Psychology Theory and Concepts

Theory in Science

• A set of related assumptions that allow scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses
• Useful because it generates research, is falsifiable, organizes and explains data, guides action, is internally consistent, and relies on operational definitions
• Parsimonious, meaning it is simple and economical in its explanation

Dimensions of Humanity

• Determinism vs. Free Choice: the debate on whether human behavior is predetermined or under individual control
• Pessimism vs. Optimism: the opposing views on human nature and the world
• Causality vs. Teleology: whether human behavior is driven by causes or purposes
• Conscious vs. Unconscious determinants of behavior: the role of conscious and unconscious factors in shaping behavior
• Biological vs. Social influences on personality: the debate on whether personality is shaped by biological or social factors
• Uniqueness vs. Similarities: the distinction between individual differences and commonalities among humans

Research in Personality Theory

• Based on systematic research that allows for the prediction of events
• Reliability: a measuring instrument's consistency, including test-retest reliability and internal consistency
• Validity: accuracy or truthfulness of a test, including predictive validity and construct validity

Freud: Psychoanalysis

• Biography of Sigmund Freud: born in Czech Republic in 1856, spent most of life in Vienna, moved to London to escape Nazi rule, and died in 1939

Levels of Mental Life

• Unconscious: includes drives and instincts beyond awareness that motivate most human behaviors
  • Can become conscious only in disguised or distorted forms, such as dream images, Freudian slips, or neurotic symptoms
  • Includes repression (blocking out anxiety-filled experiences) and phylogenetic endowment (inherited experiences)
• Preconscious: contains images not in awareness but can become conscious easily or with difficulty
• Conscious: ideas stemming from perception of external stimuli or from unconscious and preconscious after evading censorship
  • Operates through primary process, governed by the pleasure principle
  • Contains basic instincts and operates through the ego, governed by the reality principle

Dynamics of Personality

• Forces that motivate people, including instincts and anxiety
• Instincts:
  • Sex (eros or life instinct): aims for pleasure, object is any person or thing that brings sexual pleasure
  • Aggression (death or destructive instinct): aims to return a person to an inorganic state, ordinarily directed against other people
• Anxiety: only the ego feels anxiety, can be caused by id, superego, and outside world
• Defense Mechanisms:
  • Operate to protect the ego against pain of anxiety
  • Include repression (forcing unwanted experiences into the unconscious), reaction formation (repression of one impulse and expression of its opposite), displacement (redirecting unwanted urges onto other objects/people), fixation (blocking of psychic energy at one stage of development), and regression (reverting to earlier, more infantile modes of behavior)

Explore the key concepts of psychological theories, including assumptions, hypotheses, and dimensions of humanity, such as determinism, pessimism, and causality. Learn how theories are useful in guiding research and action.