Jun 18, 2019

>Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota<, Volume V, No. 10, April 2019 >>>>> Article #2 >>>>> Psychology: Micro-Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education



Psychology is the study of human behavior and cognition. 

 

There are behavioral scientists who study animal behavior and neural processes, and psychology is famous for utilizing experiments with other animals to draw conclusions about human behavior;  but when we speak of psychology, we typically mean the science of how people behave and how they think.  All subfields of psychology in some way involve human behavior and cognition.

 

I.  Psychoanalytical School          

 

Sigmund Freud was a late 19th and early 20th century Viennese physician who took an interest in the causes of human behavior.  He drew conclusions from question and answer sessions through which he sought to guide patients with an expressed need for psychological treatment back toward good mental health.  Freud’s most intriguing insights pertained to the structure of the personality, unseen forces that shape human behavior, and particular difficulties (complexes) that every person has in working through relationships with parents.

 

A.  Structure of the Personality

 

1.  Id

 

Freud theorized that much of human behavior is driven by the fundamental biological impulses to satisfy hunger, thirst, and sexual desire.  He called the facet of the personality involved with satisfying these impulses the id.  Since these biological desires are powerful, without a mediating force people very well might pursue their biological impulses to harmful extremes.

 

 2.  Ego

 

The mediating force of the human personality is the ego.  The ego contains one’s sense of self out and about in the world:  the impulse to be materially successful, to gain the recognition of others, and to attain a sense of stable satisfaction with one’s place in life.  The ego recognizes the need to satisfy the demands of the id, but that ego seeks to direct the impulses of the id in ways that avoid the condemnation or even the disapproval of family, friends, and members of society writ large.

 

3.  Super Ego

 

The superego of the human personality contains one’s moral sensibility, one’s conscience.  One’s moral and ethical codes are modeled by parents or guardians.  Thus, whether one is altruistic and empathetic, or mean-spirited and given to antisocial behavior, is powerfully influenced by the moral standards of one’s parents, then by the interplay of biology and heredity with one’s experiences in life.

 

The most effectively functioning person has an ego with a strong but not arrogant sense of self and great managerial skill in balancing the very different demands of the id and superego.  In fulfilling these responsibilities, the ego must also balance information stored at the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious levels of awareness.

 

Levels of Awareness

 

1.  Conscious

 

At the conscious level of awareness, people recognize their patterns of behavior in the past and present, understand how their behavior is perceived by others, and have a strong sense of the reasons why they act as they do.  Conscious behavior is easily monitored and, depending on the person, may be corrected as necessary.

 

2.  Unconscious

 

At the unconscious level of awareness, a person is storing retrievable information that nevertheless is enough below the surface of consciousness to necessitate personal effort or outside guidance in the retrieval.  The ego has difficulty managing the behavior of a person who functions largely in a state of unconscious activity and lacks clear comprehension of that activity:  Without breakthroughs in personal understanding or the intervention of a counselor, id, ego, and superego may fall significantly out of sync.

 

3.  Subconscious

 

At the subconscious level of awareness, a person is storing information far below the surface of consciousness, necessitating the intervention of an outside counselor to help the individual uncover recondite experiences and notions.   Subconscious behavior is not easily monitored and requires great effort on the part of the person and help from a professional in bringing hidden, often painful and aversive experiences to the surface so as to correct behavior as necessary.   Subconscious behavior is disruptive to the balance of id, ego, and superego and cannot be managed by the ego until brought to the surface of consciousness.

 

Among the many constituents of the subconscious that will in time have to come to the surface, for processing at the conscious level of experience if the person is to be psychologically healthy, are the Oedipal Complex and the Electra Complex.

               

C.  Male and Female Complexes

 

1.  Oedipal Complex

 

The Oedipal Complex is Freud’s conclusion from his many sessions with patients that the adolescent boy harbors ill-feeling for his father, perceived as a rival for his mother’s affections.  Freud maintained that every boy goes through a stage during which he experiences sexual attraction to his mother.  In order for him to develop a healthy psyche, he must emerge from this stage with resolution

 

of his feelings for his mother and a return to the socially acceptable parent-child sort of affection;  and he must convert ill-will into respectful and positive feelings toward his father, who then can become his model for how to negotiate the challenges of the world.

