Fundamental Insight

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Fundamental Insight 4

• Psychology is NOT merely common sense you
  cannot rely upon your intuition to provide
  accurate psychological insights.

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Why do we like, and get attracted to, others?
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Why are people violent?
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How should you discipline kids?
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Why are men and women so different in
relationships?
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Are Men Really From Mars?
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But at least I can rely on my intuitions for some
things..like understanding my own self! (right?)

• -- the Barnum effect

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If X, then ?

• e.g., I would be a much happier person, living
  the dream, IF ONLY I could
• -
• BUT, research on affective forecasting

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Taking a Scientific Perspective on People Gives
us More Sophisticated Tools for Understanding
Others

• e.g., Abu Ghraib
• -- the power of the situation Zimbardo prison
  study, Milgram experiment ? extreme situations
  can easily cause normal people to do horrendous
  things

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• B f (P, S)

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Probabilistic Thinking vs. Binary Logic

• e.g., remember Anastasia DeSousa?

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Probabilistic Thinking vs. Binary Logic

• e.g., Did the shooter go on his rampage because
  of Goth culture?

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• e.g., Guns dont kill people people kill people.
• After all, my friends family are all hunters,
  and they all have guns and dont go around
  shooting people....

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Probabilistic Thinking vs. Binary Logic

• Berkowitz weapons effect (1967)
• The finger pulls the trigger, but the trigger
  may also be pulling the finger

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Probabilistic Thinking vs. Binary Logic

• Isnt it worth it to have a more intelligent
  discussion about issues like these, a discussions
  that actually addresses meaningful questions
  instead of defending one side of a right vs.
  wrong dualistic mentality?

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Adopting a Scientific Perspective on People

• This can challenge long-held beliefs, overturn
  common sense, and if nothing else, elevate our
  discussion about things to a much more
  sophisticated level so that public debate
  actually addresses meaningful issues.

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Adopting a Scientific Perspective on People

• One key strength of modern science is that its
  moving towards multi-factor causal models, which
  requires holistic, integrative thinking.

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Psychology A Science at Multiple Levels of
Analysis

• One consequence is that old debates are being
  transcended. Now phenomena are understood at
  multiple Levels of Analysis
• E.g., social, individual, biological (and
  environmental)

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Why Cant Johnny Read?

• Social
• Individual
• Biological
• Environmental

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Thinking in terms of Multiple Causes Changes How
We Understand Many Things

• For example, whats going on with someone who is
  depressed?
• (Note the following diagram is not meant to be
  a comprehensive description of the factors
  involved in depression, but is merely meant to
  illustrate the point that depression is a
  systemic phenomenon.)

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successful outcomes
behaviours
goals
friendships vs. loneliness
control beliefs
meaninglessness
interpersonal expectancies/attributions
DEPRESSION
physiology (immune system)
emotions
health
physiology (cardiovascular recovery from stress)
also, neurochemicals
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Behaviour is Multiply Determined

• So behaviours (and most psychological phenomena)
  have multiple causes.
• Therefore, research must approach a problem from
  multiple perspectives, and eventually, consider
  how to integrate the many causal relationships
  they find.

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History of Psychology

• The science of psychology has come a very, very
  long way over the past few thousand years.
• E.g., for most of human history, people had no
  idea that thinking, feeling, consciousness
  happened in the BRAIN!

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History of Psychology

• Ancient Egypt Edwin Smith papyrus first known
  medical document
• - head injuries of soldiers
• - showed basic understanding of some
  lateralization, speech centers, etc., but held
  that the heart was the center of consciousness
• Galen (AD 177) wrote that the brain is the seat
  of the soul, opposing Aristotle, who had went
  with the heart (and debate continued for 1500
  years or so....)

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History of Psychology

• Science has always been contextualized in a
  larger set of societal/historical/political/
  ideological/economic processes..
• E.g., Theological/religious barriers impeded the
  progress of physiological sciences (and therefore
  psychology)

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The Rise of Mechanism

• Descartes
• -
• - proposed the first systematic account of the
  body as a machine physiological processes
  described in terms of mechanistic interactions,
  controlled by hydraulics (fluids) and mechanics
  (levers)
• - thus, human and animal bodies were simply
  complicated machines, consistent with the
  zeitgeist of the time the rise of mechanism
  (e.g., water statues, clocks)

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Mind-Body Dualism

• Descartes
• - however, what set humans apart from animals was
  the MIND, which was non-physical but able
  (somehow..) to interact with the body

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History of Psychology

• Much of the rest of the history of psychology can
  be described as a struggle to answer questions
  that emerge from this dualism.

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Descartes Dead-icated to his Ideas

• often vilified for creating this deep dualism in
  Western thought (although its really not his
  fault), leading us to split the mind from the
  body

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How to Study an Immaterial Mind?

• Because the MIND was usually thought of as
  non-physical, it took a very long time before
  people realized that you could study the MIND
  using scientific, experimental techniques, and
  prominent philosophers (e.g., Kant) argued that
  it was impossible to empirically study the mind.
• The turning point that lead to the scientific
  study of mind really came from studies of
  physiology, using reaction times to measure nerve
  conduction (Helmholtz, 1800s)

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Wilhelm Wundt
- physiologist extremely curious and careful
experimentalist - wondered whether two stimuli
that struck senses at same time would be
PERCEIVED at the same moment - noticed that the
pendulum was on its way down when Wundt heard the
bell
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Wilhelm Wundt

• - carefully calculated the distance traveled by
  the pendulum, and the time as 1/10th of a second
• reasoned that it took humans 1/10th of a second
  to reorient their attention
• therefore..

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• Mental processes can be studied scientifically!

