Exam Flashcards
Functionalism eventually became…
Behaviourism
What did Pillsbury think psychology should be defined as?
The science of human behaviour, rather than the study/science of consciousness/soul
Objective psychology origin country
Russia
What did objective psychology insist on?
Studying only things that can be observed
Ivan Sechenov main ideas
Materialism and associationism
What did Sechenov argue?
External stimulation (not thoughts) causes behaviour
Sechenov inhibition
Stimulation of certain brain areas inhibits reflexive behaviour
Pavlov’s first claim to fame
Studying digestion
What was Pavlov’s first psychological discovery?
Conditioned “psychic” reflexes
Conditioned “psychic” reflexes
Dogs would secrete gastric juices and saliva in response to events associated with food
Classical conditioning Pavlov
Organisms respond to the environment through unconditioned and conditioned reflexes
Explain classical conditioning in terms of UCS, UCR, CS, and CR
UCS trigger UCR
CS trigger CR
Through experience, what drives CRs?
Contiguity and frequency
Explain Pavlov’s classic experiment in terms of UCS, UCR, CS, and CR
UCS: meat powder
UCR: salivation
CS: ringing of the bell
CR: salivation
After repeatedly pairing meat powder with the ringing of a bell, the ringing of the bell alone causes the dog to salivate.
What did Pavlov argue that all behaviour was founded on? Implications?
Innate, biological processes, which are expanded through conditioning
- CSs come to signify biologically significant events
- ex: hearing someone shout “fire” elicits the fear biologically assoc. w/ fire
What did Pavlov say about external stimulation?
It either excites or inhibits behaviour
What did Pavlov say about experience?
Humans learn through experience to inhibit reflexive behaviour
Pavlov: Extinction
When a CS occurs continuously without a UCS, the CR will eventually disappear (i.e., become inhibited)
Pavlov: Spontaneous recovery
After time without the CS, the CR reappears
Experimental neurosis
Learned helplessness
What determines how we respond to conflict?
Our unique NS
Experimental neurosis experiment
Showed dogs a circle (followed by food; excitatory) vs. an ellipse (not followed by food; inhibitory)
Circle was made increasingly elliptical
When the circle became indistinguishable from the ellipse, dogs became “neurotic”
They felt out of control of the situation
How may neurosis manifest differently?
Someone who is anxious may “attack” the problem and try to control it
Someone with depression may accept it and feel helpless
4 types of neurosis
Highly or moderately irritable (e.g., anxious); highly or moderately timid (e.g., depressed; conditioned defeat/learned helplessness)
How does development of technology impact neuroticism?
Kids spend more time growing up with smartphones rather than play, so they do not learn they can control their environment, and feel helpless
How may fears or phobias be learned?
Through classical conditioning
Example of study where phobia was learned through classical conditioning
Watson and Rayner and Little Albert
Explain Little Albert experiment
Neutral stimulus: white rat
UCS: Loud noise
UCR: Fear
After repeated pairings between loud noise, and rat, Albert developed a fear of rats
CS: White rat
CR: Fear
Systematic desensitization
Behavioural therapy often “extinguishes” phobias through gradual exposure to the CS without the UCS
John Watson: Men are ____, not ______
Men are built, not born
Did Watson subscribe to introspection?
Rejected introspection, but was less concerned with the biological processes examined in Russian objective psychology
How did Watson relate to Pavlov?
Believed Pavlov’s concept of the conditioned reflex could explain human behaviour
Examples of how Watson related to Pavlov
Kerplunk experiment: Removed parts of a maze and rats went “kerplunk” into wall
Kinesthetic reflex: Rats could use muscle memory in maze after multiple times
How did Watson go out with a bang?
He was fired from John Hopkins University after an affair with a student
What did Watson do at J. Walter Thompson Co?
Became a pioneer in market research, using sex, love, and fear to help sell products
What was a prominent discovery of Watson while VP at J. Walter Thompson Co?
Found that blindfolded smokers couldn’t differentiate between cigarette brands; brand images affect sales
Where did Watson improve images and sales?
Johnson’s Baby Powder, Maxwell Coffee, deodorants, etc.
What was another main finding of Watson while being an advertising mogul?
Example?
