Monthly Archives: January 2014

The Humanistic Perspective

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Of the modern perspectives of psychology, I find the humanistic approach to be the most relevant to everyday life.  Humanistic psychology focuses on the spiritual aspect of one’s thoughts, dealing with self-actualization or the ability to live up to one’s full potential.  It says that humans are innately “good” in nature, and disturbances, socially or mentally, are our way of straying from this natural tendency.  In turn, our ethical and moral values are derived from our own perception of ourselves, or who we desire to be.

As freshman in college, we were placed in a new environment, completely different from that of which we were used to in our hometowns.  No longer surrounded by our usual group of friends and family, we have the choice of who we want to become friends with, what we want to do with our time, and who we want to be as a person.  They say college is a time to find yourself.  I’ve found this statement holds many truths.  Having so much time to reflect on yourself and what you want to do with your life, you seem to come to terms with who you want to be as an individual.  You have the opportunity to join the clubs you are interested in, and participate in organizations that are of interest to you, helping you to find yourself creatively.  Also being surrounded by strangers most of the time, you realize how much the smallest interactions can effect someone’s day.  This consequently, at least in my opinion, motivates you to behave more kindly to the people around you.  This corresponds to the part of the humanistic approach that says your behaviors are a direct result of your developed morals and ethics.  From experience, I have found that the humanistic approach of modern day psychology applies to many aspects of everyday life.

Nature vs. Nurture

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The argument of nature vs. nurture can be dated as far back as 300 BC during Socrates and Plato’s time. These Greeks introduced the term nativism (nature) as the idea that our thoughts, ideas, and characteristics are inborn. In other words, we are believed to be born with these thoughts, ideas and characteristics, and that they are already in our genes. On the other hand, Aristotle introduced the idea to us of empiricism, or nurture. He described this as knowledge is gained through experience (senses). Our thoughts and ways are not because of our genetic make-up, but because of how we were raised and brought up by our parents and overall lifestyle.

I believe that my elder sister and I are a prime example of the argument of nature vs. nurture. For our entire lives, we have been brought up by the same parents, in the same household. We attended the same school district, went on the same vacations, had the same household rules- basically experienced all of the same big events and occurrences throughout our childhood lives. So what explains why we have turned out oh, so different?

Hands down, I am a “type B” person and my sister, without a question, is “type A”. Her personality and ways of being fit the structured, disciplined and “black or white, right or wrong” lifestyle. To describe me on the other hand, basically take all of that and turn it around! My personality is very easy-going, go-with-the-flow, and I do not enjoy intense schedules or structure. We are definitely at two opposite ends of the spectrum!

So if essentially everything was the same and equal when we were growing up, what explains the difference in our personalities? In our case, I would have to argue that it is definitely nature. Nature holds true in my situation because even though the majority of our lives were the same, in the same environment with the same upbringing etc, we turned out to be two totally different people with different personalities, thoughts and feelings. If nurture was the case, we would have grown up to have much more similar personalities, and would have the same thoughts and opinions etc. on various topics; there would be not much to distinguish between the two of us much beyond physical appearance.

Nature may not be the case in every sibling’s situation, but it is definitely the case when it comes to my sister and I. Even though our personalities have definitely clashed here or there along the way, I’d say we balance each other out pretty well, most of the time!

Behaviorism/Natural Observation

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Sometimes in psychology, being able to visually see a particular theory or concept can be tricky, but that is not the case when it comes to behaviorism. Behaviorism focuses on people’s behavior and the way it can change depending on their environment. It is a part of psychology that is more than just trying to examine the inside of the brain and that’s why it interests me so much. You are actually able to see the changes in someone if their environment around them changes rather than having to hook up some crazy machine to test the neurons in their brain. A more modern way of studying behavior is behavioral psychology and that focuses more on punishment and reinforcement and how those things will affect a person’s behavior.

