Introductory Session FACTS AND PERSPECTIVES IN PSYCHOLOGY Overview - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Introductory Session FACTS AND PERSPECTIVES IN PSYCHOLOGY

Overview  Perspectives in psychology (psychodynamic, behavioural and cognitive perspectives)  Perspectives in psychology (biological, humanistic and Week 1 sociocultural perspectives)  Introducing the field of child and adolescent abnormal psychology  The ADHD mystique: perspectives and treatment

Overview -Stereotypes, prejudice, attitudes -Groups & inter-personal relations -Consumer behavior + behavioral economics Week 2 -Behavior change (health psychology, persuasion etc.) -Practicum: design your own experiment !

Overview -Brain, anatomical structures and their functions: overview of the nervous system focusing on the brain -When things go wrong: lesions and brain damage, what can it tell us about functionality of different areas? Week 3 -Tools and methods: behavioral studies, methods of neuroscience, fMRI, EEG, MEG, computational simulations and neural nets -Where is my mind? - Language in the brain and the free will debate -Brains and machines: is our brain a computer? interfaces between machines and brains

Careers in Psychology Icebreaker Tell the person next to you!

Careers in Psychology Icebreaker Tell the person next to you!

Facts and misconceptions  Psychology is the study of mind and behaviour  It takes many different perspectives and has many subfields  Psychology is NOT just about therapy Facts  Psychology studies both real life events and theoretical issues  Psychology studies both normal and abnormal behaviour

Facts and misconceptions  Psychology is just common sense  You can become a therapist with a bachelor ’ s [undergraduate] degree Misconceptions  Psychologists get paid loads to money to listen to people talk  Psychology isn ’ t a real science!

Misconceptions about psychology (continuous)  Uses experimental methods  Researchers control and manipulate variables What are the key  Objectivity is a key characteristics of science?  Allows for hypothesis testing and theory building  Results can be replicated – cross-cultural  Findings allow researchers to predict future occurrences

Psychology As A Subject  Clinics  Schools  Social service departments  Supermarkets Where they  Marketing agencies are?  Corporate companies  Courtrooms/legal firms  Airlines  Armies

Psychology As A Subject  Clinical psychologists  Neuropsychologists  Counselors  Social psychologists  School psychologists Who they  Health psychologists are?  Sports psychologists  Child/developmental psychologists  Organizational/ industrial psychologists  Consumer psychologists  Media psychologists  Forensic psychologists  Aviation psychologists  Military psychologists

Psychology As A Subject  What topics do they study?  What philosophy do they adopt?  What methods of inquiry do they apply? How they  How do they understand human behaviour? do it?  How they interpret human behaviour?  What perspective do they take?

Perspectives in Psychology  Psychodynamic perspective Humanistic Psychodynamic  Behavioural perspective  Biological perspective Behavioural Sociocultural  Cognitive Perspective Biological Cognitive  Sociocultural perspective  Humanistic perspective

Psychodynamic Perspective Psychodynamic An approach to psychology which emphasises Humanistic unconscious processes of the mind Behavioural Sociocultural Biological Cognitive

Psychodynamic Perspective Topographical Model The conscious level: normal Freud ’ s Conception awareness Conscious Of the Human Psyche The iceberg metaphor The preconscious level: thoughts Preconscious easily brought to consciousness The unconscious unconscious level: hidden thoughts feelings and desires

Psychodynamic Perspective Structural Model: it, I and above-I Ego [i]: the part of the psyche that channels the most basic drives into Conscious activities that balance the ego demands of society (e.g. relationships). Superego [above-I]: the part of Preconscious the psyche that consists of superego absolute moral standards internalised from one ’ s parents unconscious and culture/society (e.g. Id [it]: the most primitive part Id premarital sex). of the unconscious, which consists of drives and impulses seeking immediate gratification (e.g. sex). The iceberg metaphor

Psychodynamic Perspective Freud's three aspects of personality The ID The EGO The Superego An old joke in the field of psychology sufficiently illustrates the relationship between the three aspects of personality: “ the [id] says “ I want it, and I wanted it now ” ; the [super-ego] says “ You can ’ t have it, it is bad for you ” ; and the ego – the rationally aware mediator – says “ you can have some of it – later ” .

