History of Psychology PDF

Summary

This document provides a historical overview of psychology, covering key figures, schools of thought, and important concepts. It explores the evolution of thought about the mind and behavior over time, from ancient philosophical ideas to modern psychological theories.

Full Transcript

Aristotle ○ First person to devote an entire book to the human mind (Peri Psychés/De Anima) ○ Psyché = power or living, sensing and knowing ○ Theological explanations - all things strive to reach their goal ○ All things have an essence, a place a...

Aristotle ○ First person to devote an entire book to the human mind (Peri Psychés/De Anima) ○ Psyché = power or living, sensing and knowing ○ Theological explanations - all things strive to reach their goal ○ All things have an essence, a place and a purpose = TELELOGICAL WORLD VIEW ○ All things have a SOUL Basically what makes a thing that specific thing Different types of soul - vegetative (plants), sensitive (animals) and rational (human) It's a part of the human body and one cannot exist without another The Middle Ages ○ Many works of roman and Greek philosophers were lost - the DARK AGES ○ Education connected to the church ○ Natural sciences limited - belief that people should not concern themselves with laws of nature, they just need to know it's God's doing ○ Adapting two of Aristotle's ideas: Distinction between the heavens (moon, stars, sun, other planets moving around earth eternally) and the earth (nothing is eternal) Natural place of everything on earth and in the heavens However - later Middle Ages + Renaissance ○ Scholars start to want to think for themselves ○ New discoveries, voyages, doubting of Greek theories -> switch from telos (why) to mechanism (how) Aka switching from asking why that concept exists to how and for what purpose First with Claudius Ptolamaeus ○ Earth is the center of the universe, planet orbit each other Copernicus + Galilei - heliocentric world view From an animated world view to a materialistic one Analysis and quantification - you have to understand the mechanisms behind things to be able to achieve larger profit Atomism (materialism) and REDUCTIONISM ○ Reductionism = all sciences are related, explaining one phenomena by a mechanism on a more fundamental level, any entity can be reduced to another entity more basic than the first one Logical positivism - every observation can be reduced to a more basic empirical observation E.g. Any psychological phenomenon will have a biological explanation, that will have a chemistry explanation, that will ultimately be explained by physics Very sensitive, difference between greedy and sensible approach ○ Materialism = idea that everything around us is made out of lifeless, mindless particles They have primary qualities (objective, can be measured, same for everyone) and secondary qualities (can't be measured, different for every person) Us being able to measure properties of atoms allows us to predict their behavior based on laws (e.g. Molecules act a certain way thanks to the characteristics of the atoms they are made of) ○ Mechanism in society Industrial revolution, urbanization and capitalism Supply and demand - we need correct calculation of exchange values, risks, interest rates,… Money and interaction between supply and demand -> economic foundation of society Science is now seen as useful - "knowledge is might" (if you know how things work, you can use it to your advantage) Analysis - taking a concept apart and trying to understand the interaction between these parts cause the phenomenon QUANTIFICATION - a direct result of mechanism that is still one of the most used ways to describe phenomena We need to make sure our starting knowledge is true ○ -> RACIONALISM (knowledge comes from our ability to reason) ○ -> EMPIRISM (knowledge comes from experience) The three historical themes of Psychology 1. Nature vs. Nurture ○ Are we who we are because of our genes (biology) or because of our surroundings? ○ Things like the Buikhuisen case - neurophysiological basis of criminal behavior (cancelled because of society pressure) ○ Today we know that nothing is completely because of our nature or nurture but it's rather a combination of both We can have a disposition but it doesn't necessarily mean it will lead to the actual act of behavior ○ James Fallon - the complex interaction between genes and environment What makes someone a psychopath? 