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2/3/15 [email protected] 3/3/15: Psychological Perspectives 

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Scientific study of behaviour and mental processes o Behaviour – overt actions (observable); physiological correlates of actions (pupil dilations, functional MRIs, neural activity in the brain etc.) anything that can be measured o Mental processes – thoughts (memories, imagery, concepts); emotions (fear, happiness); interactions between the two (e.g. decision making)  category boundaries, development of fear memories Scientific psychological aims: o What: Describe behaviour using careful observations o When: Prediction allows for specification of the conditions under which a behaviour will or not occur o Why: Explanation identifying the cause(s) of behaviour o Change: facilitating changes in behaviour (e.g. therapy) Why scientific Psychology: o Clichés can be used post-hoc to explain most behaviours therefore our common sense is unfalsifiable o Science: objective data collection, systematic observation, reliance on evidence o Common sense: subjective data collection, hit or miss observation, ignores counterevidence Learning smart: o www.nature.com/scientificamericanmind/journal/v24/n4/full/scientificamer icanmind0913-46.html o Self testing and spreading out study sessions o Elaborate interrogation o Self-explanation: how do I know? o Interleaved practice: mixing apples and oranges, different subjects o Brain games don’t work “little evidence…. improves underlying broad cognitive abilities…. better navigate a complex realm of everyday life” Milgram studies of obedience and authority: o Volunteer asked to play role of a teacher in learning experiment (paired associate learning) o Asked to administer electric shocks when responds incorrectly o Factors affecting obedience to authority: perceived authority of the person giving orders, presence of a contradicting authority, proximity of victim, level of direct responsibility for the outcome o Blind obedience more likely to occur when people shift the responsibility for their actions onto someone or something else History of Philosophy: o Part of philosophy o Empirical science – defined itself o Introspection first psychologist, Wilhelm Wundt  failed peoples self report

Functionalism – William James, defining psychological processes Behaviourism – subjective experience could not be verified by an objective observer, observable behaviour qualified as scientific o Radical behaviourism – BF Skinner, John Watson o Methodological behaviourism – acceptable to study internal states as long as linked to observable behaviours (Edward Tolman) o Psychoanalysis- Freud, many important psychological events are unconscious o Neuroscience – don’t tell you about behaviour, tells memories/associations are formed Level of analysis As a natural science o Empirical based on systematic observation o Experiments manipulate one variable to observe effect on another o Analysis – examine data to determine conclusions that can be drawn o Theory - used to generate predictions and summarise existing knowledge o Public – results are subject to review by others, peer review o Science knowing about empirical state of psychology, be cynical o o

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04/03/15: Clinical Perspectives in Psychology: 

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Stress disorders: PTSD, after disasters, terrorism, war accidents etc. (marked by distressing memories of event, anxiety, avoidance of reminders – affects 10% of survivors) Managing stress responses: common response trauma counselling ‘psychological debriefing’ - many millions spent each year Psychological debriefing: 48 hours of trauma, discuss experience/emotional responses, intended prevent PTSD  doesn’t work Measurement: o Assess people before treatment – standardized measures o Find starting point of distress o Properly developed measurement tools are essential Comparison: o Treatment to compare against – know if treatment works o Observed changes may be due to: time, attention received, repeated assessments, must have comparative condition Bias: o Avoid biased allocation to treatment condition o Randomization o Assessment bias: assessment after treatment, independent assessment, ‘blind’ assessment (not biased by knowing what treatment was given) Double blind studies: o Drug trials involve these designs o Patients don’t know what treatment they’re getting o Clinicians don’t know what drugs they are giving Quality checks: o Procedures followed properly o Treatment ‘fidelity’ checks – do what they say they’re doing o Video/voice recording

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Psychological debriefing: o Above principles ignored o Believed worked because they like it o Controlled trials have now proven that debriefing doesn’t prevent psychological disorders Randomized controlled trials: check if its working o Random allocation to groups o Independent assessments o Standardized assessments o Strict protocols for interventions o Checks that interventions are valid

