Model Responses to the College Preparatory Psychology Exam of the New Salem Educational Initiative

Model Responses


College Preparatory Psychology Exam


Composed by Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.


Director, New Salem Educational Initiative

I.  Identification   (30 points)

                                    

1.  id        >>>>>        

The id is a psychoanalytical concept of Sigmund Freud, specifically the part the part of the human personality shaped by biological drives such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire.  Behavior governed by the id is impulsive and non-cognitive.

 

2.  ego     >>>>>       

The ego is a psychoanalytical concept of Sigmund Freud, specifically the part of the human personality shaped by the quest for personal identity.  Behavior governed by the ego is self-focused, as the person endeavors to establish herself or himself in the world, with reference to education, employment, mating behavior, family formation, and activities that bring prestige.  The ego is the driver of the personality that keeps both the id and the ego in check, adapting the goals of those other parts of the personality in ways that do not damage but rather forward the purposes of the ego.

 

3.  superego            >>>>>                    

The superego a is a psychoanalytical concept of Sigmund Freud, specifically the part of the human personality that is shaped by one’s sense of morality and ethics as originally imparted by one’s parents.  At its best, the superego impels the person toward behavior that demonstrates and altruistic and empathetic concern for others.  But, inasmuch as not all parents are moral exemplars and not all formative experiences nurture altruistic and empathic behavior, a person’s superego depends on the moral and ethical framework of the individual as conveyed by parents and
developed in the context of personal experience.

 

4.  positive reinforcement        >>>>>            

 

Positive reinforcement is the behaviorist concept of B. F. Skinner, specifically the reward that the organism (person or other animal)  receives for exhibiting a given behavior.  Positive reinforcement may be primary, such as the presentation of food and water for a given response, or it may be secondary;  the latter may be presented in a multitude of ways, with for example monetary reward, advancement on the job, hugs, smiles, and verbal expressions of approval at the time or soon after the organism behaves in a certain way.

 

5.  negative reinforcement        >>>>>

 

Negative reinforcement is the discontinuation of aversive conditions when the organism demonstrates desired behavior in the presence of the person or persons who have established the aversive circumstances.  In essence, this is often the termination of punishment when the organism discontinues behavior that elicited the punishment and then behaves in ways that meet the approval of the person or persons who had been setting the aversive conditions.

 

6.  punishment          >>>>>

 

Punishment is the presentation of aversive conditions for behavior judged unfavorably by the person or persons responding to the organism’s actions.  While punishment may include familiar consequences of the corporal type, parental administration of “timeouts,” and incarceration for criminal behavior, punishment may be anything that conveys disapproval for behavior and may include frowns, verbal upbraiding, aversive body language, and many other forms. 

 

7.  Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Human Needs” >>>>>

 

This is the pyramid of ascending human needs developed by the humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow.  The pyramid starts with biological needs similar to the id of Sigmund Freud and the primary reinforcers of B. F. Skinner.  At the second ascending level are the needs associated with safety and security.  The next ascending level entails human relationships, such as those with family, mates, and friends.  At the fourth ascending level is self-esteem, whereby people seek recognition as women and men of skill, talent, and accomplishment.  These latter three needs are similar to those that Freud identified with the ego.  At the fifth and highest level, people become “self-actualized” human beings, operating at the highest level of social interactions, cultural pursuits, and expressions of taste---  becoming everything that they have the potential to become.  

 

8.  schemas (in Cognitive Psychology)   >>>>>

 

In the formulation of cognitive psychologist George A. Miller, schemas are ideas

categorized and represented together in the brain as “chunked” pieces of

information for ease of retrieval when a situation requires their memory or their use.

 

 9.  neurons         >>>>>    Neurons are the nerve cells of the brain and the central nervous system.

 

10.  synapses       >>>>>     Synapses are the vital connections between and among neurons that
determine the effectiveness of brain function for the multitude of tasks that human beings and other creatures encounter, those pertinent to such domains as cognition, physical movement, artistic expression, musical performance, and social interaction.  Challenging the brain with the
performance of complex tasks maximizes synaptic connections in ways that increase functional intelligence, efficiency, and effectiveness in the world.   

