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Why PSYCH 105?

Lecture Goals

To explain the rationale for this course

To provide an overview of misconceptions of psychology and their effects

Reading

Thinking About Modern Psychology

Ch. 1 Student Misconceptions in the Psychology Classroom

Ch. 2 The Rodney Dangerfield of the Sciences

Misconceptions of Psychology

Concern since 1st meeting of the APA (Janda, England, Lovejoy, & Drury, 1998)

Only 50% believe scientific approach benefits understanding human behavior (Witley,1959)

Good news

Increased recognition of psychology as a science (Wood, Jones, & Benjamin,1986)

but dont ride off into the sunset yet

Bad news

People dont know what that means

Public Paradox

People want Psychology to answer the Big questions

What is the mind/consciousness?

Am I normal?

How do I make life decisions?

How do I get revenge on my X?How do I find happiness?

How do I find true love?

but fear what psychology might reveal

Uncover things we dont want to know

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Dr. Wonderful - caring & competent, endless time for patients, cures byuncovering single traumatic event

Dr. Rigid - strict killjoy

Dr. Line-Crosser - inappropriate relationships with patients

Misconceptions about

Disorders

Procedures

Careers

Suggests Psychology is is self-help recipe knowledge

1st do this

2nd do this

3rd do this

Suggests Psychologists and Psychiatrists are for the weak minded

Pop books/articles typically not written by scientific psychologists

They publish in journals

No law against publishing wrong information in a book and claiming it is true

Pseudoscience & Parapsychology dont help

Suggests pseudo-science and parapsychology are part of psychology!

Creates confusion about Psychologys goals, methods, careers.credibility!

Psychologists Dont Help!!!

Dont take role as public commentator seriously (Baumeister, 1987)

Only a few put legitimate psychological research in a form accessible to thecommon person

Few rewardsAre we really surprised that.

People dont understand educational requirements

83% believed that daily life experiences provided adequate training inpsychology (Wood et al.,1986)

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Vocational descriptions of psychologists correlated with those of scientists

Central characterization of psychology involved work with abnormal phenomena(Webb & Speer, 1985)

Misconceptions Are Pervasive

Children have similar perceptions of psychology (Dollinger & Thelen, 1978)

Full-time faculty at Old Dominion

Believed psychology required less expertise than the hard sciences

Associated psychology with mental illness and treatment (Janda et al., 1998)

Introductory psychology students

Asked to evaluate information like psychologists

Acted more like intuitive judges than scientists (Camac, 2003)

Example comments at END of Intro Psychology

Psychology experiments are not real life; what can they tell us?

Psychology just cant be a real science like chemistry, can it?

But I heard a therapist on TV say the opposite of what our textbook says

Confusion for Graduating Psy Majors

What can I do with my degree?

How can I get the job I want?

Do I HAVE to go to grad school?

PSYCH 105 Plan

PSYs identity

PSY Career paths

PSY as a process

Research & Applications

Common misunderstandings of PSY

Do You Mind?

Reading

Psychology's Identity

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Ch. 1 Introduction

Ch. 2 The Early Greek Philosophers

Ch. 3 Physiological Influences on Psychology

Lecture Goals

Discuss the mind-body debate

Discuss how early religion, philosophy, and biology influenced Psychologys identity

Discuss how early religion, philosophy, and biology influenced misunderstandings ofPsychology

Mind Body Debate

Drove development of Psychology

Still does

Important questions

What is the mind?

How does it interact with the brain?

Implications of answers

What is the mind made of?

Physical matter vs. Spiritual matter

Who should give advice about the mind?

Religious leaders

Philosophers (early Academicians)

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Early doctors (Scientists)

Mind vs. Body

Mind vs. Soul

Philosophy-

Mind as a reflection of truth?a tool for determining truth?

The Religious Mind

The mind is the soul.

Your identity

Eternal

The body

Vessel for the soul/ spirits

Ghost in the Machine

Behavior

Good behavior = follows religious codes of conduct

Bad behavior = demonic possession

Stone Age

Evil spirits can reside in the head

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Early exorcism

Drill holes in head to release spirits

1400 BC

Vedic priests purge "angry demons" to cure patients

1000 BC

The Etruscans, Greeks, Egyptians believe deities responsible for health and illness

Saint Augustine (354-430)

God endows free will

For humans to be good, they must be able to choose to do good

Makes connection between human thinking (Choice) and human nature (Behavior)

Identifies different kinds of thought in the mind

Devine (Faith)

Derived (Reason)

Tension between (soul) faith and (body) appetites (lust, greed)

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Interested in reconciliation between faith and reason

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Doctrine of double truths

Faith and reason are separate ways of knowing

Something can be true in rational philosophy but false in religious belief

CAN argue and debate about natural phenomena and religion without losing faith.