2. Cognition vs. emotion ○ In the past - belief that emotions and cognition are separated, reason vs. Heart ○ Cognition is not possible without emotion ○ We have to have a reason to make a decision ○ Phineas Gage - lost a part of his left ventromedial prefrontal cortex (part of the brain responsible for emotions) Massive change in his personality - he could no longer see the emotional implication of his decisions (like how his decisions will affect others and himself) He could still understand the consequences but he had no emotional attachment to them, didn’t see them as negative or positive) 3. Mind vs. Body ○ What is the relationship between the mind and the body ○ Monism realism (only matter exists) Idealism (only thought exists) ○ Dualism Mind and matter are two separated entities But how do they communicate? ○ Psychology + neuroscience - usually realism/physicalists/human mind is something physical and no non-physical components - like soul - are needed to explain it) But we have two separate approaches Brain as a starting point Or - "closet dualism" The brain has a neuro response to something but has to have SOMETHING inside of it that helps to decode the neuro code and find the appropriate response How do you explain something like consciousness in a purely physical world? -> the HARD PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS How do we explain things like promises, nostalgia etc.? How do we explain free will and does it actually exist? Problem of intentionality - where does meaning of things come from? My thoughts are about something, but the things they are about are not about something Epistemology - study of knowledge, How can we knwo?) x Metaphysics (study of being, What can be considered as existing?) Descartes (1596 - 1650) ○ Rationalism Primary source of knowelede - our mind Contrast to empirism Upset that scholars concerned themselves with question about WHY the world and universe exists the way they do - he thinks it's meaningless and speculative Discourse on Method - knowledge should be of practical use (we have to know HOW things work to use them) How can we achieve unquestionable knowledge? Where is the starting point of everything, the first and only undeniable truth? -> Meditation on First Philosophy Doubting everything he thinks he knows -> the world itself can be doubted (he sees it as virtual reality -> Matrix movies) But the fact that i doubt everything, the act of thinking means that at least, there has to be ME who truly exists (cogito ergo sum) Differenece compared to: Skepticism - even though he doubts everything, there is something certain in it that cannot be questioned (that is - me thinking therefore existing) Empirism - we can prove stuff mathematically which we cannot prove by experience, using deduction (building theories on previously existing theories, conclusion is true if premises are true) Starting point are so called axioms and postulates (statements that are generally accepted as true even if not proven) Not enough for Descartes - his axioms: (deduction) Statements like cogito ergo sum, existence of God and human soul, and the world itself - appear to the mind as clear and distinct (cannot be thanks to experience, it derives from mind itself) -> these statements are INNATE to the human mind and therefore are true ○ Mechanicism - world around us is made of lifeless matter that can be explained like a machine The human body is also a machinery and operates by mechanistic principles, but how does it move? -> thanks to the pumping of the blood through the arteries and veins -> nerves are also tubes through which a fluid called "animal spirit" flows (aka reflexes) Today - every single mental process is studied on neural level, abstract concepts (e.g. Soul) are not used ○ Dualism - two kinds of substances Substance = the most basic and fundamental aspect that makes all things exist What do all forms of matter have in common? - they exist and occupy space -> SPATIAL EXTENSION (res extensa) (aka the defining characteristic of matter) Can be analyzed and dissected into parts, then quantified -> only things made of matter (that extent into space) can be scientifically studied Operates in a deterministic way - something causes something Mind (for him also seen as soul) cannot be divided, doesn't occupy space, doesn't operate in a deterministic way Humans have free will - we make decisions even without having a cause The substance of the mind is THINKING (res cogitas) Available from birth - innate axioms We cannot study it scientifically How does the body and the mind interact then? Two substances have nothing in common (so how does the mind make the body move the leg?) -> They make contact in the pineal gland (notion of interactionism) Because the pineal gland is a part of the brain, "animal spirits" flow through it and those can be influenced by both the body and the mind Many varieties of those theories ○ So why is my body René important for psychology? Emphasis on the fact that mind and body are separate - emotions and behavior belong to the body (psychology can study them as well, not only cognition and consciousness like before) Using the method of introspection (observation the mind makes about itself) Since he didn't consider psych a science (mind cannot be studied) -> new methods that allowed to replicate observations and conditions that eliminate the problem of free will of the soul Focus on individualism Emphasis on mind-body problem - disscussion even today Emphasis on innate parts of human cognition - again, problem even today Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679) ○ Views on political systems - inspired by human behavior ○ All ideas come from experience but are applied and sorted out by reasons ○ Leviathan Chapters on