Week 7 - Phenomenological Approach Flashcards
What does phenomenology ask and where does it stem from?
- Originated in philosophy by Husserl, comes from Greek word ‘ phainesthai’ = to appear
- how we construct our reality, in preference over the ‘objective’ reality, thus true reality doesn’t matter to understand individual personality only peoples unique experiences of reality
Why am I here?
What should I be doing?
What is the meaning of my life?
Why do I exist?
How is phenomenology studied?
What are construals?
We can only study the content of our own experience
Construals = constructions of our reality, cannot know reality on its own
What is existential and humanistic psychology concerned with and what has it rejected?
- Existential psychology is concerned with distinct nature of human existence,
humanistic is concerned with unique self-awareness, both question scientific approach to personality
- It rejected both psychodynamic and behaviourist theories in the 20th century
What were the 3 branches of psychology directly influenced by phenomenology?
existential, humanistic and positive psychology
What parts of behaviorism and psychanaltical theory did the phenomonological theorists reject?
- Rejected Freud/Skinner that there is no free will, but rather that we have free will and choice and not manipulated by both societal/biological influences
- Argued that humans actively shape our reality and destiny and not through biological or behaviourism/conditioning
Why was it argued that quantifiable methods were not useful? (hard phenomenology)
Assumes that people feel, think and behaviour in a distinctly human way - very different inanimate objects and thus quantifiable methods are not useful
Qualitative methods should be instead used
How might the phenomenological approach differ to other social psych approaches?
Psychology should be about describing not predicting or controlling behaviour (Rogers)
Understanding a single person is superior to measuring groups of people
Is empathy included in the phenomenological approach?
Yes = We need to experience other people’s experiences of the world, thus empathy is super important
Which subsequent theories of phenomenology are more empirical?
Positive and cultural psychology are more empiricist than other phenomenological approaches
What did Kierkegaard, Jaspers and Heidegger say about human nature?
Kierkegaard = we cannot systematise existence as it is never complete
Jaspers = philosophers aim is practical, the fulfilment of human existence, we need to control life in its fullness, both suffering, guilt, death as well as positive things, to achieve full humanity
Heidegger = meaning of being to ask questions about the meaning of human existence
What specifically does existential philosophy ask?
How people cope with existential questions
What makes people what to live, despite maybe an absence of objective meaning to our existence
How old cultural norms and habits and structures, eg. religion, community, have disintegrated and people interact in a more individualistic way to find a new type of meaning
What did Victor Frankl argue about the need for meaning?
Holocaust survivor, became existential psychologist
Argued that the need for meaning is a fundamental human need which requires fulfilment, to preserve mental health and positive attitudes to life, even in dire circumstances, eg. Holocaust, grief and loss
To survive and have good well being, must belief that life has a meaning and purpose under all conditions even when we are suffering and feel hopelessness without objective meaning
What happens if we cannot find meaning in life? (Frankl)
Need to try to find meaning to maintain our mental health, without it we are overtaken we existential frustration (noogenic neurosis), considered as a pathological condition, leads to depression, anxiety, violence, self-harm, suicide
Noogenic neurosis = has individual and social origins
How has modern societies changes the quest for meaning/purpose? (Frankl)
In modern consumer societies may satisfy people’s material needs, but not needs for meaning, live in material security but live in existential poverty, what do we now survive for?
“We have means to live, but no meaning to live for”
What did Zika and Chamberlain - 1992 find?
- Purpose in life test and others in mothers will child under 5 and elderly people
- Positively correlated with positive affect and satisfaction
- Negatively related to negative affect and distress
(measured life regard index, sense coherence scale meaning, about fulfilment and framework subscale,
Life fulfilment and life framework intercorrelate
Anxiety, depression, emotional control, all negatively related to purpose in life test
(Boyle et al. 2010) - How is purpose in life correlated with physical health?
- Method = 900 elderly participants without neurocognitive diseases followed over 6 years
- Low PIL scores is associated with increasing risk of alzheimer’s,
- Higher PIL scores are 2.4x less likely to develop alzheimer’s disease
What did Jean-Paul Sartre say about loneliness?
His existentialism is a version of phenomenology, focus on loneliness, isolation and death can also be sources of meaning
The existential challenge is to face uncertainty in life and find personal meaning in it
Awareness of death is uniquely human, but people deceive themselves about things that are not meaningful, causing self-deception and causes living in “bad faith”
What did Sartre say about freedom?
We create personality through the free choices that we make in lifespan, eg. we develop personality from free-choice, need to be very careful and responsible for our choices, as they create our personality
We need to understand humans as subjects not objects, conscientious is not material and not deterministic - but immaterial, rejects genetic, environmental and unconscious determinism
Who were the 2 famous humanistic psychologists and what is the overall argument?
Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers
- interested in psychoanalysis but rejected that humans are just passive and dominated by the unconscious
Arguments:
1. humans are active, good and benevolent but become negative traits from life experiences
- fundamental drive towards growth and self-realisation
What did Rogers/Maslow argue for humanistic psychology’s aim?
