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David Marks | |
|---|---|
 David F. Marks, 2015 | |
| Born | David Francis Marks (1945-02-12)12 February 1945 (age 81) Liphook, Hampshire,England |
| Alma mater |
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| Occupations | Psychologist, author, editor |
| Known for | The General Theory of Behaviour,Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, Quit for Life Programme,Journal of Health Psychology (founder editor) |
| Scientific career | |
| Thesis | An Investigation of Subjective Probability Judgements (1969) |
| Doctoral advisor | Jack K Clarkson |
| Doctoral students | Sally Casswell |
| Website | davidfmarks |
David Francis Marks (born 12 February 1945)[1] is apsychologist, author and editor of numerous articles and books concerned mainly with five areas of psychological research –judgement,health psychology,consciousness,parapsychology andintelligence. Marks is also the originator of theGeneral Theory of Behaviour and has curated exhibitions and books about artists and their works.
Marks was born on 12 February 1945 inLiphook,Hampshire, England, to Victor W.F. Marks and Mary Dorothy (née Goodman) Marks.[1]
Marks earned a BSc atUniversity of Reading in 1966 and a PhD atUniversity of Sheffield in 1970. From there, he moved to New Zealand, where he taught at theUniversity of Otago as a lecturer and then senior lecturer in psychology.[1] He returned to the UK as Head of the School of Psychology atMiddlesex University before working atCity University London from 2000 to 2010. He founded theJournal of Health Psychology andHealth Psychology Open, an open-access journal.
His brotherJon Marks was a jazz musician. He has two children. David Marks retired from his university post in 2010 and lives in Arles, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.
Marks conducted laboratory studies on subjective probability judgements for his doctoral research at theUniversity of Sheffield. He found that subjects typically used a simplifying strategy orheuristic to manage probability revision in a Bayesian decision task (Marks and Clarkson, 1972). In 1968, Marks contactedAmos Tversky about his findings. Kahneman and Tversky published a paper reporting the samerepresentativenessheuristic in 1972.
Switching to another aspect of judgement, Marks then ran an experiment on relative, subjective probability judgements demonstrating that relative judgements of the more probable of two statements are quicker if the statements are both probable rather than improbable. For judgements of the less probable, the reverse result is obtained. Marks proposed a theory that judgement involves a relation between a stimulus and a word acting as a reference point, and he followedLouis Leon Thurstone's suggestion that stimuli differ in their discriminal dispersions; seeLaw of comparative judgment. Marks' (1972) reference point theory of relative judgement is found to be consistent with results inpsycholinguistics. Four decades later, Dawn Chen, Hongjing Lu, andKeith Holyoak (2014) confirmed Marks' theory in a computational realization by demonstrating that: "Reference points cued by the form of comparative questions systematically modulate the precision of magnitudes represented in working memory, yielding the semantic congruity effect" (Chen, Lu and Holyoak, 2014, p. 46).
In his work onhealth psychology, Marks advocated a greater understanding of the socio-political context affecting individual behaviour (Marks et al., 2005). With Michael Murray and colleagues, he actively promoted a critical-theoretical approach, including the foundation of theInternational Society of Critical Health Psychology. This organisation has included the consideration of social justice, community approaches, and art projects to reduce health inequalities. Marks has also been interested in new research methods forclinical psychology andhealth psychology (Marks & Yardley, 2004).
David Marks' first project in thehealth psychology area was concerned with the effects ofcannabis use, which, in the 1970s, was an illegal substance in the majority of Western countries and a subject of social concern, especially when mixed with alcohol and driving. With Professor Peter McKellar at theUniversity of Otago, Marks obtained funding from the Medical, nowHealth Research Council of New Zealand, to carry out double-anonymized, randomised controlled trials to investigate the acute effects of cannabis intoxication, e.g., "Cannabis and Temporal Disintegration in Experienced and Naive Subjects", subsequently published inScience. A series of masters and doctoral students includingSally Casswell andAnnette Beautrais submitted this research for their PhD or MSc dissertations.
