Introductory Session FACTS AND PERSPECTIVES IN PSYCHOLOGY Overview - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Introductory Session FACTS AND PERSPECTIVES IN PSYCHOLOGY Overview Perspectives in psychology (psychodynamic, behavioural and cognitive perspectives) Perspectives in psychology (biological, humanistic and Week 1 sociocultural
FACTS AND PERSPECTIVES IN PSYCHOLOGY
Perspectives in psychology (psychodynamic, behavioural
and cognitive perspectives)
Perspectives in psychology (biological, humanistic and
sociocultural perspectives)
Introducing the field of child and adolescent abnormal
psychology
The ADHD mystique: perspectives and treatment
can it tell us about functionality of different areas?
neuroscience, fMRI, EEG, MEG, computational simulations and neural nets
will debate
between machines and brains
Tell the person next to you!
Tell the person next to you!
Psychology is the study of mind and behaviour It takes many different perspectives and has many
subfields
Psychology is NOT just about therapy Psychology studies both real life events and
theoretical issues
Psychology studies both normal and abnormal
behaviour Facts
Psychology is just common sense You can become a therapist with a bachelor’s
[undergraduate] degree
Psychologists get paid loads to money to listen to
people talk
Psychology isn’t a real science!
Misconceptions
Uses experimental methods Researchers control and manipulate variables Objectivity is a key Allows for hypothesis testing and theory building Results can be replicated – cross-cultural Findings allow researchers to predict future occurrences
What are the key characteristics
Clinics Schools Social service departments Supermarkets Marketing agencies Corporate companies Courtrooms/legal firms Airlines Armies
Clinical psychologists Neuropsychologists Counselors Social psychologists School psychologists Health psychologists Sports psychologists Child/developmental psychologists Organizational/ industrial psychologists Consumer psychologists Media psychologists Forensic psychologists Aviation psychologists Military psychologists
What topics do they study? What philosophy do they adopt? What methods of inquiry do they apply? How do they understand human behaviour? How they interpret human behaviour? What perspective do they take?
Psychodynamic perspective Behavioural perspective Biological perspective Cognitive Perspective Sociocultural perspective Humanistic perspective
Humanistic Sociocultural Cognitive Biological Behavioural Psychodynamic
An approach to psychology which emphasises unconscious processes of the mind
Humanistic Sociocultural Cognitive Biological Behavioural Psychodynamic
Freud’s Conception Of the Human Psyche The iceberg metaphor
unconscious
Preconscious Conscious The unconscious level: hidden thoughts feelings and desires The preconscious level: thoughts easily brought to consciousness The conscious level: normal awareness
unconscious
Preconscious Conscious
ego superego Id Id [it]: the most primitive part
consists of drives and impulses seeking immediate gratification (e.g. sex). Superego [above-I]: the part of the psyche that consists of absolute moral standards internalised from one’s parents and culture/society (e.g. premarital sex). Ego [i]: the part of the psyche that channels the most basic drives into activities that balance the demands of society (e.g. relationships).