Body and soul are united.

Emotion must be understood holistically - in terms of its physiological and psychologicalqualities

But, believed in a separable immortal soul with cognitive abilities!?!?!

Middle Ages

Clergy treat the abnormal

Mental illness might not be caused by demonic possession

Early milieu therapy

Calm places -- monasteries and abbeys

Yes it is!!

Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches)

Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) published by Dominican Monks

Fuels witch hunt craze

Pope, King of Rome, University of Cologne approve the book

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Thousands of mentally ill burned and executed throughout Europe

Accused of being under the influence of devil

Joan or Arc

Renaissance

Changes in attitudes about religion

Rise in value of logic and science

Galileo

Newton

Views about mental illness begin to shift to physical causes.

Contributions to modern Psychology

Mind = identity/personality

Mind is distinctly different from the body (biology)

Mentally ill need help/care (Milieu therapy)

Thought can come from the body and affect behavior

There are different kinds of thought.

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Contributions to misunderstandings

Psychology = paranormal

Ghosts & out of body experience

Identity = free floating eternal spirit

Therapist = spiritual leader?

Seek spiritual counselors

True helpers

Psychic healers

Faith healers

Mentally ill

Evil, dangerous

Should be feared and tortured

Brutal therapies

Holes in head

Exorcism

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The Philosophical Mind

The body

Filters input into mind (sensation & perception)

Sometimes does not provide accurate information

Contents of the mind

Where does knowledge come from?

Origin of thought & Psamtik I, King of Egypt

Natural language = Phrygian, not Egyptian

Functions of the mind

Logical, critical thinking = truest knowledge

Plato

Brain is seat of soul

Transmigration of souls

Some knowledge is innate (Nativist)

3 part dualistic soul

Immortal/rational part Mind

Courageous (emotional) part -- Body

Appetitive part (body desires/drives) -- Body

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Conflict and Personality

If rational part dominates, suppress other 2 => true knowledge, best personality

If appetitive part dominates => least desirable personality

Madness = conflict between body drives and soul

Aristotle

Brain mainly for cooling blood, heart most important

Soul and body not independent

Empiricist - We need to see world for ourselves.

Senses can be trusted

Rational thought important, but so is observation of the world

Madness = conflict between drives and moral codes

Father of Modern Science!!! (Aristotle)

Organized nature in reasoned ways.

Step 1: Ask what is the question?

Step2: Define terms

Step3: Review what other (experts) think

Step 4: Explain what you think

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Set stage for first steps of scientific method

Descartes

What is real? What is imagined?

Am I imagined? Is my body? Is my reality constructed?

Consciousness = function of the mind

Cogito ergo sum

Animals have no soul

Much behavior does not require soul

Unconscious processes

The body must control unconscious behavior (reflexes)

Placed mind in the brain (pineal gland)

Interactive Dualism/Cartesian Dualism

Mind and brain are separate, but influence each other

Allowed science and church to coexist

Scientists study the body (brain, reflexes)

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Church works on influencing the mind

Are we natural dualist?

Bering and Bjorklund (2004)

Younger children and the Mr. Alligator and brown mouse story

Mouses biological processes ceased

Mouses psychological processes continue

Thinking, wanting, knowing

Cultural Beliefs (from Bloom, 2004)

Double funerals

Exorcism

Reincarnation

90% Americans believe in heaven

72% Americans believe in angels

Uploading yourself into a computer

Contributions to modern Psychology

Began to ask questions about the contents of the mind

Conscious vs. unconscious processes

Began to ask questions about the functions of the mind

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Mind is product of the brain

How well do mental representations correspond to reality?

Emphasized the need for critical thinking and empiricism to determine truth

Noted role of body (biology) in madness

Planted seeds of scientific method (Aristotle)

Cartesian Dulaism allowed scientists and the church to coexist

Raises questions about the non-human mind/body

Contributions to modern misunderstandings

Mind = eternal soul

Psychology = paranormal

Platos madness = body (desires) vs. soul

Mentally ill

Give into drives, spiritually weak, not strong critical thinkers

Weak minded

The Biological Mind

The brain

Origin of thought, emotion, perception, behavior

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The mind

Biological causes of

Identity (personality)

Mental illness

1400 BC

Hindu physicians treating certain forms of _ with kindness and consideration

500 BC

Alcmaeon of Croton

Promoted naturalistic medicine

Helped rid medicine of superstition and magical thinking

Dissected humans

Sensations, perception, memory, thinking happens in our brain

Health = balance of warm/cold, moist/dry, bitter/sweet

Hippocrates (460-377 BC)

