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Psychoanalysis
A type of treatment that focuses on understanding the underlying emotional conflicts and unconscious practices that contribute to psychological distress
Believes that assessing the unconscious mind is key to understanding desires/motivation
Human personality is made up of the conscious and unconscious minds
Levels of Consciousness
Conscious mind - The present awareness and immediate perception of our thoughts, feelings, and surroundings
Subconscious mind/Preconscious mind - A deeper level of consciousness that exists below the surface of our awareness
The memories, thoughts, and emotions that are not currently in the conscious awareness but can be brought to the conscious level
Unconscious mind - The deepest and least accessible part of the mind, containing memories, desires, and experiences that have been repressed or forgotten
Influences our behaviours and thoughts, often in ways that we are not aware of
Freudian slips - mistakes linked to the sub or unconscious mind
the Pleasure Principle
Inclines humans toward easy physical and emotional rewards and away from unpleasant things like discipline
Can lead to dangerous and reckless behaviours if not constrained
the Reality Principle
We need to adjust our behaviour to avoid dangerous situations resulting from the pleasure principle
Neuroses can occur when individuals are unable to cope effectively with the normal demands of life
Id, Superego, and Ego
ID: urges and instinct (driven by pleasure principle)
SUPEREGO: driven by the desire to follow rules and do the right thing (morality principle)
EGO: has to accommodate/balance between the others (reality principle)
Freud's Stages of Psychosexual Development
Freud believed that psychological development happens through 5 stages
Stages are driven by fixations of the libido (sexual drives) on different areas of the body
Each stage is marked by conflicts that need to be resolved to help with growth and development
If these conflicts are not resolved properly, fixations can occur
For example, a person who is fixated on the oral stage may seek oral stimulation through smoking, drinking, or eating
The Oral Stage
Birth to 1 Year
The libido is centered in the baby's mouth because it gets pleasure and satisfaction from putting things in its mouth, so the Id demands more
Sucking, biting, tasting, breastfeeding
Conflict : the weaning process - the child must become less dependent
Fixations: issues with dependency (needing lots of attention) and other physical oral fixations like smoking, nail-biting, etc.
The Anal Stage
1 to 3 Years
Libido focused on the anus because the child is learning about bowel and bladder control
Conflict: toilet training, specifically how it is approached by parents
Supportive = conflict resolved
Lenient = anal-expulsive personality (messy, rebellious)
Too strict = anal-retentive personality (stubborn, tidy)
The Phallic Stage
3 to 6 Years
Libido focused on the genitals because children are becoming more aware of their bodies and the differences between males and females
Conflicts: the Oedipus Complex and the Electra Complex
Resolved through repression and identification
Fixations: difficulties with relationships, gender identity issues, etc.
Boys become mother fixated and girls become father fixated
the Oedipus Complex and the Electra Complex
Boys begin to view this fathers as rivals for the mother's affection (Oedipus)
Girls experience the same feelings, but for their father and they wish to have a penis (Electra)
Latency Stage
6 Years to Puberty
Libido is dormant, and no further psychosexual development is taking place. The energy is still there but it is being put into things like hobbies and intellectual pursuits. A child is developing defense mechanisms at this stage
Fixations: difficulties with relationships and expressing emotions
Genital Stage
Puberty to Death
Individuals become more sexually mature and explore their sexual feelings and desires. For example, a teenager beginning to experience sexual attraction
Overall fixations from other stages can cause sexual perversions
e.g, oral fixations can cause individuals to be pleasured by kissing rather than sex
Freud's Defense Mechanisms
Unconscious strategies used to protect a person from shame, anxiety or other unacceptable feelings or thoughts
Behaviourism
Focuses on observable behaviours and not unobservable mental processes
Believes that psychology should only study external behaviour because it is observable and objective
What goes on in the mind cannot be known/measured
Deemed âbehaviourâ as the response of an organism to stimuli (stimulus ⨠response)
Ivan Pavlov and the Dog Experiment
While studying dogs, he noticed how the animals would salivate after whiffing their dinner
He first saw how dogs salivate from smelling their food, and then concluded that they will start salivating even to the sound of a bell
Founded associative learning and classical conditioning
Associative Learning
When a subject links certain events, behaviours, or stimuli together in the process of conditioning
Classical Conditioning
When one learns to link two or more stimuli to anticipate events
Adaptive learning that helps animals survive by changing behaviour to better suit environment
Shows how a process like learning can be observed through direct observation of behaviours
John B. Watson
Argued that given a dozen healthy infants, he could train them to become a doctor, lawyer, or even thief regardless of talent
Conducted the Rat Experiment
The Rat Experiment
Watson conditioned a young child to be scared of a rat
He did this by pairing the rat with a loud scary noise
Demonstrated that this could cause the fear to be associated with other furry white animals
His research made other psychologists wonder if adults were just holding tanks of conditioned emotions
If so, could new conditioning be used to undo old conditioning?
