Please read either chapter 13 or 14 - your choice. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
Why did you pick that chapter? What were three (3) things from the chapter that you found
interesting? Why were they interesting to you? What one (1) thing did
you find the least interesting? Why? Which of the applied psychologists
did you find the most interesting? What did you read in the chapter that
you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of
psychology?
Think of a topic from an earlier chapter. How does the
current chapter relate to the topic from the earlier chapter we have
already read?
What PERSON from the chapter would you like to learn more about? Why?
I chose to read chapter 13 because I am currently in Clinical Psychology and I thought it would be interesting to compare what I have learned this semester to the information the book provides on researchers and practitioners and modern clinical psychology.
The first thing that I found interesting in this chapter was the Boulder model. Due to a conference at the University of Colorado in Boulder, a new model of clinical training was developed called the scientist-practitioner model. This training included understanding of psychological principles, research methods, psychological testing, writing a doctoral dissertation involving empirical research, and an internship at a professional clinic. I found this to be interesting because it is something I learned in my clinical psychology course, but also because it is an important step to the training for a clinical psychology Ph.D. that students experience today.
I also found the Vail Conference to be interesting
for similar reasons. I found it interesting because the Vail Conference lead to an alternative model of training due to criticisms of the Boulder Model. This conference was held to legitimize the Psy.D. degree. This model developed training that was suitable for a practitioner that was primarily trained for psychological practice while having some knowledge about research. I found this to be interesting because before this semester I had not had a very good understanding of what a Psy.D. degree was.
I also found the section regarding the Hawthorne Effect to be interesting as well. I found this interesting because it seems somewhat obvious that if people know they are being studied, their performance will be affected. I found it interesting to learn that there was a study done that developed this concept. I also found it interesting that there were alternative explanations for what was called the Hawthorne Effect.
One thing that I found uninteresting to read about was Behavior Therapy. I have learned a lot about this topic, so reading more information about it seemed to be challenging because I have already read so much about it.
The applied psychologist that I found most interesting was Carl Rogers and his work with Client-Centered Therapy. I believe that the information on development of training models will be most helpful in understanding the history of psychology. I think that it is important to learn how training was in the past to be able to understand the advancements that have been made for our present time.
This chapter relates to chapter 12 on the topic of clinical psychology. In chapter 12 it discusses the initial development of Clinical Psychology. In chapter 13, it discusses the emergence of modern clinical psychology.
I would like to learn more about Carl Rogers because I think that his work on Clint-Centered Therapy is very interesting.
One thing I found interesting in chapter 13 was how the emergence of clinical psychology came about. After the second World War there was an increased need for the clinical psychologists. Since the war was so traumatic for the soldiers the veterans sought clinical psychologists and they welcomed the veterans as a way to put their preferred psychology on the map to stay. It is interesting that such an event could change the history of psychology forever.
I also found the technique progressive relaxation interesting. The technique was first used by Edmund Jacobson and later Joseph Wolpe. This technique was used to treat patients with nervous disorders. The technique involves creating a hierarchy of fears and anxiety and to confront these fears patients would imagine a “happy place” where they had no fears and the situation which caused them the anxiety. I find this interesting because I have always struggled with controlling my anxiety and I have used a variation of this technique. When I am in a high anxiety situation I use relaxation techniques; I imagine myself alone on a beach listening to the ocean.
Another interesting part of this chapter was Maslow’s self-actualizers. As a future educator, I have heard and studied Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but I haven’t learned about the peach experience or the attributes of those with self-actualization. Maslow was so interested self-actualizes that he did a study to find what these attributes were. He found the attributes to be: high creativity, spontaneity, independence and a high moral code.
One part of the chapter I thought was not interesting was the Hawthorne Effect. I think this was uninteresting to me because I didn’t really understand it. I understand that workers are more likely to work harder when they know they are being watched, but what I don’t understand is why the experimenters would let the workers know they were being observed. I also understand why businessmen were interested in studying worker productivity, but some of the things they were testing, like lighting which optimal output would vary between individuals.
The psychologist I found most interesting in this chapter was Maslow. I found him interesting because I was able to relate what he was saying to my past and future experiences. I also had enough background information about him to make learning more in depth information easier.