 

Freud took the name for this complex from Sophocles’s play, Oedipus Rex, in which the hero Oedipus, although born to a king, because of certain circumstances is raised by a shepherd.  Later, as a young man, he reenters the realm of his parents.  A situation occurs in which Oedipus kills a man whom he only later comes to understand was his father, in the meantime marrying a woman who, to Oedipus’s horror, turns out to be his mother, by whom he has four children.  Although these circumstances do not tally with the exact nature of the complex analyzed and labeled by Freud, the great psychoanalyst used the odd three-way familial tension in naming the condition he found to be prevalent in boys.

 

2.  Electra Complex

 

The Electra Complex is Freud’s conclusion, similarly drawn in listening to patients, that the adolescent girl harbors ill-feeling for her mother, perceived as a rival for her father’s affections.  Freud maintained that girls also go through a stage during which they experience sexual attraction for the opposite-gender parent---  their fathers.    In order for the girl to develop a healthy psyche, she must convert her feelings for her father into the socially acceptable parent-child sort of affection;  and she must establish a loving relationship with her mother, who then can become her model for negotiating the joys and challenges of the world.

 

Freud took the name for this complex from the character Electra, found in Greek plays such as Agamemnon , Libation Bearers , and Eumenides  from Aeschylus’s Oresteia  trilogy;  and Euripides’s Electra.  Electra is horrified at her mother’s murder of the latter’s husband (and therefore Electra’s father).  Electra and her brother Orestes seek and gain revenge for the ghastly deed in a successful plot to kill Clytemaestra (their mother) and her lover, Aegisthus.  But revenge does nothing to avert an abiding familial catastrophe that has negative repercussions for all concerned.  Again, Freud uses skewed familial circumstances not exactly descriptive of the condition that he identifies to give a label to the complex.

 

II.  Behaviorist School   

 

During the 1940s and extending to his death in the 1980s, the behaviorist B. F. Skinner developed a seminal approach to psychology.  Building on the work of precursors such as J. B. Watson, Skinner described human behavior as the result of operant conditioning.  In Skinner’s view, all of human behavior is determined by reinforcers (rewards) and punishments acting upon the individual according to her or his unique social environment.   He denied the existence of free will and all internal mental states that we normally perceive as freedom, dignity, and intention.  The key concepts in this strict behaviorist view of operant conditioning as determinative of all human behavior is given below.

 

A.  The Essentials of Operant Conditioning

 

1.  Positive Reinforcement

 

Positive reinforcement is the reward that a person receives after exhibiting a given behavior. 

 

A father may cook a special dinner for a daughter who successfully fixes a leaky water faucet.  The daughter is much more likely, for having been the recipient of the special dinner, to take on the leaky faucet task the next time the problem occurs. 

 

A mother may pay her son $20 after he does the family laundry.   The son, who had long lobbied for such a reward, is now much more likely to do the laundry cheerfully and with the desired results of very clean clothes than he would in the absence of the reward.

 

A teacher smiles and gives a hug to a child who has just successfully completed a double digit multiplication problem for the first time.  The child, having been hesitant on the multiplication task, will now move on to a division task with much more enthusiasm in the expectation of similar approbation.

 

The child in turn may smile and tell the teacher that he is the best ever at explaining math.  The teacher moves on to the next child or to the next task with the same child in a mood of exhilaration.

 

An employer may give “Employee of the Month” honors to an employee who never missed a day and performed all tasks at an exceptional level of accomplishment.  If this is a reward that the employee sought, she or he will revel in the award and maintain the behavior in expectation of a possible “Employee of the Year” award.

 

All of these situations feature some behavior that was rewarded in a timely fashion with what Skinner called positive reinforcement:  the special dinner, the $20, the smile and hug combination, the returned smile and words of praise, the two kinds of employee awards.  Skinner maintained that the presentation of a positive reinforcer for a desired behavior is the single most effective means of encouraging and maintaining that behavior. 

      

2.  Punishment

 

Punishment is the aversive consequence that one receives for exhibiting an undesirable behavior.

