Names

Question 1

Pinel {1993}

Answer 1

'’Biopsychologists aren’t interested in biology for its own sake, but for what it can tell them about behaviour and mental {cognitive} processes’’

Question 1

Heckhausen & Heckhausen {2018}

Answer 1

General attributes of theories of Motivation

Question 2

Toates {2001}

Answer 2

Basic Principles and assumptions in Biopsychology

Question 3

Skinner {1987}

Answer 3

'’Methodical behaviourists often accept the existence of feelings and states of mind, but do not deal with them because they are not public and hence statements about them are not subjective by confirmation by more than one person.’’
/
‘‘Radical Behaviourists […] recognise the role of private events {accessible to varying degrees to self-observation and physiological research}, but contend that so-called mental activities are metaphors or explanatory fictions and that behaviour attributed to them can be more effectively explained in other ways.’’

Question 4

Watson {1913}

Answer 4

rejects introspection -> Behaviourist Manifesto

Question 5

The Psychodynamic approach

Answer 5

• Carl Gustav Jung
• Sigmund Freud
• Erik Erikson
• Anna Freud

Question 6

Further developments - The Psychodynamic approach

Answer 6

• Psychoanalysis - S. Freud
• Ego psychology - A. Freud
• Psychosocial theory - E. Erikson
• Analytical psychology - C.G. Jung
• Individual Psychology - A. Adler
• Object relationships school - R. Fairbairn, M. Klein, M. Mahler, D. Winnicott

Question 7

Fancher (in the 21th century)

Answer 7

‘Although always controversial, Freud stuck a responsive chord with his basic image of human beings as creatures in conflict, beset by incredible and often unconscious demands from within as well as without. His ideas about repression, the importance of early experience and sexuality, and the inaccessibility of much of human nature to ordinary conscious introspection have become a part of the standard western intellectual currency’

Question 8

Scodel

Answer 8

→ Freudian prediction that ‘dependent’ men will love big-breasted women -> theory is confirmed
– Such men prefers small-breasted women, conception of reaction formation (ego defence mechanism) -> again theory is confirmed
– ‘Heads I will win - tales you will lose’ - following Eyesenck, Popper

Question 9

Kline

Answer 9

Mistake would be to see reaction formation as central concept - some theoretical concepts are more central, some have more supporting evidence

Question 10

Zeldow

Answer 10

→ Those theories that are richest in explanatory power, most difficult to test empirically
– Newton’s second law took 100 years to be tested in quantitative way
– Einstein’s relativity theory still untestable
‘… psychoanalytic theories have inspired more research in the social and behavioural sciences than any other group of theories’

Question 11

Theoretical Contributions - Humanists

Answer 11

→ Hierarchy of Needs [Maslow]
– Motives shared by both (non-/humans)
– Freud’s Id represents physiological needs
– Self-actualisation at peak of hierarchy
- Maslows ideocratic theory against nomothetic personality theorists likewise Eysenck or Cattell
→ Rogers ‘unique perception’ (=phenomenal field)
– Perception of external reality shapes lives (not external reality itself)
– No core/unchanging personality!

Question 12

Practical Contributions - Humanists

Answer 12

→ Rogers
– ‘… psychotherapy is the releasing of an already existing capacity in a potentially competent individual
– Q-Sorts: research designs enabling objective measurement of the self-concept, ideal self and their relationship over therapy
‘lay therapy’ -> initially no MD/psychiatrists

Question 13

Parkin {2000}

Answer 13

'’The human brain is not like other organs of the body in that looking at its structure does not reveal anything about how it functions. We can see that … the heart [acts] as a pump, and the kidney as a filter: The brain, however, is a large mass of cells and fibres which, no matter how clearly we look at it, gives no indication of how we think, speak, remember..’’