What does basic psychology say about trauma responses?  Classical condition: o Main model work with borrowed from neuro-animal science o Rat in a chamber – give light shock, and turn light on at same time  teaches that light means danger o Turn light on, fear response – freezing, potentiated startle, heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones o Fear conditioning models: electric shock (trauma), rat’s fright (fear), light (reminders), fear to light (distress)  shaping understand PTSD  Extinction: new learning, stimuli are repeatedly presented but without a negative outcome, teaches stimuli its now signalling safety (light without shock)  10-20% failed extinction learning, develop PTSD o How humans respond to stress o Help understand people at risk for PTSD o Possible leads to better prevention methods  Treatment: o Putting humans back to remind in a safe way leads to new learning world is safer – hearing sounds etc.  Animal neuroscience shape clinical practice: o Same brain regions underpinning extinction predict exposure therapy for fear in humans * o Glutamate – excitatory neurotransmitter – linked to emotional learning, increasing G experimentally pre extinction trials, can increase extinction learning o DCS – taken before sessions, leads to better outcomes in panic disorders, OCD, PTSD, social anxiety 09/03/15: Personality: psychodynamic approaches What is personality?   

William James- ‘whenever two people meet there are six present. There is the man as he sees himself, each as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is’ Questionnaires determine personalities 14th century = as a person  individuality  associated with charm charisma (20th century)

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Psychological differences between people (thought, emotion – expressive etc., behaviour – some people argue only learn personality through behaviour) Generally distinct from intellectual abilities Enduring dispositions – don’t go away with time, traits are generally stable Generalised patterns of responding Encompasses underlying psychological mechanisms – funder ‘an individuals characteristic patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour, together with the psychological mechanisms – hidden or not – behind those patterns’

Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic Approaches:  

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Unconscious mind (hidden motives, that influence our personality)/ intrapsychic conflict (conflict between unconscious desires and the conscious mind) Trait approaches: o Describing how people differ psychologically o Determining which features are important o How we should conceptualize and measure these features Genetic approaches: o Inherit some of our personality from parents – 15%-50% o Genes+ environment= our personality o Evolution has help select traits that ensure survival of the species o Nature and nurture Phenomenological approaches: o Understanding subjective reality (PA) o Focus on experience o Becoming the best person we can be o Existential anxiety, creativity, free will o Cross-culture  phenomenology varies across cultures Learning approaches: o Focus on measureable behaviours o Personality shaped by rewards, punishments, and expectations in life Where does it fit:

Focus on difference between people (PP), whereas psychology focuses on what makes us the same o Focus is on whole persons in their daily environments – level of abstraction, o Distinct from social psychology – internal vs. external influences, stability vs. malleability (what sort of situational features cause people to change) Distinct from clinical psychology o Several important personality psychologist had clinical training and saw clients o Pervasive problems in functioning associated with personality = personality disorders o Both fields study ‘whole person’, one at a time o

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Psychodynamic approaches:   

Talking cure Roar shock test – ink blots Freud: o His ideas dominated psychology for nearly 100 years o Many of his ideas are still with us today in altered form o His ideas are often misunderstood in popular culture o Working in Victorian England o Neurologist – seeing patients with hysteria o Hypnotised them – found they were sexually abused as children

10/03/15: Personality: 

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Freud: o Source of problem of hysteria stems from the unconscious o The mind is a place of conflict o Emphasis on childhood experiences – wasn’t considered a special time (child labour – seen as source of revenue), Freud changed this view o Emphasis on sexuality o Three models of F – topographic, structural, genetic Topographic: o Conscious is the tip of the ice berg (thoughts perceptions) o Preconscious – could access this but don’t pay attention to it (memories, stored knowledge) o Unconscious – largest component, the repressed desires/urges that is kept down – Freud suggests that there are mechanisms to suppress urges (fears, violent motives, unacceptable sexual desires, immoral urgers, irrational wishes, selfish needs, shameful experiences)

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Hydraulic model – unconscious trying to push its way up Dreams: Latent content (meaning behind the dream) – manifest content (the transformation of the content) Slips – unconscious desires slip out

