David Marks (psychologist)

Memberships

• British Psychological Society (Fellow)
• Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Paranormal (now the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry)(Fellow)

Judgement

Marks conducted laboratory studies on subjective probability judgements for his doctoral research at the University of Sheffield. He found that subjects typically used a simplifying strategy or heuristic to manage probability revision in a Bayesian decision task (Marks and Clarkson, 1972). In 1968, Marks contacted Amos Tversky about his findings. Kahneman and Tversky published a paper reporting the same representativeness heuristic 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 followed Louis Leon Thurstone's suggestion that stimuli differ in their discriminal dispersions; see Law of comparative judgment. Marks' (1972) reference point theory of relative judgement is found to be consistent with results in psycholinguistics. Four decades later, Dawn Chen, Hongjing Lu, and Keith 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).

Health psychology

In his work on health 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 the International 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 for clinical psychology and health psychology (Marks & Yardley, 2004).

David Marks' first project in the health psychology area was concerned with the effects of cannabis 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 the University of Otago, Marks obtained funding from the Medical, now Health 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 in Science. A series of masters and doctoral students including Sally Casswell and Annette Beautrais submitted this research for their PhD or MSc dissertations.

His second project in health psychology concerned designing psychological therapy for smoking cessation. This research began with another doctoral student, Paul Sulzberger, at the University 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 the British 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 Smoking Habit" (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 of obesity based on the concept of homeostasis, 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, and obesity in more than two billion people.

Annunziato and Grossman (2016) 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.

Consciousness research

Marks' research into consciousness and mental imagery led to the development of the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, a tool for the assessment of individual differences in visual imagery. Marks (1973) reported that high vividness scores correlate with the accuracy of recall of coloured photographs. 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 and fMRI 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.

Parapsychology, skepticism and zeteticism

In his work on parapsychology, Marks adopted a skeptical analysis of paranormal claims. He and his colleague Richard Kammann became associated with the committee of professional skeptics now called Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Marks visited the University of Oregon on a six-month sabbatical in 1976 to carry out research with Ray Hyman. While in the US, Marks also visited two researchers at the Stanford Research Institute Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff who had carried out multiple studies of remote viewing, which they had published in Nature. 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 in Nature demonstrating that the original claims of remote viewing experiments were based on flawed experimental procedures.

Marks also published evidence in The Psychology of the Psychic (1980, 2nd edn. 2000; co-authored with the late Richard Kammann; forewords to both editions by Martin Gardner) that Uri 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 investigates anomalistic 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 of subjective validation, a process through which people find a correspondence between randomly paired events, including coincidences (Marks, 2000). In 1986, while working in New Zealand with the late Denis Dutton, Marks co-founded the NZ Skeptics. He is a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI).

His habitual attitude of open skepticism was later applied to the self-proclaimed 'skeptics' themselves. Marks became convinced that the leading members of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry such as Ray Hyman, Paul Kurtz and James 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 to subjective validation as the positive beliefs of non-skeptics. Thus, Marks came to adopt a position similar to that of Marcello 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 as Uri Geller cannot produce paranormal effects in the laboratory and why laboratory experiments in parapsychology fail.

Regarding Marks' book, Adrian Parker ('Informal Psi Tests', Paranormal Review 96, 16), President of the Society for Psychical Research, commented:

"The veteran psi-critic David Marks has recently published a book Psychology 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 of Joseph 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".

Intelligence – Literacy theory of IQ test score variations across time and space

In 2010, David Marks systematically analysed the association between literacy skills and intelligence quotient(IQ) across time, nationality, and race. Marks (2010) published a sceptical theory of IQ score variations explaining both the Flynn effect and the alleged racial variations in IQ as an artefact (error) stemming from uncontrolled literacy differences. Marks (2010) hypothesized that IQ 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 that Marks' 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 between race and intelligence and also the Flynn 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. The Flynn 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.

A General Theory of Behaviour

All sciences are founded on general theories: Biology has the theory of evolution; Physics has the theory of relativity; Chemistry has the theory of molecular quantum mechanics; and Geology has the theory 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 have consciousness.

The theory consists of 20 principles and 80 propositions, 100 empirically falsifiable propositions. These 100 propositions make the GTB transparent and capable of falsification. In embracing intentionality, purpose, and desire, the GTB is non-reductive while, at the same time, drawing upon principles from other sciences, in particular, Biology and Physiology. Following Claude 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.

Selected books

• A General Theory of Behaviour
• Health Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice with Michael Murray and Emee Vida Estacio (Sixth Edition, 2020)
• Reussir a surmonter le Reflex cigarette (French Edition)(2009)
• Overcoming Your Smoking Habit: A Self-Help Guide Using Cognitive Behavioral Techniques (2005)
• Research Methods for Clinical and Health Psychology with Lucy Yardley (2004)
• The Health Psychology Reader (2002)
• Dealing with Dementia: Recent European Research with Catherine Marie Sykes (2000)
• Improving the Health of the Nation: The Failure of the Government's Health Reforms with Colin Francome (1996)
• The Quit for Life Programme: An Easier Way to Quit Smoking and Not Start Again (Stuart MacGregor, Illustrator)(1993)
• Theories of Image Formation (editor) (1986)
• Imagery One (editor with David G. Russell) (1985)
• The Psychology of the Psychic with Richard Kammann (1980 and 2000)
• The Isis Smoking Cessation Programme with Paul Sulzberger (1977)

Selected articles

• Homeostatic theory of obesity (2015)
• IQ variations across time, race, and nationality: an artifact of differences in literacy skills (2010)
• Investigating the paranormal (1986)
• Visual imagery differences in the recall of pictures (1973)
• New Directions for Mental Imagery Research (1995)
• On the review of The Psychology of the Psychic: A reply to Dr. Morris" (1981)
• Cannabis and Temporal Disintegration in Experienced and Naive Subjects with Sally Casswell (1973)