Ch.2 ~ Perspectives in Psychology

What were the two main criticisms of structuralism?

• the problem of consciousness and levels and accuracy of self-report

• gives no role to unconscious processes

Who created the psychoanalytic theory?

• Sigmund Freud

• in Austria

• theory of personality

What was the goal of psychoanalysis?

• gain access to the unconscious mind

• aiming to treat disorders of the unconscious mind

What are the three layers of the mind discovered by Sigmund?

• Id: all the person’s unrefined desires

• Ego: keep all impulses of the Id in the unconscious, satisfy wants of Id by rationally determining it

• Superego: morality, what’s right and wrong dictated by society

What is the Pleasure Principle?

• governs the actions of the Id

• the Id seeks pleasure regardless of anything else

What is the Reality Principle?

• governs the actions of Ego

• concerns itself only with rational appraisal not morality

What were the different methods Freud used to access the unconscious mind

• Hypnosis

• Free Association

• “Freudian slips” (marry women not taking husband name, maybe implying she’s not in a happy marriage)

• Projective Tests

*indirect methods

What is the manifest vs latent content?

*dreams represented the Id running free

• Manifest: outward description of the dream

• Latent: underlying true meaning of the dream that can only be interpreted by a skilled psychoanalyst

What is anxiety reduction?

• ego employs defense mechanisms to try to keep out unwanted thoughts and desires

What is the type of energy of the struggle between the Id and Ego?

• Psychic

What is repression?

*underlies all other defence mechanisms

• the cornerstone

• the unconscious forgetting of unacceptable drive, emotions and memories

What is denial?

• person tries to deny a rude comment they hear of, claiming to never heard it

• denying a symptom of a potential serious illness

• **avoids awareness of something that will make them uncomfortable

What is displacement?

• arises when a person doesn’t directly deal with a stressful situation

• don’t or can’t defend themselves when bullied; feeling powerless

• take out frustration in other ways but don’t address the problem

What is reaction formation?

• when a person acts or behaves in a way that is completely opposite from how they feel

• boy likes girls but teases, bullies and embarrasses her instead: can’t face true feelings

What is rationalization

• when a person does something wrong (stealing), might avoid sense of guilt by rationalizing their behaviour

• “I had to cheat because the questions were unfair”

What is projection?

• someone thinking or behaving a certain way but accuses another of the same thing while the other is innocent

• person in a relationship acting very jealous, accusing of cheating; but the person themselves is behaving that way

What is Sublimation

• when a person takes unwanted thoughts and impulses into a sociable acceptable behaviour

• liking to hit and cause pain to others, so they play a sport where they can do it legally

  • boxing or rugby

• can allow a person to get ahead over time

Why can all the defence mechanisms be given in examples of children?

• because they are all childish ways of dealing with your problems

Who was Alfred Alder?

• known for individual psychology: we strive for superiority

• first follower or Freud to break off

• inferiority complex: never feeling good enough; succeeding: gaining that superiority

What are the two problematic parenting styles that Adler thought could form an inferiority complex personality?

• Neglect: too much freedom to do what they want, don’t have boundaries, can’t trust others

• Pampering: never given enough freedom, parents control every experience, child can’t make decisions on their own and don’t learn from experience, lack independence and very hesitant

What else could affect personality?

• the birth order

• First born: more problems, feel inferior, trust issues (attention taken away by second born)

• Middle: compete with other siblings, not all attention on them

• Last: overly pampered by everyone in the family, spoiled and overly dependent

Who was Carl Jung?

• major follower of Freud

• Analytic psychology

• Interested in other cultures and societies

• Believed we’re all apart of the collective unconscious: difficult to bring into consciousness

  • universal and inherited

What is proof Jung used for collective unconscious?

• Archetypes

  • the nurturing mother

  • shadow: dark side of humanity, struggle of good and evil

  • male(anima) and female(animus) side of personality

What is the persona by Jung?

• mask, and public image a person presents to the outer world

• believes goal of life is to realize the self

What are the contrasts between Jung’s Introverts and Extroverts?

• Intro: pre-occupied with internal world of own thoughts and feelings, socially reserved

• Extro: embrace social situations, comfortable expressing themselves to others

What is Synchronicity according to Jung?

• when two events happen at the same time they must have meaning

• someone thinking about a friend that they haven’t seen awhile and the phone rings with news about the friend, or the friend calling themselves

Who was Karen Horney?

*followed Freud indirectly

• interested in how people could develop problems from interpersonal relationships

What are the three problematic style Horney believed in?

