Breakdown of Will (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780521596947)

Ainslie argues that our responses to the threat of our own inconsistency determine the basic fabric of human culture. He suggests that individuals are more like populations of bargaining agents than like the hierarchical command structures envisaged by cognitive psychologists. This perspective helps us understand so much that is puzzling in human action and interaction: from self-defeating behaviors to willfulness, from pathological over-control and self-deception to subtler forms of behavior such as altruism, sadism, gambling, and the "social construction" of belief.

Author: George Ainslie
ISBN-10: 0521596947
ISBN-13: 9780521596947
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 03/19/2001
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.86lbs
Size: 9.07h x 5.80w x 0.66d