Essay About Psychology 101-C E-Mail And Study Of Experience

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Psychology 101-C E-mail: [email protected]: Science Building, Room 203 Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:30 – 11:30Teaching Assistant – Alana GrecoTeaching Assistant Office – TBATA Office Hours – TBA         Psychology is just one of the many approaches to understand the world better. Freud said: “The two single most important things in our lives are love and work. Structured labour and love give life meaning”.Abnormal behaviour is always cut from normal cloth. Psychology emphasizes the application of scientific methods.Neutrality of knowledge: Can knowledge ever be neutral? It is actually how we apply that knowledge that is neutral. There is always a motive behind the things we pursue.  Ask why and not how. Psychology, as a science, was started officially in 1879. Although many argue that it is a science of behaviour, it is actually a study of experience. The study of psychology is difficult because:The complexity of the organism we are studying – Humans are very complex creatures. Is it possible for a single human system to understand the entirety of the human personality? Ethical Questions – Should we study human behaviour? In studying it, do we violate human beings? “Never use a human being as a means to an end”.Confidential nature of the researchDiscomfort or harm?Deception? Can we justify deception in our experiences?Tuskegee study: They injected African-American convicts with syphilis inn order to see the effect it had on their brain when it attackedPrison study: He asked university students to act as prison guards in order to understand the effect dealing with prisoners has on them.Two approaches:Deontological – never use a human being as means to an endJoseph Goldberger discovered that pellagra was a result of nothing more than a niacin shortage, not a virus. He performed studies on himself and his wife instead of using other people.Consequentialism – The consequences are fine as long as one’s ends are noblePsychophobia – We are reluctant to know more and more about ourselves. We are willing to explore exterior darkness, yet we are reluctant to explore our inner darkness. These people disturbed the sleep of humans and contributed to this apparent psychophobia.Copernicus: When people discovered the world was heliocentric and not geocentric, people wanted to burn him.Darwin: Darwin claimed that we had much in common with animals. Similarly, people revolted because he moved us from divinity to animal-like.Freud: Most of what drives us is below the level of consciousness. This once again enraged people. Young: Young argued about our dark side, and how we our only fully functional human beings when we acknowledge this side of ourselves. Galileo: Colleagues of Galileo refused to look into his telescope, once again exemplifying psychophobia.It is almost as though the pursuit of knowledge is dangerous.Plato “Every student is a light. Every student is a spark waiting to dispel the darkness”.The context of human existence is changing dramaticallyScience and technology are redefining our understanding of terms that are given to us at the beginning of consciousness. Many argue we are abdicating our sense of self and handing it over to computer and machine metaphors/analogies. Our computer lives are more important than our flesh and blood relationships.They are redefining life itself, what it means to be a human and natureTechnological advances are so fast that more technological, social and psychological changes have occurred in the pat 75 years than the rest of human historyWe are suffering from sensory overload – there is just too much to process so we are closing more and more of what I happening around us. How can we maintain a frame of reference when things are moving so quickly?Concerns about redefining what a family means – How we define a family has a profoundly important implications for civil society in generalSubjective split between modern human beings and the rest of natureNow we have to think about to protect nature from the excesses of human actions rather than the oppositeThe ability to create change and the idea that change is always desirable is now a global obsessionBefore continuity was the desired state of affairs, but now we are always obsessed with change. Slow continuity is no longer good enoughSymbolic language has been radically alteredFor example, heaven used to carry a very sacred meaning, and today we speak of space, an endless void. We used to speak of Mother Nature with a reverence, but now we speak lifelessly of matter and physical makeup.There is now less transcendence in our consciousnessWhat we need is a re-enchantment of the human and of nature, meaning that we should realize that there is something sacred about the human being, and of earth“Human beings without spirit are garbage”. Franz KafkaPsychology has a very long past but a relatively short history. Psychologists tend to think they have the answers to all the questions, even though they have been struggled with for thousands of years. Psyche to Soma – There were thinkers many years ago that struggled with these same questions, it was not just FreudPlato – We struggle to make sacred ideas, as they are much more important then the body or behaviour Rationalism – Logic