EXAM 2 REVIEW PDF

EXAM 2 REVIEW Rationalism Characteristics - Rationalists believed in an active mind. The mind adds something to sensory data rather than passively organizing it and storing it in memory. - Rationalists believed in innate mental processing ability and the necessity of under...

EXAM 2 REVIEW Rationalism Characteristics - Rationalists believed in an active mind. The mind adds something to sensory data rather than passively organizing it and storing it in memory. - Rationalists believed in innate mental processing ability and the necessity of understanding this processing ability. The rationalists emphasized deductive reasoning. - Rationalists believed that there are truths about the world which cannot be grasped from experience. These truths must be discovered through such processes as logical deduction, analysis, and argumentation. - Many of the rationalists were continental Europeans, especially German. Spinoza - Rationalist - Believed everything was part of one great eternal unity - Pantheism: God is everywhere and in everything, all is one with God - ‘True religion’ consisted of just one moral rule: love your neighbor - Double aspectism: idea that mind and body are one and the same but display different facets (ex. Two sides of a coin) - Denied existence of free will - Divided passions from emotions - Spinoza also placed human emotions along a continuum anchored by pleasure and pain - Thought and extension unite in the human being Leibniz - Rationalists - Monads: ultimate units of reality are not material particles in motion, but an infinitude of energy-laden and soul-invested units Rational Monads: Closest to God, and corresponding to the rational souls of humans, these monads are key to the process of apperception by which an object is focused on and understood  Sentient Monads: Make up souls of living, but non-human beings, they possess capacities for conscious pleasure and pain and the voluntary focusing of attention Simple Monads: Make up the body of all organic and inorganic matter; they have little if any conscious perception - When the mass of petities perception crosses the limen (threshold) it enters conscious awareness through the process of appreciation Immanuel Kant - Rationalist, in many respects Kant covered the middle ground between the empiricists and the rationalists - A priori categories of thought; that is, ways of thought that are not reliant on experience - Sensory data might provide information on the world, but through the categories of thought the mind added something to the data so that knowledge could be obtained. The categories of thought include: unity, totality, time, space, cause and effect, reality, quantity, quality, negation, possibility-impossibility, and existence-non-existence - Nominal world: the world as it exists - Phenomenal world is the world as we each experience it. Our mind, according to Kant, is limited by these dimensions so we cannot experience the world as it is Wilhelm Hegel - Rationalist - He prized the dialectic process whereby thesis generates antithesis and through synthesis creates a new thesis. This process continues until the knowledge of the Absolute is reached. - This is an ascending process and has a purpose – knowledge of the Absolute. Hegel tried to account for the development of Kant’s categories of thought - the product of human striving for the Absolute through the dialectical process; in fact, in Hegel’s analysis, Kant’s description of the Categories of Thought demonstrated that human knowledge had moved closer to the Absolute - Hegel wrote on alienation by which he meant the mind’s realization that it is separate from the Absolute. This alienation pushes the mind to connect with the Absolute; in other words, in initiates the dialectic process Herbart  - Considered the father of educational psychology - Psychology could never be an experimental science - Herbart believed in what has been labeled psychic mechanics. He dismissed the idea of laws of association as inadequate and believed that ideas have the power to attract or repel other ideas, depending on their compatibility - Developed methods of teaching and retention - Now the focus German education would be two-fold: wissenschaft – a body of knowledge organized according to principles, this would include history as well as physics; and bildung – a sense that within the individual every part of education contributes to the good, the true, and the beautiful Romanticism and Existentialism - Romantics believed certain truths were outside the province of reason. They appealed to the human’s desire for faith and emotional feeling. - Germany most affected by this John Rousseau - Father of Romanticism - Social Contract (1762) - Rousseau saw society as an artificial creation which denied basic human nature. For this reason, people acted from selfish motive and engaged in anti-social activity - General Will: Rousseau believed humans must give up their freedom and independence to bend to the General Will. The General Will was an ambiguous term that referred to what was ‘best’ within a community. - Each of us places in common his person and all of his power under the supreme direction of the General Will: and as one body we all receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole - The Noble Savage: Rousseau believed that humans are born good. The ideal human was the Noble Savage, a human unsullied by civilization. The Noble Savage would be unselfish, social beings who would live in harmony. They would be altruistic, happy, and free. This idea has roots in cynicism. - Johann von Goethe  - Sturm and Drang: belief that life consisted of opposing forces such as life and death, love and hate. One should embrace all and live life with passion and an eye toward continuous growth Arthur Schponhauer - Believed the primary human motivation was the will to survive - Schopenhauer identified the thing-in-itself—the inner essence of everything—as the aforementioned WILL. The world as representation is, therefore, the ‘objectification’ of the will. Aesthetic