAristotle's Lyceum, to James' Harvard, to Northbrook, and now to a house atop aridge near Durango, with a view of the San Juan Mountains, located only a fewmiles away, across a broad valley--aview that, years ago in Illinois, Mary and Bill Powers said they intended tosee out their back door. Stated intention, actions, and perceived consequencesthat match the intention. It looks like control to me!
February 1992
On the Phenomenon of Control. In the foreword above, I sketched a historyof the often-rejectedidea that living things act to control their own experiences. There is also along history of devices that mimic control by a person. In classical times,observers of manufactured control devices often identified them as "mysterious"or "miraculous." There were lighted lamps in which the wicks and oil were neverconsumed, and vessels in which, no matter how much was consumed, the levels andflows of water or wine never changed, and statues that seemed to move of theirown accord. The "miraculous" phenomenon of control was there for all to see,but the ingenious devices that actually controlled were hidden from view andthe principles of control went unrecognized.
Centuries later, the metaphor of the machine was dominant in Europeanthought. People were compared to lineal machines, embodying discrete,sequential cause and effect. The idea that people resemble machines soon gaveway to the still-popularassertion that people are lineal cause-effectmachines. Overextended metaphors aside, the design, and eventually the theory,of control devices moved on, from a variety of hydraulic and mechanicalgovernors and regulators in the 1600s and 1700s, to electronic controllers inthe 1920s and 1930s. Today, control devices are ubiquitous, yet most people whosay a person is a machine (probably a computing machine), mean people arelineal cause-effectmachines, not controllers or regulators.
To most people, the phenomenon of control typically goes unnoticed orunacknowledged, whether the controller is a living system, or an ingeniousdevice. Control: it is everywhere, and everywhere it is denied.
December, 1994. W. Thomas Bourbon
University of Texas Medical School-Houston
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PCT IN A NUTSHELL
The most obvious phenomenon of life is this:
We act to make our wants come true.
This phenomenon can be seen in ourselves and all around us all the time--rangingfrom very short to very long time frames: milliseconds to years.
* You want to bend a finger: You bend it.
* You want to draw a circle: You pick up a pencil, sharpen it,
place a paper on your desk--anddraw a circle.
* You want a college degree: You apply, take classes and tests,
sustain yourself and persevere--andget your degree.
* You want to develop a product: You --, --, --, and the
product is ready.
This phenomenon deserves an explanation. PCT in a nutshell:
You continually compare the mental image or specification of what youwant, your purpose, which we call a reference perception, with thecorresponding mental image of what is, which we call present perception. Fromthis comparison emerges a difference signal (corresponding to dissatisfaction)which causes action--yourmeans to influence your world and your present perception of it. Effectiveaction causes this present perception to conform to the reference perception.Action ceases when your present perception agrees with your referenceperception.
The net result of this circular loop of interacting elements and signals ispurposeful behavior. A self-directing"living control system" controls its present perception so that it agrees withthe internally specified reference perception. The living control system shapesits world the way it wants to perceive it and keeps it that way. Whendisturbances (external influences, stimuli) affect something the living controlsystem has a reference perception for, it will act to restore its perception(resist the disturbance, response).
Conventional scientific attempts to explain behavior have not recognized orclearly understood the obvious phenomenon of control discussed above, and aremisleading. Behavior is neither just caused by stimuli in the environment noris it blind execution of internal plans. Behavior is not an end result. It isan integral part of the closed loop process which controls perception. As canbe seen from this summary, the explanation for the phenomenon of self-directionor control includes an explanation for the appearance of stimulus-response,but without the notion that the organism is conditioned or reinforced; that thebehavior is shaped or that it is motivated by reward or punishment. It alsoincludes an explanation for the appearance of plan-execution,but without suggesting blind computation.
PCT provides the first explanation for this pervasive phenomenon of controlthat can stand up to scientific scrutiny. When you understand the details ofthis technical explanation, you under-stand how autonomous control is synonymous with freedom and how it gives riseto conflict or cooperation--dependingon what is wanted, how it is perceived, by whom and to what degree.
With an understanding of PCT, many apparent mysteries of human behavior canbe seen for what they are: manifestations of self-directionor control, given a wide variety of reference perceptions, present perceptions,circumstances and external influences in a world where autonomous livingcontrol systems interact. The mysteries simply vanish, and the terminology thatwent with them becomes irrelevant.