and focused thought we can understand our realityAristotleEmpiricism – Experimentation and research will help us understand our realityFormal Academic Schools of Psychology December 1879Wilhelm Wundt and his associates established the school of structuralism in Germany. He was considered a very mediocre student, until he became very sick in his twenties. Then he began to contemplate in his forced idleness.Structuralism – Argues that the mind consists of structuresIntrospection was the method Wundt used. He would hold up an apple, then proceed to ask his students to describe the apple. It is red, it has a stem etc. Wundt argued that each of these descriptive terms represented a building brick of the mind. Through introspection, he believed we could understand exactly what one was feeling, thinking, wanting at any given moment.The complaints:Reductionistic – It reduces intricate experiences and thoughts into a few wordsElemental – They tried to combine basic elements into a wholeMentalistic – It studies only the verbal reports, but what about the experiences that cannot be described.Functionalism – They felt that the organism in all its parts had a purpose, a goal. That goal is to adapt, so instead of studying what “is” the mind, they asked what is it’s function? Darwin argued that the goal is to adapt and surviveWilliam James – Wrote the original text “Principles of Psychology”One of the founders of this schoolTook Darwin’s research on natural selection into accountArgued that consciousness is a continuous flow of thoughts, so by analyzing it in ‘elements’ the structuralists were simply looking at static points of that flow.Stream of consciousnessJohn Dewey – Another founder of the schoolHe emphasized that one learns by doingIt gave rise to clinical psychology, business psychology, personality tests, intelligence tests etc.Behaviorism – Based on the premise that psychology should be the study of observable behavior, nothing more.Mental processes are not subject to study because they are so privateThe emphasis of this school was based on stimulus-response relationships. We respond in situations the same way for which we have been rewarded in the past. (Often referred to as S-R psychology)Watson – Became president of the American Psychological Association in 1920 when Behaviorism dominated for yearsConditioned Emotional Response – Albert was 11 months old, and whenever the researchers introduced a furry creature, they followed by making a very loud noise. Ultimately, he burst into tears anytime he saw something furry, even a fake Santa beard.He believed he could create anything he wanted to by manipulating rewards and reinforcements (Nurture over nature)Skinner argued that freedom and dignity are non-existent. That if you felt free, it’s simply because those feelings were reinforced. Radical BehaviorismAll behavior is fully governed by external stimuliPavlov – Conditional responseHe showed that dogs could be trained to salivate in response to an auditory stimulus like a tone. It strengthened the argument of S-R psychologyGestalt psychology – The individual should be treated a fully functioning whole. We tend to see things in patterns.The brain imposes patterns on imposing stimuliEx. The brain, responding to random bursts, imposed meaning on them and thus created dreamsWe perceive an integrity on stimuliEx. If he asked us to draw an incomplete circle that he drew on the board, we would draw a full circleGestatlists argue that building a tower, for example, is the whole.Closure – Our brain always thinks and sees in terms of patterns, that is why we want closureThey began to see children and school as a whole. If the child is having trouble at home, he will not do well at school. If he does not eat breakfast, he will not do well on the test. The child is viewed as a pattern.PsychoanalysisFreud – Came closer to developing a complete theory of human behavior than anyone else in historyNo specific type of psychology is embedded in us as much as FreudianThe unconscious contains thoughts, memories, and desires that are well below the surface of conscious awareness but that nonetheless exert great influence on behaviorPsychoanalytic theory attempts to explain personality, motivation and mental disorders by focusing on unconscious determinants of behaviorId, Ego, SuperegoThe Third Force, Humanistic Existentialism – a theoretical orientation that emphasizes the unique qualities of humans, especially their freedom and their potential for personal growth Appalled at how reductionistic other schools were. They believe that reductionism has created a society of anonymity, conformity.Emphasizes choice. A good environment will lead to good choices, whereas the opposite is also trueUnique – There is only one of usSpontaneity – We are spontaneous creatures, not like behaviorismInternal Locus of Control – One believes that their successes are a result of their drive, hard work and commitment. Your destiny is a function of your behaviors. External is the opposite.Existential in our livesYou are freeYou make choicesYou are responsible for those choicesAlbert Camus argues that we are living a life that has no meaning; it is absurd. What makes us so powerful is that we no it is pointless, yet we do it anywayThe StrangerExistence precedes essence.Put away race, color, language, all those essencesBio-Pycho-social model