His second project inhealth psychology concerned designing psychological therapy forsmoking cessation. This research began with another doctoral student, Paul Sulzberger, at theUniversity of Otago, where they developed the Isis Smoking Cessation Programme (Sulzberger & Marks, 1977). After returning to England in 1986, Marks developed a UK version of the programme, which was initially published by theBritish Psychological Society in 1993 as The QUIT FOR LIFE Programme (Marks 1993, 2005). The approach was developed further and re-published in the 'Overcoming' series by Robinson as "Overcoming Your SmokingHabit" (Marks 2005).
The discipline of psychology has faced a complex challenge in conceptualizing methods for the design, description, and evaluation of interventions. Marks (2009) published a Taxonomic System for psychological interventions.
In 2015, Marks published a new theoretical explanation ofobesity based on the concept ofhomeostasis, a property of all living things (Marks, 2015). Physiological homeostasis maintains equilibrium at set-points using feedback loops for the organism's optimum functioning. Long-term homeostatic imbalances arise through genetic, environmental, or biopsychosocial mechanisms causing illness and/or loss of well-being. Psychological homeostasis works similarly to maintain stability in emotion and behaviour. However, rapid environmental and economic changes generate challenging conditions for the human organism. Overconsumption of high-calorie, low-nutrient foods, combined with stressful living and working conditions, have caused imbalances in homeostasis,overweight, andobesity in more than two billion people.
Annunziato and Grossman (2016)[2] explain that Marks' homeostasis theory attributes the obesity imbalance to a "Circle of Discontent", a system of feedback loops linking weight gain, body dissatisfaction, negative affect, and overconsumption. These authors state that the theory is consistent with extensive evidence. Annunziato and Grossman (2016) indicate that the homeostasis theory focuses on five feedback loops that form an insidious and vicious "Circle of Discontent". If, for any reason, high levels of dissatisfaction, negative affect, consumption, or increased body weight should arise, then interactivity through feedback loops creates a vicious circle, a disturbance to the stability of the system that controls weight gain. When it becomes activated, the system drifts away from equilibrium toward a dysfunctional state of non-control. The authors explain that Marks (2015) proposes a four-armed strategy to halt the obesity epidemic consists of (1) putting a stop to victim-blaming, stigma, and discrimination; (2) devalorizing the thin-ideal; (3) reducing consumption of energy-dense, low-nutrient foods, and drinks; and (4) improving access to plant-based diets. Annunziato and Grossman (2016) concluded: "If fully implemented, interventions designed to restore homeostasis have the potential to halt the obesity epidemic".
The Homeostasis Theory of Obesity was further elaborated in his 2016 book,Obesity. Comfort vs. Discontent (Marks, 2016). The book's dedication states: "To the two-point-one billion people who are overweight or living with obesity. Please take note. It is not your fault. You are not to blame. You are the victims. Be informed, be empowered, and, above all else, resist. This book is for you." (Marks, 2016).
Marks further elaborated the theory of Psychological Homeostasis in a General Theory of Behaviour, which he published as a book in 2018.
Marks' research intoconsciousness andmental imagery led to the development of theVividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, a tool for the assessment of individual differences in visual imagery.[3][4] Marks (1973) reported that high vividness scores correlate with the accuracy of recall of coloured photographs.[5] In 1995 he published a new version of the VVIQ, the VVIQ2. This questionnaire consists of twice the number of items and reverses the rating scale so that higher scores reflect higher vividness. The VVIQ has been validated in about 2000 studies using perceptual and cognitive tasks.
Rodway, Gillies, and Schepman (2006) found that high-vividness participants were significantly more accurate at detecting salient changes to pictures than low-vividness participants, replicating an earlier study by Gur and Hilgard (1975). Recently, Cui et al. (2007) found that reported image vividness correlates with increased activity in the visual cortex. This study shows that increased visual cortical activity reflects the subjective experience of forming a mental image. Logie, Pernet, Buonocore, and Della Sala (2011) used behavioural andfMRI data for mental rotation from individuals reporting vivid and poor imagery on the VVIQ. Groups differed in brain activation patterns, suggesting that the groups performed the same tasks differently. These findings help to explain the lack of association previously reported between VVIQ scores and mental rotation performance. Lee, Kravitz, and Baker (2012) used fMRI and multi-voxel pattern analysis to investigate the specificity, distribution, and similarity of information for individual seen and imagined objects. Participants either viewed or imagined individual-named object images on which they had been trained before the scan. Correlation between fMRI and VVIQ scores showed that, in both object-selective and early visual cortex, Lee et al.'s (2012) measure of discrimination across imagery and perception correlated with the vividness of imagery.