Controversy: the child was never deconditioned
Could have undone this conditioning to relieve this trauma
B.F. Skinner and the Skinner Box
Skinner box is an enclosed box with a lever and a slot that dispenses some kind of reward
The animal is shaped into pressing the lever for the first time (little nibbles each time they approach until they actually do it)
The animal would press the lever and the food would dispense
The animal would keep wanting to press it for more
Helped B.F. Skinner form the concept of operant conditioning
Operant Conditioning
A type of learning in which behaviour is strengthened if followed by reinforcement or diminished if followed by a punisher
Associating our own behaviour with consequences
The kid who gets a cookie for saying please is trained with operant conditioning
Behaviours increase when followed by reinforcement or rewards but they decrease when followed by punishment
Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, and Punishment
PR- strengthens responses and behaviours by giving a reward after a desired event
Pleasant stimulus ⨠behaviour increases
NR - increases a response or behaviour by taking away an aversive or unpleasant stimulus
Bad stimulus ⨠behaviour increases
e.g, when you get in the car and it beeps continuously to get you to wear your seatbelt
It takes away the beeping when you put it on, therefore reinforcing you wearing your seatbelt by taking away the negative stimulus (beeping)
Punishment - decreases behaviour by punishing
bad stimulus ⨠behaviour decreases
Critiques of Behaviourism
Doesnât account for anything that isnât observable such as internal feelings and thoughts
Underplays the role of biology and free will - essentially saying that humans are âconditioned response machinesâ
Cognitive Psychology
The study of individual-level mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, emotion, etc.
Bobo-Doll Experiment - Conducted by Albert Bandura
A child watched a woman beat up an inflatable doll for 10 minutes
The child was then made mad, and taken back to Bobo to see what would happen
The kids who watched the woman beat the clown were much more likely to act the same way
The kids who didnât watch acted better
Helped form the social learning theory
Social Learning Theory
Learning occurs through observing, imitating, and modeling others' behaviour
Jean Piaget
French psychologist and important figure in cognitive psychology and developmental/child psychology
Developed 4 stages of cognitive development
While studying children's abilities, he noticed how younger kids kept giving wrong answers to questions that an adult would answer correctly
Developed the Theory of Cognitive Development - the notion that children move through four different stages of learning
Sensorimotor Stage
Birth to 2 Years
Baby is experiencing the world through their sense and actions
Touching, grabbing, hearing, putting things in their mouths, etc.