For me, I’ve witnessed behavioral psychology all the time. For all my life up until high school I was a gymnast. Before every competition we would always practice our routines over and over again. After awhile, you start to get tired and seem to not care quite as much. Obviously our coach wasn’t able to watch all of us at the same time so we could get away with slacking a little bit. Towards the end of each workout, our coach would watch each of our routines one at a time. We called these “pressure routines.” If the routine was up to her standards we would be rewarded in someway, and if she did not approve of the routine there would be some sort of consequence. Since we knew we would be rewarded for a good performance, all of our routines suddenly got a little bit better, even though we were all exhausted. There were still times when we had to do the consequence, but for the most part people performed better and their behavior changed.

That example does not only touch on the topic of behaviorism and behavioral psychology, but also naturalistic observation. We knew that when we were being watched, we needed to perform to the best of our ability. However, at the times when our coach wasn’t watching us, we were able to take it easy to give ourselves a break. We wouldn’t slack off every practice, or take advantage of our coach on a daily basis, but there was an obvious difference in people’s performances when the pressure was on and they were being watched. In addition, it wasn’t just being watched that made behaviors change. The entire environment changed and became much more serious since our coach and teammates were watching. Because of these behavioral changes that occur when someone knows they are being watched or rewarded for something, psychologists know to be careful and aware of these things when study people’s behavior.

Psychoanalysis

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In the early 1900’s, a man who became known as “The Founder of Psychoanalysis” emphasized the importance of childhood experiences. Today, Sigmund Freud’s theory is still useful and relatable in everyday life. Freud focused on the early mind, and believed personality was formed in the first 6 years of life. The idea of psychoanalysis focused on the belief that childhood experiences greatly influenced the development of later personality traits and psychological problems. He emphasized the idea of an “unconscious mind”. I can personally relate to the idea that childhood events can develop later psychological problems. When I was about six or seven, I was in the car with my mom driving through a torrential down pour. I vividly remember coming to a curve in the road, skidding, and crashing into a tree. I remember having to be pulled out of the car, and having to see my mom full of panic and terror. The scream that came from my mom as we skid will forever replay in my head each time that I drive in bad weather.  I had an excessive amount of nightmares about the crash, and to this day it still effects me. I did not notice the great effect that this crash had on me until I got my license, and was able to drive by myself for the first time. The first time that it rained, even just a drizzle, the fear that came upon me was unexplainable.  All that I could picture was my mom’s car up against the tree. I mentally could not drive, and had to pull over until the rain stopped. After this experience, I realized that even something that happened so long in the past could so drastically affect present events.  Also, Freud believed that in order to overcome psychological problems rooted form childhood, one must face that specific event.  Relating to Freud’s belief, in order to overcome my fears, I had to drive with my mom several times in the rain before I was able to drive by myself successfully. Driving in the rain is such an insignificant task for many people, but a simple childhood event can make mindless tasks huge obstacles. To this day, 3 years after having my license, and 12 years after the incident, I still got anxious and uneasy every time I am forced to drive in the rain. Clearly, Sigmund Freud’s idea that childhood experiences could lead to psychological problems is evident through my own experiences.

Empiricism and Rationalism

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Aristotle was the philosopher to start empiricism.  Empiricism means that everything you experience in life causes you to create conclusions and gain knowledge about different parts of life.  When you’re looking out the window of your house or apartment ready for your walk to school or work, you see a large group of people walking down the street shivering and wearing many layers of clothing.  Through reasonable and logical thought, you can conclude that they are experiencing cold weather and you should follow their lead in wearing your winter coat.

Empiricism can be lost for certain people though.  When you were a kid, some parents would talk about how if you put a tooth under the pillow and fell asleep the tooth fairy would replace the tooth with change.  As children, we believed in the story because it was a reward for a natural part of life.  After learning the truth, you realize the foolish notions that were believed even though there was no evidence of a real tooth fairy.  Our experience was positive for blindly believing in the tooth fairy, so the evidence was not disputed in any way.