One part of this chapter that is important to the history of psychology is how psychologies focus can change depending on the era. For example when clinical psychology replaced psychiatry with the increase in post-traumatic stress disorder after WWII. Also, the emergence and popularity of humanistic psychology in the 1970s can be directly related to the times when challenges to authority and focus on the individual were supreme.
A topic from an earlier chapter includes business’ interest in psychology. This was previously brought up in chapter eight with Watson and Gilbreth. In this chapter there is still a focus on how to increase workers’ productivity, such as Gilbreth’s research from the previous chapter.
One person I found interesting in this chapter was Edmund Jacobson. I was interested in him because of his work with relaxation techniques.
I chose to read Chapter 13 because I am more interested in Clinical Psychology more than Cognitive Psychology and I wanted to learn more about Clinial Psychology's history and how it evolved.
The first thing I found interesting was the close up on medical strategies about lobotomies. Lobotomies to me, seem very absurd, but they were a form of medicine that was believed by many, while many others had many cautious thoughts about them and what they could do. Lobotimies could b fatal if a certain artery was damaged and the two psychologists who made these, Walter Freeman and James Watt, did have a couple of fatalities. These strategies started in the late nineteenth century because some felt their needed to be some more "serious" treaments besides restraint and sedation. This is when lobotomies came, however none of these procedures were scientifically clarified.
The next thing I found interesting was Carl Rogers and his Client-Centered Therapy. This type of therapy was a humanistic view and started to become quite popular in the mid 1900s. The thing that Rogers did differently in this type of therapy is that he felt it was unimportant to go into the client's past history to be effective. He decided to let the client take control of the session begin his journey to self-actualizaiton, the top need in the hierarchy by Maslow. There are three components that are needed for this type of therapy and that is: to be genuine and honest, accepting a client no matter what in a warm matter, and having empathy understanding what the client is going through. I found Client-Centered Therapy interesting because it was a totally new way from Freuds psychoanlytic theory and the other most practiced therapies of that time.
The third thing I found interesting was the Vail confrence and the invention of the Psy.D. The Vail conference came about because of the problems that started to occur with the Boulder model. The Boulder model focuses more on research than the client. The scientist side was getting much more training than the practitioner side, causing some psychologists to feel less prepared for their actual practice. By working in a clinical area over an acedmic record they had no reason for all of that research knowledge. At this time a new degree, Psy.D. (Doctorate of Psychology) came around. The Vail conference legitimized the Psy.D. like the Boulder conference did for the Ph.D. I found this interesting because I prefer the pracitioner side of clinical psychology than research and for me a Psy.D. would be more beneficial than a Ph.D.
One thing I found uninteresting was The Eysenck Study and the problems with traditional psychology. I have heard all of this before and wasn't too intrigued with it.
I think understanding all of the confrences, both Boulder and Vail is essential into understanding how both the Ph.D. and the Psy.D. benefit the world of psychology and how it all evolved.
A topic from earlier was in Ch 10 where they talk about Behavior Therapy and Mary Cover Jones and how she discovered fears could be unlearned. This related to Systematic Desensitization which helped people get over their fears gradually.
The person I found most interesting and would like to learn more about is Carl Rogers and his view on Client-Centered Therapy. Its very fascinating how he developed that and how the actual session was directed by the client basically and the therapist just listened and empathized. I would like to learn more about what else this type of therapy did.
I chose chapter 13 because I felt like it would be a good end-cap to this book on the history of psychology, and it was indeed! I was immediately drawn to the section on women in psychologies history. I found it really interesting because I have kept a theme throughout this semester on learning about the women of psychology. It reiterates here that women were very much looked down upon in the early years in psychology. It was very hard for women to get ahead in the working world, let alone the professional world of psychology. What really busted my buttons was in the 1920's when women were either unable to secure full-time academic postions or were limited to teaching at small women's colleges without graduate programs. Later, this was even more of a burden because these small colleges started to replace female professors with males to "enhance" their prestige. What a bite!!
Another thing that caught my eye in this chapter was that women weren't able to be in certain clubs in psychology. E.B. Titchener, who we read about earlier this semester kept women out of his Experimentalist "club". Gosh, it really made me mad because I read about him and really liked his work!