sense, imagination , speech, memory, human will Ideal system - absolute monarchy (a ruler who raises above all but not by the will of God, but society itself) People make up SOCIAL CONTRACTS to avoid war and assure harmony and peace ○ Mechanist - what drives humans to act? -> so called Appetites and Aversions (+Hopes and Fears) make us act -> our will is not "free" but ruled by these forces Cognition seen as computation ○ Differences compared to Descartes Descartes - humans and animals are different, animals do not have a soul, a soul is made out of thinking, animals just act mechanically, body is controlled by the soul and we have free will to determine our actions Hobbes- - humans and animals both act in a mechanical way, human body acts in a deterministic way, the ability to reason is also mechanical ○ How does he view freedom then? Body performs an action by controlling the blood circulation -> causes movement Freedom = unrestricted ability to circulate blood and cause movement based on decisions caused by Appetites and Aversions, to seek pleasure and avoid pain Free will is possible, but is not free from matter - mind is free because it IS matter Some people can be more or less free than others, the blood circulations can "decide" to want something ○ Human behavior derives from the causes that make the body move ○ Ultimate goal - X individualism, but humans in society The natural state for human being - war of every man against every man, humans act based on their Appetites and Aversions and take what they want (homo economicus) All humans are equal - to remain safe in society, people give up a part of their freedom and form a social contract ○ Why is Tommy important for psychology? People have motives that cause their behavior Importance of reductionism - the body is a machinery "all reasoning is but reckoning/computing" -> computers and AI ○ Essentially all empiricists lean more on the importance of nurture rather than nature ○ John Locke (1632 - 1704) Realist + dualist Again, questions about human knowledge - his work Essay Concerning Human Understanding Rejected the notion of innate knowledge(non-nativist) - idea of tabula rasa (we are born as a blank page of a paper) Knowledge comes from observations (aka IMPRESSIONS) and experience Two kinds: ○ Sensations - observations of external sensible objects ○ Reflections - internal operations of our minds that we perceive They are NOT a part of out thinking, they just generate ideas in the mind -> simple ideas (knowledge comes to us through impressions, the mind itself has nothing to do with it, it is simply a passive recipient) Ideas = materials of knowledge and all ideas come from experience Mind cannot alter the simple ideas -> these ideas and the knowledge is certain (aka Locke against skepticism) Simple ideas then generate complex ideas: - mechanistic process ○ Mind unites sets of simple ideas ○ It can put two ideas into a relation to each other ○ It can form abstract ideas by generalizing over a set of the basic ones ○ -> this all results in THINKING Dualism - we have the human soul materially responsible for thinking and perceiving and behavior + immaterial substance that accounts for free will and creativity Different types of qualities Primary - objective qualities that can be measured and analyzed (mechanicism), they are REAL Secondary - something that differs for everyone, our own sensations (taste, color, smell), not properties of the objects themselves, they are NOT REAL The world and the experience Our mind does not perceive the outside world directly, only through the representations of it given by the ideas it perceives So how do i know my perceptions of the world is reliable if I only see "images" of it in my mind? ○ Locke says our simple ideas emerge from our sensations which come passively from the objects - to they must be real ○ George Berkley (1685 - 1753) Monistic world view - immaterialism The only thing that really exist is our ideas (they are not separate from the world) -> no mind-body problem We only have secondary qualities "Esse est percipi" - To be is to be perceived Ideas (perceptions) are put to our mind by God, just as all experiences ○ There is no reason for external world to exist, he can just put it right in our mind ○ -> therefore is our perception genuine, it comes from good old pops up there Our mind is yet again just a passive receiver, not the maker of knowledge We all live in the perception of God ○ David Hume (1711 - 1776) Book called Enquires concerning human understanding He thinks that words like substance, dualism and monism do not truly derive from what we know about the world Human knowledge comes to us from impressions (lively perceptions - where we hear, see, feel, love, hate, desire or will) Outwards sensations - perceptions generated by the outside world (seeing or hearing) Inward sensation - perceptions generated by ourselves (feelings, emotions) Ideas are reflections of the mind and also perceptions, but these perceptions are more faint than the original ones (the sensations) from which they came from and can be tracked back to Our mind can