In this day and age, the internet has a ridiculous amount of information that can be processed in the shortest amount of time.  Through some artistic talent, any information on the internet can be polished to look real and legitimate.  Many people look at this information as true evidence without the citations or references to establish fact.  These people look at strings of information and draw their own conclusions on false information.  These conspiracy theorists are extremely passionate with their thought process and beliefs due to the supposed facts from the internet and the obvious related experiences.  This relates to illusory correlation in which people draw their own conclusion on random events even though there is no relation to it.  The people truly believe in the correlation between so many of the events because they don’t dispute the evidence before them and they believe in what they want to believe.  Empiricism is completely confused by the people with rationalism.  Rationalism is the thought process that puts reason as the primary source of information needed to attain knowledge.  Rationalizations are mainly used to justify a certain thought process without the use of empirical evidence.

 

Sociocultural Perspective

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When looking at modern perspectives of psychology, one of my favorite ones to study is the idea of sociocultural, or how others influence you and you influence others. While it is somewhat of an obvious perspective, I find it to have such a strong influence on people. Even though I also believe that the other six modern perspectives are all important, I find myself relying on this one most often. Many times after meeting new people or learning things about old friends, I will find myself justifying their actions based off of what I have learned about their social factors and culture. I feel that learning about one’s social factors in their life can help tell you a great deal about their behaviors and why people act the way they do.

One sociocultural factor that I truly believe had an impact on me was my mother and her hatred for all seafood. For the last twenty one years of my life, my mom cooked dinner almost every night and had never made a seafood dinner. She hates to eat any sort of fish, cannot stand the smell, and so she also hates to cook it and actually refuses to. Since I have grown up never trying seafood and never having to smell it’s fishy aroma, I also have adopted this attitude. I cannot stand to smell the stench that seafood produces and any seafood that I have newly and recently tried I hate. To be completely honest though, I think a majority of this notion is in my head as it was what I was raised hearing and what became a part of my culture. Some seafood does not have the fishy taste and I still claim I do not like it but often I wonder to myself if that is actually true or if it is just too unfamiliar for me to say I like it? Fish was never a food served at dinner or social gatherings in my culture, so therefore I have learned to never eat fish for dinner or at social gatherings. I do think everyones social factors and cultures have such a strong impact on their lives and decisions, and now I have evidence to blame my mother for being the sociocultural reason that I will not touch seafood either.

Naturalistic Observations

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As far as descriptive research goes, naturalistic observation should provide the truest results based on how that observation is conducted compared to the others such as laboratory observation, case studies, and surveying. Naturalistic observation has the huge advantage of gathering information from people in their natural settings; you are able to watch people’s real behavior for research.

Throughout high school I used to lifeguard at our city pool. In the beginning of each summer we would run some tests on the new swimmers who signed up for swim lessons.  Our goal was to separate the swimmers not by age but by ability. Since the population we observed was usually a group of younger kids ranging from 5-8 years old, we would observe how they swam with just the instructor there compared to swimming with the rest of the group with only the lifeguards watching.  One of the major disadvantages of naturalistic observation is that if people know they are being watched, they will change their behavior. So, by putting kids in the natural setting (the pool with the other kids in their age group with the lifeguard watching like normal) versus having the swimmer swim for the instructor (swim in front of someone they know is testing them for swim lessons), we were able to see their true abilities.

Our results consistently showed that without the pressure of the instructor watching them swim, they performed much better in a natural setting with their peers in front of the lifeguard as they normally would in the pool. If we would have solely went off the results of their swimming performance in front of the instructor, we wouldn’t have been able to split up the swimmers as much as we would have liked to based on ability. This goes to show that compared to laboratory observation, naturalistic observation provides the better result because it is based on someone’s normal behavior.

“Motivated to seek pleasure, not pain”

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Behavior is truly a fascinating concept to try to understand. It has long been the topic of many heated discussions from even the “Pre-Greek” times. Humans are pleasure seeking individuals. It is sad to say it but humans are selfish in terms of their desires. Aristotle stated that concept perfectly and exposed it with his research. He noticed that humans are motivated to seek what feels good to them and place a long distance on what doesn’t. What is incredible about that is that what he thought, holds true even in our modern times. People hate to do what they don’t like doing and that is understandable but because of that, they tend to make extremely impulsive decisions based on what their own desires are. And what their desires aren’t always the best thing for them.