The third thing I found most interesting about this chapter was the bit on parental investment. I discussed this in my social psychology class last year and found that the idea of different investments on children via parents is pretty organic. Women are more invested because they obviously carry the baby for the first 9 months, and the baby then feeds off of her. Humans don't reproduce a whole lot of babies (compared to other mammals who have several litters), so we must pick our mate carefully to get all the greatest genes and what not.
One thing I did not find interesting in this chapter was all the talk on brain and behavior. This stuff just puts me to sleep, really. I am more interested in a philosophical approach with the mind-body arguments.
I really really enjoyed reading about Eleanor Gibson. She received the National Medal of Science from George Bush in 1992. There were only 9 people before her to get this great honor. She created the "visual cliff", which is used to study depth perception in infants. She had a really rough start with discrimination issues, but was tough through it all and I really look up to women like this.
I would say a great majority of this chapter was very useful in my understanding of psychology. It really wrapped some things up for me. It mentioned a lot of names that I have learned about this whole chapter. It gave me the sense that psychology's history is very important, and it shouldn't be left to the past.
Many topics I could relate to earlier chapters. In Eleanor Gibson's section, there are many names brought up that she worked with in her years of study like, Kurk Koffka, E. G. Boring and Harvey Carr.
I definitely want to learn more about Eleanor Gibson. She went through a lot, and just 10 years ago she received her medal. She is recent, and very interesting to me.
I chose to read chapter thirteen because I’m much more interested in clinical psychology then the science and post-war of psychology. The first thing that I found interesting in this chapter was a man named Carl Rogers. I believe it’s because I can relate to him a bit. His father moved them to a farm when he was younger and I live in a town that’s located in the middle of a corn field. However, I have no interest what-so-ever of going into agriculture like Rogers did. I’m a big fan of the University of Wisconsin so I love the fact that he went there. The biggest thing of all though is what he said about APA meetings. It’s all about paper work and the research done on rats. It’s nothing that was of his interest. He was more interested in guidance counseling. The interesting thing about this is that he found something that deals with psychology that doesn’t have anything to do with research or rats. He seems to be the first person that looks out side of the box to see that there are other psychological issues out there. There are people that really need therapy/counseling. Why I found Rogers to be as interesting as I do is because I want to go into counseling for substance abuse. So for him to be one of the top people in this area finally makes me think that there is more than just research in the history of psychology. Thank you Carl Rogers!
The next thing I found interesting/liked about this chapter was the Hawthorne studies. I can’t remember where I first heard about the lighting in the work place but when I first read it or learned about it I thought it was pretty interesting. The idea behind this is that if there is a nice shining light in a work place the workers will be more productive than a place that has poor lighting. Before I read the outcome of this experiment I agreed with the idea the better lighting equal’s better work. The reason being is simple. During the day you are more motivated to do stuff. Once the day turns into night you being to get tired and less motivated to work and more motivated to relax. I think less lighting also makes you more prone to spacing off too, but that’s just my opinion. Reading the outcomes you learn that people weren’t doing well because of the lighting but because they were in a study and felt important and valued to be participating. Okay, fair enough. The other study they did was with an assembly line. This study last for a little over a year. During this time the work place rules began to worsen, but the work production stayed the same. Breaks got cut, hours got longer, yah, I don’t think my motivation to work would still be the same. I think I would be looking for a new job, study or not. The idea was that because these women were in a study group they would continue to work the same because they were valued and happy to be a participant in the study. Turns out, that’s not what happened. Productivity declined, but only slightly. The researchers idea that the subjects would continue to do their job that same way each day because they knew they were being watched and studied, this is known as the Hawthorne effect.
The final thing that I found interesting was the section on behavior therapy. I never would have guessed that food would help someone overcome a fear. Mary Cover Jones was I believe, one of the first people to use food. While a child was eating she would push his fear, a rabbit, closer and closer to him, thus removing his fear of rabbits. It might be too late for me, but if I were eating while I seen a snake would that help my phobia of snakes? For some reason I’m thinking not. I like the way Jones thinks, I just wonder how she ever come up with the idea of food being a great positive reinforcer. The Mowrer’s bed-wetting treatment was also interesting to me. When there was moisture felt a bell would ring. It’s a good idea but I’m a little unsure of it. If the child, assuming it is, starts to feel the sensation that they have to use the bathroom do they start to hear the bell in their head? I don’t know, maybe I’m thinking way too much into the idea.
