Psychology, Department of
Title
“Introduction” to Modeling Complex Systems: Volume 52 of the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
2007
Abstract
Capturing the complexity of human behavior has been a recurring
theme in the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation:
We expect behavior to be patterned or integrated, and to make
biological sense; and so patterning and biological utility are what
we see. And of course what we see is actually there-behavior in
general is not chaotic; it is organized. (Nissen, 1954, p. 314)
When fundamental psychologists do make excursions into the
human motivational world ... it is rare that they survey the
requirements for theory or pre-theory by intensive descriptive
analysis of behavior related to such motives as produced by
concrete human beings. More remote still is the chance that
anyone will select for illustration, let alone analysis, behavior
or experience relevant to man in his most characteristically
human performances: man as he creates or loves or plays or
responds to the aesthetic surfaces of the human and natural
environment. Such matters are threateningly complex. (Koch,
1956, pp. 64-65)
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Comments
Published in Modeling Complex Systems: Volume 52 of the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, ed. Richard Dienstbier, Bill Shuart, William D. Spaulding, and Jeffrey Poland. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. Copyright © 2007 University of Nebraska Press. Used by permission.