Module 1: Paradigm Shifts In Psychology PDF

14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-... Module 1:...

14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-... Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology Watch: Module overview Module 1 Overview Module purpose By the end of this module, you will have discovered: 1. Different paradigms in psychology 2. Changes in methods for studying the mind 3. New paradigms and challenges https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 1/12 14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-... This module is linked to ULO 2, 3 and 4. This module is relevant to Assessment Tasks 1 and 2. Assessment tips: Which topics do you find interesting for your report? Which content helps you argue for or against debate #1: "All psychology paradigms are equally valuable" Introduction Like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly or the evolution of species, science advances through change. Sometimes this change is gradual and small and other times it is sudden and revolutionary. Just like Newtonian physics was superseded by Einstein’s relativistic paradigm, our understanding of the human mind is always evolving and going through its own paradigm shifts. In this first module, we tour through some of the magnificent evolutions in how we understand ourselves. In doing so, we'll come to understand how psychologists study the human mind using unique approaches. You'll see how the questions we ask, the methods we use, and the perspectives we come from, can affect the answers that we find. Watch: What is a paradigm shift? Thomas Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Examples of paradigm shifts https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 2/12 14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-...  The measure of intelligence is the ability to change. — Albert Einstein A paradigm shift is a significant change in the methods, practices, and concepts of a scientific field (Thomas Kuhn, 1962). It’s sometimes called a revolution. There are many examples of paradigm shifts, but one famous example is the shift from a Ptolemaic system (the earth is at the centre of the universe) to a Copernican system (the sun is at the centre of the universe). There are many reasons for a paradigm shift, but one important element is the finding of one or many anomalies. An anomaly is something that the current “paradigm” can’t explain. It is like a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit. For example, the neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud gave great importance to the “unconscious” mind. For Freud, the effects of the unconscious mind and our past experiences stored there were an anomaly for understanding human behaviour that could not be well explained by existing theories. So Freud developed his own ideas about the mind in such a way that unconscious influences were taken very seriously. We’ve experienced many other paradigm shifts in the study of the human mind, possibly dozens. For example, during the early 1900s many psychologists were interested in behaviour, but not so interested in human cognition and inner-experience (B.F. Skinner is a famous behaviourist researcher). The behaviourists believed that to understand humans it is sufficient to study their behaviours and it’s okay to ignore internal processes like thinking, feeling, and consciousness. The linguist Noam Chomsky famously critiqued this perspective by bringing anomalous data to the table. Chomsky noted that children learn languages far too fast to assume that all the learning is happening through behaviour and reinforcement learning. They seemed to be quickly and creatively developing associations and putting together new ways of communicating, suggesting that there’s a lot going on in the mind even when the child is not being directly taught (i.e., through behaviour). Today, most psychologists agree that internal processes like emotions, interpretations, feelings, intuitions, creativity, rational decision-making, and many other “internal” processes are crucial in understanding humans and how they behave. This represents the paradigm shift from behaviourism to cognitive psychology, when scientists started to spend much more time studying the processes internal to the mind: Our cognitions. Other paradigm shifts arise due to the development of new tools and methods. For instance, when it became possible to measure neural activity a new field of enquiry with many exciting theories was born: Cognitive neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience combines what we find in the brain with our knowledge of cognition and behaviour. Other new paradigms developed because we had new metaphors, like “computational” approaches to the mind, which are inspired by the way that computers work. It wasn’t possible to think of the mind like a computer or information processor before such a thing was invented. Hence, paradigm shifts can also be brought about via developments in other fields. Progress in mathematics can lead to paradigm shifts in physics, and likewise discoveries in computer science can force us to change the way that we understand the mind (note that neuroscience also has had an influence on computer science and especially artificial intelligence!). Even Chat GPT mirrors some of what we believe is going on in the mind and brain, i.e., “predictive learning”. https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 3/12 14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-... Another powerful paradigm shift occurred when we began using experimental methods to investigate the mind (Wilhelm Wundt was the first person to do this, back in 1879). For example, ancient Eastern traditions of psychology tended to be focused on studying the mind through direct experience. By doing certain practices, such as meditation, it was believed that you can gain insight into how your mind works. In other words, Eastern psychology was mostly developed from studying the mind from “within”. Somewhat similarly, Western philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes were also introspecting