One thing that I didn’t find as interesting was the section about business and industry. I have no interest in the business side of psychology and taking industrial psych did not help at all. So anything that has business or industrial in there is an automatic no thank you.
The applied psychologist that I would have to go with in this chapter is Rogers of course. Sort of already explained that earlier on why I’d pick him. I might have to look up some of his sessions and see if they would be any help to my future career path. It would definitely help in learning good tactics in the counseling field.
For me, the most important part in this chapter to understand history is everything, the clinical side, the Hawthorne Effect, Rogers and the Eysenck study. It’s all a part of history that we learn and learn from in this present day. The studies can show us either what to do or what not to do. The people can be our inspiration or our “what shouldn’t do” people. It’s all in the way you want to look at it.
Once again, the mind comes up when talking about past chapters. Clinical psychology I see as more about the mind and the abnormalities that it can have. The clinical side is to help those in need, those with abnormalities.
I’m not sure what person I would want to do more research on; I think Rogers is covered pretty well in this chapter. Since Mary Cover Jones is mentioned in this chapter I think I might do more research on her. She seems like she would be an interesting person.
I chose to read Chapter 13 because I read it last week before I found out there was no reading assignment, but instead I just got a head start on this week!
The first part of the chapter I found interesting was at the beginning with the statistics on psychological problems from war and how it demonstrated the need for clinical psychologists. I was astounded after reading that 40 percent of casualties serious enough requiring evacuation were because of psychological breakdowns. Of 1.5 million soldiers given medical discharges, 675,000 were for psychiatric reasons, and after the war 40,000 soldiers were in Veterans Administration hospitals for mental disorders compared to 30,000 for physical wounds. These numbers (assuming they are accurate) blew me away and goes to show people how important therapy can be to soldiers who have been in combat consistently. It makes me wonder today if our veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan are given the proper therapy that some veterans need.
The second piece of information I found to be interesting was the 'close-up' section discussing lobotomy. It was really intriguing reading about the different types and techniques for performing a lobotomy on various human and animal patients. Just reading about the operations scare me a little bit, and it seemed astonishing that the number of casualties from the operations were surprising low. It was nice to read about Egas Moniz only using the procedure on severly afflicted patients who were suicidal or just dangerous and the procedure would actually help some, but Walter Freeman didn't share the same feeling. Using an ice pick to perform the surgery seems crazy to me, and it seemed like a large number of people receiving the surgery could no longer have feelings, or very few at least, which is one of the many characteristics that make us human.
The final piece of information I found to be interesting was reading about the rise of psychological testing as well as consulting companies. I thought it was really interesting reading the how they got started as well as our discussion in class about how these companies are the ones who administer tests like the GRE and ACT. It makes me wonder if people continually question the reliability and validity of these tests than why did they flourish so much and continue to exist and grow today? Especially considering some of these businesses are raking in millions of dollars.
I found the section on the Boulder Model to be very dry and unattractive in the reading. Obviously I understand why they placed it in the text, but it just didn't appeal to me.
I found Walter Freeman to be the most interesting applied psychologist because he just seemed crazy to perform 18,000 lobotomy procedures with an ice pick. Just saying that one sentence seems fascinating. Im curious to see what he did after lobotomies had fallen out of favor, or if he had any legal charges or lawsuits filed against him.
I think learning about the rise of behavior therapy and client-centered therapy will be the most important to understanding the history of psychology because from my knowledge, although I could be wrong, these techniques are still used considerably today in treating patients so I feel it will help to know what they are and how they can help people.
Looking back to Chapter 8 with intelligence testing and psychology's entrance into the business world can be connected to this chapter because this chapter also involves intelligence testing and business. In this chapter psychology, intelligence testing, and business are all combined to create consulting firms to adminster tests to potential employees as well as current employees so they can be evaluated.