Father of Medicine

Hippocratic Oath

Physical causes (not spiritual)

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Inherited susceptibilities

Organic injuries

Imbalance of humors

Physical remedies (not magical cures)

Rest

Diet

Exercise

Bathes

Massage

Theory of Humors

If any humor was out of balance = Mental illness

Elements, Personality, and Theory of Humors

Fire => Blood

Confident, witty, courageous, optimistic, extraverted

Air =>Yellow Bile

Rash, violent, discontented, envious, extraverted

Water =>Phlegm

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Dumb, nice, lazy, easy going, introverted

Earth => Black Bile

Depressed, frustrated, emotional, introverted

1700 and 1800s

Treatments based on physiology

Ice water Purgatives

Bloodletting and leeches Tumbling

Starvation

Erasmus Darwin believes that all disease was as a result of "disordered motion

Hydrotherapy

Restraints

Tumbling

Joseph Gall (1758-1828)

Bumps on head specific for character and personality

Localization of function

When the person with the stealing bump did not steal, other bumps for positivecharacteristics were over-riding

Used in the U.S.

By parents raising children

For hiring decisions

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To choose partners

1800s

Investigations into sensory and motor systems and mental states

Brain damage cases

Surgery cases

Holistic brain with functional regions

Neuron theory

1793-1822 Dr. Phillippe Pinel runs hospitals for the insane

Clean, more and better food, cuts arbitrary doses of drugs

Provides work therapy and reading

Death rate drops dramatically

Uses autopsies to refute opinions that brain lesions are cause of insanity

Develops early system of classifying and diagnosing mental illness according tophysical symptoms

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Theory of natural selection (1859)

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1940s

Hydrotherapy still in use

Canvas covered bathtub for 1 to 12 hours with continuously flowing water

Submerging the chair-bound person under water repeatedly

Alternating jets of hot and cold water

Enemas

Refrigeration therapy (U.S.)

WWII Nazi experiments

NEED FOR ETHICS IN TREATMENT

Contributions to modern psychology

Connected mental health to early scientists and their methods

Studied brain-thought-behavior connections

Divorced mental illness and identity from religion and superstition

Away with exorcism

Shifted focus to more humane treatments

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Connected mental illness and identity to more observable biological factors

Rise of bilogical causes & treatments

Early classification of mental disorders based on observable symptoms

Focus on studying personality of normal people

Trait-Based theories of personality

Hippocrates

Gall

Theory of natural selection

Contributions to modern misunderstandings

Un-validated treatments for mental illness

Scary and unpleasant

View: mentally ill beyond help

Creates confusion between science and pseudoscience remedies

Reduced credibility of experts and scientists to

Understand brain-mind connections (Gall)

Offer helpful therapy

Equated early psychological research with Nazis and brain dissection

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Unethical mad scientist stereotype

Studying Human Nature

Lecture Goals

Briefly describe different approaches to Psychology

Briefly discuss how these contributed to development of modern Psychology

Reading

Thinking About Modern Psychology

Ch. 3 Brief History of Psychology

Ch. 4 How Did Psychology Begin?

Early Models of Human Nature

Hobbes (1600s) Biological Instinct

Biological machinery drives lead to selfishness, violence

Must yield to authority and society

Lockes Blank Slate (1600s)

Response to Hobbes

Identity is learned

Environment is critical

Rousseaus Noble Savage (1700s)

Savages natural state

Selfless

Peaceful

Untroubled

Civilization brings greed, anxiety, violence

Descartes' Ghost in the Machine

Soul (mind) vs. body (brain)

Whos the Father?

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Maybe Gustav Fechner (1801-1887)

Founder of psychophysics

Documented relationship between brain stimulation and subjectiveexperience of the mind

Legitimized objective measurement of mind/body relationship

1860 publishes Elements of Psychophysics

Birth date of Psychology?? 1860

Maybe Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

Considered first psychologist

First Psychology lab-- 1879

Measured reaction times of sensory/perceptual processes

First Psychology textbook & journal in Psychology

Named journal Philosophical Studies

If so, Psychology born on 1879

Credited as Father of Psychology

The irony of a dysfunctional father

Humorless workaholic

MD, but didnt like interacting with people

Wife and family get 1 paragraph in autobiography

Father Knows Best??

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

Should study consciousness by dissecting into components

Mental chronometry

Measure speed of thought

Measure time it takes people to react

Introspection

Ask people what they are thinking/feeling

Fights with Hugo Munsterburg

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Munsterburg leaves without Wundt, becomes Father of I/O psychology

The Favored Son

Edward Titchener (1867-1927)

Student of Wundt

Founded Structuralism

Goal = identify structures of mind/consciousness

Arm muscles, tendons, bones

Mind - ???