or trying to reason their way to understanding. In these early days, no one was really using the scientific method to study the mind. This all changed in the late 19th century when Western psychology started focusing on studying the mind from the “outside” by trying to remove subjective experience from the equation. There are strengths and benefits to both approaches, and some contemporary paradigms use both external scientific methods (e.g., neuroscience) as well as subjective methods (e.g., phenomenology). See neurophenomenology—this is a paradigm that I’m personally very excited about and it contributes to my own research on meditation and neuroplasticity. Notably, William James (1842-1910), considered one of the fathers of modern psychology, already over a century ago gave great credence to ‘internal’ processes of cognition and valued direct experience for learning about the mind. For example, William James gleaned many of his influential insights into how the mind works by experimenting on himself with psychoactive substances such as nitrous oxide. Behaviourists really didn’t like this “introspective” approach. Many of the first psychologists (e.g., Wilhelm’s students) used introspection in the laboratory to try to give structure to the processes of the mind through careful interviews with participants. These introspective experiments were the first true scientific examinations of the mind. So you can see that there has been a tension going back hundreds of years (and ongoing today) about the extent to which we can trust internal, subjective, and introspective reports, and the extent to which we have to rely on controlled experiments and behavioural outcomes. For the most part, experimental psychology leans towards preferring rigorous experiments to find out how the mind works, but as mentioned, this is growingly complimented by rigorous subjective and qualitative research. Watch: What are the dominant paradigms in psychology? Sit back, relax, and enjoy this broad introduction to the history of psychology. History is important because it reveals to us the assumptions that we've overcome, but also possibly the assumptions that are still present. We can never truly 'remove' ourselves from the history of a scientific discipline. So the next best thing is being aware of how we might be influenced by our clever (or sometimes not so clever) ancestors. https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 4/12 14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-... A Brief History of Psychology: From Plato to Pavlov Dominant paradigms  When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. — Dr Wayne Dyer Psychology is all about understanding the mind, experience, and behaviour. Many people think that psychology is about fixing people or all about mental illnesses. That may be part of it, but psychology is actually a much broader thing. It turns out there are many ways to try to understand the mind and human behaviour. Some of the now popular paradigms exist because they stood the test of time. Other paradigms are more recent developments and time will tell whether they will stick around. The dominant paradigms in psychology sometimes arise through a revolution, sometimes through a gradual change, and sometimes through branching out. I’ve already mentioned some of the big paradigms in psychology above when we were discussing paradigm shifts. But there are a few more to introduce. Keep in mind that there are a lot of people researching under smaller or less popular paradigms not mentioned here, which may also eventually prove very valuable. In some cases, a good idea is just not ready to be integrated because people are not ready for it, or because more data is needed. That is always good to keep in mind… the most successful paradigm may be yet to be invented. Dominant paradigms in psychology: https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 5/12 14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-... 1. Cognitive psychology: Cognitive psychology is concerned with the study of mental processes such as perception, attention, memory, language, problem-solving, and decision-making. Researchers in this paradigm use a range of methods, including behavioural experiments, computational modelling, and neuroimaging techniques, to investigate how these processes operate in the brain. 2. Social psychology: Social psychology focuses on how individuals interact with and influence each other, as well as how group dynamics and social norms shape behaviour. Researchers in this paradigm use a range of methods, including surveys, experiments, and observations, to study social behaviour. 3. Developmental psychology: Developmental psychology is concerned with the study of how individuals develop and change over the course of their lives, from infancy through old age. Researchers in this paradigm use a range of methods, including longitudinal studies, cross- sectional studies, and experimental designs, to investigate the factors that influence development. 4. Biological psychology: Biological psychology, also known as biopsychology or psychobiology, is concerned with the study of the biological processes that underlie behaviour, including genetics, neural activity, and hormonal activity. Researchers in this paradigm use a range of methods, including neuroimaging techniques, genetic analyses, and physiological measures, to investigate the links between biology and behaviour. 5. Clinical psychology: Clinical psychology is concerned with the study and treatment of mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. Researchers in this paradigm use a range of methods, including clinical interviews, psychological tests, and behavioural observations, to assess and treat psychological problems. Smaller (but also important!) paradigms: 1. Evolutionary psychology: Evolutionary psychology is concerned with the adaptive function of psychological processes, and how they evolved over time to help humans survive and reproduce. Researchers in this paradigm use an evolutionary framework to study a wide range of psychological phenomena, including emotion, cognition, and social behaviour. 