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