experiences release a person briefly from his endless servitude to the will, which is the root of the suffering in life. True redemption from life, Schopenhauer asserted, can only result from the total ascetic negation of the ‘will to life Existentialism - Existentialists prized free will and encouraged others to embrace their personal freedom as a way of finding meaning in the here and now - The goal of life should be personal achievement and fulfillment Soren Kierkegaard - Love Affair with God: For Kierkegaard a love affair is at once passionate, happy, and painful. He believed one should read the Bible as one should read a love letter. The words of the Bible should touch the reader emotionally and personally. The meaning of the Bible should evoke feeling (you would not apply a dictionary to a love letter). Truth for Kierkegaard is subjectivity, your subjectivity. - Stages of personal freedom: Aesthetic stage: Here people seek out excitement, but do not recognize their ability to choose. Ultimately their life choices lead to boredom and despair Ethical Stage: people accept the responsibility for making choices, but use as their guide ethical principles established by others. People acting at this level do not accept their freedom to choose. Religious Stage: people recognize and embrace their freedom. Friedrich Nietzsche - The Death of God: Nietzsche announced that God was dead and that humanity had killed Him - Ubermensch (Superman): Nietzsche argued that humans cannot have a substantial self that operates independently of their environment. the man or woman who has reached his or her full potential. - Two sides to the human mind: Apollonian (rational) and Dionysian (irrational)  - Apollonian: represents the human rational side and reflects our desire for predictability, tranquility and order - Dionysian: reflects the human irrational side with our attraction to creative chaos and passionate dynamic experiences Materialism - These researchers will be less interested in mind-body dualism or ideas that the mind and body are subject to separate laws. Their interest will be in the material of the body and how it might account for the phenomenal world of the individual - The senses and the nerves are the mind’s contact with the external (noumenal) world. Perhaps, it was reasoned, nerve conduction and quality might account this difference. Perhaps personal interests, intellectual ability, and reaction are all functions of nerve acuity. - white matter facilitates communication between different brain areas, while grey matter is where actual information processing happens Muller - Müller believed that he had found that there are different types of sensory nerves, each containing a characteristic energy. When stimulated the nerves convey a particular sensation to the brain. Each sense organ is maximally sensitive to a particular type of stimulation Helmholtz - Empiricist - Ophthalmoscope: study the retina - Handbook of Physiological Optics (1856-1866) and The Theory of the Sensation of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music (1863) - Rate of Nerve Conduction: Helmholtz found that Müller’s contention of instantaneous nerve conduction was in error. Helmholtz zapped frog legs and found a conduction rate of approximately ninety feet per second. His laboratory instruments were not of good quality and this rate is slower than actuality. Ewald Hering  - His interest in binocular vision enabled him to posit that some vision is processed in the eye itself - Hering disliked Helmholtz and challenged him on his theory of color vision. Helmholtz could not explain how gray was perceived. Hering accounted for gray by explaining that there are three receptors in the eye. One accounts for red-green, one accounts for yellow-blue, and one accounts for white-black. In terms of energy, red, yellow, and white have a catabolic effect, while that of green, blue, and black have an anabolic effect. If the catabolic and anabolic processes happen simultaneously, gray is perceived Christine Ladd-Franklin - theory of color vision, which was based on evolution. - noted that some animals see only in monochrome (black and white) and assumed that this form of chromatic vision appeared first in evolution, color vision came later - the most highly evolved part of the eye is the fovea, where, at least in daylight, visual acuity and color sensitivity are greatest Phrenology: theory that the bumps on the skull could reveal our mental abilities and character traits - Joseff Gall was a founder of phrenology - Johann Spurzheim popularized Phrenology (he coined the name) and embarked on international tours promoting it. Spurzheim believed there were 21 emotional faculties and 14 intellectual ones in the brain. Paul Broca - Phineas Gauge got an iron tamping rod through skull - Broca's Area: a portion of the left cortical hemisphere is implicated in speech articulation or production Carl Wernicke - Wernicke’s Area: a cortical area, near Broca’s area, responsible for speech comprehension. This area on the left temporal lobe of the cortex. Ernst Weber - He found that the sense of touch was not one but several senses - Two-Point Threshold: the distance on our skin that separates two pointed stimulations - Just Noticeable Difference Fechner  - A generalization of Weber's theory. According to him, there is a broader relationship between sensory and physical intensity - Fechner's Law was flawed, but as with Weber's Law, it represented an attempt to quantify perception Early Approaches to Psychology Wilhelm Wundt - Wundt felt that the basic processes of the mind could be studied in the laboratory, but the higher forms of mental processing could only be understood through naturalistic observation - In the laboratory, Wundt built on Helmholtz’s work on nerve conduction. Helmholtz believed people possessed nerves of different length and that this might account for individual perceptions. Wundt thought the differences might be accounted for through central processing. For this reason, Wundt’s experiments focused