Dag Forssell May, 1994
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. . . . . . I'm reminded of a lot of the "new physics" stuff that's beengoing around--TheEmperor's New Mind, The Quantum Self, chaos in the brain, and so on. I'd liketo say this about that:
AN ESSAY ON THE OBVIOUS
William T. Powers January 1991
I think that all attempts to apply abstract physical principles andadvanced mathematical trickery to human behavior are aimed at solving anonexistent problem. They all seem to be founded on the old idea that behavioris unpredictable, disorderly, mysterious, statistical, and mostly random. Thatidea has been sold by behavioral scientists to the rest of the scientificcommunity as an excuse for their failure to find an adequate model thatexplains even the simplest of behaviors. As a result of buying this excuse,other scientists have spent a lot of time looking for generalizations thatdon't depend on orderliness in behavior; hence information theory, variousother stochastic approaches, applications of thermodynamic principles, and therecent search for chaos and quantum phenomena in the workings of the brain. Thegeneral idea is that it is very hard to find any regularity or order in thebehavior of organisms, so we must look beyond the obvious and search for hiddenpatterns and subtle principles. But behavior IS orderly and it is orderly inobvious ways. It is orderly, however, in a way that conventional behavioralscientists have barely noticed. It is not orderly in the sense that the outputforces generated by an organism follow regularly from sensory inputs or pastexperience. It is orderly in the sense that the CONSEQUENCES of those outputforces are shaped by the organism into highly regular and reliably repeatablestates and patterns. The Skinnerians came the closest to seeing this kind oforder in their concept of the "operant" but they failed to see how operantbehavior works; they used the wrong model.
Because of a legacy of belief in the variability of behavior, scientistshave ignored the obvious and tried to look beneath the surface irregularitiesfor hidden regularities. But we can't develop a science of life by ignoring theobvious. The regular phenomena of behavior aren't to be found in subtletiesthat can be uncovered only by statistical analysis or encompassed only by grandgeneralizations. The paydirt is right on the surface.
The simplest regularities are visible only if you know something aboutelementary physics--andapply it. Think of a person standing erect. This looks like "no behavior." Butthe erect position is an unstable equilibrium, because the whole skeleton isbalancing on ball-and-socketjoints piled up one above the other. There is a highly regular relationshipbetween deviations from the vertical and the amount of muscle force beingapplied to the skeleton across each joint. There is nothing statistical,chaotic, or cyclical about the operation of the control systems that keep thebody vertical. They simply keep it vertical.
The same is true of every other aspect of posture control and movementcontrol, and all the controlled consequences of those kinds of control. Justwatch an ice-skatergoing through the school figures in competition. Watch and listen to anyinstrumentalist or vocalist. Watch a ballet dancer. Watch a stock-carracer. Watch a diver coming off the 30-meterplatform. Watch a programmer keying in a program.
It's true that when you see certain kinds of human activity, they seemdisorganized. But that is only a matter of how much you know about the outcomesthat are under control. The floor of a commodities exchange looks like completedisorder to a casual bystander,
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but each trader is sending and receiving signals according to well-understoodpatterns and has a clear objective in mind--buylow, sell high. The confusion is all in the eye of the beholder. The beholderis bewitched by the interactions and fails to see the order in the individualactions. When you understand what the apparently chaotic gestures and shoutsACCOMPLISH for each participant, it all makes sense.
Of course we don't understand everything we see every person doing. It'seasy to understand that a person is standing erect, but WHY is the personstanding erect? What does that accomplish other than the result itself? We haveto understand higher levels of organization to make sense of when the personstands erect and when not. We have to understand this particular person asoperating under rules of military etiquette, for example, to know why thisperson is standing erect and another is sitting in a chair. But once we seethat the erectness is being controlled as a means of preserving a higher-levelform, also under control, we find order where we had seen somethinginexplicable. We see that an understanding of social ranking, as perceived byeach person present, results in one person standing at attention while anothersits at ease. Each person controls one contribution to the pattern that allperceive, in such a way as to preserve the higher-levelpattern as each person desires to see it.
It seems reasonable that once we have understood the orderliness of simpleacts and their immediate consequences, we should be able to go on andunderstand more general patterns that are preserved by the variations thatremain unexplained. As we are exploring a very large and complex system, wecan't expect to arrive at complete understanding just through grasping a fewbasic principles. We must make and test hypotheses. But if we are convincedthat the right hypothesis will reveal a highly-orderedsystem, we will not stop until we have found it. If, on the other hand, we areconvinced that such a search is futile, that chaos reigns, we will give up themoment there is the slightest difficulty and turn to statistics.
