Historical Perspectives on Understanding Human Behaviour

Explaining unusual behaviour

“Unusual” psychological phenomena, mental “disorder”, mental “illness” and other forms of bizarre and unusual behaviour include:

  • Psychosis

  • Delirium

  • Convulsions

  • Epilepsy and other kinds of seizures

  • Dementia

  • Huntington’s disease

  • Tourette's syndrome

  • Extreme paranoia

  • “Trance” states

  • “Fugue” states


Back in the time, people would say people who showcase these behaviours are possessed, maybe witches.


The 4 “humors”

  • In Greek and Roman times, they believed there were 4 fluids or substances in the human body.

  • Black bile

  • Yellow bile

  • Phlegm

  • Blood 

  • Diseases and disorders were thought to be due to an imbalance of one of the 4 fluids. These diseases include:

    • Sanguine – too much blood

      • Arrogant, indulgent

    • Phlegmatic – too much phlegm

      • Calm, unemotional

    • Choleric – too much yellow bile

      • Ambitious, energetic

    • Melancholic – too much black bile

      • Thoughtful, pondering, depressed / dysthymic 


Early Interpretations

  • Prehistory, people believed people were possessed 

  • Demonic possession - exorcism

  • Inquisition – search for heretics

    • Heretics: a person believing in or practicing religious heresy

  • Witchcraft – the practice of magic, often involving spells, rituals, and the manipulation of energy

  • Witch hunt

  • Malleus Maleficarum – book about witchcraft

  • Salem witch trials 

    • Witchcraft

    • Ergot poisoning

    • Role-playing bewitched

  • Religious glossolalia

    • Speaking in tongues

  • Phrenology

    • They thought you could tell a lot about a person’s personality by the shape of their head

  • Insane asylums


Trephining: ancient surgical practice of drilling or scraping a hole in the skull. Historically for medical (relieving pressure, treating headaches) or spiritual (releasing evil spirits) reasons. 


Hypnosis - Accessing the Unconscious

  • Franz Anton Mesmer

    • Mesmerism – Magnétisme animal

    • Magnetic fluid

  • James Braid

    • Coined the term “hypnosis”

    • A “nervous sleep”

  • Altered or “special” state of consciousness functionally different from walking

  • Access to unconscious - Freud - Hypnosis in the “Royal Road to the Unconscious”*

    • Sigmund Freud was very interested in this phenomenon. 



Early Scientific Approaches to Psychology

  • Structuralism

    • Definition: study of how our minds make meaning through small step-by-step cognitive processes. 

    • Understanding the basic elements or structures of mental life

    •  Includes the concept of introspection

      • To examine the contents of consciousness, the structuralists depend on the method of introspection, or the careful systematic self observation of one’s own conscious experience. 

      • Thinking of yourself thinking. 

  • Functionalism

    • Definition: Study of how our minds adapt to external stimuli in order to help us survive and thrive in our environments

    • Emphasis on functions of the mind and behaviour in adapting to the environment

    • Based on the belief that psychology should investigate the function or purpose of consciousness, rather than its structure. 

    • Mind flexible and fluid

    • Constant change

    • “Stream of consciousness”

There are 7 psychological approaches

  • Behavioural neuroscience

  • Evolutionary psychology

  • Cognitive

  • Psychodynamic (iceberg)

  • Humanistic

  • Sociocultural

  • Behavioural 

Important considerations

  • Do you think personality is innate (born with it) or learned?

    • I think it’s a mix of both. There are certain aspects you will learn from being surrounded by others and have some other aspects that will already be within you. 

    • Some believe that every child is born with somewhat of a blank slate and that every part of their personality is learned. 

  • Is it conscious or unconscious? 

  • Is it influenced by internal or external factors?


What is personality?

  • A pattern of characteristics, thought patterns, emotions, behaviours, interpersonal styles, etc.

  • Traits

  • Relatively enduring over time and circumstances


Why study personality?

  • To understand and predict human behavior


Psychodynamic Perspectives

  • Personality is dynamic in nature from a psychic perspective

    • Unconscious (iceberg)

    • Personality develops in stages

    • Early experiences: usually emphasized

  • Psychoanalytic theory

    • Freud’s psychodynamic perspective


Psychoanalysis

  • Psychoanalysis - Freud

  • Combination of conscious and unconscious

  • Major components of personality:

    • Id

    • Ego

    • Superego

  • Defence Mechanisms

    • Rationalization

      • Ex: “But he did it first”

    • Projection

      • Project in a way of defending yourself. Blaming someone else but you’re putting your own issues onto someone else. 