Psychodynamic Perspective Ego-defence mechanisms Definition: Strategies that the ego uses to disguise or to transform unconscious wishes and to protect oneself from painful or guilty thoughts and feelings. Note: The particular mechanism a person uses shape his or her behaviour and personality, and extreme forms of these mechanisms may result in a maladaptive pathological behaviour that Freud termed neurotic paradox

Psychodynamic Perspective Ego-defence mechanisms  Regression  Denial  Displacement  Rationalization  Intellectualization  Projection  Reaction-formation  Identification  Sublimation

Psychodynamic Perspective Ego-defence mechanisms Defence Mechanism Definition Example Regression Retreating to a behaviour of an earlier Seven-year-old Jeff starts witting his bed after his developmental period to prevent parents bring home a new-born baby anxiety and satisfy current needs Denial Refusing to perceive or accept reality A husband whose wife recently died denies she is gone and actively searches for her Displacement Discharging unacceptable feelings A mother who is angry with her children picks up a against someone or something other fight with her husband than the true target of these feelings adapted from (Nelson-Hoeksema 2008, p.50)

Psychodynamic Perspective Ego-defence mechanisms Defence Mechanism Definition Example Rationalisation Inventing an acceptable motive to A soldier who killed innocent civilians rationalises explain unacceptably motivated that he was just following orders behaviour Intellectualisation Adopting a cold, distant perspective on A physician who is troubled by seeing young people a matter that actually creates strong, with severe gunshot wounds every night has unpleasant feelings discussion with colleagues that focus only on the technical aspects of treatment Projection Attributing one ’ s own unacceptable A husband who is attracted to a colleague at work motives or desires to someone else accuses his wife of cheating on him adapted from (Nelson-Hoeksema 2008, p.50)

Psychodynamic Perspective Ego-defence mechanisms Defence Mechanism Definition Example Reaction Formation Adopting a set of attitudes and A person who cannot accept his/her homosexuality behaviours that are opposite to one ’ s becomes extremely homophobic true dispositions Identification Adopting the ideas, values and A mother of a disabled child become an activist for tendencies of someone in a superior disability campaigns position in order to elevate self-worth Sublimation Translating wishes and needs into An adolescent with strong aggressive impulses trains socially acceptable [and admirable] to be a boxer behaviour adapted from (Nelson-Hoeksema 2008, p.50)

Psychodynamic Perspective Evaluation Strengths - The role of defence mechanism in explaining people ’ s behaviour, and proven useful concepts for treatment Strengths and - Probably the first theoretical framework to describe human Limitations of this personality approach - Freud ‘ re-humanised ’ the psychologically distressed person, making his or her suffering more comprehensive to the rest of society Limitations - Has explanatory power but lacks scientific validity - Psychoanalysis depends heavily on the therapist ’ s subjective interpretation - Freud used a biased sample - Too deterministic; rejects free-will that is proposed by humanistic psychologists

Behavioural Perspective An approach to psychology that focuses on Humanistic Psychodynamic how learning certain behaviours takes place Behavioural Sociocultural Biological Cognitive

Behavioural Perspective  Classical Conditioning  Operant Conditioning Behavioural Learning Theories

Behavioural Perspective Classical Conditioning Ivan Pavlov ’ s Classical Experiment

Behavioural Perspective ‘ Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I ’ ll guarantee to take any one at random and Classical train him to become any type of specialist. I might Conditioning & select – doctor, Lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, Human Learning yes even beggar – man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and the race of his ancestors. ’ (Waston, 1925, p.104)

Behavioural Perspective Little Albert Experiment