Human consciousness is the central area of study
The be primary concerns of psychology should be about POSITIVE STRIVING and HUMAN WELLBEING
What did Maslow focus on / interested in? (3)
- Uninterested in negative aspects of personality, early positive psychologist
- Unlike others, focused research on positive aspects such as self-actualized individuals, productive, fulfilled and happy personalities
- Self-actualisation (Goldstein) motivation for realising one’s own potential - and was placed into the highest human biological need
What did Rogers focus on / interested in? (4)
- Focus = Argued that need to focus on self and self-perception
- Everyone has a phenomenal field, that is our full experience of ourselves and our existence
- We have a basic human drive for self-actualisation, want to preserve and improve our lives -be more fulfilled, authentic and self-sufficient, otherwise NEROSES
- Mere survival and reproduction are NOT sufficient for psychological health
How does positive psychology differ from other areas of clinical psych? (3)
- Seligman and Maslow argued for POSITIVE aspects of humans and that psychology focuses too much on negative aspects
- The absence of depression ≠ happiness, but neutrality and contentment
- Argued that psychology needs to focus on how to achieve on how to not be depressed
How does positive psych differ to traditional phenomenological approaches?
It’s modern take of existential and humanistic perspective with the addition of empirical and quantitative methods
What is the definition of positive psychology and what are the 2 types of research?
- The study of the conditions and processes contributing to flourishing / optimal functioning of people, groups and institutions (Gable and Haidt)
- Two types =
- happiness/wellbeing and flourishing research
- character strengths and virtues research
What are the character strengths / virtues of “self-actualised people”?
poses as an alternative structure to the DSM - negative aspects of humans
- Courage (LESS UNIVERSAL)
- Justice
- Humanity
- Temperance
- Wisdom
- Transcendence
How does positive psychology still use subjective measures and why?
- Lyubomirsky = must study happiness subjectively through self reports, as happiness must be defined by the person as it is a subjective phenomenon
Thus can be studied empirically by defining happiness as a subjective phenomenon, eg. the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999),
“Happiness = pleasurable positive and affirming state which can only be experienced by the person experiencing it”
Is the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999) valid and reliable?
- High inter rater consistency with alpha levels (0.79-0.94) and
- Stability coefficients for test retest reliability is very higher over 1 month - 3 months (0.85-0.71), but goes down to 0.55 after a year
Conclusion: Stability in happiness but instability caused by the environment
What is the convergent and divergent validity of the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999)?
Convergent validity = moderate correlation with other happiness scales
Informant ratings correlate moderately to strongly (0.44-0.66) with self reports of Subjective Happiness Scale with roommate, friend, spouse
Discriminant validity = GPA doesn’t correlate to happiness scale, only very low correlation with VSAT, QSAT, verbal and maths and stressful life events (0.05-0.08), suggests happiness scales are not linked with academic and life stressors
Lyubomirsky - what 3 things determine chronic happiness level?
- Set point / genetic = 50%
- Circumstances = 10%
- Intentional activity = 40%
What is the evidence that intentional activity plays a greater role on happiness than circumstances?
- Most people return to their happiness set point after big changes in life, eg. in lottery winners and newly weds, thus circumstances only make up 10%
- Meditation can produce positive changes in the brain in 2 weeks - intentional activity = optimism, pursuing life goals, nurture meaningful relationships, gratitude, forgiveness, self-compassion
How is the impact of culture linked to the phenomenological approach?
The behaviour of individuals are determined by their own phenomenal field, and this is shaped by cultural upbringing / influences, people within cultures might have similar experiences of the world and not of outsiders
Culture = “nothing is more indeterminate” (Herder, 18th century) 160 definitions of culture
Triandis: what is objective vs. subjective culture?
- Objective culture = physical aspects, houses, food, tools
- Subjective culture = non-physical aspects, norms, values, beliefs, attitudes, less easy to observe and understand
Some argue that we cannot define culture but study culture, what are the pros and cons of this?
- might be more practical
- higher variability AND variability within subgroups eg. Ethnic groups within a national state, anglo-australian, chinese-australian OR a national state culture, eg. australian culture
Recap: what is the emic vs. etic approach?
- Emic approach (within)
Some argue culture can only be studied from within and that cultures CANNOT be compared or studied in comparison to others
Argues cross-cultural comparisons are always ethnocentric at nature, applying standards from YOUR culture onto ANOTHER culture
- Etic approach (universal)
cultures can be compared on universal characteristics, exporting an approach from one culture onto others
Frequent dimensions
individualism vs. collectivism tightness/looseness
tightness/looseness = whether cultures have strong norms and little tolerance for deviance or weaker norms and higher tolerance for different behaviours
What is the culture-blind approach to personal psychology?
- the assumption that theories developed in 1 culture can be applied everywhere
Culture-bound approach to personality
- the assumption that personality psychology tends to disregard culture, BUT that these methods are conditioned by a specific cultural background
Many subjects may be psychological outliers and might not be applied to everyone,
eg. WEIRD participants are overwhelmingly represented in psych literature (95%), but only represent 12% of world’s population
What are some characteristics of WEIRD participants that might not be representative of the rest of the world?