on the measurable amount of time required to shift attention from one stimulus to another - Voluntarism: The power of the will to organize the minds content into higher-level thought processes - He saw the mind as a creative dynamic force in which we will where we choose to pay attention; we will what gives us meaning - Tri-dimensional Theory of Feeling: He believed sensations could be categorized as to their modes (hearing, tasting, etc), qualities (colors, shapes, sizes if visual), and durations - He placed feelings on a tridimensional scale with the basic dimensions of pleasant-unpleasantness, tension-relaxation, and activity-passivity Edward Titchner - Structuralism: His focus was the structure of the mind and he thought he could create a table of elements for the mind - Titchener concluded that consciousness was composed of three elemental states: sensations (elements of perception), images (elements of ideas), and affections(elements of emotions). Franz Brentano  - Act Psychology: Brentano’s view is known as Act Psychology because he believed mental processes are directed toward some function. The human mind acts toward something. Edmund Hussler - Phenomenology: the purpose of which was to create a taxonomy of the mind. Husserl believed that before a science of psychology would be possible, we would first need to understand the essences of those mental processes in terms of which we understand and respond to the world Hermann Ebbinghaus - Research on memory - Ebbinghaus made use of nonsense syllables and measured retention based on time and the serial position effect. His work moved memory into the realm of experimental psychology Darwin's Influence on Psychology - Natural Selection: Because more members of a species are born than environmental resources can support, nature selects those with characteristics most conducive to survival under the circumstances, which allows them to reproduce Thomas Malthus - An Essay on the Principle of Population - Economist - observed that the world’s food supply increased arithmetically, whereas the human population tended to increase geometrically. He concluded that food supply and population size were kept in balance by such events as war, starvation, and disease Alfred Wallace - Developed a theory of evolution almost identical to Darwin’s, at almost the same time that Darwin developed his theory. Huxley & Wilberforce - Debate at Oxford - Thomas Huxley ‘Darwin’s bulldog’ - Wilberforce was a Bishop of Oxford  - Spoke out against Darwin’s ideas being incompatible with the Bible - Huxley defended Darwin Herbert Spencer - English philosopher and sociologist who applied the theory of natural selection to human societies (social darwinism) Francis Galton - First to suggest that fingerprints could be used for personal identification - Galton assumed that intelligence is a matter of sensory acuity because humans can know the world only through the senses. - Eugenics: The use of selective breeding to increase the general intelligence of the population Concerns with the Feeble minded Intelligence Testing James Catell - Strongly believed in eugenics - wrote a letter to Congress protesting the use of conscientious objectors in combat Alfred Binet - crafted a test to determine mental retardation - Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence methods allowed for expressing a child's ability in terms of intellectual age Charles Spearman - Spearman proposed the g factor theory, which holds that an underlying factor of general intelligence exists that forms the foundation out of which all intellectual abilities rise Henry Goddard - Goddard proposed definitions for a system for classifying individuals with intellectual disability based on intelligence quotient (IQ). - Moron: IQ of 51-70, imbecile: IQ of 26-50, idiot: IQ of 0-25 for categories of increasing impairment - The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness Lewis Terman  - noted uneven results when Binet’s tests were administered to American children - His work did much to dispel the idea that kids with high IQs were socially inept and given to early burn-out. Terman found that the gifted child becomes a gifted adult Robert Yerkes - developed tests to assess Army recruits. Out of this effort came the ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’ tests. His work established a place in the military for the psychological assessment David Wechsler - Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) - Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) - Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) American Psychology and Functionalism Functionalism - Functionalists opposed what they considered the sterile search for elements of consciousness. - The Functionalists wanted to understand the function of the mind rather than merely describe its contents - The Functionalists wanted psychology to be a practical science, not a pure science; wanted to apply what they had learned to the improvement of personal life, education, and industry - The Functionalists urged the broadening of psychology to include the study of animals, children, and psychopathology - The Functionalists were interested in the 'why' of mental processes and behavior; this led them to studies in motivation - The Functionalists accepted both mental processes and behavior as legitimate subject matter for psychology; also viewed introspection as a legitimate tool for research - The Functionalists were more interested in what made organisms different, than in what made them similar - The Functionalists were influenced by William James and by extension, Charles Darwin William James - helped incorporate evolutionary theory into psychology  - James expanded research techniques in psychology by not only accepting introspection but also encouraging any technique that promised to yield useful information about people. By studying all aspects of human existence—including behavior, cognition, emotions, volition, and even religious experience—James also expanded the subject matter of psychology - Pragmatism: Any belief, thought, or behavior must be judged by its consequences - he delineated two types of personality: the tender-minded and the tough-minded - Tender-minded people are rationalistic (principle-oriented), intellectual, idealistic, optimistic, religious, and dogmatic, and they believe in free will. Conversely, tough-minded people are empiricistic (fact-oriented), sensationalistic, materialistic, pessimistic, irreligious, skeptical, and fatalistic - Viewed pragmatism as a way of compromising between the two worldviews. James and Emotions - according to the traditional view, if we see a bear, we are frightened, and then we run. James believed that if we see the bear, we run, and then we are frightened - our emotions are based on how we label our physiological reactions - his view is the foundation of therapeutic practices such as relaxation therapy - believed that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.' - his struggle with psychological issues had led to his interest in mind cures James and Consciousness - viewed consciousness as having the following characteristics: - it is personal - it is yours alone and not part of any greater consciousness - it is ever-changing - James would have agreed with Heraclitus - it is continuous, it cannot be chopped into bits and pieces as Titchener and Wundt sought to do - it is selective, we choose where to direct our attention - He decried experimentalism as dull and businesslike Mary Calkins - established a psychology laboratory and introduced experimental psychology into the curriculum  - Paired-Associate Technique: Pairs of stimulus material are first presented to subjects and then, after several exposures, only one member of the pair is presented and the subject is asked to recall the second Stanley Hall - recapitulation theory: each individual in his or her lifetime reenacted all evolutionary stages of the human species - rightly considered a father figure in developmental psychology - laid the foundation for child and adolescent psychology, and he later turned to aging and life-span psychology - he delved into such topics as sources of pleasure, belief in the afterlife, and anxiety regarding aging in his books - established developmental psychology as a key component of our discipline Franics Sumner - Referred to as the father of Black Psychology - Sumner’s focus was in investigating how to refute racism and bias in the theories used to conclude the inferiority of African Americans John Dewey - the reflex arc: the idea that a stimulus produces a sensation which triggers a response. He saw these elements as key parts of a whole, and called this whole the reflex arc - Dewey rejected the idea that sensory stimulus and motor response were entirely separate - He emphasized learning by doing, the importance of student interest in the task, and intelligent problem solving rather than rote memorization James Angell - Functional psychology is interested in mental operations rather than conscious elements. - Mental processes mediate between the needs of the organism and the environment. The mental functions of the organism help the organism survive. - The mind and body cannot be separated; they act as a unit in an organism’s struggle for survival. George Romanes - He believed that as animals can make choices, they possess a form of consciousness - Ascribed to animals thought processes similar to those of humans Conwy Morgan - Morgans Canon: held that ‘In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale - believed that both human and animal behavior is purposeful but rejected applying human thoughts to animals - believed that through trial-and-error animals do learn especially when rewarded Edward Thorndike - Believed intelligence was inherited and that schools should be tailored to a student’s ability - Believed that intelligence was not one quality, but many specific skills and aptitudes - Puzzle box: Cat experiment - Law of effect is the belief that a pleasing after-effect strengthens the action that produced it - The Law of Exercise The connection between a stimuli and a response can be strengthened or weakened. This connection can be strengthened by practicing hard and often or it can be weakened by discontinuing the practice Pavlov Watson Behaviorism - Objective psychology: idea that psychology should only study those things which are directly measurable - Behaviorism focuses on observable behavior only Ivan Sechenov - Was most interested in inhibition: how is it that stimulation of one part of the brain could cause decreased activity in another part of the body (i.e. stimulation of a frog's vagus nerve would cause the frog's heart to beat slower) - Believed that all human behavior could be explained through the excitation and inhibition of reflexes Ivan Pavlov - Classical Conditioning discover on accident trying to study digestion - Believed that all central nervous system activity can be characterized by excitation or inhibition Vladamir Bechterev - believed that all behavior can be explained by objectively studying reflexes John Watson - Described psychology as a 'purely objective branch of natural science' and its intent was to predict and control behavior - Argued that philosophy and introspection should be removed from the discipline - Argued that there was no difference between human and animal - Argued that the presence or absence of consciousness had no bearing on psychology, nor did the issue of mind-body dualism - Claimed that he found in his experiments with infants the basic emotional reactions belonging to the original and fundamental nature of humans: fear, rage, and love (Little Albert Experiment) William McDougall - Was a proponent of eugenics and believed acquired traits could be passed on to future generations - Held that all animate creatures possessed consciousness, the level of which was tied to the creature's neurological complexity - The Battle of Behaviorism. McDougall appealed to reason and argued for the existence of instinct as the motivator of all animal and human behaviors