Celebrity endorsements to build Pavlovian-like associations
Pond’s Cold Cream paired with famous people women liked
Walter D. Scott
A founder of industrial psychology
What did Walter D. Scott find?
Analysis and design of advertising copy (e.g., use of images)
4 types of behaviour according to Watson
Give examples
- Explicit learned beh (talking, walking)
- Implicit learned beh (increased heartrate at the dentist)
- Explicit unlearned beh (grasping, blinking)
- Implicit unlearned beh (salivation)
What did Watson believe about thinking?
That thinking is an internal behaviour/subvocal speech
We learn to “internalize” speech as we develop
- speech does not equal thought, can’t always find words to describe thoughts, don’t always understand what we’re saying, etc
Radical environmentalism
Believed that humans have reflexes but that “instincts” are overridden by the environment
What did Watson believe makes people who they are?
That experience, not genetic inheritance, makes people who they are
What idea did Watson challenge?
The idea of conscious morality; experience teaches us right from wrong
Who did Watson’s ideas influence?
Clarence Darrow, a defense lawyer (e.g., for Leopold and Loeb)
Clarence Darrow
Persuaded judge to consider how neglect and sexual abuse influenced their behaviour
Argued that capital punishment was inhumane
What did Watson believe basic reflexes in infancy included?
Fear: Elicited by loud noises and loss of support (e.g., falling)
Rage: Elicited by restriction of movement
Love: Elicited by stroking, patting
Peter and the rabbit study
3-yo-old Peter’s fear of white rats, rabbits, fur coats, etc. was improved through modelling/observational learning, but then returned
Watson successfully used counterconditioning (i.e., systematic desensitization)
One of the first examples of behaviour therapy (e.g., exposure therapy for phobias)
Jean-Martin Charcot view of hysteria
As a hereditary neurological degeneration, but as a somewhat “psychological” disease
Charcot’s view on hypnotizing
Argued that only those suffering from hysteria could be hypnotized
Charcot and traumatic accidents
Noted that many patients suffered traumatic accidents not significant enough to cause noticeable “physical” brain damage
What did Charcot note that traumatic accidents sometimes cause?
Irrationality, ideas to become dissociated from consciousness = pathogenic ideas
What did Charcot eventually recognize?
Hysteria as having psychological causes
What did Charcot believe about hypnosis?
That it annihilates the ego in the same way as the traumatic experience, but more powerfully (i.e., catharsis)
The trauma “realizes itself”/becomes conscious (i.e., no longer repressed) and can therefore be overcome
Who was Sigmund Freud influenced by?
Charcot and Josef Breuer
Josef Breuer claim to fame
Cathartic method (emotional release)
Anna O
Through hypnosis, recalled circumstances when symptoms first appeared
Breuer recognized that each time he traced a symptom to its origin, it disappeared
Pathogenic ideas
Repressed emotional disturbances appeared to manifest indirectly through physical (i.e., hysterical) symptoms
Disappeared when consciously expressed = emotional release (i.e., catharsis)
Breuer’s inappropriate relationship with Anna O
Eventually referred to as transference and countertransference
What was the goal of psychoanalysis/psychotherapy?
To have patients overcome resistance and rationally ponder their repressed trauma (while conscious)
Free association
Alternative to hypnosis
Patients would lie on a couch and close their eyes and recall an event when a symptom first occurred and when they would display resistance, Freud used a pressure technique and encouraged patients to speak freely
Seduction theory
Freud claimed that hysteria was always the result of sexual abuse in childhood
Seduction theory evolution
Abandoned theory, claiming patients simply imagined the abuse
Freud and neuroses
Believed neuroses are due to repressed sexual thoughts, real or imagined
What did Freud liken dreams to?
Hysterical symptoms
The interpretation of dreams is the…
royal road to knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind
Dreams are:
Wish fulfillments, an opportunity to express a sexually repressed impulse
2 types of content in dreams
Manifest content
Latent content
Manifest content
Examples
What you actually see
Snake, faucet, box, cave
Latent content
Examples
What manifested content symbolizes
Penis, vagina
ex: snake/faucet symbolize penis, box/cave symbolize vagina
Examples of symbolization in dreams
Travel symbolizes moving toward death
Falling symbolizes giving in to temptation
What did Freud confirm through his own self-analysis?