I claim that human behavior is understandable as the operation of a highlysystematic and orderly system--atleast up to a point. [See file UP_2A_PO.INT for comment]. I say that it is theduty of any life scientist to find that orderliness at all discoverable levelsof organization, and to keep looking for it despite all difficulties. We mustexplore all levels, not just the highest and not just the lowest; what we findat each level makes sense only in the context of the others. We have a verylong way to go in understanding the obvious before it will be appropriate tolook for subtleties. I have no doubt that we will come across mysterieseventually, but I'm convinced that unless we first exhaust the possibilities offinding order and predictability in ordinary human behavior, we won't evenrecognize those mysteries when they stare us in the face. I don't think thatanyone is prepared, now, to assimilate the astonishments that are in store forus once we have understood how all the levels of orderly control work in thehuman system.
We won't get anywhere by looking for shortcuts to the ultimateilluminations that await. Most of the esoteric phenomena of physics that aretaught in school today were occurring in the 19th Century, as they always have.But who, in that century, would have recognized tunneling, or coherentradiation, or time dilatation, or shot noise? If we want to see a SecondFoundation of the sciences of life, we have to begin where we are and buildcarefully for those who will follow us. If we succeed in trying to understandthe obvious, the result will be to change what is obvious. As the nature of theobvious changes, so does science progress.
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THINGS I'D LIKE TO SAY IF THEY WOULDN'T THINK I'M A NUT Or,Overgeneralizations that aren't that far over.
William T. Powers, 1989
When you study human beings, remember that you are a human being. You can'tdo anything that they can't do. You think with a human brain, experience withhuman senses, act on the world as human beings experience a world. Whatever yousay about them is true about you. Whatever you can do, they can do.
Understanding human nature means more than having a large vocabulary. Youexperience the world at many levels, some lower than symbols and some higher.If you try to understand by using nothing but words, you'll miss most of thepicture. What most people call "intellectual" is really just "verbal." If youalways use the same terms to refer to the same idea, it's not an idea but averbal pattern. Most important words don't mean much. Words that "everybodyknows" don't mean anything. Words that are used to describe psychologicalphenomena are almost all informal laymen's terms that have negative scientificmeaning: they imply the existence of things that don't exist, like"intelligence" or "aggressiveness" or "altruism." Or "conditioning" or "habits"or "aptitudes" or--seethe literature.
Knowledge isn't what you can remember or name: it's what you can work outfrom scratch any time you need to, from basic principles. The behavioralsciences don't have any basic principles. None, that is, that would survivescientific testing.
Statistical findings are worse than useless. They give the illusion ofknowledge. Even when they're true for a population, they're false when appliedto any given person. To rely on statistics as a way of understanding how peoplework is to take up superstition in the name of science. It's to formalizeprejudice.
When you propose an explanation of human behavior, you ought to make surethat the explanation works in its own terms: what exactly does it predict? Mostexplanations in the behavioral sciences consist of describing a phenomenon,saying "because," and then describing it again in slightly differentwords.
Perceptual control theory may have a long way to go as a theory of humannature, but it's the only theory that deals with individuals and accepts themas autonomous, thinking, aware entities. You might say that thinking about themthat way is what makes control theory possible to understand. Using controltheory, you don't have to ignore individuals who deviate from the average.Using control theory you can propose explanations that you can test. Usingcontrol theory you can learn that scientific understanding isn't any differentfrom ordinary understanding. A scientist would judge that a cooling device usedin regions of very low ambient temperatures would be inefficient, and you can'tsell a refrigerator to an Eskimo, either.
But never forget that science bought Phlogiston for 150 years, and stimulus-responsetheory--sofar--for350 years. We're still crawling our way out of one system of faith into thenext, still looking for dry land and solid ground. Is control theory the newfaith? Not as long as you can forget everything you've memorized and reason itout for yourself.
PCT Introduction and Resource Guide Page twelve
THE NATURE OF HPCT
PCT offers a clear explanation for the pervasive phenomenon of simplecontrol. HPCT outlines a hierarchical arrangement as the likely organization ofmultiple control systems in humans.
The kind of explanation HPCT offers for human behavior is the kind ofexplanation responsible for the successes of modern engineering.
Just hold up a finger in front of you and bend it. Notice that just beforeit bends, you will it to bend. The willing and the bending are facts weexperience. How can you explain this phenomenon of behavior?
A "popular theory" approach has been to describe appearances in terms ofthemselves. Life scientists think and talk in terms of reflex, stimulus andresponse, affordances, conditioning, reinforcement, and cognition--terms whichgive phenomena new names without actually explaining them. Much research in thelife sciences is focused on accumulating descriptions where weak statisticalcorrelations suggest mysterious causal relationships.