I used to have a friend, we will call him James for the purpose of this story. He was a very devoted Christian who went to church every Sunday, always made sure the things that he did never counteracted with his morals, what you would describe as the “perfect little church boy”. But that was when James was in his younger more naïve years. Once he reached high school, it seemed like a switch just went off in him that was causing him to act in ways that no one has ever seen him act before. Drugs, sex with almost anyone, disrespecting his parents and crazy parties became somewhat of a common lifestyle for James. And whenever someone would approach him about it, he always gave the same response, “I just feel like doing it. It makes me happy, don’t judge me.” I’ve even spoken to him and it is clear that he knows that what he is doing is wrong. He realizes and accepts that and continues to go against all that he is founded on and all that his religion asks of him…all because he “feels like it”.

It seems as though more and more people are just doing anything because they really believe that they should have that right and no one should take away that right. Aristotle’s take on how people behave was a brilliant one but also a blatant one. If you study any person, you can tell that it is their innate instinct to do what they want to do. They don’t want to be held down by rules or people telling them to do otherwise so they go out of their way to rebel and do whatever they were going to do in the first place. It is the way it has been, the way it is now and the way it will continue to be. I am not necessarily saying that there is something wrong with people following their own desires, but it is some of the decisions that people make that really raises the question of if following your desires is always the right thing. People like to be themselves and I get it, but being too vain and disregarding criticism sometimes can lead you to be something you never thought you would be.

Nature vs. Nurture

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Aristotle believed that human beings gain everything they know through personal experiences. He developed this idea of empiricism, which most people will refer to as the nurture side of the Nature vs. Nurture debate. Besides looking nearly identical to my mom, I also act a lot like her. We share the same interests, ranging from what type of movies we want to watch to our favorite types of food to our views about the world. I believe that I adapted these preferences because that’s what I grew up around the most. We almost have the same clothing style. We have the same sense of humor.  We are both very interested in health and nutrition. We both enjoy cooking. We have the same love for shopping. We have similar tastes in music too. There are so many learned behaviors that I now possess because of the time I have spent with my mom.

On the other side of the spectrum, Plato and Socrates gave us the idea that behaviors and thoughts are inborn. They described this as nativism, which was the nature side of the debate. I believe this also has a strong effect on people. I think the way I handle my emotions is incredibly similar to the way my mom handles situations. We very rarely get angry. If we do, we just end up crying because we get so stressed out. However, my sister and my dad are both incredibly short-tempered. They are definitely yellers when they get frustrated. The two of them have also had to deal with depression, while my mom and I have never had to go through that. I believe that the ways my sister and I handle our emotions were completely genetic.

Obviously, both nativism and empiricism come into play with developing a person’s behavior. It’s difficult to pinpoint which traits are learned and which traits are innate. People change their behaviors daily. We don’t change drastically, but we are all constantly trying to be the person we aspire to be. We observe the people around us, and we may begin to pick up their admirable traits as our own. We can never completely alter who we were born as though because, as we all know, some things just can’t change.

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Welcome to the Psych 100 Blog Page

If you are a PSYCH 100 student you will need to get started by logging into the blog page by clicking “Log in” at the top of this page. Once you log in, you can start creating your blog entries.

The purpose of the blog is to allow students to write about the course concepts as they observe those concepts in real life. Sort of like a personal news story. The trick is to start thinking like a  psychologist; seeing the theories and concepts in action.

While the blog is less formal than term papers or other similar assignments, remember that you are writing for an audience (classmates, instructor, visitors, etc.) so you will want to have strong logic, grammar, spelling, formatting, etc. in addition to strong ideas/content. You are highly encouraged to bring in graphics and outside links so that your readers can learn more about the ideas that you are presenting.

Have fun!