An old joke in the field of psychology sufficiently illustrates the relationship between the three aspects of personality: “the [id] says “I want it, and I wanted it now”; the [super-ego] says “You can’t have it, it is bad for you”; and the ego – the rationally aware mediator – says “you can have some of it – later”. The ID The EGO The Superego
Definition: Strategies that the ego uses to disguise or to transform unconscious wishes and to protect oneself from painful or guilty thoughts and feelings. Note: The particular mechanism a person uses shape his or her behaviour and personality, and extreme forms of these mechanisms may result in a maladaptive pathological behaviour that Freud termed neurotic paradox
Regression Denial Displacement Rationalization Intellectualization Projection Reaction-formation Identification Sublimation
Defence Mechanism Definition Example Regression Retreating to a behaviour of an earlier developmental period to prevent anxiety and satisfy current needs Seven-year-old Jeff starts witting his bed after his parents bring home a new-born baby Denial Refusing to perceive or accept reality A husband whose wife recently died denies she is gone and actively searches for her Displacement Discharging unacceptable feelings against someone or something other than the true target of these feelings A mother who is angry with her children picks up a fight with her husband adapted from (Nelson-Hoeksema 2008, p.50)
Defence Mechanism Definition Example Rationalisation Inventing an acceptable motive to explain unacceptably motivated behaviour A soldier who killed innocent civilians rationalises that he was just following orders Intellectualisation Adopting a cold, distant perspective on a matter that actually creates strong, unpleasant feelings A physician who is troubled by seeing young people with severe gunshot wounds every night has discussion with colleagues that focus only on the technical aspects of treatment Projection Attributing one’s own unacceptable motives or desires to someone else A husband who is attracted to a colleague at work accuses his wife of cheating on him adapted from (Nelson-Hoeksema 2008, p.50)
Defence Mechanism Definition Example Reaction Formation Adopting a set of attitudes and behaviours that are opposite to one’s true dispositions A person who cannot accept his/her homosexuality becomes extremely homophobic Identification Adopting the ideas, values and tendencies of someone in a superior position in order to elevate self-worth A mother of a disabled child become an activist for disability campaigns Sublimation Translating wishes and needs into socially acceptable [and admirable] behaviour An adolescent with strong aggressive impulses trains to be a boxer adapted from (Nelson-Hoeksema 2008, p.50)
Strengths
behaviour, and proven useful concepts for treatment
personality
making his or her suffering more comprehensive to the rest of society
Strengths and Limitations of this approach Limitations
psychologists
An approach to psychology that focuses on how learning certain behaviours takes place
Humanistic Sociocultural Cognitive Biological Behavioural Psychodynamic
Behavioural Learning Theories
Classical Conditioning
Classical Conditioning & Human Learning
‘Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist. I might select – doctor, Lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes even beggar –man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and the race of his ancestors.’ (Waston, 1925, p.104)
Aims: The researchers aimed to demonstrate that classical conditioning could be used to create a fear response in a child to an innocuous stimulus (one that we would not normally expect to frighten children). By doing this, Watson and Rayner hoped to show that human behaviour could be accounted for by the process of classical conditioning. Method: A laboratory experiment was carried out using a single participant (i.e. Little Albert); a male infant aged nine months at the start of the study. Albert was assessed on his response to a number of objects such as a white rat and he displayed no fear and in fact wanted to play with it! In classical conditioning terms, the rat was a neutral stimulus because it did not produce a fear response. Two months later, Little Albert was again presented with the white rat. This time, when he reached for it, researchers struck a four-foot metal bar just behind his ear, making a loud noise and frightening Albert. The sound of the bar being banged was an unconditioned stimulus because it elicited a fear response from the start. The procedure was repeated five times a week later and twice more 17 days
and to other while fluffy objects were noted down.
Little Albert Experiment
Results:
In the first trial, when the metal bar was struck, Albert displayed some distress, jumping and sticking his face into a mattress. In the second trial, Albert was suspicious of the rat, and by the next session he leaned away from the rat as soon as it was presented. When a rabbit was placed next to him, Albert cried. Seven weeks later, Albert cried in response to a variety of white furry objects including a fur coat and a Father Christmas beard. This response to objects that reminded Albert of the conditioned stimulus is called generalisation.
Little Albert Experiment (continuous…)
Watson and Rayner (1920) Conditioned emotional responses. Journal of Experimental Psychology 3, 1-14
Evaluation:
What do you think?
Little Albert Experiment (continuous…)
Watson and Rayner (1920) Conditioned emotional responses. Journal of Experimental Psychology 3, 1-14
particularly for early human learning (i.e. crying mother and food)!
under certain laboratory conditions
However
complex aspects of human’s learning
explaining human’s role in the learning process
the infant!
+ Operant Conditioning
consequences (i.e. reward and/or punishment).
+ Behavioural Consequences
[makes behaviour more likely to occur] Punishment [makes behaviour less likely to occur] Positive (+) Add something Positive reinforcement Introduce something pleasant Positive punishment Introduce something aversive Negative (-) Remove something Negative reinforcement Remove something unpleasant Negative punishment Remove something pleasant
+ Behavioural Consequences
[makes behaviour more likely to occur] Punishment [makes behaviour less likely to occur] Positive (+) Add something Positive reinforcement a kid gets dessert for eating all his vegetables, kid eats vegetable more often Positive punishment baby touches electric socked, gets hit in the hand, baby touches socket less often Negative (-) Remove something Negative reinforcement a kid does not does not get dessert for not eating his vegetables, kid eats vegetable more
Negative punishment baby cries for a toy in a store, mom ignores crying, baby cries less
(e.g. applied behavioural analysis)
Consumer Psychology and Behaviourism
Strengths:
Theories are testable and are backed up with a large body of what is counted today as ‘rigorous’ experimental research
Behavioural principles can be applied to understand everyday situations (e.g. children tantrums to seek attention)
Applied to many situations and institutions, particularly health related and the role of media and advertising in promoting this.