only recombine impressions the senses have given us Abstract ideas serve no purpose, they are too far removed from the impressions we have His main goal is to dissect every single thing to the most basic thing it's made out of, but we cannot do it with abstract ideas Rejection of causality According to him, recombining impressions is a process called "forming connections" ○ That can be done by three principles (=laws of association) Resemblance Contiguity in time or place Cause or effect - only happens in my mind, not in the actual world The notion of causality has no basis in reality, we just do it because we are used to it Humans can distinguish two entities ○ Relations of ideas In mathematics They prove certainty because denying them would result in contraction E.g. Euclid used relations between lines and triangles to prove geometrical theories Only applicable to the mathematical topics, not to the world we experience ○ Matters of fact Deal with everything we encounter in the world around us E.g. The sun rises each morning and it happens every day, it might not happen tomorrow and this assumption does not lead to contradiction There is no sensory perception from which the existence of causality can be derived ○ Even when we think we can perceive causality (i threw a brick and broke a window, I caused the window to break), it is not true This is just the result of our customs we have about the world around us Reasoning ONLY applies to relations of ideas and not matters of fact ○ Relation between the events in the outside world and our ideas of them - based on a pre-established harmony that cannot be explained (it's a human instinct) Aka harmony between the succession of material phenomena in the world and mental phenomena in our minds = psychophysical parallelism ○ ASSOCIATION PSYCHOLOGY OF THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURY Analysis of the mind follows the methods of the mechanistic science Mind can be analyzed and divided into its smallest components - simple ideas Principles of association then show how we can combine simple ideas into more complex ones ○ The primary Laws of Association Contrast - two ideas will be associated with each other if they contrast in any way (shape, color,…) Similarity (resemblance) - two ideas will be associated with each other if they are similar in any way Contiguity - two ideas will be associated with each other when they occur together in time/place (but they can occur in the same time/place only once, not more times) They are qualitative - describe when an association happens but not how strongly Continued in the 19th century by people like: James Mill, Thomas Brown, David Hartley Formulated the quantitative secondary Laws of Association ○ Recency - association will be stronger when more recent ○ Frequency - association will be stronger if based on a frequently ocurring situation ○ Intensity - association will be stronger if ideas involved make stronger impressions (e.g. Due to the emotional content) E.g. People remember all the details of a tragic day even if we normally forget almost everything we do on a random day Society = sum of individuals who act based on their self-interest, who are all born as a blank slate -> no justification of hierarchical organization of society -> LIBERALISM ○ Society can operate as a mechanistic automaton that regulates itself by dividing powers over to different sections ○ -> guarantee against abuse of power ○ Ethics are based on hedonism - people pursuing their self interest and aiming to increase pleasure and reduce pain = morally good (John Locke) Later formed into utilitarianism Social action should produce the greatest happiness (collectively high pleasure and low pain) ○ Further mechanisation of the ecomomy - market is regulated by supply and demand Adam Smith - economic growth can be achieved if everyone operates on the basis of their self-interest Increased productivity - manufacturing How can labor be organized? What are the effects it has on the people working? -> questions for psychology ○ Enlightenment - intellectual movement emphasizing rationalism Mistrust in the inborn knowledge - its origin is mysterious Rational is an opposite or irrational (tradition or religion) Knowledge is based on observations and the use of reason in organizing them and drawing conclusions Emphasis on education -> Encyclopedia First attempts to treat mentally ill people ○ Romanticism in contrast to rationalism Worldview Rationalism - world is made out of atoms and operates mechanically, we can understand it and it's the same for everyone Romanticism - the world is unified as a whole and operates as an organism, mysterious and animated, world view is subjective Knowledge Rationalism - derives from observation and the conclusions are drawn by reasoning or analysis Romanticism - derives from feelings and intuition, we use imagination as a source of understanding Humans Rationalism - humans are made out of matter, use reason to control their behavior which can be analyzed Romanticism - life depends on the a unique vital force, our behavior depends on emotions