Confirmed that young males tend to desire their mothers and be jealous of their fathers
Oedipus complex
Believed his strong reaction to his father’s death was due to his repressed guilt over his competition with him
Part of the Phallic Stage in Freud’s 5 Psychosexual Stages of Development –> boys must overcome sexual attraction to mother so they can share their mother with their father
Overcome through castration anxiety and identification with their father in order to “share” mother; boys afraid fathers will castrate them, must overcome to share mother
Did Freud’s Oedipus complex apply to girls?
No; believed girls resent their mothers for their lack of penis
Direct attraction towards father, but experience penis envy
To overcome conflict with both parents, girls must identify with their mother to “share” their father
“Morally inferior” due to lack of penis/lack of castration anxiety
Parapraxes
Freud’s spin
Minor errors in everyday living caused by unconscious factors
- Freudian slips (when you say “thigh” instead of “though”, reveals subconscious desires)
Freud’s view on humor
Jokes are “wish fulfillments” that express unacceptable sexual and aggressive tendencies
We laugh most at the things that cause us the most anxiety, but only if they’re subtle
Freud’s structural model of the mind
Id: unconscious; operates on pleasure principle (libido, hunger, thirst, sex)
Ego: operates on reality principle, mediates/ coordinates id and superego
Superego: moral conscience, administers pain (guilt, shame, anxiety) associated with defense mechanisms, social and cultural rules
Defense mechanisms definition
Strategies used to keep thoughts and feelings from entering into the conscious mind
Name the 8 defense mechanisms
Repression
Denial
Rationalization
Reaction formation
Projection
Displacement
Sublimation
Identification
Repression
Pushing memories or feelings down into the unconscious
Denial
Example
Not fully acknowledging a situation
e.g., religious/spiritual ideologies protect against helplessness and insecurity
Rationalization
Example
Giving a logical but false reason for an event
- “everything happens for a reason” we don’t know if this is true but we believe it
Reaction formation
Example
Consciously experiencing the opposite of unconscious feelings
- homophobia (had homophobic and nonhomophobic men watch gay porn, homophobic men felt more arousal watching)
Projection
Example
Seeing one’s own unconscious content in others
- someone does something that you hate, but you may be doing it yourself
Displacement
Example
Moving a troubling emotion towards a less threatening object/person
e.g., symbolism in dreams, punching a wall instead of a person
Sublimation
Example and Implication
Channeling unconscious (e.g., sexual, aggressive) impulses into work
e.g., da Vinci and repressed homosexuality?
- Necessary for civilization (e.g., channeling aggression into sports, career endeavors)
Identification
Example
Borrowing someone else’s success to make up for your own lack
E.g., with opposite-sex parent during development, bragging about friend’s success bc we know them, makes us feel special
What type of psychology is humanistic psychology?
3rd-force
What psychological movement happened in the late 1960s? Explain.
Abraham Maslow and others began a movement against the “dehumanizing” nature of behaviourism and psychoanalysis
e.g., against likening humans to animals and focusing on distributed human experiences
What does humanistic psychology emphasize?
Free will, subjective reality, and the human drive to find meaning in one’s life
What did humanistic psychology posit about psychology?
Implications
Psychology should not be a “natural” science but a “phenomenological” and “existential” science
i.e., should not only seek to predict and control human behaviour
i.e., should focus on lived experiences and the meaning of life
What did humanistic psychology say about humans?
Humans are indivisible wholes; it does not make sense to reduce them to habits, cognitive structures, behaviours, etc.
What did humanistic psychologists say about psychology and human nature?
The scientific method cuts psychology off from the poetic, romantic, and spiritual aspects of human nature
- can’t understand psych w/o these things, makes us miss a piece of the puzzle
Maslow’s hierarchy from bottom to top
- The basics (food, water, shelter)
- Safety (security and stability)
- Relationships (sense of belonging and love)
- Esteem (respect for yourself and others)
- Self-actualization (realizing your full potential)
Humanistic psychology and animal studies
Little of value can be learned about humans by studying nonhuman animals
What is the primary guide for human behaviour, according to humanistic psychology?