 

If a daughter had given indication that she could fix the faucet but fails to do so, dad frowns and says, “You are always promising things that you cannot do.”

 

A son who says that he will do a super job if mom pays her son $20 for doing the family laundry does only half of what he said he’d do and leaves most of the clothes damp, leaving mom to finish up.   Mom tells her son that he cannot participate in the family card game that evening but instead will have to write a three-page essay explaining how he will do the laundry better the next time.

 

A teacher frowns and says, “You never try hard enough on assignments I give to you,” when a child makes insufficient effort to solve a double-digit multiplication problem for the first time.  The child tears up in the receipt of this reprobation from a beloved teacher.

 

The child, now emotionally hurting as a result of the teacher’s stinging words, slams her fist on the table and shouts, “You are the most useless teacher I’ve ever had.”  

 

An employer may reduce the hours of an employee who failed to perform all tasks requested at an acceptable level of accomplishment.  The employee, not a slacker by habit, feels terrible that she has disappointed her employer and lost needed income.

 

All of these situations feature some behavior that was punished in close proximity to the undesirable performance of an activity.  Skinner would have labeled as punishment each of the negative consequences:  the frown and harsh words from dad;  missing the family card game and having to write the essay about becoming a better launderer;  the frown and words of condemnation from the teacher; the slammed fist and insulting words leveled at the teacher;  the reduced hours and lost pay.

 

3.  Negative reinforcement 

 

Like positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement rewards rather than punishes a given behavior.

 

Dad stands frowning and saying, “You are always promising to do things that you cannot do,” as the daughter is trying to fix the faucet, but his frown fades and his negative comments disappear when the daughter in fact fixes the faucet. 

 

Mom maintains a steady monologue about how her son has never done the family laundry properly in his life and how she knows that the current effort will result in similar failure but stills her tongue when he surprisingly gets it right this time.

 

A teacher frowns and says, “You never try hard enough on assignments I give to you,” but stops the words of condemnation amidst a fading frown when the child solves a double-digit multiplication problem for the first time.

 

The child fights through lingering emotional pain but, relieved at the absence of insulting words, does not slam her fist on the table and shout  “You are the most useless teacher I’ve ever had,” as she has done so many times before.”  

 

An employer shows an employee a schedule of reduced hours to an employee who seems to be failing on a given night to perform all tasks requested at an acceptable level of accomplishment---  but tears up the schedule with the atypically reduced number of hours when the employee gets busy and completes all tasks in good form.

 

All of these situations feature some behavior that was rewarded with the removal of an aversive situation in close proximity to the adroit performance of an activity.  Skinner would have

labeled each instance of removal of an aversive consequence as negative reinforcement :  the fading of dad’s frown and the termination of harsh words from dad when the faucet is in fact fixed;  the ceasing of mom’s litany of invective when the son does a good job with the family laundry ;  the teacher no longer speaking words of condemnation and no longer wearing a frown;  the absence of a slammed fist and insulting words leveled at the teacher;  the employer tearing up the schedule of reduced hours.

      

B.  Schedules of Reinforcement

 

There are four fundamental schedules of reinforcement, each built on pairing important concepts related to the variability of the routine and whether the reinforcement is timed or delivered according quantity of reinforced behaviors.

 

In terms of variability, schedules may be either fixed or varied. A fixed schedule of reinforcement delivers the reinforcement on a dependably regular schedule;  a variable schedule of reinforcement delivers the reinforcement on an irregular schedule, one that is not predictable by observers other than the designer of the experiment. 

 

In terms of the factors of timing or quantification, schedules may be either based on interval or ratio.  Interval schedules deliver the reinforcement after the passage of so much time;  ratio schedules deliver the reinforcement  according to the number of behaviors exhibited.

 

Examples of these schedules of reinforcement are given below:

 

1)  fixed interval  >>>>>

 

A fixed interval schedule of reinforcement rewards behavior exhibited over an exact time period.  For example, a father may reward his son for doing his chore of washing the dishes every night that the family eats at home each week by giving him his allowance every Saturday  afternoon.     