 

II.  Essay   (70 points)

 

In a well-organized, well-written essay, give very succinct summaries of the following schools of psychology:  psychoanalytical school;  behaviorist school;  humanist school;  cognitive school;  and neuropsychological school.  After you have provided these brief but informative summaries, contrast the major tenets of these schools of psychology, emphasizing key differences in perspective but also mentioning any similarities that you observe.

 

The behaviorist, psychoanalytical, behaviorist, humanist, cognitive, and neuropsychological schools of psychology all seek to understand why people do what they do.  This is in general true of psychology, which endeavors to understand human behavior and cognition.  Aside from the five schools of psychology given above, there are numerous other subfields, including Gestalt psychology, which focuses on mental constructs, patterns, and processes as unified groups in which the whole is more than its constituent parts;  psychometrics, which endeavors to measure human intelligence and competence in performing certain tasks;  personality psychology, which seeks to understand differences in human behavior and cognition from person to person;  developmental psychology, especially identified with Jean Piaget, which focuses on common patterns of behavior and cognition at certain life stages;   social psychology, which overlaps with the field of sociology but focuses more on individual human behavior in the context of group participation;  sensation and perception psychology, which studies how people experience the world through the five senses and perceive events through the interplay between human biological processes and the human and natural environment;  and the psychology of human motivation and emotion, which seeks to discover the reasons people are impelled toward certain behaviors and why certain experiences elicit particular emotions.

 

The five schools of psychology identified in the essay question offer particularly strong explanatory power as to the broad question as to why people do what they do.

 

The psychoanalytical school of Sigmund Freud explains human behavior as the result of unseen forces lying deep below the surface of conscious thought and manifested behavior.  The human personality is comprised of the id, ego, and superego, as discussed in the identifications.  These facets of the human personality manage the behavior of a person on the basis of forces that are variously conscious (generally at or on the surface at which mind produces action), unconscious (below the surface but fairly easy to understand), and subconscious (far below the surface and difficult to understand).  When an individual experiences unusual trouble in negotiating the world of everyday experience and seeks the help of a psychoanalyst, the latter probes for long-forgotten or suppressed experiences and thoughts that may be deeply embedded in the subconscious and driving current behavior and causing the psychological disturbance.  The psychoanalyst may also look for problems that an individual has had in moving through the youthful stage at which a boy has a sexual fixation on his mother and sees his father as a rival (Oedipal Complex) or the girl has a sexual fixation on her father and sees her mother as a rival (Electra Complex).   In many of these concepts of Freud, we see that he and the psychoanalysts who study his concepts understand human behavior to be driven by unseen forces that must be brought to the surface for analysis if the individual, particularly one experiencing behavioral or cognitive difficulty, is to fully understand her or his behavior and correct any existing difficulties.

 

The behaviorist school of B. F. Skinner emphasizes behavior over cognition and views all behavior to be caused by the response of the organism (human beings or other animals) to the combined effects of positive reinforcement, punishment, and negative reinforcement  (together called operants), concepts also discussed in the identifications.  Reinforcement and punishment may be delivered on the basis of either ratio or interval schedules, each of which may be either fixed or variable.  Ratio schedules of positive reinforcement occur on the basis of a reward administered after a certain number or average number of behaviors, such as tasks accomplished;  if the reward is delivered after an exact number of behaviors, this schedule is call fixed ratio;  if the reward is delivered on the basis of an average number of responses, this schedule is called variable ratio.  Interval schedules of reinforcement occur on the basis of behavior exhibited over time;  if the reward is delivered at an exact time (such as daily, weekly, or monthly) following the behavior, this schedule is called fixed interval;  if the reward is delivered at variable times based on an average (such as daily, weekly, or monthly on average but with variations as to the exact time for the delivery of any given reward), the schedule is called variable interval.  Skinner and other behaviorists consider all behavior to be determined by reinforced or punished behavior;  they deny the existence of free will.