Subjective reality
What is most informative to study, according to humanistic psychology?
Studying individuals is more informative than studying what groups of individuals have in common
What should we discover, according to humanistic psychology?
What expands and enriches the human experience
What did humanistic psychology believe psychology’s goal should be?
To describe what it means to be human
e.g., language, values, emotions, how humans find and obtain the meaning of life
Who was Maslow most interested in studying?
Exceptional humans
- people who self-actualized, who made it to top, studied these people to know how to help others achieve this
Explain the hierarchy of needs
Once the needs at one level are satisfied, one can deal with the next level of needs
The needs for love, esteem, and self-actualization are “newer” and distinctly human
Self-actualization
The realization of one’s full, human potential
What does self-actualization require?
A level of self-awareness that many humans are often scared of
Characteristics of self-actualized individuals
- Perceive reality accurately and fully accept themselves and others
- Spontaneous, natural, private, independent
- Have periodic mystic or peak experiences that transform and strengthen them (e.g., feelings of ecstasy, wonder, awe)
- Concerned with all humans, not just who they know
- Tend to have only a few friends
- Strong, but not necessarily conventional, ethics
- Good, but not hostile, sense of humour
- Creative
Carl Rogers theory
Theory of Personality
Theory of personality
Humans have an innate drive towards self-actualization
- organismic valuing process: knowing what is best for oneself, allows an ‘authentic life’
Implication of theory of personality?
Person approaches and maintains experiences in accord with their actualizing tendency and terminates and avoids those that are not
What can interfere with the organismic valuing process?
The childhood need for positive regard (love, warmth, sympathy, acceptance)
How does the childhood need for positive regard interfere with the organismic valuing process?
People become incongruent (e.g., mentally distressed) when they learn to have conditions of worth through a lack of unconditional positive regard
Client-centred therapy
Therapist provides unconditional positive regard by listening openly and lovingly without judgment
What does client-centred therapy allow?
Clients to direct conversation, come to their own conclusions, and ultimately get in touch with their organismic valuing process
Psychobiology
Attempts to explain psychological phenomena in terms of biology
What did psychobiology emerge from?
Advances in neuroscience
e,g., neurons and the NS
Psychopharmacology and the t(x) of depression, anxiety, and psychosis, etc.
Karl Lashley
The brain is not a “switchboard” (e.g., behaviourism), but operates as an integrated whole
- behaviors are related to the brain, they are a whole piece
Mass action
The amount of brain damage is more important than the location of brain damage for affecting behavior/ability
Equipotentiality
To destroy a brain function, the entire brain area associated with it must be destroyed
Lashley and memory and learning
Could not locate the engram (we need whole brain, it’s not just one part that is affected) - the locus of memory and learning
- Memories are not localized
Sociobiology
Merging behavioural genetics and contemporary psychology
Biogrammar
We learn language, create culture, and learn certain things (e.g., fear of spiders, social norms) more readily than others because we are genetically disposed to do so
Leash principle
Humans are predisposed to create cultures that facilitate survival
- Developing culture is an evolutionary adaptation
Evolutionary psychology
Human sociobiology
Sociobiological fallacy
That human behavior is always ultimately adaptive (e.g., help us perpetuate our genes, even if they seem maladaptive)
- But behaviors reflect psychological mechanisms that were selected to solve specific problems (e.g., keeping warm, avoiding predators, getting food, finding a mate), but they aren’t necessarily adaptive in current environments
Aspects studied under cognitive psychology
Memory, attention, reasoning, problem solving, language, etc.
Cognitive revolution start date and when it surpassed behaviorism in popularity
Began in 1950s, and by the 70s it became more prominent than behaviourism
Noam Chomsky publication
Review of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavious
Noam Chomsky and language
Argued that language is too complex to be explained by conditioning/association
- We are genetically programmed to generate language
- ex: all languages share certain grammar and syntactical structures that cannot be learned through association
George Miller
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information
- We can only discriminate between 7 (+ or - 2) different aspects of something at a given time (hues of colour or pitches of sound)
- We can only hold an average of 7 (+ or - 2) items in memory at a given time
Artificial intelligence
Cybernetics, info processing theory, and computer tech