I would like to learn more about Haslow because he seems like an individual, like many other pyschologists featured in the textbook, whose range of interests only touched on psychology. I know him from Haslow's hierarchy of needs as the text says, but it makes me wonder if contributed to some other fields as well as psychology like so many others feature in the text.
Maslow*
I chose to read Chapter 13 because I was more intrigued by the title of the chapter and the subheadings seemed more interesting than what I briefly looked at in Chapter 14. The first thing that seemed interesting to me was the Boulder Model. I thought this was interesting because seemed like a step in the right direction for clinical care and scientific models. As we have read in almost every previous chapter, old scientific methods were rudimentary and very unsafe. Instead of performing harmful tests on themselves or their assistants/students this model ushered in a safer and more empirically based approach to the discipline. The second thing that I found interesting was what they called the Hawthorne Effect. The book states that this is the tendency to be affected because people know that they are being tested in some sort of research project. I picked this topic pretty much for one reason, I had some first hand experience with it. My freshman year i was part of a study for my psychology class for class credit. The experience was listed that we would be required to look at pictures and then answer random questions after we saw them. I knew that something was up because of the nature of the project but i didn't know what exactly so i played things pretty close to the chest and was very careful about how i answered questions and looked at everything every carefully. In the end the study was trying to see the relationship between looking at African American people and selecting words that were related to violence or anger. I don't remember what my results were,hopefully good, but the simple fact that i knew i was being tested made me very aware that something was up and to be totally honest it affected how i answered some of the questions. Not knowing what they were looking for specifically made it difficult to hone in on it, but i had a pretty good idea. The last thing i Found interesting was Carl Rogers notion of client-centered therapy. In this approach he argued that is less important to know the history of the patient or client. Instead it is more beneficial to ay attention to creating an effective therapeutic environment. As we know today it is important to view patients history to gain knowledge that can help us, but at the time i am sure this seemed like a totally valid way to conduct procedures. Carl Rogers also seemed to be a man that I would like to research more because most of his research was based in the US and his work with empathy, and reflection. As I posted above i feel like the Boulder Model is a great way to call back to the previous chapters that all touched on the improper and poorly designed tests and models that were previously used. This chapter was really pretty useful and seemed to be pretty standard compared to the rest of the book,not good but not terrible either. It had a variety of topics,people, and ideas but it was mildly difficult to get a grasp on what exactly they were trying to point out, even though the topic IS in the title.
I chose to ready chapter 14 opposed to chapter 13 because I have taken classes that focused on social, developmental and personality psychology. I thought it would be interesting to see more into the history of these topics. I would enjoy looking more into Bartlett and his studies on memory because of his studies on memory. I find memory to be very interesting and difficult to study. Memory has been studied by many psychologist in the past chapters and Bartlett’s study continues to build on the things that we already know about memory and leads to more information about how our memory works.
The first topic of this chapter that I found interesting was the section about Frederick Bartlett on memory. He believed that we use schemata which are “active organizations of past reactions, or of past experiences which must always be supposed to be operating in any well-adapted organic response” (467). These schemata are with us for life and when we are presented with something we will relate it to a past experience, “schemata will in turn influence our current and future perceptions” (467). Since schemata are specifically related to each person, schemata vary between cultures. To support his argument, he created two studies. The first consisted of a series of military men faces pictures on cards. They were arranged in a certain sequence and after an interval of time they were asked to describe the pictures in the order they were presented along with answering questions about the pictures. He found that the first and last face was recalled more actually than the faces in the middle. He also found that many participants transferred details from one picture to the next and reported details not seen in the pictures. (468). The most interesting part of this is that these results are like modern studies of eyewitness memory which is “the lack of accuracy, the addition of detail not originally seen, the damaging effects of leading questions” (469). He also emphasizes the effects the participants' interests have on what they will remember.