and humans and their actions are unknowable Source of behavior Rationalism - rational thought makes us do smt Romanticism - unconscious sources Focused on the analysis of consciousness (where ideas come from, how are they combined) Influence on behaviorism (but also effect of positivism) Positivism - science is done solely based on observations that can be done by anyone -> consciousness cannot be studied (it cant be objectively observed) -> we should focus solely on human behavior The study of association used as a leaning mechanism -> classical and operant conditioning Is human behavior primarily determined by the environment or is it humans themselves who determine their behavior? ○ Is mind passive or active? ○ Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) ○ Critique of pure reason Divided four types of statements: Analytit - statement is self-contained (it is just true because it is) Synthetic - statement states new information A priori - statement is not dependent on the world for its true value A posteriori - statement is dependent on the world for its true value ○ Distinction between Thing as such and Thing on its own We assume the world exists but we do not know what it really is Mind is passive when we obtain impression as sensory experiences (a posterori) To really perceive, we also need forms of perception (an active construction of the mind, uses sensory impression but has to structure them somehow) The only two qualities in our reason we cannot obtain from sensory experience - space and time (a priori) No distinction between primary and secondary qualities Forms of thought - determine the way we think ○ All of them depend on 12 categories E.g. Object, property, quantity Causality is also one of the categories (we cannot derive it from sensory experience but it's not just a habit either) ○ Kant vs. Locke Both agree that we depend on sensory experience to understand the world + empiricist + realist But Kant says "secondary qualities" are forms of perception and not different from primary qualities + we also need a rational element to be able to understand world (he is also an idealist) ○ Kant vs. Descartes Our ability to obtain knowledge is inborn But our mind alone cannot achieve actual knowledge ○ Metaphysics and science Based on rationalism alone but we cannot say we ever understand the world + we need sensory experiences as well Acience and knowledge of the world - combination of empirical evidence and active operation of the mind Metaphysics = X science But it gives us ideas to make assumptions and guide our lives ○ Psychological idea: existence of the soul ○ Cosmological idea: existence of the world ○ Theological idea: existence of God Ideas are like axioms, they have no evidence but they are an assumption ○ They are synthetic and a priori ○ Psychology Connected to cognitive psych (inborn abilities, active mind) But it's not a science because: There are no measurable dimensions in psych -> lack of quantification (consciousness is not spatial) Introspection is unreliable Experimentation is not possible - not possible to repeat them Phrenology ○ = relation between neuro-anatomy and psychology (Franz Joseph Gall) ○ Brain is organized in parts that each deal with a personality characteristic (Gall believes these are inborn) If a certain characteristic prominent -> producing a bump on the skull and vise versa Cranioscopy - measuring the shape of the skull to determine certain characteristics ○ What was it good for? Differential personality psychology - rather than focusing on the human mind in general, Gall focused on differences bwteen people Psychological testing - first to aim a test to psychological characteristics Practical applied psychology A strive for objectivity Localizatuon of psychological functions in the brain Studies of Florens - contradicts the idea of Gall (he says even though some parts ahve different functions, they still require the whole brain to function properly) ○ -> he could still maintain the idea that the cerebral cortex is the seat of the soul, free will Discovery that we have representations of the body in the somatosensory cortex and motor cortex (specific parts influence specific body parts) Discovery of different memory systems - long term and short term (thanks to experiments of Brenda Milner) Neurophysiology ○ The Bell-Magendie law (19th century) - sensory and morot nerves are different and enter the spinal cord in different parts ○ Johannes Muller - the principle of specific energy of nerves Basically just discovered that different sense organs and their nerves to the brain cause different types of sensations (vision, sound,..) Each sesne has its on nerves and they cannot perform the task for another sense Each kind of perception has its own quality -> the world is different than how it's experiences Hermann von Helmholtz ○ His experiments in neurophisiology where he was able to measure he speed of a nerve impulse -> effect of psych Formed the basis for doing reactuon time experiments ○ Experiments on depth and color perception ○ Our knowledge is based on experience but our perceptions