- (American students) seem to have MORE SELF-ESTEEM, (offer less money to others in the ultimatum game)
- English speaking languages tend to describe things EGOCENTRICALLY eg. left or right, while others use allocentric terms that anchor things to the environment, eg. above, below, west, north
What are the strengths of the phenomenological approach? (3)
- Emphasises aspects of personality that are underemphasized in other theories
- Phenomenological approach still strongly draws upon the social-cognitive approach (environmental construals) and in trait approach, eg. “openness to experience”
- Positive psych uses more methodologically rigorous approach, but argued to not be sufficient enough to capture human happiness/experience
What are the weaknesses of the phenomenological approach? (3)
- its uninterested in scientific method, struggle to falsify someone’s description of their own experience or assumption that all humans are intrinsically good/benevolent (slightly better with quantifiable methods)
- individualistic/US/Western bias: individualist approach to self-acquisition might make people more selfish and more deviant in groups, puts all responsibility of happiness on the individual
What do humanistic psychologists emphasize?
emphasize the degree to which every situation has good and bad elements and the freedom of people to choose which ones to emphasize in their construals
What are the 3 types of experience in existential philosophy?
- experience of the external world
- social experience
- introspective experience of experiencing
existence has no meaning beyond what each person gives it
What is bad faith? (Sartre)
a failure to face life’s lack of inherent meaning = living in bad faith
What things make a fully functioning person? (Rogers and Maslow, optimistic humanisism)
- must face experience directly
- Rogers believed we must receive unconditional positive regard from important people in their lives
- Maslow believed that higher needs, eg. self-actualisation can only develop once more basic needs are satisfied, new model places parenthood on top of hierarchy
What are Kelly’s personal constructs?
- Kelly’s personal constructs says each person’s experience of the world is organised by a unique set of personal constructs which stem from construals of previous experience and help determine experiences
- resemble scientific paradigms
What are 2 major positive findings important to positive psychology?
- mindfulness - beneficial effects for stress
- flow (Csikszentmihalyi) lodr sestr of moment because challenges and capabilities are balanced, attention is focused, time passes quickly
What are the 2 ways happiness can be conceptualised?
- hedonic = pleasure-seeking
- eudaimonic = seeking to fulfill one’s potential
theoretically different, but occur together
What is a construal?
- way of interpreting reality / particular experience of the world
What is Binswanger’s Umwelt?
biological sensations of what it feels like as a live animal
What is Binswanger’s Mitwelt?
social experience of the thoughts and feelings of others and oneself in relation to them
What is Binswanger’s Eigenwelt?
the experience of experience itself, the result of introspection
What is thrown-ness?
Heidegger = the location, era, age and situation in which a person happens to be born
What is angst?
existential anxiety / worry about meaningless of life
What is anatta?
Zen Buddhism: the fundamental idea of a nonself, that a single isolated self is but an illusion
What is anicca?
Zen Buddhism: the recognition that all things are temporary and it is thus best to avoid attachments to them
What is nirvana?
after enlightenment, the serene state of selflessness
What is sociality corollary? (Kelly)
the idea that understanding another person requires the understanding of their unique view of reality
What is enculturation vs. acculturation?
- enculturation = picks up the culture into which they are born
- acculturation = picks up a culture after moving to a new culture
Recap: emics vs. etics
Etics = elements common to all cultures
Emics = cultural specific research
More industrialised cultures seems to lead to a rise in..
individualism
What is dignity vs. honor vs. face cultures?
- Dignity cultures emphasize the importance of the individual
- Honor cultures emphasize self-protection and rituals of respect;
- Face cultures emphasize harmony and the maintenance of stable hierarchies
How does collectivist/individualist cultures impact thinking?
idea that members of collectivist cultures think more holistically and are less prone to self-expression than members of individualist cultures.
What are the 2 dimensions that are proposed to be culturally-universal?
- openness to change vs. conservatism
- transcendence vs. self-enhancement
What is an example of a group value vs. an individual value?
- harmony
- freedom
What is deconstructionalism?
philosophy that argues that reality does not exist above our human perception and construction of it
What types of theorists study where cultural differences come from?
- deconstructionists avoid question of cultural differences
- ecological comparative approach suggests cultural differences originate in diverse ecologies by which groups around the globe have adapted to, and these differences in ecology may also produce small but consequential genetic differences
What is ethnocentrism? / issues for cross-cultural research
whereby one’s cultural context inevitably affects one’s point of view in studying culture
but cultural relativism is also an issue
What is the universal human condition? (Sartre)
Sartre = Everybody everywhere must exist, work, relate to other people and die
recent work is emphiasing psych process common to everyone
What are the 3 limitations in doing cross-cultural research
- cultural differences may be exaggerated, over stereotyping
- outgroup homogeneity bias leads to ideas that others are all the same
- subcultures/multicultural make it hard to integrate different cultures or study them
What is outgroup homogeneity bias?
socio psychological phenomenon where members of a group that you don’t belong to seem more similar than members of a group that you do belong to