2. Positive psychology: Positive psychology is concerned with the study of positive emotions, character strengths, and virtues, and how they contribute to human flourishing. Researchers in this paradigm use a range of methods, including surveys and interventions, to study the factors that promote well-being and happiness. 3. Cultural psychology: Cultural psychology is concerned with how cultural factors shape human behaviour, cognition, and emotion. Researchers in this paradigm study how culture affects the way people think, feel, and behave, and how individuals and societies can change and adapt over time. https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 6/12 14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-... 4. Feminist psychology: Feminist psychology is concerned with the study of gender and how it shapes psychological processes and social interactions. Researchers in this paradigm use a feminist perspective to study a wide range of psychological phenomena, including identity development, gender roles, and power dynamics in relationships. 5. Humanistic psychology: Humanistic psychology is concerned with the study of human potential and the pursuit of self-actualization. Researchers in this paradigm emphasize the importance of subjective experiences, personal growth, and meaning-making, and often use qualitative methods such as interviews and case studies to study human behavior. Many paradigms have been actively debunked. For example, phrenology was a theory developed in the early 19th century by Franz Joseph Gall. Franz proposed that the shape and size of various areas of the skull were indicative of a person's character, abilities, and personality traits. While phrenology is now considered a pseudoscience, it played a role in the historical development of psychology by sparking interest in the localization of brain functions. As psychology underwent paradigm shifts, moving from introspection to behaviorism, then to cognitive and biological approaches, the focus shifted from studying external skull characteristics to investigating the underlying brain structures, neural connections, and biochemical processes responsible for behavior and mental processes. Scientific progress often involves refining or discarding older theories, paving the way for more accurate and comprehensive understanding of complex phenomena like the human mind. Figure The traditional tools of phrenology. Image from: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/243089v2.full.pdf   Levels of analysis in psychology Another way to understand different scientific disciplines in psychology (and throughout science) is through the lens of ‘levels of analysis’. But what do I mean by levels? For example, quantum physicists are interested in a very low level of analysis; things like atoms, quarks, and electrons. A level or two ”higher” or “bigger” chemists https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 7/12 14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-... are interested in molecules. Molecules are particular patterns or combinations of smaller atomic particles. Further up the hierarchy, there are biologists who are interested in slightly bigger things, stuff like cells and tissues. Cells and tissues are made of molecules, and so on, each level provides the pieces of a new puzzle higher up. So you see, different levels of analysis don’t have any superiority over others. Lower levels are like building blocks of higher levels. It’s a question of whether you’re interested in the forests or the trees, or both. There is nothing more “scientific” about physics over biology, it’s just a different level of analysis. It’s like an onion with layers upon layers. It’s the same in psychological science. If we’re interested in understanding this wonderful and mysterious thing called “the mind”, we may think it’s most important to look at neurons or the patterns of activity in the brain. This is the biological level. Or, maybe we want to zoom out and study the mind in terms of higher-level concepts like attention, memory, emotion, or behaviour. This next level of analysis is the cognitive level. Perhaps we’re interested in zooming out even further, to include other people and society. This highest level of analysis is the sociocultural level. What level do you find the most interesting? Throughout this course, we’re going to learn about how emotions, thinking, motivation, the world around us, the people around us, our bodies, and our biology, influence us. We’re also going to try and understand these things from multiple levels of analysis. To illustrate why we need to understand the human mind from multiple levels, consider the experience of “love”. To really understand love, we would need to know what’s going on in our bodies and our brains: the way the heart flutters and beats differently and the various chemicals released in the brain like oxytocin and dopamine. But if we only paid attention to the biological level, we’d be too focused on the trees and miss the forest. For example, what about all the emotions we feel when we’re in love, or all the changes that happen to our thoughts (suddenly this person is all we can think about!)? That might already seem satisfying if we understand all that, but there’s still more. If we’re in love, it involves new behaviours and actions with another individual and this has impacts on a lot of other people, too. To understand love we need to understand how culture affects the way that we love: Are there differences between Australia, India, Papa New Guinea and Botswana in the way that we love or express love? We need to consider how falling in love is affected by society: Could it be that we fall in love with people that society suggests we should fall in love with? Certainly, there’s some degree of influence involved… like the way we tend to choose someone that our family or friends might like. So you see, to really understand something demands that we look at different levels of analysis. That’s especially important in psychology, where we study the most complex thing in the world— humans. Activity: Why we dance! https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 8/12 14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-...  