are derived from unconscious conclusion in perception Aka we don't make delibirate calculations to determine the distance of objects in our environment, we make them unconsciously Wilhelm Wundt ○ Both on the side of the active mind (experimental method is inadequate to study higher-level psychological functions loke thinking and creativity) and passive mind (experimentaly trying to otain objective observations of our elementary conscious states) ○ He says we need to treat our experiences in two ways - in natural science in whcih the influence of the sibject is abstracted from + in the way of psychology in which the full influence of the subject is taken into account First aproach deals with content presented to us and he second with out apprehension of this content -> so yes, as Kant says, we cannot study the infĺuence of the creative subject BUT we can study the effect of outside experiences on us (mind is passive here) ○ Experimental psychology Subjects specifically trained to not let their apprehensions get in the way -> introspection Experiences in whicg consciousness is passive Idea is the descrobe the elements and natural laws of consciousness These elements derive from sensations caused by the outside world Aim is to transform introspetion into a laboratory method Experiences are about immediate sensory experiences Trained subjects to eliminate the subjective influence Aim is to quantify observations as much as possible ○ Volkerpsychologie Concerns itself with the active mind Not only the active and creative parts on an individual, but also the csocial and cultural context in which we live Says that is has a specific mental causality - idealism + dualism Drives active mind but it is not found in matter Concerns itself with: ○ Apperception - being able to select aspects we want to focus on ○ Conscious processig - how our consciousness travels ○ Creative synthesis - creative use of language and thinking Edward B. Titchener ○ Aimed to decompose our conscious perceptions into the basic elements it constists of ○ Structualism - trued to find the structure of consciousness which underlies all perceptions we have ○ Stimulus error - he thinks the methods of Wundt weren't actually so objective Experiences that were supposed to be immidiate could actually evoke our previous experiences/associations (like smelling smt familiar) -> they are too personal and too variable ○ We should focus on mediate experiences which we abstract from our subjective influence He says we have around 40 000 conscious elements -> these form our eementary perceptions Hermann Ebbinghaus ○ Studying human learning and memory ○ Used CVC strings/syllables that lack meaning (they don't promote the effect of subjectivity) ○ Able to test the ability to learn and forget more reliably -> the forgetting curve Akt psychology ○ Psychology should not focus on the content of consciousness but rather on the psychological activities needed to obtain that content - AUFGABE experiments (how do we know what someone wants from us when they give us a task?) ○ Oswald Kuple Using introspection to examine higher mental functions Using experiments where subjects were given a task and they had to use introspection Sigmund Freud ○ Interested in archeology and Darwin's evolutionary thinking ○ Studied under Charcot (interested in clinical observations, study of lesions in the brain make no sense if we can not compare them with detailed clinical obsevations of the illness) Studied hysteria (symptoms of weird somatic origin, many random symptoms) and used hypnosis as a method for treatment Demonstrated that symptoms could be induced or removed thanks to hypnosis -> they have to be of psychological nature (rather than of neurological basis) ○ Freud swooned, started his own practice in Vienna -> case of Anna O. became the turning point in his carrier Based on her and number of other patients - book called Studies on Hysteria (beginning of psychoanalysis) Analysis of retrieving memories related to the symptoms to ultimately arrive at the first moment, when they occurred Slowly switched to using free association instead of hypnosis (patients simply think and report everything that comes to mind) -> unraveling the psyche of a patient -> psychoanalysis Noticed that patients sometimes didn't want to tell him smt (sign of resistance aka a way of the mind that is tying to forget certain memories - repression) But patients want to get treated -> psychic conflict Many of them had a sexual meaning -> conclusion that painful memories are related to sexual experiences in childhood ○ -> the seduction theory of hysteria Symptoms arose because of repressed memories of sexual abuses Thanks to conversion, repression of these memories led to symptoms But it was still inconsistent ○ -> analysis and interpretation of dreams Distinction of the manifest content (as one experiences and remembers the dream) and latent content (what the dream is really about) Dreams seen as wish fulfillment - the transfer from latent to manifest content is a way of unconscious to operate the dream when it enters consciousness First to put