Provide practical strategies given its emphasis on what can be changed Strengths and Limitations of this approach
Limitations:
Adopts a reductionist approach; it reduces the complexity of
human behaviour to a few simple principles of learning
It ignores the importance of relationships and family dynamics in
influencing behaviour and enhancing learning
It undermines the importance of genes and the physiology of the
brain
Cannot explain human’s capacity for free will and achievement Whilst techniques of behaviourism changes behaviour to the better
in school settings, these very same techniques lend themselves equally to torture, brain washing and political oppression
Strengths and Limitations of this approach
Using coloured pens, match up the defence mechanism with its description and example!
Activity
An approach to psychology that focuses
and respond to information.
Humanistic Sociocultural Cognitive Biological Behavioural Psychodynamic
stimulus in the environment The Black Box cannot be studied response behaviour
The Behavioural Perspective: only studies ‘observable/external behaviour The Cognitive Perspective: scientifically studies internal processes through experimental methods
Input in the environment Mediational Processes mental event (e.g. memory) Output behaviour Behaviourist versus Cognitive Perspectives
Focuses on the observed
behaviour itself
Learners respond to
environmental stimuli (e.g. food, toy, an image)
Knowledge is acquired Reinforcements strengthen
the behaviour
Focuses on the
knowledge underpinning learning
Learners initiate
learning experiences
Knowledge is
constructed
Reinforcements are
sources of feedback
Behaviourist versus Cognitive Perspectives
The use of the computer as a tool for thinking about how the human mind handles information.
The Computer Analogy
Process
INPUT OUTPUT
In which ways do the brain and computer differ?!
A man went into the shop up the road. How was he dressed? Dark clothes Light clothes Jeans I'm not sure
Blonde hair Dark hair Red hair I am not sure!
Aims: to establish whether people may be persuaded by misleading questions to remember false details, Loftus specifically wanted to see whether mentioning an object that was not present in a film they participants watched would influence participants remember it later as present. Methods: 150 students were shown a short piece of film showing a white car that was involved in a crash. They then answered ten questions about the film. Nine of these questions were the same for all participants but one question differed. Half the participants received the question: ‘how fast was the white car going when it passed the barn?’, the remaining participants instead received: ‘how fast was the car going while travelling along the country road?’ One week later the participants returned and were given a further ten questions about the film, one of which was ‘did you see a barn?’
Key Application: eyewitness testimony Loftus (1975) Leading Questions and the Eyewitness Report. Cognitive psychology 7, 560-572
NOTE: there was no barn in the film and the question mentioning a barn was meant to mislead participants
Results: as expected, participants who had previously had the question ‘how fast was the white car going when it passed the barn?’ where much more likely to respond that they had seen a barn. Seventeen percent of these reported seeing a barn as opposed to less than three percent of the control group who had received the questions not mentioning a barn. Discussion: this study shows clearly how witnesses can be deliberately
eyewitness testimony
Key Application: eyewitness testimony Loftus (1975) Leading Questions and the Eyewitness Report. Cognitive psychology 7, 560-572
Strengths:
Like the behavioural perspective the cognitive approach is
scientific; theories are testable and are backed up with a solid body of research
Has numerous practical applications such as eyewitness
testimony in courtrooms
Introduces mediational mental processes that bridges
between stimulus and response
Has been successfully combined to other approaches in
Strengths and Limitations of this approach
Limitations:
The metaphor of ‘man as machine’ is seen as simplistic and
reductionist, ignoring emotional, motivational and social factors in human behaviour
The emphasis on laboratory experiments means that the findings
may not reflect everyday life; lacking ecological validity
The approach explains how cognitive processes happen but tends
to ignore why
It can be difficult to establish cause and effect correlations when
applying cognitive models of psychology. For example, Beck’s model of depression sees faulty information-processing as the cause
Strengths and Limitations of this approach