 

2)  variable interval  >>>>>

 

A variable interval schedule of reinforcement rewards behavior dependably over an identifiable long-term period but not precise in the short term.  For example, a father may reward his son for doing his chore of washing the dishes every night that the family eats at home each week by giving him his allowance four times each month-----   but not on a set day or time.     

 

3)  fixed ratio  >>>>>

 

A fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement rewards each behavior right after exhibition of the behavior.  For example, a father may reward his son for doing his chore of washing the dishes each time he completes the task, for the agreed upon amount of $5.00.      

 

4)  variable ratio  >>>>>

 

A variable ratio schedule of reinforcement rewards behavior after an average number of completions.  For example, a father may reward his son for doing his chore of washing the dishes according to the number of times he completes the task, for the agreed upon amount of $5.00 per task, but not necessarily paid right after completion of the task.

       

C.  Further Comments

 

All of the schedules of reinforcement given above are highly effective and result in what behaviorist psychologists call behavior acquisition (beginning to manifest a given behavior in the presence of reinforcement) and maintenance (continuing a behavior in the presence of ongoing reinforcement).  When reinforcement is discontinued, the behavior of the organism (the human or other creature exhibiting the behavior) is extinguished.  Because the exact delivery of reinforcement is not predictable with variable reinforcement on either an interval or a ratio schedule, behavior on variable reinforcement schedules takes longer to be extinguished:  The organism continues to manifest the behavior for a while in the absence of reinforcement, expecting that the reward (reinforcement) will eventually be gained, but when this does not happen the behavior comes to an end (is extinguished).

 

Behaviorist psychologists observe that all creatures respond in similar ways to the schedules of reinforcement.  The schedules given above are for positive reinforcement but work similarly for negative reinforcement and for punishment.  Because they tend to be convenient subjects under laboratory conditions, behaviorist experimental psychologists frequently use creatures other than humans to observe responses to reinforcers and punishments;  for example, they frequently use rats as the subjects (organisms) for their experiments.  With animals, primary reinforcers are frequently used.  Primary reinforcers are those such as food, liquids, and sex---  similar to the aspects of the human being that Sigmund Freud located in the Id. 

 

With humans, various other kinds of rewards, called secondary reinforcers are often used (and may be used with other creatures, as well).  Secondary reinforcers may involve smiles, words of praise, and material rewards such as the monetary allowance that the father gave the son for doing the dishes in the examples give above.  Behaviorist psychologists say that all responses to secondary reinforcers can be traced back to those biological imperatives that make the organism predisposed to respond to primary reinforcers.  They maintain that all behavior (doing well on a job;  leading a volunteer effort with great skill;  or seeking to attract a mate) is related to the need or desire to satisfy biological imperatives.

 

Behaviorist psychologists say that free will is a perception, not a reality.  They hold that all behavior is acquired and maintained as a result of the presentation of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, or punishment.  Of these three, experimental psychologists have found that positive reinforcement is the most efficient for achieving behavior acquisition in the organism, and that positive reinforcement along with punishment is even more efficient and effective in getting the organism to deliver the desired response under experimental conditions.

 

III. Humanist School

 

During the 1950s through the 1970s, especially, another school of psychologists counterpoised themselves to the behaviorists.  Those of this humanist school objected to the behaviorist contention that human beings lack free will.  They also tended to emphasize human subjects and to see their behavior arising for different reasons than those of other creatures.  Humanist psychologists generated theories and therapies designed to help human beings achieve their full potential;  they believed that if people could see the specific reasons for their own behavior (and they tended to identify those reasons in terms other than the biological imperatives [drives]), they could exercise their free choices to live better and more fulfilling lives.

 

Carl Rogers was a humanist psychologist and psychotherapist who sought through his psychotherapeutic technique called client-centered therapy to engage his clients (term he preferred over “patients”) in question answer sessions capable of leading them to discover the solution to their

own problems.  Such sessions typically affirmed and validated the client’s own perception of her or his problem, with the goal of strengthening the person’s self-esteem and giving her or him the confidence to find a solution to the dilemma.