See if you can provide an explanation for dancing using the following levels of analysis. You'll need to jump on Google and do a bit of research. Or, try asking ChatGPT. We might do something like this in class, so now's your chance to practice! 1. Biological explanation for dancing 2. Cognitive explanation for dancing 3. Socio-cultural explanation for dancing What other ways could you explain dancing? Note: If you submit your answer and it says 'retry' it has been submitted! But you can retry if you want :).  Submit Watch: New paradigms and challenges It is the nature of a paradigm that it is imperfect. As long as we have a lens through which we observe the world, we have a limited vision of it. As a consequence, paradigms are always limited, always evolving, and always (hopefully) getting us closer to the truth. The below video introduces you to a novel, unifying vision of the mind and brain that is emerging and having a powerful influence on all fields of psychology, cognition, and neuroscience. This video is to get you thinking about the big picture. Often we will zoom into specific components, processes, and mechanisms within the broad field of psychology. But it's important not to lose sight of the big picture: the way that it all works together as one system. https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 9/12 14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-... Your Brain Hallucinates Your Conscious Reality | Anil Seth | TED Summary  The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. — Alan Watts Understanding the human mind is not easy. We need to deal with high levels of complexity, multiple levels of analysis, and many different paradigms. That is why you need to get really good at thinking from many different perspectives. So, I hope that this first module has given you an overview of just how vast psychological science is and how many fascinating ways there are to study the mind! I suggest you begin to reflect on what approach resonates with you and interests you. What strengths and limitations do you see about each of the paradigms? To study psychology, we have to become sharp critical thinkers and be able to distinguish between signal and noise, truth and pseudoscience. For this module, I expect you to have a pretty good grasp of the various paradigms, why they exist, and how they work together. This module is a bit shorter than the next five, so I suggest doing a bit of your own research to get really familiar with the different ways we can approach understanding the mind. As your expertise grows throughout your studies you'll begin to build your own perspectives about what interests you and which paradigms solve which problems. Remember, there is not necessarily one best paradigm. A paradigm may work well for understanding one problem, but not another problem. For example, if you’re interested in curing Alzheimer’s disease then you probably need to think very carefully about neurons and https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 10/12 14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-... neurochemistry, whereas culture might not be as important. On the other hand, in order to improve the quality of life of the person suffering, then it is indeed very important to consider social and cultural influences. You see, every paradigm and approach has its strengths and its limitations and new paradigms are constantly being birthed. As we move through the course, check in with yourself: What paradigm are we using right now? How could this phenomenon be understood using a different paradigm? What are the limitations of the paradigm we're currently using? Activity: Debate preparation Each week of the unit content relates to a debate topic for Asessment 2. Take a moment to reflect on the content from this week and note down your ideas to support for and against arguments for this weeks debate topic "All psychology paradigms are equally valuable (for vs. against)" This can be a dot point summary or a reflection of your personal ideas of for and against arguments. Check in with your own ideas and thoughts before you seek to support your own ideas with evidence from the literature. The activity will not be marked, it is your opportunity to begin planning for the second assessment and to more deeply engage with the content. You can then download or copy these arguments as the starting point of Assessment 2 to get ahead of the game! All psychology paradigms are/aren't equally valuable because...  Submit Activity: A beautiful experiment Each week I’ll include what I consider to be a beautiful experiment related to the topics we’ve discussed. This week’s experiment is (shamelessly) conducted by me and my colleagues, just last year! It’s relevant to paradigm shifts because it shows how humans can change their https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 11/12 14/01/2025, 14:24 Module 1: Paradigm shifts in psychology – PSYC1002-2024-... worldviews—their inner paradigms—through moments of insight. You see, not only does science have paradigms, but our mind and its perspectives, worldviews, and ideas, are themselves a kind of paradigm. In that sense, there are paradigms out there in the world, but there are also paradigms within. Studying something like psychology should change our personal paradigms and allow us to see the world in novel ways. Often shifting our paradigms involves having a moment of insight. Insights were the topic of my PhD thesis and are still a core area of research for me, and continue to fascinate me. I'm especially interested in what causes false insights and how the feeling of insight might sometimes be misleading and get in the way of our ability to think and see clearly. Below you’ll find the abstract of one of the studies that I think is relevant. You can click on the image to read the full paper (just if you want to). We show how feelings of insight can be artificially manipulated in the laboratory to make worldviews feel true. https://learn.scu.edu.au/ultra/courses/_151674_1/cl/outline 12/12