Comprehensive Notes on Psychological Methodology, Personality Theory, and Evolutionary Brain Structure
Hierarchy of Knowledge and the Scientific method
The hierarchy of acquiring knowledge regarding human performance and psychology is organized from the most reliable method to the least reliable. The order, in descending order of efficacy, is as follows:
Scientific Method (Experiment): This represents the absolute best method for determining truth and causality.
Systematic Observation (Study): A rigorous but less controlled examination of phenomena.
Single Case Study: The study of one individual. While two subjects would provide twice the data for little extra cost, single case studies are reserved for rare conditions or extraordinary abilities.
Shared Public Experience (Stereotypes): Generalizations about groups (e.g., the stereotype that Germans are "uptight" while Brazilians are "loose and fun").
Introspection: The process of thinking about a concept and deciding its validity based on whether it "makes sense" to the individual brain.
Intuition (Guessing): The least reliable method, characterized by simple guessing.
The Single Case Study: Methodology and Application
A Single Case Study is utilized when a subject possesses a rare disease or a rare ability that warrants individual attention.
Example (Ability): Michael Phelps is a primary example of someone whose rare physical and athletic capabilities make him a subject of interest beyond a general population study.
Case Study: Phineas Gage ():
Phineas Gage was a miner packing explosives with a rod in a coal mine. A spark ignited the explosive, turning the rod into a projectile that entered through the bottom of his skull and exited through the top, leaving a hole comparable in size to a shot from a caliber weapon. The rod landed away.
The case involves three specific miracles: Gage did not die on the spot despite the lack of emergency medicine, he did not develop a fatal infection despite the absence of antibiotics, and he lived for another .
Hypothesis: Although his physical functions remained normal, his personality changed significantly. This led to the hypothesis that the specific area of the brain damaged in the accident modulates personality. This hypothesis is difficult to test because there is no other population of people with identical traumatic injuries to serve as a control group.
The Faults of Introspection and Common Sense
Introspection is often problematic because the human brain is notoriously unreliable and prone to mistakes, which are often mistakenly called "optical illusions" rather than brain errors.
Most individuals rate their own brains highly (often as a on a scale of to ), leading to a lethal combination of unreliability and unearned confidence in one's own correctness.
Three specific "common sense" assumptions that introspection typically accepts as true, but which are actually incorrect, include:
The belief that placing a YMCA in an inner city to involve children in sports will lower the crime rate.
The belief that athletes have higher success in life because their discipline (e.g., waking at ) carries over into other professional goals.
The belief that the "home field advantage" exists and that the home team always has a distinct advantage.
Experimental science often proves these intuitions wrong. In a professional lab setting, one must learn to divorce emotions from opinions and be comfortable with being frequently incorrect, which fosters an environment where even a freshman's better idea can supersede a professor's.
Perception of Self and Others
When observing people, individuals typically notice only the things that "stick out" or exist on the "fringes." Most baseline details are ignored.
Santa Claus Example: Santa Claus is defined by being "fat and jolly." Most people must think for a long time to remember if he wears glasses because it is not a defining feature. The modern visual of Santa Claus (fat, ho-ho-ho, red/white/black colors) was actually designed by Coca-Cola and the artist Norman Rockwell, whereas the original Saint Nicholas was simply an old man.
Peter Griffin Example: While the character Peter Griffin from Family Guy wears glasses, he is primarily identified by his weight and his manner of speaking.
Physical Self-Awareness: Humans are largely oblivious to their own physical traits:
People generally cannot recognize photos of their own body parts (knees, elbows, shoulder blades, ankles, earlobes, lips, or eyes) when matched for skin tone unless they have a specific scar.
Facial Recognition: People do not truly know what they look like because they only view themselves in mirrors, which flipped the image. When presented with a real photo and its mirror image, people consistently pick the mirror image (the wrong one) as being "them."
Height Estimation: When asked to point to their height on a wall from a distance, individuals are typically off by an average of .
Foot Size Rule: A person's foot is exactly the same size as their forearm, measured from the crease of the wrist to the elbow.
Technological Oblivion: The average person checks their phone a couple of times a day, totaling roughly views over the life of a device. However, most individuals cannot accurately list the specific apps or widgets on their homepage from memory because the icons have become "background stuff."
