Psychology Chapter: Key Theories and Concepts

Introduction to Psychology

• Psychology is the study of the mind, thoughts, and behaviours in living things.
• Psychodynamic Theory is an approach to therapy focusing on resolving a patient's conflicted conscious and unconscious feelings.
• Sigmund Freud's theory suggests that early childhood experiences influence behaviour and that the unconscious mind is accessed through free association.
• The unconscious mind processes information we're unaware of, while the conscious mind processes information we're aware of.
• Freud's theory describes the conscious mind as having three parts: the Id (instinctive thoughts), the Ego (rational thinking), and the Superego (moral center).
• Karen Horney and Carl Jung contributed to understanding personality traits like introversion and extraversion and different parts of the unconscious mind.
• Behaviourism focuses on observable behaviours, and how behaviours are conditioned.
• Ivan Pavlov discovered classical conditioning, where behaviours are learned by associating stimuli with responses.
• B.F. Skinner discovered operant conditioning, examining how rewards and punishments influence behaviour.

Cognitive Psychology

• Cognition involves mental processes like thinking, knowing, and remembering.
• Cognitive psychology, combined with behavioural approaches, treats people with mental health issues.
• Albert Bandura researched how different people and the same person respond to similar situations differently.
• Jean Piaget developed the stages of cognitive development, explaining how cognitive abilities develop through adulthood.
• Erik Erikson explored these stages in greater detail in his work and studied the process of child development.

Influential Psychological Experiments

• Asch's Conformity Study showed people conforming to group pressure more than what they believed.
• Kitty Genovese's Murder Case explored the bystander effect, which suggests that the presence of many people reduces helping behaviour.
• The Little Albert experiment showed that classical conditioning can create phobias.
• The Stanford Prison Experiment highlighted the power of situational factors in shaping human behaviour.
• The Stanley Milgram experiment demonstrated the dangers of obedience to authority.

Ethical Issues in Psychology

• Research should respect the dignity of persons and avoid harming participants.
• Unethical experiments, like the Little Albert or Stanford Prison studies often disregarded the well-being of participants.
• Unethical procedures include the Monster study (language development of children) and the Landis Facial Expressions experiment (using animals for research without clear ethical guidelines).

Social Psychology

• The concept of memory being unreliable is explained through the research of Elizabeth Loftus, showing reconstructive memories.
• The impact of memory being reconstructive led to 300 American wrongful convictions.

Introduction to Sociology

• Social institutions are groups of people working towards a purpose in order to meet society's needs and guide the behaviour/expectations of individuals.
• Ibn Khaldun considered a foundational sociologist, noting various aspects of societal and cultural behaviours between different groups of people and cultures.
• Modern Sociology examined how European changes caused various societal issues.
• Modern Sociology developed as a discipline with different schools of thought and applications to examine how individuals and institutions interact.

Sociological Theories

• Structural Functionalism identifies different structures in society.
• Conflict Theory examines the ways that different groups compete for power and resources in society.
• Symbolic Interactionism looks at the ways that people create meaning in their daily interactions with each other from small-group interactions.
• Feminist Theory focuses on the systems of discrimination in society stemming from gender roles.

Global Societal Issues Particular to Women

• Rape is examined in terms of a weapon of war, child marriages, lack of freedom, violence etc
• Violence against women is an issue and needs to be addressed.

The Isms

• Ableism: the subordination and discrimination based on disability.
• Ageism: the discrimination based on age (often against elders).
• Ageism is the oppression of the elderly.
• Classism involves the belief that one social class is more superior than others.
• Heterosexism is the prejudice that focuses on judging people based on their sexual orientation.
• Racism discrimination based on race.
• Sexism discrimination based on gender.
• Sizeism is discrimination against people of certain body types or weight.

Marketplace Investigation

• Research shows that rental managers are less likely to engage in conversations with minority potential renters.
• Minorities faced implicit discrimination in housing, shopping experiences, and hiring processes.
• Studies showed that applicants with names or profiles considered "white" received faster responses and more interviews than those with names, or profiles associated with minorities or other groups.

Empires Of Dirt

• Slavery in British colonization directly contributed to the enrichment of banks and financial institutions, with significant contributions from the human lives involved.
• British colonization of India included using train systems to extract goods including resources and raw materials at the cost of Indian people's lives and wellbeing.
• The British Empire exploited China with opium, driving a harmful drug trade that resulted in millions of deaths and immense economic losses for the country.
• The British Empire engaged in various acts of exploitation globally, which caused intense hardship and loss of life for millions of people, including various colonization events.

British Colonialism

• Gay sex was illegal in some of the British Empire's colonies at various points in time.
• The British Empire committed various atrocities during their various colonization ventures.

Socialization

• Cultural capital refers to the non-financial resources that help people succeed.
• Gendered socialization refers to how individuals learn gender roles.
• Race socialization refers to how individuals learn racial identities and behaviours.
• Class socialization relates to how individuals learn behaviour based on social class.
• Anticipatory socialization refers to the process of learning behaviours to conform to an institution or group.
• Hidden curriculum is the values or behaviours taught to people through schools implicitly, whether the student recognizes the value or not.

Significant Sociologists

• Major theorists in the field of Sociology
• Auguste Comte: Positivism, strict application of scientific method for understanding society.
• Emile Durkheim: Structural functionalism, how society functions logically to preserve and protect the interests of its members.
• Talcott Parsons: Social stability and relationships, if something exists in many societies then it must serve a necessary function.
• Karl Marx: Class struggles and the effects of societal power on the lower class.
• Dorothy Smith: Emphasizing the marginalized groups in society, as men are frequently ignored or downplayed in society.
• Max Weber: Bureaucracy and rationalization.
• Charles Horton Cooley: The concept of the "looking-glass self," interactions in primary groups shape an individual's self-concept, meaning they see themselves from the perspectives of others.
• George Herbert Mead- how social interaction affects an individual's social perception and how they think.
• Wright Mills- The sociological imagination is described as the individual's perspective of the world and their ability to perceive how others may be influenced by society.

Implicit Bias

• Implicit bias is present in people's minds and can affect behaviour and viewpoints.
• Implicit biases involve stereotypes and prejudices that operate at the subconscious level.
• Implicit biases can be studied and used to better understand the dynamics between different groups, populations and people.