Controlling Behavior Quotes & Sayings

A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior. — Melody Beattie

A lot of jobs today are being automated; what happens when you extend that concept to very important areas of society like law enforcement? What happens if you start controlling the behavior of criminals or people in general with software-running machines? Those questions, they look like they're sci-fi but they're not. — Jose Padilha

The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior - verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations. — B.F. Skinner

If someone yells at me, they are not expressing love. They may be threatening me. They may be expressing great frustration with me. They may simply be trying to control my behavior. However, they are not communicating love. — Cathy Burnham Martin

They're going to drown me in milk--what a waste of good baby-food! — William Moulton Marston

Some people say ... that violence and war are inevitable. I say rubbish: Our brains are fully capable of controlling instinctive behavior. We're not very good at it though, are we? — Jane Goodall

The Ego, as noted, is simply the content of your PSM [Phenomenal Self Model] at this moment (your bodily sensations, your emotional state, your perceptions, memories, acts of will, thoughts). But it can become the Ego only because you are constitutionally unable to realize that all this is just the content of a simulation in your brain. It is not reality itself but an image of reality - and a very special one indeed. The Ego is a transparent mental image: You - the physical person as a whole - look right through it. You do not see it. You see with it. The Ego is a tool for controlling and planning your behavior and for understanding the behavior of others — Thomas Metzinger

Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays him- or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else's behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering and the manipulator often finds it easy to play on sympathy to get cooperation. — George K. Simon

The cannon thunders ... limbs fly in all directions ... one can hear the groans of victims and the howling of those performing the sacrifice ... it's Humanity in search of happiness. — Charles Baudelaire

Many rules are designed with the goal of improving performance, but they actually do the opposite. They are often controlling and certainly stifle creativity. Therefore, you need to be extremely aware of the consequences of each rule you put in place. We are so sensitive to rules that even small changes have a huge impact on our behavior. — Tina Seelig

It is ordinarily said that criminal law is designed to protect property and to protect persons, and if society's only interest in controlling sex behavior were to protect persons, then the criminal codes concerned with assault and battery should provide adequate protection. The fact that there is a body of sex laws which is apart from the laws protecting persons is evidence of their distinct function, namely that of protecting custom. — Alfred Kinsey

Don't make decisions based on the fear. — Jay-Z

Light control works; close control leads to overreaction, sometimes causing the machinery to break into pieces. In a famous paper "On Governors," published in 1867, Maxwell modeled the behavior and showed mathematically that tightly controlling the speed of engines leads to instability. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I got into acting for the chance to be many different people and many different characters. I love hiding in a role and doing the research. If there is an opportunity to change my body, I will change my body. I'll slip in and disguise myself in a role. That is a really big treat for me. — Ashley Bell

Control the manner in which a man interprets his world, and you have gone a long way toward controlling his behavior. That is why ideology, an attempt to interpret the condition of man, is always a prominent feature of revolutions, wars, and other circumstances in which individuals are called upon to perform extraordinary action. — Stanley Milgram

Where are we going tonight?"
"To meet Eddy at the Brickyard again. It's Thirsty Thursday apparently."
"Oh no, not participating in Thirsty Thursday. Wasted Wednesday was enough for me."
"Just be thankful it's not Mystery Monday or Tanked Tuesday. — Shey Stahl

But does that mean that war and violence are inevitable? I would argue not because we have also evolved this amazingly sophisticated intellect, and we are capable of controlling our innate behavior a lot of the time. — Jane Goodall

This may mean that the responsible, intellectual liberal, who uses birth control, can perceive cause and effect, and produces resources while acquiring wealth, is a dying breed. As long as resource availability is sufficient to support unlimited population growth, this will result in an ever increasing ideological divide within our populace. The K-selected individuals will remain relatively similar, though more advanced. However it is likely that the r-selected contingent of the populace will gradually become less industrious, less intelligent, less capable of controlling behavior to alter life outcomes, more envious, more prolific, and more entitled. Given how this is trending, the liberal of today may one day appear to be a trustworthy, responsible, and reasonable intellectual when compared to this future model. — Anonymous Conservative