In his work onparapsychology, Marks adopted a skeptical analysis ofparanormal claims. He and his colleague Richard Kammann became associated with the committee of professional skeptics now calledCommittee for Skeptical Inquiry. Marks visited theUniversity of Oregon on a six-month sabbatical in 1976 to carry out research withRay Hyman. While in the US, Marks also visited two researchers at theStanford Research InstituteRussell Targ andHarold Puthoff who had carried out multiple studies ofremote viewing, which they had published inNature. After Puthoff and Targ refused to give David Marks access to their remote viewing data, Marks approached the judge of the transcripts, Arthur Hastings, who allowed him full access. In his analysis, Marks found multiple clues in the unedited transcripts that allowed the target descriptions to be correctly matched to the listing of target sites, showing them in the actual order in which they had been visited. Marks subsequently published an article inNature demonstrating that the original claims ofremote viewing experiments were based on flawed experimental procedures.
Marks also published evidence inThe Psychology of the Psychic (1980, 2nd edn. 2000; co-authored with the late Richard Kammann; forewords to both editions byMartin Gardner) thatUri Geller was able to hoodwink scientists, journalists and the many members of the public with a series of simple but audacious sleights of hand. In that book, which investigatesanomalistic psychology and describes case studies of paranormal claims and principles for explaining how people may come to believe so strongly in the paranormal claims. This includes the concept ofsubjective validation, a process through which people find a correspondence between randomly paired events, includingcoincidences (Marks, 2000). In 1986, while working in New Zealand with the lateDenis Dutton, Marks co-founded theNZ Skeptics. He is a fellow of theCommittee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI).[6]
His habitual attitude of open skepticism was later applied to the self-proclaimed 'skeptics' themselves. Marks became convinced that the leading members of theCommittee for Skeptical Inquiry such asRay Hyman,Paul Kurtz andJames Randi were actually "pseudoskeptics", i.e. disbelievers, who were never open to the possibility of the paranormal in the first place. Their disbelief would be as susceptible tosubjective validation as the positive beliefs of non-skeptics. Thus, Marks came to adopt a position similar to that ofMarcello Truzzi in advocating "zeteticism". Marks' 2020 book "Psychology and the Paranormal: Exploring Anomalous Experience" presents a new theory holding that, if they occur at all, paranormal experiences such as telepathy and clairvoyance are never under conscious control and only happen spontaneously. The theory explains why self-proclaimed psychics such asUri Geller cannot produce paranormal effects in the laboratory and why laboratory experiments inparapsychology fail.
Regarding Marks' book, Adrian Parker ('Informal Psi Tests',Paranormal Review96, 16), President of theSociety for Psychical Research, commented:
"The veteran psi-critic David Marks has recently published a bookPsychology and the Paranormal in which he has taken a softer position concerning the paranormal. He argues that the phenomena may occur, but that they are inherently spontaneous and elusive, and because of this they cannot be captured in the lab. According to Marks, parapsychologists and their critics should resolve their differences and accept this. Such a challenge obviously goes against all the ethos and efforts of academic parapsychology at UK Universities, such as Northampton, which follow the basic belief ofJoseph Banks Rhine that by piecing together numerous factors and personality- traits, a degree of control over psi can eventually be achieved. This is the successful working model used throughout applied psychology where psychological testing predicts job performance and is used even to some extent for diagnostics in clinical psychology. Marks's challenge also goes against my own efforts to show that altered states of consciousness are the royal road to reliably reproducing lifting psi-in-the-wild to psi-in-the-lab. In particular, we developed a version of the ganzfeld using real-time recordings that could actually catch the sender's experiences of target film clips in the form of the receiver's imagery, since these ganzfeld images are often shown to follow in real time the changing scenes being watched in the target clip.
Nevertheless, there may be some truth in Marks's assertion. Some of the best cases of ESP seem to occur before controls can be brought in, only to disappear when they are brought in".