Structural o Id (es) – wants it now, wants maximised pleasure, immediate gratification, sex, death, operates by primary process (drive) – desire to create and destroy o Ego (ich) – conscience, reality principle, the sense of self, Ego defence mechanisms, operates by ‘secondary process’ o Super ego (uber-ich) – rational, socialised, internalized standards and values, conscience and guild o Ego defence mechanisms – projection (attribute an unconscious impulse, attitude, trait, or behaviour to someone else, help you hide the unwanted object from yourself), false consensus effect (overestimating the percentage of other people who share ones traits/opinions/preferences/motivations, protects self-esteem by reducing the distinctiveness of ones bad traits, derived from suppressing bad traits and causes ‘rebound effect’), reaction formation (converting a socially unacceptable impulse into its opposite), displacement (satisfying an impulse on a substitute object, displaced aggression – kicking the dog), isolation (putting mental space between a threatening cognition and other aspects of the self, temporal bracketing ‘born again’, addiction recovery, divorce/break-ups, juvenile crimes), sublimation (rechannelling an impulse into a more socially appropriate outlet, sexual desire into art) Genetic o Psychosexual stages- sexuality centres on the mouth, anus and then genitals o Fixation – staying in one stage too long Age Name Pleasure source Conflict/effect of fixation 0-2 Oral Sucking, biting, Weaning from swallowing mothers breast/passive dependence or excessive smoking or eating 2-4

Anal

Defecating or retaining faeces

Toilet training, self control/ retentive, obsessive neatness, expulsive, reckless, disorganised

4-5

Phallic

Genitals

6-puberty

Latency

Sexual urges sublimated into sports and hobbies, same sex friends help

Oedipus (boys), Electra (girls) Usually no fixation at this stage, but if so, sexual immaturity and dissatisfaction

Puberty onward

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Genital

avoid sexual feelings Physical changes reawaken repressed needs. Direct sexual feelings towards others lead to sexual gratification

Social rules/ frigidity, impotence, unsatisfactory relationships

Critique: o Freud’s account of motivation rests in 2 instincts (sex/death)?  Study against that o Inference problems – wild arbitrary claims o Unreliable o The data are by nature ambiguous o Psychoanalytic theory is based on ‘soft’ evidence – data aren’t publically available, objectivity is compromised, interpersonal expectancies o Falsifiability problem – Karl Pooper ‘No need for data. Clinical evidence is sufficient’ o What does the data support – unconscious mental processes, conflict between unconscious and conscious processes, some defence mechanisms

11/03/15: Behaviourist/Learning/Conditioning Theories of Personality Radical vs. moderate behaviourism:  Personality is observable and measurable  Behaviourist movement as a reaction against psychology’s focus on unmeasurable phenomena o Wundt’s introspection o Freud’s unconscious  Wundt’s o All born with a blank slate, just depends on environment o No genetic predisposition o Personality is the sum total of the experiences o Stimulus-response contingencies (classical conditioning) o Reinforcement contingencies – punishments or rewards (operant/instrumental conditioning)  Skinner: o Radical behaviourism the contents of the organism aren’t important in explaining behaviour (all RB) o ‘No need to talk about bonds, connections, satisfactions, or discomforts’ o Three elements: stimulus, response, reinforcements  Moderate behaviourism: o The contents of the organism are important in explaining behaviour o MB e.g. social learning theorists and cognitive behaviourists

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Will use terms describing activities inside the organism e.g. habits, motives, drive, expectancies, thoughts

