Reversal theory
Other previous and current applications of the theory include risk-taking, violence, creativity, humor, sexual behavior, ritual, terrorism, advertising, fantasy, and so on.
Reversal theory was initially developed primarily by British psychologist Dr. Michael Apter and psychiatrist Dr. Ken Smith in the mid-1970s.
[6] The starting point was Smith's recognition of a personality dimension which he believed had been largely overlooked but was of critical importance in understanding certain kinds of pathology.
Apter made a fundamental change to this idea by suggesting that we were not dealing here with enduring traits but with passing states.
[7] Apter's suggestion was that in everyday life people moved backward and forward between two opposite states, which were alternative ways of seeing the world.
Humans reverse between the states in each pair depending on a number of factors, including our inherent tendency to adopt one style over the other.
This is due to the significance of their interaction, e.g. Serious-rebelliousness (organizing a protest march) is noticeably different from playful rebelliousness (telling a joke in a business meeting).
The idea that humans are always looking for a perfect medium state of arousal and anything too extreme in either direction is not to be desired, i.e., boredom or anxiety.
[12] In the serious state, one becomes anxious as threatening or demanding events raise arousal levels, but pleasantly relaxed when a task is completed.
It also introduces a certain dynamic into the situation through the possibility of sudden changes in experience, and it will have been noticed that as arousal gets higher or lower, so the effect of reversal from one curve to the other becomes more dramatic.
This reversal within arousal explains such phenomena as why people indulge in dangerous sports, why people commit recreational violence, the nature of sexual perversion and sexual dysfunction, the attraction of military combat, and the nature of post-traumatic stress disorder.
For example, people gratuitously confront themselves with risk in dangerous sports like parachuting and rock-climbing, in order to achieve high (not moderate) arousal.
[14][15] Reversal theory introduced the term dominance to make the motivational styles a testable factor in psychometrics, so as to expand its application regions.
Here, in no special order, are some of the topics that have been worked on: Stress, addiction, anxiety, depression, delinquency, hooliganism, personality disorder, boredom, gambling, crime, violence, leadership, teamwork, creativity, risk-taking, teaching, dieting, humor, aesthetics, play, sport, exercise, design, advertising, corporate culture, consumer behavior, hotel management, sexual behavior, religious faith, ritual, spying, and marital relations.
Kerr and others have reported it being used in a variety of sports, including soccer, figure skating, golf, and martial arts.
Graham Winter, a coach for three Australian Olympic teams, utilizes reversal theory for the psychological health of his athletes.
At present, such measurement is at the descriptive stage, and the application of reversal theory can move this body of work toward more predictive science.
Biological and medical researchers have begun to develop instrumentation that allows the tracking of physiological variables in real-time from individual subjects in their natural settings.
An early instrument was The Telic Dominance Scale (TDS)[20] developed by Murgatroyd, Rushton, Apter & Ray in 1978.
Others include the Apter Leadership Profile [System] (ALPS), which utilizes a 360-degree measurement of leaders' motivational micro-climates, and how they interact with their direct reports.