They develop object permanence - knowing that an object still exists even if it is not seen, as well as seperation anxiety
Preoperational Stage
2 to 6 Years
The child starts to use symbols (images and words) to represent objects, but still cannot reason logically
Marked by egocentrism - kid thinks that it is all about them
This drives most of what a child thinks and says
They have a hard time imagining other POVs
Concrete Operational Stage
7 to 12 Years
Kids are starting to think logically about concrete objects, as well as events they have actually experienced
They are now able to see beyond just one aspect of something
Formal Operational Stage
12 Years and up
Our reasoning expands to include more abstact thinking, problem solving, and hypothetical questions
Critiques of Cognitive Psychology
Memory and other mental states cannot be directly observed
Emphasizes congitive processes over biology and social conditions (reductionism/oversimplification)
Experiments are often conducted in unnatural environments (lack of ecological validity)
Humanistic Psychology
Behaviourism and psychoanalysis are pessimistic about people
Humanistic psychology believes that:
Conscious thoughts are most important
Humans are innately good and have free will
Psychology should focus on helping people achieve self-actualization
Abraham Maslow
Founder of Humanistic Psychology (along with Carl Rogers)
He developed a âhierarchy of needsâ which expressed his understanding of human motivation
Offered new ways of thinking about mental health and psychotherapy
Maslowâs Hierarchy of Needs
Physiological Needs - breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, shelter
Safety Needs - overall security of the body, employment, resources, family, health or property
Love/Belonging Needs - friendships, family, relationships, intimacy, connection
Esteem Needs - confidence, self-esteem, achievement, respect from others
Self-actualization Needs - reaching oneâs full potential, creativity, problem-solving, acceptance
Critiques of Humanistic Psychology
Needs donât always follow a hierarchy, it really depends on the individual
Some people have different aspires and motives
Maslowâs hierarchy of needs is hard to verify or falsify
Chance of the theory being classist, because not all social classes are always capable of self-actualization
Neuroscience and Psychology
Biological psychology has been around since the 19th century but neuroscience only became a distinct field in the 1960s
Two subfields
Behavioural neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience
Neuroscientists link all thoughts, moods, memories, etc. to the physical substances of the brain (esp. neurons, neurotransmitters), and that behaviours are solely a result of the interactions of the physical parts of the brain
Brain Mapping
New techniques of neuroimaging have made it possible to observe brain activity and how it changes with different behaviours and thoughts. This developing map of the brain and the connections between neurons is called the connectome
Neurons and Neural Networks
Neurons are specialized cells in the brain that send signals to your body. One's memories and experiences are stored in the connections between neurons. The neural network is essentially pathways that are carved when one develops new habits and memories.
Corpus Callosum
Thick bundle of nerve fibers that ensures that both sides of the brain can communicate and send signals to each other
Critiques of Neuroscience
It focuses too much on the brain - it does not look at us as whole human beings, and does not consider other social or environmental factors
It doesn't take into account free will
e.g, looking at one's experiences
It is more focused on biology rather than the individual
Assuming that one can find all the answers about human thinking and behaviour just by looking at the brain and science
People say "i am more than my genes"
Social Psychology
Understanding how individual behaviour and thinking is influenced by the social environment (situations)
Takes a scientific approach
e.g, social experiments are a common method to study
Areas of interest include : conformity, obedience, aggression, prejudice, discrimination, altruism, and group behaviour
Albert Bandura - Bobo Doll experiment
Helped develop social learning theory
Behaviour is influenced by social situations
Learning occurs through observing, imitating, and modeling others' behaviour
Leon Festinger - Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance : the feeling of discomfort when an individual's behaviour does not align with their values or beliefs
Influenced by social situations
Stanley Milgram - Shock experiment
Concluded that people obey to authority out of fear or desire to look cooperative
Obedience, conformity
Philip Zimbardo - Prison experiment
Concluded that people will conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles are as strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards
Henri Tajfel - Social Identity theory
Describes the conditions under which social identity becomes more important than one's identity as an individual
Prejudice results simply from an awareness of an âout-groupâ
Social Situation and Health
Research in social psychology suggests that people who have a stable social support system are happier, have fewer psychological problems like mental illnesses, eating disorders, depression, etc., lower rates of suicide, and they are also physically healthier
Social Determinants of Health
Childhood experiences, housing, education, social support, family income, employment, communities, access to health services
Critiques of Social Psychology
Generally blind to the macro-level of sociology
e.g, it does not look at social structures that influence behaviour and thinking
It undervalues the importance of biology and free will (agency)
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