An "engineering theory" approach is to suggest and describe the*properties* and *organization* of elements which when they interact with eachother and their environment produce the kind of behavior we observe. Thus anengineering theory approach proposes a *model* or *simulation* of an underlyingset of properties and causal relationships which are invisible and cannot beexperienced directly, but where we gain confidence through repeated successfulexperimentation. Engineers learn to visualize and think in terms of models andsimulations in the course of their training as they repeat the basicexperiments which define the many invisible "laws of nature" or "firstprinciples" of engineering science. In practice, engineers deduce properties ofnew designs from these first principles and the behavior of the designs fromthe properties. Engineers predict the performance of a design or model invarious environments and circumstances. Thus they predict experiences they havenot yet had, and with confidence. The in-depthunderstanding fostered by the approach of modern engineering theory is thereason for spectacular progress in the engineering sciences in the last severalcenturies.
Your bending of the finger (converting your thought into action) is anexample of control with a changing reference signal. Behavior "emerges" fromthe natural properties of control systems as they interact with theirenvironment. In engineering, control has been well explained only since the1930's. In the life sciences of today, control is not yet part of theexplanation for behavior. Thus life scientists attempting to explain "finger-bendingbehavior" do so without recognizing or understanding the organization andproperties of the basic organizing principle of behavior.
HPCT offers a new explanation for human experience. It is technicallyelegant, conceptually simple, testable, and better than "common sense." Theprinciples of HPCT are readily understood by any attentive person. In practice,a person who has learned HPCT can deduce properties of organisms and peoplefrom the principles of HPCT and see how the behavior and interactions of people"emerge" from those properties in different circumstances.
When you learn the explanations of HPCT, you can apply them to explain pastexperience as well as think ahead. Your own experiences suddenly make moresense to you, and you can manage and lead better in the future.
Dag Forssell, October 1994
PCT Introduction and Resource Guide Page thirteen
PURPOSEFUL LEADERSHIP (R) Educational seminars, books, videos.
Objective:
Commitment to common goals, high performance,
consistent results and mutual satisfaction.
Purpose:
Want, goal, target, specification, desire,
determination, wish, aspiration, intention,
prediction, expectation, aim, objective,
planned outcome--synonymsand near-synonymsto purpose.
A living control system makes purposes come true.
Leadership:
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you wantdone because he wants to do it.
--DwightD. Eisenhower
When you understand PCT, including the more detailed hierarchical extensionHPCT, you understand how people determine their wants. PCT explains whichleadership actions work and WHY. It provides a yardstick for leadershipdevelopment programs.
WE ARE ALL PSYCHOLOGISTS: We deal with other people. Our understanding andskill working with other people determines our effectiveness and satisfactionas leaders, managers, salesmen, teachers and friends, both in the workplace andin our personal lives. Running a company, department or team has been moredifficult than it needs to be because we have lacked a theory of human behaviorthat actually fits the way human beings work. With PCT, leaders and staff canlearn the same proven understanding and effective approach. You deal with yourassociates at all levels the same as they in turn deal with customers andsuppliers. Dealing with people no longer has to be complex and confusing, amatter of luck, a gift, or something best left to specialists.
PERSONAL INTRODUCTION: An informal one-daypresentation for an individual or small group in a question and answer format,drawing on illustrations and demonstrations in the seminar modules. Discussionof applications and analysis of problems.
SEMINARS: Teaching PCT with ways to apply it in three one-daymodules that build on each other. Modules are intended for in-houseeducation of interacting groups:
FIRST ONE-DAYSEMINAR -BASIC MANAGEMENT
UNDERSTAND AND RESOLVE CONFLICT
BUILD CONFIDENCE
DEVELOP PRODUCTIVE RELATIONSHIPS
The first day introduces the theory, values and basic methodology. For allemployees.
SECOND ONE-DAYSEMINAR -LEADERSHIP
PERFORMANCE COACHING REVIEWS
DEVELOP EFFECTIVE TEAMWORK
NON-MANIPULATIVESELLING
VISION AND MISSION STATEMENTS
TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT
The second day expands insight and applications. For management andknowledge workers.
THIRD ONE-DAYSEMINAR -TECHNICAL DETAIL
IN-DEPTHUNDERSTANDING
The third day provides details and illustrations. For management andknowledge workers.
PCT Introduction and Resource Guide Page fourteen
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP: INSIGHT FOR EFFECTIVE PRACTICE.
Outlining much of the seminar content, this bound collection of articlespublished in the Engineering Management Journal plus working papers explainbasic PCT as well as hierarchical PCT. Control, conflict, and cooperation areillustrated. Consistent application of Mapping and influencing wants andperceptions to conflict resolution, performance coaching, team developmentand non-manipulativeselling makes uniform leadership practice possible. Insight from HPCT isapplied to vision and mission statements and TQM. Experience, description andexplanation are defined to show how PCT and HPCT turns a "soft" subject into a"hard" science. Seminar program information is included.