I suspect there are lots of women who want to become prostitutes. Some see themselves as valued commodities and figure they ought to sell while the price is high. Others feel that sex has no intrinsic meaning in and of itself but allows individuals to feel the reality of their own bodies. A few women despise their existence and the insignificance of their meager lives and want to affirm themselves by controlling sex much as a man would. Then there are those who are actuated by violent, self-destructive behavior. And finally we have those want to offer comfort. I suppose there are any number of women who find the meaning of their existence in similar ways. — Natsuo Kirino

Toxically shamed people tend to become more and more stagnant as life goes on. They live in a guarded, secretive and defensive way. They try to be more than human (perfect and controlling) or less than human (losing interest in life or stagnated in some addictive behavior). — John Bradshaw

Yes, the companionship is amazing. You know, you can get that physical attraction that happens is great, but then there's an awful lot of time and the rest of the day that you have to fill. — Vince Gill

So I stand up and face the officer, daring her to look away from my smooth brown skin, the dark rings of my nipples, the swell of my belly, the thatch of hair between my legs. She hands me the orange scrubs that are designed to conform me, and the ID tag with my inmate number, meant to define me as part of a group, instead of an individual. I stare at her until she meets my eye. "My name," I say, "is Ruth." - — Jodi Picoult

Religious strictures are often the source of attitudes toward nudity. Society urges the wearing of clothing partially as a means of controlling the powerful sexual urges that are feared will be released by nudity, causing chaotic behavior. — Patricia Garfield

An abuser doesn't change because he feels guilty or gets sober or finds God. He doesn't change after seeing the fear in his children's eyes or feeling them drift away from him. It doesn't suddenly dawn on him that his partner deserves better treatment. Because of his self-focus, combined with the many rewards he gets from controlling you, an abuser changes only when he has to, so the most important element in creating a context for change in an abuser is placing him in a situation where he has no other choice. Otherwise, it is highly unlikely that he will ever change his behavior. — Lundy Bancroft

Some people say, therefore, that violence and war are inevitable. I say rubbish: Our brains are fully capable of controlling instinctive behavior. — Jane Goodall

I want nothing but death. — Jane Austen

For truly we are all angels temporarily hiding as humans. — Brian L. Weiss

Functional analysis: learn your ABC's In addition to monitoring, try to track the events that immediately precede and follow your problem behavior. Do you drink more when something makes you feel angry? Lonely? Happy? What happens right after an angry outburst? Does the other person give in? Do you have a drink? Or do you withdraw to be alone? What makes you crave a piece of cake? How does eating it make you feel? This "functional analysis" can illuminate what is controlling the parts of your life that seem out of control. It is easy as A (antecedents) B (behavior) C (consequences). Antecedents can trigger a problem behavior, while the consequences reward or strengthen it, no matter how maladaptive it is. — James O. Prochaska

I think adversity magnifies behavior. Tend to be a control freak? You'll become more controlling. Eat for comfort? You'll eat more. And on the positive, if you tend to focus on solutions and celebrate small successes, that's what you'll do in adversity. — Gretchen Rubin

Locking away appetite, anger, the fullness of life, anorexia helps cover up whatever struggles inside. With its controlling bouts of bingeing and starvation, of trance and half-life, it becomes a shield to fend off despair and longing and what most of use would see as ordinary responsible behavior. — Carol Lee

Hold your head up, there's a light in the sky
I know your fed up but you must try to survive
Each moment's precious, don't let life pass you by
Keep focused, keep your eyes on the prize. — Macklemore

When good things become controlling, they command the affection of our hearts and then shape our words and behavior. When this happens, they take the place in our hearts that only God should have. — Paul David Tripp

The term 'alpha female' originated in my field of animal behavior, but has acquired new meaning. It refers to women who are in charge, for example, by flirting and dating on their own terms. It is also used maliciously for a loud-mouthed, controlling woman who has no patience with deviating opinions. — Frans De Waal

Love is not controlling your loved ones' behavior. Love knows that since the people you love share the same universal consciousness, they will access their truth in time. — Cloris Kylie

On the traditional computer keyboard, I'm a super-fast touch typist. I mastered touch typing in high school. — Jeffrey Zeldman

In the traditional view, a person is free. He is autonomous in the sense that his behavior is uncaused. He can therefore be held responsible for what he does and justly punished if he offends. That view, together with its associated practices, must be re-examined when a scientific analysis reveals unsuspected controlling relations between behavior and environment. — B.F. Skinner