Question 14

Practical Contributions - Cognitive Approach

Answer 14

• Ellis rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT, previously just RET)
  → Following Rorer (1998) -> ‘‘cognitive revolution started with publication of book Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy’’
  → Emphasis is on primacy of cognition in psychopathology
  → ‘‘REBT attempts directly and actively to get clients to dispute their irrational and unscientific beliefs, and replace them with rational beliefs, which are less likely to be associated with extremely negative emotional states or maladaptive behaviours’’ - Gross, 2020

Question 15

Ellis {1987}

Answer 15

’‘… people have enormous power to think about their thinking, to use rationality and the scientific method, and to radically control and change their emotional destiny - providing they really work at doing so.’’

Question 16

Burr {2003}

Answer 16

‘We are born into a world where the conceptual frameworks and categories used by the people of our culture already exists … Concepts and categories are acquired by each person as they develop the use of language and are thus reproduced every day by everyone who shares a culture and language. This means that the way a person thinks, the very categories and concepts that provide a framework of meaning for them, are provided by the language that they use. Language therefore is a necessary pre-condition for though as we know it.’’
‘‘Knowledge is therefore seen not as something that a person has or doesn’t have, but as something that people do together…’’

Question 17

Gergen {1985}

Answer 17

• Speaking about ‘‘key attitudes’’:
  → A critical stance towards taken-for-granted knowledge - ‘‘anti-essentialism’’
  → Historical and cultural specificity
  → Knowledge is situated by social process
  → Knowledge and social action go together

Question 18

Workman and Reader {2008}

Answer 18

→ Human mind is the product of evolution (just like any other bodily organ)
– Gain better understanding by examining evolutionary pressure shaping it
→ Evolutionary Adaptedness/Adaptation (EEA)
→ Acknowledging debt to sociology
– Criticising that overseen role of mind in mediating links between genes and behaviour
→ Traditional psychology
– Tried to identify proximate mechanisms (e.g. individual’s goals, knowledge…)
→ EP asks
– Ultimate questions
- Not: ‘‘Why are some people more prejudiced than other?’’
- But: ‘‘Why is prejudice present in human being at all?’’ … e.g. what evolutionary benefit does prejudice to human beings?
+
- SSSM has several broad assumptions about human beings, EP differs/rejects.

Question 19

Freud

Answer 19

Psychoanalytic Theory of Motivation
- Hedonism
- Homeostasis
- Ego
- Superego
- ID
- Instincts
- Cathected -> Cathexis
- …

Question 20

Tinbergen {1951}

Answer 20

• Lorenz & Tinbergen -> ‘Lock and Key’ metaphor:
  Explaining relation between fixed action pattern and the sign stimulus.
  ‘Ongoing impulses are blocked as long as the innate releasing mechanism, or IRM (which is presumed to inhibit the occurrence of the fixed action pattern), is not stimulated. When the adequate sign stimuli impinge upon the reflex-like IRM, the block is removed.’
  → Responses are not so much elicited by stimulus event, but released by them

Question 21

Lorenz {1952}

Answer 21

• Lorenz & Tinbergen -> ‘Lock and Key’ metaphor:
  Explaining relation between fixed action pattern and the sign stimulus.
• ‘Hydraulic’ metaphor:
  → Lorenz argues for action specific energy for each fixed pattern; prolonging time of no release leads to more rapid response
  → ‘Instinctive behaviour thus consists of at least three components. First, appetitive behaviour motivated by internal accumulation of readiness for a specific action. Second, activation of an IRM, which disinhibits the innate reaction. Third, discharge of the ‘consummatory act’, which is the purpose of the behaviour.’
• Vacuum Behaviour
• Aggression as Internal Agitation and Catharsis
• Displacement Activity
• Kindchenschema

Question 22

Dawkins {1976}

Answer 22

• All organisms (including human beings) are ‘gene-producing machines’ or ‘survival machines’.
• ‘Our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour.’
• In a nutshell:
  ‘Anything that works - as long as it fits gene production and survival.’