 

The humanist school of psychology identified with such proponents as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow focuses on the potential of human beings to gain self-understanding, address psychological issues, and improve their lives.  The client-centered therapy of Carl Rogers is a salient representation of the humanist approach.  In his work with clients (the term that he espoused over “patient” or “subject”), Rogers sought to elicit responses in question-answer sessions that gave affirmation to the client’s own observations and sought to lead the client toward full recognition of her or his problem, with the ultimate goal of mutually agreeing on a strategy for dealing with problem.  The “Hierarchy of Human Needs” discussed in the identifications as devised by Abraham Maslow has been appealing to “Human Potential” psychologists who stress the capacity of human beings to move through lower to higher levels of consciousness, thought, and action.  Humanist psychologists, in contrast to the behaviorists, advocate for the existence of free will and see human beings as capable of solving their own dilemmas when they have a full understanding of viable strategies for rising toward higher states of consciousness that at the apex can result in what Maslow termed, “self-actualization.”

 

The cognitive school of psychology seeks to understand the exact thought processes by which human beings make decisions and move toward given actions.  Those of this school are interested in how people respond to visual, aural, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory stimuli.  Cognitive psychologists, especially psycholinguists such as Noam Chomsky, seek to understand how much of language acquisition is hardwired (with neural inclination to follow determined certain circuits in the brain through various stages extending from birth) and how much is acquired as a result of culture and environment.  Cognitive psychologists such as David Rumelhart focus on the reasoning process, emphasizing that this involves more than serial reasoning but rather is a complex process of parallel reasoning involving many areas of the brain and calling upon both deductive and inductive patterns.  Cognitive psychologists such as George A. Miller are interested in the way in which memory and information retrieval occurs according to the formation of and access to schemas, as given in the identifications.  

 

The neuropsychological school of psychology focuses on the physiology and anatomy of the brain.  Aided by ever-improving Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), CAT (Computer Tomography) scans, and other sophisticated technologies, neuropsychologists have accumulated ever more exact knowledge of how the brain functions and what areas of the brain

are most activated for specific functions.  Neuropsychologists are interested in the synaptic connections among neurons in structures such as the brain stem, pons, medulla, cerebellum, thalamus, and deeper basal ganglia that enable people to react emotionally with responses such as “fight or flight” and activate movement in the arms and legs.  They also focus a great deal of attention on upper brain and forebrain areas, specifically the cerebral cortex, the neural circuitry of which people activate for higher-order reasoning.  Neuropsychologists are interested also in those parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus and amygdala that are vital for memory function.  And they seek to understand how the areas of left brain and right brain are particularly involved in linear and nonlinear cognitive processes respectively, but also how neural malleability can occur when one side of the brain is damaged and the other side takes over its tasks.  Neuropsychologists also pursue the issue of gender differences, such as the larger corpus callosum connecting left brain to right brain in females, suggesting that women may tend to engage both the right brain and left brain simultaneously in problem solving and other activities.  And neuropsychologists have given us many insights into such conditions as autism, Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, and schizophrenia.

 

Thus, these five schools of psychology give us great insights into the fundamental question of why people do what they do.  There are many differences in conceptualization and approach among these schools of psychology:

Psychoanalytical and behaviorist psychologists may both be said to embrace a deterministic view of human behavior, but the sources of their determinism are different:  Whereas psychoanalysts probe the depths of the human mind for suppressed experiences and hidden forces that they consider determinative of behavior, behaviorists look to the external environment for the shapers (operants) of human behavior.  Behaviorists do not in fact recognize the “mind” as distinct from the brain, nor do they believe in the power of people to find their own way to solutions for their problems;  in the absence of free will, behaviorists say that all human advancement occurs through environmental improvement, with more effective and more adroitly administered positive reinforcement, punishment, and negative reinforcement.  Humanists, by contrast, put a great deal of emphasis on free will that in their observation and according to their encouragement allows people to find strategies for developing ever ascending levels of existence toward a higher quality of life.

 

Cognitive psychologists anticipated many of the questions that interest neuropsychologists before the field of the latter became so prominent with the advance of technology.  Cognitive psychologists explain that people do what they do because of certain thought processes that may be hardwired or experientially acquired.  Neuropsychologists have provided an enormous amount of information on the functioning of the brain and central nervous system that has great bearing on the concerns of cognitive psychologists.  Both cognitive psychologists and neuropsychologists, though interested in the phenomenon of consciousness (awareness of and ability to analyze one’s own thought and behavior), are more interested in the processes by which people develop synapses among neurons so as to accomplish complex mental and physical tasks than they are in the problem of free will or the lack thereof.