PCT DEMOS and PCTtexts:
DOS program disk and text disk for self-study,teaching, research, and the Purposeful Leadership seminars. Self-extractingfiles with tutorials, explanations, simulations and sizzling discussion on manysubjects from the archives of CSGnet. Disks may be freely copied.
PCT SUPPORTS TQM.
Presentation to a Deming user group featuring results from applying HPCT,a demonstration of simple control, role plays , the essence of TQM and Deming'sfourteen points. (March 1993, Video, VHS, NTSC, 117 minutes).
RUBBER BAND DEMONSTRATION.
Detailed presentation of the classic rubber band demonstration. Scriptincluded. (July 1993, Video, VHS, NTSC, 63 minutes).
PCT AT AERA 1995.
Hugh Petrie, Bill Powers, Gary Cziko, Ed Ford and Dag Forssell at AmericanEducation Research Association Annual Conference. (April 1995, Video, VHS,NTSC, 120 minutes).
Conflict is the root cause of nearly every management problem. It wastesenergy and destroys cooperation, teamwork, personal initiative, care,productivity and quality. Failure to resolve conflict results in stress,frustration and resentment, the destruction of personal relationships, andturnover of personnel. In the Purposeful Leadership seminars you learn that weare controllers, that it is our nature to control, and that our attempts tocontrol others beget conflict. You learn what control is and how it works. Yousee how control gives rise to conflict or cooperation, depending on whatindividuals want and how they see things. Control is not a dirty word. Controlis necessary for life and being "in control" or contented is satisfying. It iswhen others attempt to control us that we resist and dislike it.
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23903 Via Flamenco, Valencia, CA 91355-2808USA Fax:(805) 254-7956
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___ ea Rubber Band Demo. Video & Script 63 minutes @ $20.00______
___ ea PCT @ AERA 1995. Video 120 minutes @ $10.00 ______
___ ea 1993 CSG conference. 3 videos, 18 hours. @ $30.00 ______
___ ea 1994 CSG conference. 3 videos, 16 hours. @ $30.00 ______
___ ea Freedom From Stress. Book by Ed Ford @ $10.00 ______
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PCT Introduction and Resource Guide Page fifteen
NEW VIEW PUBLICATIONS Books on several subjects. PCT books shown.
Behavior: The Control of Perception, by William T. Powers. This bookis as controversial today as when it was first published and its influencecontinues to grow. Powers has developed the foundations for a new science ofbehavior. He begins with the fact that all living things control parts of theirenvironments, and then explains how they do it. Behavior is not an end that iscontrolled by the environment, or by the mind-brain;instead, behavior is the means by which living things control many of their ownperceptions.
Introduction to Modern Psychology: The Control Theory View, RichardJ. Robertson and William T. Powers (eds.). Suitable as the primary text forintroductory college-levelpsychology courses and for independent study, this textbook provides a unifiedapproach to the entire field of psychology, from laboratory studies of animalbehavior, through ethology and studies of human social behavior, to clinicalwork.
Living Control Systems: Selected papers by William T. Powers. 14previously published papers, 1960-1988.The control theory viewpoint has gained many supporters in recent years becauseof its rigor, its beauty, and its explanatory abilities. This viewpoint wasfirst developed by William T. Powers in the papers in this book. "Powers haslooked at the phenomenon of behavior from a totally new angle, and, sureenough, people have misunderstood him and they have ignored him, but they haverarely disagreed with him. This lack of disagreement is rather surprising,since Powers' ideas about behavior contradict the fundamental assumptions ofscientific psychology. Conventional psychology views behavior as evoked motoroutput; Powers argues that behavior is control of perceptual input. Theseapproaches to behavior could hardly be more different." --fromthe Foreword by Richard Marken.
Living Control Systems, Volume II: Selected papers by William T.Powers. 22 Previously unpublished papers, 1959-1990.Powers critiques the theories of mainstream behavioral scientists, showing howtheir defects are avoided by applying control theory instead. He alsodemonstrates the need for truly generative models if a genuine science ofliving control systems is to be developed.
Mind Readings: Experimental Studies of Purpose by Richard S. Marken."This is a book that can show a willing psychologist how to do a new kind ofresearch. The theme that runs through all these papers is modeling, theultimate way of finding out what a theory really means. Richard Marken is askilled modeler, as will be seen. But he has a talent that goes beyond puttingideas into the form of working simulations, a talent that can be admired but ishard to imitate. He finds the essence of a problem and an elegantly simple wayto cast it in the form of a demonstration or an experiment."
--fromthe Foreword by William T. Powers.