 

A sample of such a session includes this exchange:

 

Client: 

 

I sort of persecute myself in a sort of way---  sort of self-condemnation all the way through

 

Therapist: 

 

So that you---  condemn yourself and don’t think much of yourself, and that’s gradually

getting worse.

 

Client:  That’s right.  I don’t even like to attempt things.  I feel like I am going to fail.

 

Therapist:  You feel that you’re whipped before you start in.

 

The effort of the psychotherapist in this exchange is to acknowledge the legitimacy of the client’s own feelings, to explore those feelings, and to find a way through them to more joyful ways of going about life.

 

The interest of Abraham Maslow was to use his own interactions with clients to build a theory that could lead the person to higher order concerns for a more fully evolved life.  In his theory of a Hierarchy of Human Needs, Maslow theorized that people begin with the need to satisfy physiological needs (of the sort located by Sigmund Freud in the id and recognized as responsive to primary reinforcers by B. F. Skinner.  They then seek to do everything that they can to ensure their safety and security.  People then express a need for, and seek, human companionship in family, friends, and mates.  One step up in the hierarchy of needs is self-esteem, whereby people seek recognition as women and men of skill, talent, and accomplishment.  Finally, with all of these needs met, the person

arrives at the need and the goal of “self-actualization,” the need to fulfill herself and himself in all ways, including the spiritual, philosophical, and the cultural:  The woman or man seeks to “become everything that one is capable of becoming.”

 

V. Cognitive School

 

From the 1960s forward, cognitive psychologists have followed path-breaking work of research scientists such as George A. Miller in exploring how people think:  the cognitive process.  Cognitive psychologists focus on many aspects of the human thought process, the most important of which I summarize here.

 

Cognitive psychologists are interested in the biological processes by which people process information:  how vision brings an object to the retina, neurons in various sections of the brain process the information, then process it as many times along as many synapses (neural pathways between and among neurons) as necessary depending on complexity, ultimately storing the information in those parts of the brain particularly involved in memory.  In addition to their interest in information taken in from visual stimuli, cognitive psychologists are also interested in how information is absorbed from aural, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory stimuli.  Psychologists of the cognitive school explore how the brain assigns facts, figures, and concepts for categorization in the neural memory centers and other areas of the brain for long-term representation, seeking to understand the processes of memory, as well as forgetting.

 

Cognitive psychologist have found that categorization and representation results in the brain “chunking” pieces of information together into schemas or schemata for easier retrieval when faced with certain tasks relevant to learning.  Also involved in cognition are the processes by which people move toward various levels of reality:  traveling in their neural circuity from molecules to letters, words, and feats of imagination whereby impossible objects engage their creativity.

 

With regard to language, psycholinguists such as Noam Chomsky have described processes by which people across many cultures show a predisposition to acquire language according to certain hardwired neural processes.  Other psycholinguists have presented cognitive psychologists with fact-based theories that allow for much more environmental input into the processes of language formation.

 

Current interests within cognitive psychology may be seen in work from researchers such as Davis Rumelhart, who emphasize that cognition is not a simple matter of serial reasoning but involves very complex  parallel processing  in many areas of the brain, along numerous synaptic connections and involving both deductive reasoning (reasoning toward conclusions based on a priori  knowledge or assumptions) or inductive reasoning (reasoning toward conclusions based on a steady accumulation and interpretation of information).

               

Cognitive psychologists have benefited greatly from the explosion of work by neuroscientists over the last couple of decades, including those neuropsychologists interested in the application of their findings to matters of human behavior and thought.

 

VI. Neuropsychological School

 

Whereas cognitivist psychologists are especially focused on thought processes, neuropsychologists are particularly fascinated with the structures of the brain involved in the processing of information.  Refinements in technologies such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) have enabled neuroscientists to get ever more detailed information as to the exact centers of the brain that process certain kinds of information and make possible the full range of human thought and activity.

 

Among the information from neuroscientific research that neuropsychologists can utilize to understand human behavior and thought, is that related to mental function at different levels of the brain.  The brain stem leads downward from the midbrain to the pons and medulla and on to the spinal chord.  Via synaptic connections from these structures into the cerebellum, thalamus, and the deeper basal ganglia, human beings are able to react emotionally and activate movement in the arms and legs, for an array of purposes that include the “flight or fight” response.  These lower brain and midbrain structures are the older parts of the brain and allow human beings to engage in activity resembling the responses found in other animals. 