an emphasis on the influence of the unconsciousness on the consciousness (which he viewed as unimportant) Three ways the latent content is transformed (dream work): Displacement - content is put in a neutral zone so it's harder to recognize, defense mechanism Condensation - single aspect of the manifest content may actually relate to a different aspect of the latent content Concrete representation - abstract ideas are translated into concrete sensations The driving forces of unconsciousness - desires and wishes that are generally unacceptable by society -> they have to be transferred into smt else in the consciousness (you thinking you were sexually abused by your dad is actually not true, you just want to fuck him and your consciousness can't deal with that) So the whole process: Free association + dreams Going around resistance Discovering the dirtyyy desire Now it's not hidden Symptoms should dissapear ○ -> sexual development Every desire and wish in our unconsciousness is actually of sexual nature and developed in childhood Happens in stages, depends on the organ where the child experiences satisfaction and sensual pleasure Oral stage -- breastfeeding Anal stage -- toilet training Genital stage (gets interrupted by latency stage) but comes back in puberty -- no comment When child gets stuck in one of these stages -> certain personality characteristics (e.g. Anal fixation - orderly behavior, saving money, stubbornness in relationships) Child experiences a conflict - Oedipus complex Wish to posses the parent of the opposite sex for exclusive sensual pleasure + get rid of the same sex parent as the rival of attention APPEARS AT THE AGE OF FIVE BRO ○ But you can't fuck your parent because of society or whatever -> latency stage developing a positive identification with the same sex parent (socially acceptable role model) but they still kinda don't pass the vibe check > ambivalence (aka mixed feelings) ○ Psyche model Consists of three parts - id, superego, ego Conflict between superego and id -> anxiety Demands of id are too much -> neurotic anxiety Demands of super-ego are too much -> moral anxiety Demands of the external world are too much -> objective anxiety To deal with these demands, ego develops defense mechanisms Unconscious Displacement - impulse is directed at a safer substitute Projection - attribute own negative attributes to someone else Repression - memories of an event are made unconscious Denial - ego is made to believe an event never occurred Rationalization - event is given a more positive evaluation Identification - demands of the outside world are internalized as a moral demand of the ego itself Psychoanalysis tried to analyze them and come up with how illnesses can be cured or relieved Methods of psychoanalysis ○ Free association + dream analysis ○ But Freud also discovered that if could express itself in errors and miscommunications -> Freudian slip (nothing we say is ever by chance) ○ Resistance to analysis comes from ego's defense mechanism of repression Connected to transference as well (like developing an emotional attachment to a therapist) Basically patients transfer attributes of people implicated in their neurotic symptoms to the therapist Can be positive and negative and cancelled when the patient is informed The psychoanalytical community ○ Vienna Psychoanalytical Society (+ Alfred Adler) Adler viewed libido as a general energy of life, we are more driven by an inferiority complex proposed by the demands of society -> eventually left and made his own "individual psychology" school ○ Carl Jung - divided unconsciousness into two parts Personal - wisher, experiences and motives Collective - ancestral memory containing experiences of past generations (aka trusty archetypes) View of the world ○ Mixed feelings ○ Generally others felt like it is not objective (when patients rejects a conclusion, they will just say it's resistance) And when two psychoanalysists come to a different conclusion - it was because of transference ○ Important for clinical psychology Insisted on the importance of childhood experiences, existence of defense mechanisms, talking therapy in the first place Influenced by the evolution theory ○ Everything an organism does has a function in its survival ○ Darwin - The origin of species ○ Evolution proceeds with small changes over numerous generations ○ -> social Darwinism - society shoydl also develop on the basis of the 'survival of the fittest' Poor people should not be helped Functionalism ○ William James The Principles of Psychology Psychology is about the actions that are an expression of the intentions of the mind We do not perform actions just because, we act to survive, they are functional Consciousness - serves a function It strengthened certain nerve-currents and weakens others -> allows us to select among possibilities that are important to us (we do not operate in a deterministic way) Sees it as a part of our nervous machinery, it is not separate It is not made out of buds and pieces, it flows Affects our selective attention Emotions - how organisms deal with their environment, they