PSYC3011 Research and Applications in Psychology (PSYC3011)
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PSYC3011 Research and Applications in Psychology (Distinction Lecture and Final Exam Notes)
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Course
PSYC3011 Research and Applications in Psychology (PSYC3011)
Institution
University Of New South Wales (UNSW
)
These notes are for the course PSYC3011 Research and Applications in Psychology, taken from Term 3 of 2020. The notes are structured well for easy navigation, cover all key points and are great got test preparation.
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1) The fixed topics for the first...
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Week 1 - History of Psychology (Part 1/6)
Part 1: Why Study History of Psychology?
Prof Branka Spehar
A bit of background about Psychology
Psychology originates from Greek psychē (meaning “breath of life, soul, spirit”) and
logos, meaning “speech, word, reason”).
The first mention of the term “psychology”?
Rudolph Goclenius the Elder (Rudolf Göckle) (1547-1628)
- In 1590 in Marburg, published a tractate believed to be the first preserved printed book
to contain the word "psychology in its Greek form.
- His work is repeated by Otto Casmann (1562-1607: a student of Goclenius wrote
"Psychologia Anthropologica" in 1594.
However, at least 66 years prior to 1590s, the term "psychology" was used by a Croatian
poet and scholar, Marko Marulic (1450-1524), in one of his Latin treatises > the work itself
is not yet found, but the title "Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae" appears in a
bibliography of his works and.
“Psychology has a long past, but only a short history.” Hermann Ebbinghaus, 1885
It has a long past because people have always sought to understand themselves and others.
- Ancient History, Classical Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance, Modern Philosophy
It has a short history because the discipline has only been in existence since 1879 when
Wundt established the first psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig in
Germany.
By creating an academic laboratory devoted to the study of experimental psychology,
Wundt officially took psychology from a sub-discipline of philosophy, biology and
medicine to a unique scientific discipline.
Why Study the History of Psychology?
1) Critical Thinking Skills: To perform an “archeology of psychological knowledge” and
sharpen our critical thinking about the discipline.
2) (Better-informed) Perspective:
There are enduring conceptual issues in psychology and historical perspective
allows us to consider current psychological ideas in terms of their historical roots
and contributions through past scientists/ philosophers.
Allows a fuller appreciation for contemporary psychology and its issues
, 3) Deeper understanding
Allows us to have a greater awareness of where psychology’s subject matter came
from and why it is considered important.
4) Recognition of fads or fashions in psychology
The ability to recognize that a current avenue of research or body of knowledge may
be affected by subjective and arbitrary factors of society (the “Zeitgeist”).
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making
them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new
generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Max Planck (1908) Aka: “Science
advances one funeral at a time”
- He’s essentially saying that often the status quo doesn’t change until a new generation
of scientists is taught in a particular way that enables that change
5) A source of valuable ideas
Individuals can became familiar with earlier ideas which may have remained
dormant for various reasons (the Zeitgeist wasn’t right!).
6) General Interest; Curiosity;
Examples of interesting facts:
Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden; or, Life in the Woods
A famous reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings,
Walden Two: Walden Two is a novel, first published in 1948, written by behavioral
psychologist B. F. Skinner. It is Skinner's utopian vision for enhancing social justice and
human well-being.
“Either we do nothing and allow a miserable and probably catastrophic future to
overtake us, or we use our knowledge about human behavior to create a social
environment in which we shall live productive and creative lives and do so without
jeopardizing the chances that those who follow us will be able to do the same. Something
like a Walden Two would not be a bad start. (p. xvi)”
Very popular book.
John B Watson
Conducted the “Little Albert” experiment.
- Little baby Albert is exposed to all kinds of strange animals, monkeys, some familiar
animals like dogs, rat in front of the baby and baby just doesn't react with fear at all.