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Darwin

• - possibly the biggest influence on subsequent
  psychology was Darwins theory of evolution
• - built on previous ideas of evolution (vs.
  creationism theories) Erasmus Darwin Lamarck
• - interestingly, Darwins ideas were influenced
  by the geological debate on uniformitarianism
  vs. catastrophism

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The Geological Debate of the Times

• - catastrophism reigning theory of the day,
  consistent with Church dogma (e.g., age of the
  Earth, the Flood, etc.) argued that geological
  formations were the result of major catastrophes
• - uniformitarianism Lyell argued that
  geological formations were the result of gradual
  changes over extremely long periods of time

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Thomas Malthus

• - essay on population, described that species
  would, in struggle for survival against
  environment, make maximal use of food sources.
  Without sufficient predation or disease,
  populations would boom, outstrip food supply, and
  collapse (which is generally true!)

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Darwin

• Darwin was incredibly curious and observant.
• On Beagle voyage, collected THOUSANDS of species,
  many never before known, and generated countless
  notebook observations.
• Wondered, why do animals do the things they do?
  What was the function of their behaviours?

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Functionalism

• William James
• - studied medicine, and then went through major
  emotional crisis RE determinism vs. free will

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• His resolution was to decide, by an act of faith,
  that there was free will.
• My first act of free will, shall be to believe
  in free will.
• - this pragmatic perspective lead to the emphasis
  on psychological processes as serving some sort
  of purpose, helping organisms adapt to their
  environment
• - coupled with emerging Darwinian thought, James
  pragmatism gave birth to the functionalist
  approach in psychology.

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• - James wrote the Principles of Psychology, a
  huge 1400 page tome that took 12 years and
  outlined all that was known about psychology at
  the time
• - argued that psychology should be a PRACTICAL
  science, focused on improving human welfare,
  happiness, education, etc.
• -- described thinking as a dynamic relationship
  between organism environment, focused on
  problems of adaptation

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• - habit recognized that we CONSTRUCT ourselves
  through our actions, thoughts, choices, etc..
• - most of our present is determined by our past
  choices. Therefore, if you want to be a certain
  way, whatever that may be, PRACTICE!

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• This is the foundation upon which we are still
  building today
• functionalism adaptation of organism to env.
• consciousness as a mixture of deterministic
  processes, and free will (although we still dont
  know how free will is possible..)
• the primary matrix in which consciousness exists
  is the physiology of the central nervous system

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Freud

• - trained in medicine, worked on anatomy,
  neurology, reproductive system of the male eel
  ..... you know, the normal background for a
  psychologist....
• - influenced by famous case of Anna O

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Freud

• - realized that physical illness symptoms often
  have emotional determinants, based on past
  traumas
• - by bringing these traumas into conscious
  awareness, patients symptoms often were relieved
  or cured
• ? psychoanalysis

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Freud

• Also championed the notion of an unconscious,
  believing that the truth was often buried in the
  unconscious, and could only be accessed through
  specialized techniques (free association, dream
  interpretation, etc..)

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The 20th Century

• This brings us to the 20th century, where
  psychology began to fracture into many different
  paradigms and schools of thought, each
  emphasizing different aspects of human
  experience, and battling it out for supremacy.
• Only now are we beginning to transcend these
  schisms.

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Behaviourism

• Pavlov, Skinner
• - a mechanistic understanding of behaviour
• - emphasized associations (classical
  conditioning) and reward/punishment (operant
  conditioning)
• - believed that with the right recipe of
  associations rewards/punishments, humans could
  be molded into just about any desire form

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Gestalt Psychology

• Early 1900s, in Germany, focused on the insight
  that perception is CONSTRUCTED,
• - emphasized top-down processes (i.e., brain
  constructing a sensible world) in perception and
  learning (e.g., insight learning)
• - e.g., Max Wertheimer playing with a childs toy
  notices that he experiences motion where there is
  none

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Gestalt Psychology

• - Gestalt psychologists emphasized how experience
  is constructed, and what rules the mind uses in
  order to make sense of reality
• - another top-down process is insight learning,
  where you suddenly realize the solution to a
  problem, and then act on it (i.e., its not
  always a gradual process of trial error)

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Social Psychology

• Kurt Lewin field theory
• - B f (PE)
• - sought to understand the interaction b/w people
  and their environments

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Social Psychology Gains Momentum

• WW II
• - how could this have happened?
• - studies of conformity, obedience to authority,
  prejudice

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Humanistic Psychology Fulfillment Well-being

• - the so-called third force in psychology
• - emphasis on meaning, personal growth
  fulfillment, existential crises, peak
  experiences, etc..
• - influenced by existential philosophers (e.g.,
  Heidegger, Nietzche)
• -e.g., Erich Fromm, Abraham Maslow
• - very anti-behaviourist, focusing on free will
  and the desire within people for personal growth
  and freedom

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Cognitive Psychology The Rise of the Machine

• - zeitgeist of the times is emerging computer
  technology
• - emphasis on humans as information processors
• - wrestled with behaviourism for prominence, and
  largely won, returning psychology to a focus on
  the Mind

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Cognitive

• Neisser (1967) Defines cognitive science as
  all the processes but which sensory input is
  transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored,
  retrieved, recovered, and used.

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1980s to Now

• These different movements within psychology start
  to merge.
• New inter-disciplinary fields arise social
  cognition, cognitive neuroscience

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1990s and into the 21st Century

• The brain.
• Emergence of powerful technologies for brain
  imaging (fMRIs, etc.), so that for the first
  time, we can see the functioning of the brain
  as it occurs, and can begin to correlate specific
  brain areas with specific thoughts, feelings and
  other mental processes, as they occur.
• This has lead to many insights....e.g., neural
  plasticity, distribution of brain functions, etc.