Personality Structure and the Persona
The word Personality originates from the Latin word persona, which means "mask."
Boilerplate Structure of Personality:
Role-Related Behavior: The most external and dynamic layer. This involves changing one's behavior based on the environment (e.g., classroom vs. beach vs. party).
Typical Responses: How a person is normally categorized or described by others (e.g., common personality traits).
Core: The deepest and most stable layer, involving fundamental values such as religion. While religious values are stable, statistics suggest roughly (a quarter) of people will change their religion once in their life, but they generally do not do so frequently.
The Psychodynamic (Freudian) Model
This model suggests that individuals are not the "drivers" of their own lives. They are compared to a toddler in a supermarket shopping cart designed like a race car: they have a plastic steering wheel and believe they are steering, but they have no actual control.
The Iceberg Metaphor: The conscious "ego" is only the tip of the iceberg ( or less). The remaining is the subconscious, which drives wants, likes, and needs.
Subconscious Governance: Decisions like career choice, college major, attraction to a partner, or a dislike of certain foods (like cheese) are driven by subconscious forces. You cannot simply decide to like someone or be attracted to them because the subconscious "ego" is merely a butler to the deeper subconscious structure.
Priming and Subconscious Logic:
When asked what color the background is (white) and then asked what cows drink, the subconscious often incorrectly answers "milk" because it links cows, white, and milk, even though cows drink water.
Cravings (like wanting Chipotle) are often the result of complex, "bouncy" subconscious chains (e.g., a song on the radio reminds you of a person, who reminds you of a place near a restaurant).
The Fireplace Experiment: Discussing the smell and color of fire primes the mind with red and yellow. If asked to name a tool in a toolbox and a color for it, people often select a "yellow screwdriver" or "red hammer" because they were primed by the previous conversation, even if they justify it later with a logical excuse like "I have one at home."
Evolutionary Neurobiology: The Three-Layered Brain
Reptilian Brain: The oldest layer, consisting of the brain stem, the pons, and the amygdala (which mediates fear and aggression). All reptiles, from lizards to crocodiles, share this structure.
Mammalian Brain: Found in mammals, this layer is built on top of the reptilian brain. Mammals have two brains: the reptile brain (lizards) and the mammalian layers.
Neocortex ("New Brain"): The third, most recent layer found in humans, chimps, bonobos, and gorillas. This layer handles number crunching and logic.
Subconscious Conflict: The reptile brain continues to function in humans, producing "intrusive thoughts" (e.g., the urge to drive through a crowd like bowling pins) that the upper brain must then suppress.
The Hungry Crocodile Scenario: A crocodile in a cage with a roasted chicken and a human baby will eat either one without moral hesitation because "Croc don't care." Similarly, the human reptile brain has no morals.
Nightmares: Individuals are the writer, director, and star of their own nightmares. These dreams often allow the reptile brain to satisfy primal urges. For example, a horrific dream about a roommate dying might simply be a way for the reptile brain to achieve the goal of eating both leftover doughnuts in the fridge without sharing.
Human Irrationality and the "Butler" Ego
Despite the business school ethos that humans are rational actors, people are inherently irrational. The upper brain often acts as a servant to the lower brain's demands.
Examples of Irrationality:
Flossing: People know flossing is essential to keep their teeth. It is inexpensive and takes no time, yet many respond with "meh" and refuse to do it, despite the horrifying consequence of losing teeth.
Health Choices: People agree that French Fries are bad for health, yet they will eat them because the subconscious wants them. This same logic applies to vaping and smoking; individuals do things they know are bad because they are not truly in the driver's seat.
Questions & Discussion
Question regarding parental mistakes: Why does a mother call her child by the wrong name (e.g., a sibling's name)?
Response/Discussion:
Common explanations include being flustered, absent-minded, or busy with chores like laundry.
While distraction causes humans to make naming errors, it has limits. For instance, a distracted person might call a child by the wrong name, but they would never pick up a shoe to answer a phone call while distracted. Picking up a shoe to answer a phone would indicate a medical emergency such as dementia or a stroke.
The Freudian view suggests these "slips" are meaningful expressions of the subconscious associations being processed at that moment.