 

Structures in the upper brain give human beings the ability to think and reason at a level that is beyond the capability of animals, even fellow primates such as the highly intelligent chimpanzees, with whom homo sapiens shares 97% of genes.  At the level of the cerebral cortex of the cerebrum, human beings engage in those reasoning processes that have allowed them to build architectural marvels, advance theories in astrophysics, create symphonies, write plays and novels exploring their own psyche, and uncover the wonder of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).

 

Neuropsychologists are able to use findings from neuroscience to understand the storage of memory in such structures of the three-pound human brain as the hippocampus and amygdala.  They are able to understand how the left brain (especially involved in matters of linear logic) communicates with the right brain (particularly associated with creative activity and leaps of understanding via nonlinear thought processes) communicates across the neural structure known as the corpus callosum.  And whereas the preponderance of the evidence shows that women and men think according to highly similar processes, neuropsychologists are able to apply information pertinent to certain gender differences. 

 

The corpus callosum, for example is larger in the brains of most women by comparison to mem, potentially (assuming a comparably greater amount of synaptic circuitry) allowing for greater communication between parts of the brain involved in linear logic and creativity---  and thus giving greater flexibility and increased cognitive power for the solution of vexing questions, response to complex human situations, and understanding of conditions involving both intellect and emotion.

 

Understanding the structure of brain and the neural synapses involved in certain patterns of human thought and particular emotional states, neuropsychologists have brought greater understanding of an array of conditions, such as autism, Alzheimer’s disease/ dementia, and schizophrenia.  We now know that these conditions are the result of alterations in certain neural structures and processes, some of which were present at birth and are genetically determined, others the result of social and natural environmental impact on brain formation.

 

Neuropsychologists are able to pass this information related to the neural origins of psychological conditions on to psychoanalysts (therapists following tenets of Sigmund Freud), psychotherapists (therapists generally holding a Ph. D. in psychology and having training in counseling patients or clients), and psychiatrists (therapists holding an M. D. [medical degree] with an emphasis on the applications of human biology and chemistry to psychological counseling, legally able to prescribe pharmaceuticals [medicines] as part of treatment).  They also are able to lead cognitive other psychologists in promising directions for understanding issues in the own subfields.

 

Other Subfields in the Psychology

 

Other subfields of psychology of which the student should be aware art the following:

 

Gestalt Psychology >>>>>  

 

This subfield concerns mental constructs, patterns, and processes that as a unified groups (rather than as separate parts) explain phenomena of the human experience.

 

Psychometric >>>>> 

 

This subfield involves the measuring of what people know and how intellectually

astute they are;  psychometricians have given us the concept of the I. Q. (Intelligence Quotient) and are consulted in the constructions of various standardized tests (e. g. ACT, SAT). 

 

Personality Psychology >>>>>   

 

Personality psychologists apply knowledge from the major schools of

psychology so as understand matters of personality, such as why some people are introverts and others are extroverts.

 

Developmental Psychology  >>>>>         

 

Psychologists in this field, such as the renowned researcher and

theorist Jean Piaget, have given us a better understanding of how people develop psychologically during major stages of life (including birth to five years old, ages six to twelve, adolescence, ages 20-25, and ages 26-35, 35-55, 56-65, 66-75, 76-85, and the very elderly [those over age 85).  Developmental psychologists have been especially interested in the psychological development of young children and adolescents.

                                                                                                                               

Social Psychology  >>>>>                             

 

This subfield has much overlap with sociology but focuses more on individual human behavior in the context of groups, including the impact of social approbation and reprobation, and the response of the individual person to social pressure.

 

Sensation and Perception Psychology  >>>>>  Sensation and perception psychologists study how people experience the world through the five senses and perceive events around them as a result of the interplay between  human biology processes and social and natural environment.

 

Psychology of Motivation and Emotion  >>>>> 

 

This subfield draws upon the major schools of psychology to understand what motivates people and 

what leads people to experience various emotions.

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