Books offered by Brandt publishing (page 16) can also be ordered from NewView. They are therefore included in this order form.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
New View: Fred Good Telephone: (919) 942-8491
P.O. Box 3021 Chapel Hill, NC 27515-3021USA Fax: (919) 942-3760
___ ea BEHAVIOR: THE CONTROL OF PERCEPTION @ $41.95 _______
___ ea INTRODUCTION TO MODERN PSYCHOLOGY @ $25.00 _______
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___ ea LIVING CONTROL SYSTEMS II @ $22.00 _______
___ ea MIND READINGS @ $18.00 _______
___ ea Management and Leadership: Insight (p.14) @ $20.00 _______
___ ea Freedom From Stress, Book @ $10.00 _______
___ ea Love Guaranteed, Book @ $10.00 _______
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PCT Introduction and Resource Guide Page sixteen
BRANDT PUBLISHING and ED FORD
Books, video programs and seminars by Edward E. Ford, M.S.W.
Freedom From Stress (1989) explains how the new scientific thinkingof PCT can transform stress. Each of us is a complex control system with goals,priorities, and standards. Through this control system we seek to influence theworld in order to perceive the health, job, leisure and relationships we want.Though we see stress as caused by negative events, people, feelings, andsituations, stress actually results from our own values and goals when comparedwith our perceptions. And we have dominion over our stress. Written in simple,conversational language with roleplays and simple illustrations.
--Forewordby William T. Powers.
Love Guaranteed; a better marriage in 8 weeks (1987), teaches theprinciples of PCT to explain why Ed Ford's techniques are effective. Ed offersa couple willing to commit to improving their marriage a money-backguarantee--that'show sure he is he can teach them to improve their marriage. This book is thefirst explaining PCT through discussions of everyday problems andrelationships. It is very easy to read and an excellent companion to the later,more comprehensive Freedom From Stress.
Love Guaranteed; the Video (1992). Produced by KAET-TV(PBS) in Phoenix, this 46 minute video (VHS, NTSC) features Ford's insightsinto human interaction, and a graphically illustrated PCT view of relationshipsand relationship building within the context of marriage. Ford offers clear,understandable and specific steps that couples can take immediately to renewand strengthen their relationships with one another utilizing his "qualitytime" technique.
Discipline for Home and School (1994). This book documents apractical, easy-to-useprogram that teaches school personnel and parents how to deal effectively withchildren. Based on PCT, this program does not teach a coercive approach todiscipline. Rather, it deals with children as living control systems, alwaysrespecting their choices. Disruptive children are taught how to recognize andconsider their own choices so that they can achieve personal satisfaction--getwhat they really want, while at the same time respecting the rights of othersin the community in which they live.
Parent/teacher seminars by Ed Ford & Associates. For curriculum, seebook above. For more information, call Ed Ford directly.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Brandt Publishing: Edward E. Ford Telephone & Fax: (602) 991-4860
10209 North 56th Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85253-1130USA
___ ea Freedom From Stress, Book @ $10.00 _______
___ ea Love Guaranteed, Book @ $ 9.00 _______
___ ea Love Guaranteed, Video @ $20.00 _______
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PCT Introduction and Resource Guide Page seventeen
PCT ANTHOLOGY
PURPOSEFUL BEHAVIOR: THE CONTROL THEORY APPROACH
American Behavioral Scientist, 34(1), (1990). Richard S. Marken,Editor.
This issue of ABS is dedicated to 11 papers on PCT. It begins with anintroduction by Marken, "A Science of Purpose," which describes the nature ofpurposive behavior and the essential features of the model that explains thisphenomenon.
METHODOLOGY: Phil Runkel in "Research Method for Control Theory" explainshow to study purposeful behavior. Runkel describes by example how to carry out"the test for controlled variables" in both laboratory and everydayinteractions with purposeful systems. The pitfalls of basing conclusions aboutindividual behavior on statistical generalization are illustrated by Powers"Control theory and statistical generalization" in a simulation of the effectsof rewards on behavior.
ATTENTION AND LEARNING: Ray Pavloski and his students, in "Reorganization,"describe experimental tests of what happens while people learn to carry out apurpose. Wayne Hershberger in "Control Theory and Learning" describes thecontrol theory perspective on two kinds of learning --instrumentaland classical conditioning. Development: Frans and Hedwig Plooij describe theirobservations of the development of levels of control capability in chimpanzeeand human infants in "Developmental Transitions as Successive Reorganizationsof a Control Hierarchy."
SOCIAL BEHAVIOR: In "Purposive Collective Action," Clark McPhail and ChuckTucker suggest how many control systems, acting together, can manage to reach acommon purpose. Tom Bourbon describes how cooperation can result fromindependent purposeful behavior of several individuals in "Invitation to theDance".
ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR: Bill Williams describes the application of controltheory to purposeful economic behavior in "The Giffen Effect." He shows howpeople can violate the "law of demand" (by increasing consumption of a productwhose price increases) without violating their nature as purposefulsystems.
CLINICAL: David Goldstein in "Clinical Usages of Control Theory" discusseshow he has used control theory in his own clinical practice.
CONTROL THEORY CONCEPTS: Ed Ford points out some PCT concepts that can bedifficult to understand because they differ from what is taught by conventionaltheories.
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Journal Marketing, Sage Publications Phone orders: (805) 499-0721
2455 Teller Rd, Newbury Park, CA 91320 USA Fax: (805) 499-0871
American Behavioral Scientist, Volume 34, Number 1 Sept/Oct 1990
Stock number 201238 Richard S. Marken, Editor
Purposeful Behavior; The Control Theory Approach,
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PCT Introduction and Resource Guide Page eighteen
PCT LITERATURE
Bourbon, WT, KE Copeland, VR Dyer, WK Harman & BL Mosely (1990). Onthe accuracy and reliability of predictions by control-systemtheory. Perceptual and Motor Skills, vol 71, 1990, 1331-1338.The first of a 20-yearseries demonstrating the long-termreliability and stability of predictions generated by the PCT model.
Cziko, Gary A., "Purposeful Behavior as the Control of Perception:Implications for Educational Research." Educational Researcher, 21:9, (Nov.92), pp.10-18;25-27.(Back issue $9) Publication office: Washington DC. (202) 223-9485.
Gibbons, Hugh., The Death of Jeffrey Stapleton: Exploring the WayLawyers Think. (1990, 197 pages). Using PCT to explain how lawyers think.Send $10 to Hugh Gibbons, Professor, Franklin Pierce Law Center, Concord, NH,03301.
McClelland, Kent., "Perceptual Control and Social Power."Sociological Perspectives, (24 pages. December 1994). Also "On CooperativelyControlled Perceptions and Social order" Available from the author. For both,send $5 to: Kent McClelland, Professor Dept. of Sociology, Grinnell College,Grinnell, IA, 50112.
McPhail, Clark., The Myth of the Madding Crowd (1990). IntroducesPCT to explain group behavior. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. (Paperback $24.95,Clothbound $47.95). Phone: (914) 747-0110
McPhail, Clark., William T. Powers, and Charles W. Tucker, "SimulatingIndividual and Collective Action in Temporary Gatherings." Computersimulation of control systems in groups. Social Science Computer Review, 10:1,(1992) pp. 1-28.Duke University Press: Box 90660, Durham, NC. (919) 687-3600.
Petrie, Hugh G., The Dilemma of Enquiry and Learning (1981).Resolving Plato's dilemma with PCT. University of Chicago Press. Out ofprint.
Powers, William T., The nature of robots:
1 Defining behavior BYTE 4(6), June 1979, p132-144,7 pages.
2 Simulated control system, BYTE 4(7), July, 134-152,12p.
3 A closer look at human behavior, BYTE 4(8), Aug, 94-116,16p.
4 Looking for controlled variables, BYTE 4(8), Sep, 96-112,13p.
Richardson, George P., Feedback Thought in Social Science and SystemsTheory (1991). Historical review of systems thinking, including PCT.(Paperback $19.95) ISBN 0-8122-1332-7University of Pennsylvania Press. (800) 445-9880.
Runkel, Philip J., Casting Nets and Testing Specimens (1990). Whenstatistics are appropriate; when functional models are required. Withexplanation of PCT. New York: Praeger. (Clothbound, $45) Order code: C3533Praeger Publishers, P.O. Box 5007, Westport, CT 06881 Phone: (800) 225-5800,(203) 226-3571.Fax (203) 222-1502.
PCT Introduction and Resource Guide Page nineteen
PCT ANTHOLOGY
VOLITIONAL ACTION, CONATION AND CONTROL
Wayne A. Hershberger, Editor. Advances in Psychology 62, (1989).
Available in many academic libraries.