influence behavior How we deal with the world the James-Lange theory of emotion ○ We express an emotion with a bodily action, and then we experience it ○ Our emotions are limited to our bodily reactions Habits We have automated and conscious processes, in between them are habits They are automatic but have been learned before - this is possible thanks to the brains ability to adapt (aka plasticity), it is a chain of associated actions Habits affect the structure of our brain ○ Brain forms a complex structure of paths and connections between starting points (sense organs) and organs producing a behavior (terminal points) ○ Over the time certain paths in the brain can be strengthened and weakened ○ Habits are chains of actions, in which a just finished action generates the next ○ In what way are psychological processes useful? They help us to interact with our environment ○ Psychology should also focus on practical applications and help us solve problems in everyday life ○ reflexes The spinal system is a sear of reflexes and they operate in an automatic and fixed manner There is a difference between the automatic reflexes of the spinal cord and the operations of the cerebral cortex (the voluntary actions of the cc developed from the spinal cord) When we age -> reverse evolution But we should focus on what abilities are left, even if they are less functioning - those are the ones ruling our behavior Dualism between humans and other species Dualism between reflex and cognition Dualism between the peripheral and central nervous systém Behaviorism (JB Watson) ○ Introspection is unreliable There is no way of knowing whether an introspective report of an event is accurate or not - we cannot falsify it ○ Psychology should be purely objective experimental branch of natural science ○ Rejection of an interpretation in terms of consciousness It is out of reach for any objective method of observation We truly cannot say anything about the state of ones consciousness by studying its behavior ○ We should only focus on the prediction and control of behavior This is the only purely objective way We should not focus on the mind-body problem - it's unscientific ○ There is no real distinction between human and animal behavior Given the response the stimuli can be predicted, given the stimuli the response can be predicted ○ Emotions James uses introspection - not good, it's not objective Adult emotional behavior is too complex - Watson focused on studying children Discovered three different forms of emotional response that are innate and we experience them with unconditioned stimuli ○ Fear - loud noises and loss of body support ○ Rage ○ Love Most of our emotional behavior is based on learning and classical conditioning - convinced he can make anyone into anything with just training ○ Skinner Realized that the account of human behavior would be limited if it could not account for the way humans can learn new forms of behavior (with classical conditioning, there already has to be the unconditioned reflex for it to work) -> operant conditioning ○ In line with positivism - true knowledge comes from perceiving the world around is, scientific knowledge Is the only form of knowledge we can have based on empirical observations Observations can be repeated and controlled -> the existence of consciousness is just a theoretical idea and it should be eliminated Everything else that cannot be measured and observed - part of the black box Methodological behaviorism - we should restrict psychology only to observations of stimulus-response relations - positivism Theoretical behaviorism - gives a full explanation of behavior in terms of learned stimulus-response associations ○ Critique in the 1950s Fall of positivism Fails to provide a coherent account of a lot of human behaviors Severe internal inconsistencies The concept of drives was introduced - helps to explain the concept of behaviors that happen even when there is no reward present (and they cannot be observed, they are a part of the black box) Replaced by cognitive psychology - humans and animals process information and produce behavior based on goals Gestalt psychology ○ We perceive the world in terms of whole structures and not as a collection or sequence of parts ○ Opposed association psychology, we first perceive wholes before we perceive the parts they are made out of ○ The whole is more than just the sum of parts ○ Pragnaz perception - we have a tendency to see a figure as better than it really is (even when a triangle doesn't fulfill the characteristics of a triangle, we still recognize it as one) ○ Iso-morphism (Kohler) There is a same structure between mental and brain processes These structures determine our perception and are found in and produced by the brain ○ Insight (Kohler) When we are able to solve a problem thanks to assessing our surroundings (not by trial and error) Insight = the appearance of a solution complete with reference to the layout of the entire field ○ Our cognition also works based on operation principles, it is not just our perception

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