• Moving towards people: extremely dependent on others, have insecurity, seek to relief through relationships

  • needy, clingy, attention wanted, don’t give but only take

• Moving against people

  • very hostile and controlling, take advantages of weakness, see people as objects

  • Moving Away from people: strong desire for privacy, independent, avoidant, find hard to get close

What were some problems with Freud and Neo-Freudian Theories?

• Lack of empirical standards

• Anecdotal/concrete evidence

• Heavy Reliance on case studies (individual person)

• Falsifiability: ability to show that a theory is false

What was the behaviorist theory a reaction to?

• Introspection: too reliant on people

• Functionalism: no reliable methods and standards

• Freudian and Neo-Freudian theories

What was the goal of the behaviorist?

*outward, expressible behavior

• measurable and observable

• predictable

• changeable

*not relying on people saying but what they do

Who was Ivan Pavlov?

• studied digestion in animals: noticed dogs anticipated foods but excitement and salivating

• discovered the behavior and reward

• control and predict behavior through environmental cues

Who was John Watson?

• goal was a total reorientation of psychology as a science of observable behavior only

• very critical to a person’s thoughts being bias: subjective vs objective: painting vs photograph

How was Conditioned emotional responses shown?

• by the Little Albert Experiment

• proving that behavior could be learned through conditioning

What did B.F Skinner do?

• more productive and disciplined researcher than Watson

• shaped by environmental consequences of reward and punishment

  • Operant conditioning*

  • learned by teachers and parents

What was humanism?

• slaves to our unconscious urges and desires

• slaves to our environment

• people reach their potential through greater self-awareness and understanding

What did Abraham Maslow believe?

*humanism: more positive aspect

• a rich life is one where a person reaches their full potential

• “self-actualization” by satisfying basic needs to deeply personal needs

What did Maslow’s hierarchy of needs look like?

• growth need: never satisfied (finding friendship, self-esteem)

• deficiency needs: can be met and satisfied (hungry? eat)

Who else supported Humanism and what did they believe?

• Carl Rogers

  • personal responsibility

  • phenomenological: wanted to hear others’ view

  • realized that clients should arrive at their own decisions in therapy, etc.

What were the three cliental outcomes of Carl Rogers study?

• Person-centered therapy

• Unconditional positive regard: non-judgmental setting

• Reflection: repeats clients thoughts back to themselves

What are the two types of the Self-Concept?

• Congruence: how they view themselves is similar to how they are viewed in the outside world

• Incongruence: self-concept becomes distorted and don’t see themselves as how the world sees them

What is subception?

• hearing a comment opposite from what they thought they were: receiving info against their own perceived self-concept

What is distortion?

• the defense mechanism one uses to maintain/protect the sense of their own self-concept

What is disorganization?

• extreme incongruence

• experience extreme anxiety

• get defensive and guarded when their own self-concept was challenged

What are the four main elements of humanism?

• Personal responsibility

  • responsibility = control of life direction

• “here and now”

  • live life in the moment, don’t dwell in past

• Personal experience

  • deciding actions one can take with their life

• Personal growth

  • always evolving and trying to become the best versions of themselves

Who is a fully functioning individual?

• open to new experiments, striving to live life to the fullest

• comfortable with who they are

• trust their own decisions

• not restricted by opinions of others

What two types of therapy was a result of humanism?

• modern counselling

• group

What was Cognitive Revolution?

• George Miller

• concerned with mental functions, based on how we think, remember and make decisions

How many modern psychology disciplines are we focusing on and what are they?

*5

• Social

• Clinical

• Developmental

• Neuroscience

• Cognitive

What is social psychology?

• social cognition

• examples are: workplace, social media, helping behavior, stereotypes and prejudice

What is clinical psychology?

• addressing psychological struggles of children and adults

• focuses on counselling therapy to diagnose and solve the problems

• examples are: autism, attention-deficit disorder, depression

What is Developmental psychology?

• how thinking changes how people age

• examples: language development, reading, problem solving

What is neuropsychology?

• brain processes when there are damages in the brain

• examples are: Alzheimer’s, Parkinsons, epilepsy

What is cognitive psychology?

• mental processes that the mind creates

• examples are: perception, memory, thinking and reasoning

What is the modern view of the mind?

• product of brain functioning: they’re connected

What is an example of nature and nurture working at the same time?

• human speech

  • babies have the potential but need to learn by hearing it or else it won’t develop properly: need a proper environment

What techniques of psychology do we still use today?

• self-report

• unconscious processes

• observable behavior