Used introspection ONLY

Ignores applied problems, children, animals, individual differences, higher

mental processes.

The American Approach

William James (1842-1910)

American Father of Psychology/Functionalism

Opposed introspection and Structuralism

Why we have a mind more important than dissecting it

Stream of Consciousness (mind cant be frozen in time)

Focused adaptive functions of behaviors

Darwin

Early foundation of cognitive psychology

Return of the Biological Instinct

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Altered understanding of Psychology

Drives vs. Social expectations

Importance of child development

Changed client/patient interaction

The Freud Problem

Freuds unconscious mind

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Freuds unconscious mind

Desires & repressed memories

Dreams & Freudian slips

Behaviorism: Return of the Blank Slate

Reaction to Freud

Future not predetermined by past (childhood)

Behavior product of immediate environment

Need an obejctive approach to science and therapy

Cant observe mind, focus on observable behaviors

Concerns with Behaviorism

Total focus on environmental influence

Saw no value in genetics or brain!!

Humanism: Return of the Noble Savage

Innate drive to find meaning of own existence

Mental health depends on environmental support of quest for self-improvement

Match between real & ideal selves = more + self-concept

Indivisible self

Center of personality

Answer to question "Who am I

Sense of identity & personal worth

Organizer of thoughts, feelings, memories

Not about how you behave or therapists views of you

How you view yourself matters

Focus on conscious mind

Personal subjectivity should not be ignored

Person-centered therapy

therapist = sounding board

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client = analyzer, solver

Gestaltists: The Active Ghost

Environmental influences are not just passive (Behaviorism)

The mind constructs reality

Focus on perception

Early cognitive psychology

Therapy should focus on

How person is constructing reality

Immediate experience

Inaccurate perceptions

Mind-Body connection

Mind is what the brain does (Ghost is the machine)

Objectivity and empiricism critical

Cognitive science

Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

Relationships between brain biology and

Thinking, motivation, emotion

Brain scans

Brain damage

The World of Modern Psychology

Lecture Goals

To explain how Psychology bridges the Humanities, Social sciences, and Natural

sciences

To explain what makes Psychology unique

Reading

Thinking About Modern Psychology

Ch. 15 Contemporary Developments in Psychology

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Psychology & Humanities

Humanities

Focus on human thought and culture (from dictionary.com)

Philosophy

Languages

Arts (including Music)

Sometimes Religious Studies

Humanities and Psychology share themes of human experience

Examples

Free will and determinism

Mind and matter

Nature and nurture

Love and loss

Relationships and emotion

Personality (growth and disorder)

How do Humanities and Psychology differ?

Different goals and methods

Remember systems of truth?

Religion

Philosophy

Arts

Science Psychology uses scientific methods

Psychology also interested in

Brain processes

Non-humans

Psychology & Social Science

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Social Science

Focus on societies and groups

Anthropology

Economics

Sociology

Political Science

Social Science and Psychology share an interest in group processes

Leadership - the role of the individual on group processes

Conformity - the effects of groups on individuals

Politics - the effects of groups on other groups

How are Social Science and Psychology different?

Psychology

Is also interested in brain processes and non-humans

Is interested in the individual too

Often uses controlled techniques to address causes

Psychology & Natural Science

Natural Sciences

Focus on natural world

Biology

Chemistry

Physics

Natural Science and Psychology share

Experimental methods

Interest in biological and biochemical foundations of behavior and thought

Sensation and Perception, Biopsychology, Clinical psychology

Interested in humans and non-humans

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How do Natural Science and Psychology differ?

Natural Science

input physical environment result

Need to know input and physical environment to predict result

Psychology

input physical env. mental environment result (behavior)

offensive joke classroom ?? ??

Mental Environment (mind)

knowledge personality skills

attitudes perception abilities

beliefs motivation goals

Psychology must find a way to measure abstract concepts

So, what makes Psychology unique?

Is it that Psychology = The scientific study of both behavior and mental processes?

Not by itself

Other disciplines also interested in behavior and mental processes

Religion, Philosophy, Education, HR, Criminology

Is it that Psychologists study the mindto help people

No- many other professions do this too

Physical therapy Occupational therapy

Police science Human resources

Speech therapy Philosophy

Pastoral work Social work

Education Nu rsing

Combination of 5 things

Psychology is the only discipline that

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1. Uses scientific techniques

2. Studies a full range of human and non-human behavior

3. Has research applications that are scientifically derived

4. Has research applications that are scientifically tested

5. Is interested in scientific analysis of thought and behavior at three levels

The brain

The whole person

The group/group processes