Knight Dunlap

Habits

Their Making and Unmaking

The classic work on behavioral modification.

In this classic work, Professor Dunlap explores the inter-relationship between habit making and breaking and the learning process, asserting that maladjustments are acquired by the process of the learning and removed only by this same process. Professor Dunlap contends that one can render certain acts, like stuttering, nonhabitual by intentionally repeating them until the repulsion toward those acts is stronger than the original tendency to perform them. Because it attacked several popularly-held views concerning habit-formation when it was first published in 1932, Habits was initially quite controversial. Today it is considered a seminal work in the field of behavioral psychology.

"Professor Dunlap has written for both psychologist and non-psychologist. Both will find the book valuable. . . . His organization of some of the basic concepts of the field contributes both to informed experimenting and to critical theorizing." —Journal of General Psychology

"The book is well writeen and even though much technical information is incorporated, numerous examples which are easily interpretaed are given." —Psychiatric Quarterly

Knight Dunlap (1875–1949) was a professor of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles and later at Johns Hopkins University. He was director of the Research Laboratory at Johns Hopkins and also served as managing editor of the Journal of Comparative Psychology.

1972 / paperback / ISBN 0-87140-072-3 / 5-1/4" x 8-1/4" / 288 pages / Psychology