    • Repression 

      • Trying to push down your issues into the unconscious but it doesn’t go away.


ID

  • Instincts

  • Immediacy of reward

  • Delay of gratification

  • “Pleasure Principle”

  • A lot of self centered activities. Can’t really see the perspective of another person very well. Very much about them. 


Ego

  • Reality principle

  • Seeking psychological balance

  • Between the ID and super ego. They're more well-balanced between the two. It's the dominant one.


Super Ego

  • Morality

  • Controls 

  • Controlling and morality based. 


Freud’s psycho-sexual development perspectives

  • Oral (first 18 months)

    • The child is very fixated around things oral like food, “where is the bottle?”

  • Anal stage (18-36 months)

    • Expulsion. What is exiting the body. Potty training is starting, children are starting to understand how bowel movements work. 

  • Phallic stage (3-6 years)

    • The idea of having external genitalia. “If you don’t have them, you would want them”.

  • Latency stage (6 to puberty)

  • Genital stage (ado to adult)

    • The importance of sexual activity is pretty prominent in a way. It becomes an important aspect for many.

  • NB: A person can be "fixated" or linked to a particular developmental stage thereby characterizing “adult” personality.

    • It influences how a person may act or a habit they may develop in their adulthood. Ex: someone fixated on the oral stage may be more prone to smoking (like the action of putting something in their mouth)

  • Concept of “libido” (sexual energy)

  • Oedipus / Electra Complex (Phallic Stage)

    • The idea that Males want to be with their mothers and that females want to be with their fathers.

  • Penis envy

    • Where women envy the fact that men have external genitalia




Criticisms of Traditional Freudian Theory

  • Antiquated approach

  • Little to no empirical evidence to support propositions

  • Propositions not open to confirmation or disconfirmation using scientific methodology

    • Logically irrefutable

  • Reflection of victorian era viennese upper class society of the mid 19th century

  • Over emphasis of unconscious processes 

  • Over emphasis on sexuality and sexual drive

  • Over emphasis on neurotic behaviour as a major influence on personality

    • Heavily targeting women as neurotic

  • Very male oriented (misogynistic)

Topic of Logical irrefutability often comes up in quizzes so watch out for that



Hysteria

Conversion reactions / symptoms / disorders

  • Neurological symptoms with no neurological basis

  • Examples of hysteria:

    • Hysterical paralysis

    • Hysterical blindness

      • when you cannot see but when you get it checked, doctors detect that everything seems normal.

    • Hysterical anesthesia

    • Female hysteria


Parapraxis

  • Freudian slip

  • Reflective of unconscious processes

  • What someone is really thinking - not a simple mistake or mis-spoken word


Behaviourism

Watson and Skinner

  • Radical behaviourism

  • Focus on objective, observable behaviour

  • Learned: behaviour shaped by experience and determined by environment

  • Testable

  • Empirical

  • Rejection of subjective experience (and unconscious processes)

  • Conditioning, reinforcement, learning


Cognitive-Social Theory

  • Interaction between cognitive factors, environment, behaviour

  • Modelling

    • When you start adopting certain behaviours from a person. You're aware of the behaviour of other people and you kind of adopt that. 

  • Role theory

  • Personality is learned

  • Locus of control

    • Internal

    • External



Humanism

Carl Rogers

  • Unconditional positive regard

  • Empathy

  • Genuineness

  • Many people have difficulty accepting their own innately positive feelings

    • Disconnect between how someone sees themselves compared to how others see them. Many see themselves in a  negative light while others see them positively. 

  • Link to maslow’s hierarchy of needs


Trait Theories

Hans J. Eysenck

  • Introversion-Extroversion

  • Stable-Unstable (neurotic)

  • Psychoticism


Big Factors (OCEAN)

  • Openness

  • Conscientiousness

  • Extraversion

  • Agreeableness

  • Neuroticism (emotional stability)


Approaches

  • Medical model (biological)

  • Hormone / neurotransmitter imbalance

  • Psychological

  • Socio-cultural

  • Interactionist perspective = a blend of them


“Abnormal” behaviour

  • “Deviant”

  • Maladaptive

  • Unhealthy

  • Dangerous