Classic conditioning:  Dog salivating  Dog phobia – being bitter = fear, seeing dog=fear  John Watson – baby albert, fury animal with bell  Can reverse phobia: o Extinction - Not bitten – no fear, pair with dogs  eventually learn you don’t get bit and overcome fear o Systematic desensitization: think of dog = fear, relaxation response = no fear, pair with dog = no fear o Aversion therapy: smoke=pleasure, put nauseating substance on cigarette = nausea, pair with smoking cigarette = nausea  How is this personality: according to behaviourist approach, personality is what we do – sum total of observable, measurable behaviours  Unconscious or unobservable reasons are irrelevant to behaviourist approaches to personality Operant/instrumental conditioning:  Reinforcement: increasing the frequency or probability of a behaviour by presenting or removing a stimulus following that behaviour  Punishment: decreasing the frequency or probability of a behaviour by presenting or removing a stimulus following that behaviour  Positive reinforcement: increasing frequency of a behaviour by presenting an appetitive stimulus following the behaviour e.g. press level – get food  Negative reinforcement: increase frequency of a behaviour by removing an aversive stimulus following the behaviour e.g. press level – shock ends  Positive punishment: decreasing frequency of behaviour by presenting an aversive stimulus following the behaviour e.g. cheat on exam – fail the course  Negative punishment: decreasing the frequency of a behaviour by removing an appetitive stimulus following behaviour e.g. break rules – no cigarettes  Two stage theories of phobias: o Phobias are acquires by classical conditioning – neutral us is pairs with a CS that produces fear o Phobias are maintained by operant conditioning: each time the phobic object is removed or avoided negative reinforcement occurs, because the phobic object is always avoided, the phobic never learns the object is harmless  Schedules of reinforcements: o Continuous reinforcements, get reinforces every time you engage in the behaviour, extinction is easy o Fixed interval reinforcement: get reinforced every n hours/minutes/seconds/days e.g. weekly pay check o Variable interval reinforcement: get reinforced on average every n hours/minutes/seconds/days e.g. checking for rewarding emails on random schedule o Fixed ratio reinforcement: get reinforce for every n responses e.g. piecework, freelance work o Variable ratio reinforcement: get reinforced for, on average, every n responses e.g. checking FB 100 times a day

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Extinguishing a response: e.g. fixed interval – how long before you quit if the paychecks stop coming regularly? / Variable ration – how long does it take for someone to stop gambling? Or stop checking FB?

16/03/15: Humanistic Perspectives Basics of Humanistic Theories:  Phenomenology: the study of conscious experience as it exists for the person, without an attempt to reduce, divide or compartmentalise it in every way  Focus on phenomenology  Believe in free will  Believe meaning is important – influenced by existential philosophers (Sarte, Nietzche, Kierkegaard)  Emphasize the uniqueness of each individual  Personal growth – personality tends to change in a good way if we are in a good environment  Enjoying the ‘here and now’ – being in the moment  On human nature: humanists see it as basically good  Optimistic vs. pessimism – Humanist optimistic about humanity and the future  Personality change – driven to change  Effect of culture: o Carl Rogers: In a psychological climate which is nurturing of growth and choice, I have never known an individual to choose the cruel or destructive path, it is cultural influences which are the major actor in our evil behaviours  culture can manipulate us o Can distort our inherit goodness o Happier people earn more money o People in higher income countries tend to be happier (0.67) o Does money buy happiness – on average yes o Amish just as happy as richest people – social needs being met o Within a country wealth isn’t a strong predictor o Countries that get richer don’t necessarily get happier o Money is necessary but not sufficient to be happy – need to have basic needs met, once that is so, the amount of money is going to have an incremental effect on your happiness  Roger’s theory: o Actualising theory, built in motivation to develop its potential to the fullest extent possible o Organismic valuing process: subconscious guide that attracts people to growth producing experience and away from growth inhibiting experience o Positive regard: experiencing love, affection, attention, nurturance and so on o Positive self-regard: self esteem, self-worth, a positive self image  achieved through parental unconditional positive regard o Insert photo o What personality characteristics would make the very best you? 1. Openness to experiences: receptive to the objective and subjective happenings of life, expanded consciousness, able to tolerate ambiguity 2. Existential living: living fully in each moment e.g. mindfulness

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3. Organismic trusting: allowing ourselves ot be guided by the organismic valuing process 4. Experiential freedom: we feel free when we have choices 5. Creativity: adapting to new situations, creative expression Creative environment: facilitates openness to experience, facilitates internal locus of evaluation, provides the ability to toy with conceptual elements and ideas Experiment: 1. IV=Leadership style: Rogerian style, structured, considerate 2. The Problem: Design a method of releasing water to the family dog while on holidays 3. DV = creativity ratings  Rogerian more creat...