Most of the 25 chapters in this volume relate to PCT, providing severaldifferent perspectives. Most are written by PCT developers. Some are written bytraditional psychologists, critical of PCT, or attempting to relate PCT to andintegrate it with other developments in this diverse field. The PCT relevantchapters:
The Synergy of Voluntary and Involuntary Action
--WayneA. Hershberger
Volition: a Semi-ScientificEssay
--WilliamT. Powers
The Physiological Stress of Thwarted Intentions
--RaymondP. Pavloski
A PCT Analysis of Interference During Social Tracking
--W.Thomas Bourbon
Behavior In the First Degree
--RichardS. Marken
Quantitative Measurement of Volition: a Pilot Study
--WilliamT. Powers
Control Theory and Psychology:
a Tool for Integration and a Heuristic for New Theory
--Michael.E. Hyland
The Behavioral Illusion:
Misperception of Volitional Action
--J.Scott Jordan and Wayne A. Hershberger
Levels of Intention in Behavior
--RichardS. Marken and William T. Powers
Involuntary Learning of Voluntary Action
--RichardJ. Robertson
A Paradigm Shift in Behavior Therapy:
From External Control to Self-Control
--DennisJ. Delprato
Fostering Self-Control:Comments of a Counselor
--EdwardE. Ford
Control Theory Applied to Stress Management
--DavidM. Goldstein
Application of Control Theory to Work Settings
--R.G. Lord and Mary C. Kernan
Effective Personnel Management: An Application of PCT
--JamesSoldani
The Giffen Effect: A PCT Resolution of an Economic Paradox
--W.D. Williams
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PCT Introduction and Resource Guide Page twenty
CONTROL SYSTEMS GROUP
CSG E-MAILNETWORK: CSG-L
To subscribe to CSG-L,send a message to internet
Address: LISTSERV@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU
Message: Subscribe CSG-LFirstname Lastname
GSG-Lis also available on Usenet under the name:
bit.sci.purposive-behavior
Access to CSG information and computer programs via the World Wide Web can be had at http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/csg/ (don't forget the final slash).CSG ANNUAL CONFERENCE 1994 [1993 available as shown below]. CSGconferences are very informal. These amateur videotapes were made for ahistorical record. Tapes are 1/2" VHS, NTSC, EP speed.
----------------------------------------------------------------
1994 TAPE ONE OF THREE
Bill Powers: Introductory remarks 0:01 -0:55
Bill Powers: Explaining PCT 0:55 -1:15
Rick Marken: Controlling the stress of controlling
1:15 -2:49
Powers, Bourbon: Report on Wales conference 2:49 -3:34
Tom Bourbon: a: Modeling: How we do it.
b: Modeling social interactions 3:34 -4:46
Dag Forssell: a: Explanations b: Memory 4:46 -5:41
1994 TAPE TWO OF THREE
LeEdna Custer, Ed Ford, George Venetis and Joe Sierzenga:
Discipline for Home and School 0:01 -3:44
Dick Robertson: PCT applications in Psychotherapy
-one approach 3:44 -4:50
Rich Thurman: Virtual Reality 4:50 -5:37
1994 TAPE THREE OF THREE
Michael Acree: Problems of scale
in science and society 0:01 -0:57
Phil Runkel: About Statistics 0:57 -1:33
Bill Powers: Going up a level 1:33 -2:35
Brent Dennis: Use of Self 2:35 -3:27
Tom Bourbon: PCT in education 3:27 -4:13
----------------------------------------------------------------
1993 TAPE ONE OF THREE
Chuck Tucker: Planning of presentations. 0:01 -0:55
Bill Powers: The dispute over Control Theory. 0:55 -2:12
Bob Clark: Comments. 2:12 -2:30
Bill Williams: PCT and the deficit. 2:30 -3:32
Rick Marken: The Control System from inside. 3:32 -4:05
Dag Forssell: Four short presentations. 4:05 -5:16
Bob Clark: Demonstrations 5:16 -5:56
1993 TAPE TWO OF THREE
Gary Cziko: Post-CognitivePsychology and
Educational Leadership. 0:01 -0:56
Ed Ford: How I teach PCT. 0:56 -2:00
Dick Robertson: Perspectives. 2:00 -2:42
Clark McPhail: The dark side of purpose. 2:42 -3:43
Dan Miller: Erving Goffman and Social PCT. 3:43 -5:19
Kent McClelland: Conflictive Cooperation. 5:19 -5:57
1993 TAPE THREE OF THREE
D. Schweingruber:Collective locomotion with CROWD 0:01 -0:41
Tom Bourbon: Person-ModelInteractions:
Interference, Control of Another,
Countercontrol & Conflict. 0:41 -1:24
Michelle Duggins-Schwartz:
When is helping helping? 1:24 -2:38
Martin Taylor: Language and learning. 2:38 -3:40
Wayne Hershberger: Request for PCT ideas. 3:40 -4:27
Banquet 4:27 -4:33
Business Meeting 4:33 -5:44
-------------------------------------------------------------
Tape series are $30 per set of three tapes, as shown on order form forPurposeful Leadership, above. Individual tapes may be ordered for $10each.
-END -