In 2010, David Marks systematically analysed the association between literacy skills andintelligence quotient(IQ) across time, nationality, and race.[7] Marks (2010) published a sceptical theory ofIQ score variations explaining both theFlynn effect and the alleged racial variations in IQ as anartefact (error) stemming from uncontrolled literacy differences. Marks (2010) hypothesized thatIQ differences across time, race and nationality are all caused by differences in literacy because intelligence test performance requires literacy skills not present in all people to the same extent. In eight different analyses, mean full-scale IQ and literacy scores yielded correlations ranging from .79 to .99.
Kaufmann (2010) explained the significance of Marks' study as follows. If increasing literacy explained several seemingly different IQ trends, you would expect to see a few other phenomena. First, within a population, you should expect increased literacy skills education to be associated with an increase in the average IQ of that population. Second, IQ gains should be most pronounced in the lower half of the IQ bell curve since this is the section of the population that, before education, would have obtained relatively lower scores due to their inability to comprehend the intelligence test's instructions. With increased literacy, you should expect to see a change in the skewness of the IQ distribution from positive to negative as a result of higher rates of literacy in the lower half of the IQ distribution (but very little change in the top half of the distribution). You should also expect differences on the particular intelligence test subscales, with increased literacy showing the strongest effects on verbal tests of intelligence and minimal differences on other intelligence tests. If all these predictions hold up, there would be support for the notion that secular IQ gains and race differences are not different phenomena but have a common origin in literacy.
Kaufman described how Marks tested these predictions by looking at samples representative of whole populations (rather than individuals) and used ecological methods to compute statistical associations between IQ and literacy rates across different countries. Kaufman's (2010) review suggested thatMarks' findings were completely consistent with the predictions: (i) The higher the literacy rate of a population, the higher that population's mean IQ, and the higher that population's mean IQ, the higher the literacy rate of that population. (ii) When literacy rates declined, mean IQ also declined, a reversed Flynn Effect. (iii) Unequal improvements occurred across the IQ spectrum, with the most significant increases occurring in the lower half of the IQ distribution. Kaufman pointed out that the evidence suggested that both the Flynn Effect and racial/national IQ differences showed the most extensive effects of literacy on verbal intelligence tests, with the perceptual tests of intelligence showing no consistent pattern.
The alleged association betweenrace and intelligence and also theFlynn effect both have a similar explanation: literacy differences across race and across time are, Marks believes, the cause of both. Racial IQ differences are converging as the literacy skills within two populations become more equal. Thus, racial differences have an environmental cause, just like the Flynn effect. TheFlynn effect and racial differences in measured IQ are artefacts of literacy differences. As the literacy of Western populations declines, as appears to be the case currently, then Marks' literacy theory of IQ scores predicts that average IQ test scores are expected to decrease, and the Flynn effect will reverse, which is precisely what recent studies have found.
All sciences are founded on general theories:Biology has thetheory of evolution;Physics has thetheory of relativity;Chemistry has thetheory of molecular quantum mechanics; andGeology has thetheory of plate tectonics.Psychology has no general theory. In his 2018 monograph, 'A General Theory of Behaviour' (GTB), David Marks (2018) attempts to fill that gap with a central theory covering all discipline areas.
Many psychological theories are species-specific, situation-specific, or sub-area-specific, so they cannot be general theories. 'A General Theory of Behaviour applies to all sub-areas, situations, species, ages, stages, genders, and cultures. The only proviso for the GTB is that the organism must haveconsciousness.
The theory consists of 20 principles and 80 propositions, 100 empirically falsifiable propositions. These 100 propositions make the GTB transparent and capable offalsification.In embracingintentionality,purpose, anddesire, the GTB is non-reductive while, at the same time, drawing upon principles from other sciences, in particular, Biology and Physiology. FollowingClaude Bernard,Walter B. Cannon, and others, David Marks advocates the usefulness of the concept of 'Psychological Homeostasis' and explains the implications for the Science of Behaviour.
The GTB asserts that organisms are not adapted to each other and the environment because natural selection made them that way, but they are made that way owing to an inbuilt striving towards stability and equilibrium. The GTB has the potential to advance understanding of human nature and to integrate the discipline of Psychology. The following steps involve rigorous testing of the principles and hypotheses of the General Theory.