- So after establishing that the baby was not afraid of these animals, they conditioned
fear by pairing the sight of the animal, whenever the animal was shown, with
unconditional stimulus for fear, which was a loud sound, and after quite a few of these
, pairings (a process which is called classical conditioning: unconditioned stimulus for
fear paired with conditional stimulus, which can be anything) little Albert has
developed fear of animals.
- So this is now he's shown rat and he tries to crawl away; he cries; he doesn't like it.
Though this unconditional stimulus for fear, sound was paired with rat, it transferred,
it has generalized to all other furry animals. So Albert was then afraid of rabbits, of
dogs, of puppies, of all other animals, even a furry stuffed animal, and even of John
Watson in a mask.
- Interestingly, there has been a whole industry of papers devoted to whatever happened
to Little Albert and trying to establish its identity and trying to consider ethical
circumstances under which this research was published.
Watson got fired from his academic post at Johns Hopkins University. He was dismissed
for his scandalous divorce.
He subsequently began working for U.S. advertising agency J. Walter Thompson where he
rose to a vicepresidency in less than two years
Watson headed a number of high-profile advertising campaigns, particularly for Ponds
cold cream and other personal-care products. He believed that in order for advertising to
be effective, it should appeal to basic emotions: love, fear and rage.
7) Avoiding repetition of mistakes
By far the most important reason to study the History of Psychology
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, George Santayana
Example 1: Sigmund Freud:
Sigmund Freud had one of the most exciting theories about the unconscious mind,
conscious mind, development of personality. His theory generated excitement that was
perhaps only rivaled by Einstein's theory of general relativity, equally popular at a time,
and while Einstein's theory of general relativity, evolved into foundations of everything
that we know about the structure of our world and the universe, the way the universe
developed and where it is actually going to head, Freud's teachings and his theory just fell
into insignificance.
The primary reason for this was that both theories were very speculative at first; they were
just theoretical constructs that were not verified, but Einstein was very open to
verifications and empirical confirmation and that has made his theory flourished and go
from strength to strength.
Freud on the other hand was not a fan of experimental verification of his theoretical
predictions and subsequently his theory essentially died out despite the fact that it had
many, many brilliant ideas embedded in it, but it just was not opened for empirical
verifications in original postulates, and nor is it now in the way the psychoanalysis is
actually practiced.
, Example 2: Franz Joseph Gall
“The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in
Particular” (1808)
Main claims:
- The moral and intellectual faculties are innate
- Their exercise or manifestation depends on organization
- The brain is the organ of all the propensities, sentiments and faculties
- The brain is composed of as many particular organs as there are propensities,
sentiments and faculties which differ essentially from each other.
- The form of the head or cranium represents the form of the brain, and thus reflects the
relative development of the brain organs.
Later, all of these claims had been confirmed except the last one which claims that we can
measure the strength of the development of different functions in the brain by measuring
the size of the skull features outside of the brain.
However, our enthusiasm with measuring how big different parts of our brain are in order
to be able to tell or explain the differences between people’s behaviors, has not been
abandoned to this day.
E.g. Political orientations are correlated with brain structure in young adults.
Argues:
- Political liberalism and conservatism were correlated with brain structure
- Liberalism was associated with the gray matter volume of anterior cingulate cortex
- Conservatism was associated with increased right amygdala size
- Results offer possible accounts for cognitive styles of liberals and conservatives
E.g. Online social network size is reflected in human brain structure.
Challenges to Attempting to Achieve a Broad (and Balanced) View of the History of
Psychology
Training in psychology alone is insufficient:
Psychology has evolved as a part of many diverse disciplines including philosophy,
physiology, medicine, even astronomy… Philosophy and physiology were the most
influential though..
In order to be able to get all the details from the history of psychology we really
need to go into the history of all of these different sub disciplines and that is actually
really hard.
Otherwise we risk bits of histories of those sub disciplines that do belong to
psychology, being essentially interpreted by people who aren’t psychologists and
perhaps overlook or underappreciate it as a result.
A balanced view of history is very hard to achieve: (Presentism vs
Historicism)
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