Another thing I found his study on the method of repeated reproduction very interesting and useful today. In his study he gave participants a 328-word story that was about things that were unrelated to their current lifestyle. They were to read it twice and then retell the story at a late time, hours, days or years later. (469). Recall of course decline the more time passed, but “what they recalled was shaped by their need to form a coherent, understandable story within the context of their own cultural knowledge systems” (470). They related things in the story to schemata that they were familiar with. For example “something black coming out of this mouth was transformed to foaming at the mouth by one participant” (470). The rationalization made more things comprehensible to the participant when explaining and understanding it, they were actively constructing a memory. Today “his notion of memory as constructive is now widely accepted and central to the understanding of such phenomena as false memory and eyewitness memory” (470). I think this study of memory is more important in the study of the history of psychology because this specifically builds on to the idea of constructive memory that is seen today in many courtrooms. To create fair trials and justice system, it is important that we understand the affects the components of constructive memory have on witnesses.
The last thing that I found interesting in chapter 14 was Festinger’s study in social psychology, specifically cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a state that will occur “whenever people hold two or more thoughts that are inconsistent with each other, a state of emotional and cognitive discomfort… Whenever people experience this they are motivated to reduce it and return to a state on internal consistency” (491). The idea of cognitive dissonance makes perfect sense. An example from the book is an intelligent person who smokes. To return back to internal consistency they need to come up with reasons to support why they are doing it, such as “the person can stop smoking, might questions the validity of the evidence, or might add other elements to the situation, saying, for instance, that everyone has to die, and while the smoking might not be ideal, it helps with weight control” (491). Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonances has been applied to hundreds of different experiments and situations throughout history.
The part in the chapter that I find uninteresting is the background on their lives. I find what they did as research more important to focus on than where they went to school or lived, although this lays the ground work which shows their credibility. I also found the section on Piaget to be not very informative. It only touched on the basics of his ideas and didn’t go into the depth of his research like many of people throughout the book. I find Piaget’s stages of development very interesting although there are flaws to his research.
Being completely honest, I chose to read chapter thirteen because it had significantly fewer pages to read than chapter fourteen did. First what I found to be interesting was the Eysenck study. This research, done by Hans Eysenck, evaluated the effectiveness of psychotherapies, psychoanalysis and eclectic. His research found that individuals who received no therapy at all had an improvement rate of 72 percent, eclectic therapy at 64 percent, and Freudian Psychoanalysis at an astonishing 44 percent. This proved that there was really no evidence which supported the effectiveness of psychotherapy. I found this interesting because Freud had been so important in changing psychology for the better and there was finally research which showed his methods, were in fact, not all that effective.
Second what I found to be interesting was the introduction of the Psy. D. When psychologists interested in clinical psychology went to school, it was first necessary for them to get a Ph.D. Since this program was most focused on research, not all psychologists thought that it was for the best and thought that a program which gave more instruction in the actual practice of psychology. This was first ignored but an APA committee in 1967 decided to explore alternatives to the science practitioner-model which lead to the creation of a new degree, a Doctorate of Psychology, Psy. D. The University of Illinois then implemented such a program and other universities began developing similar programs. I found this interesting because I had never heard of such a program until reading this chapter. Since psychology seems so research-based at this point in my education, it was nice to read about other alternatives.
Finally what I found to be interesting was the Hawthorne Effect. This is defined as the tendency for performance to be affected because people know that they are being studied in a research project. This is interesting to me because it did not start out this way, this being the first research question. It started with testing the productivity of workers at AT&T. Researchers would alter the lighting to see which would cause the workers to be most productive. Research found that productivity remained about the same regardless of the lighting level; it was other factors which effected productivity, for example the level of direct supervision was increased.
What I found to be least interesting was the section on the Boulder Model. I found this least interesting because there are so many specific details about what preceded and eventually lead to the development of this model.
The psychologist I found to be most interesting was Hans Eysenck. The reason I found him so interesting was because he was the one who truly questioned Freud and his ideals and sought to publish the failures in psychotherapy. I would also like to learn more about him because I had not heard of him until reading this chapter and he was so critical to psychology and the questioning f the effectiveness of psychotherapy, and especially psychoanalysis. His research is also the subject in the chapter which is most important to understanding the history of psychology. Eysenck from this chapter related back to the chapter about Freud because he debunked what was most popular and showed his methods of therapy to be essentially ineffective.
I chose this chapter strictly off of the title. I knew that after I read the title of chapter fourteen that I would want to learn more about what this chapter has to offer.
The first subject that I found interesting was magical numbers. I think it is interesting and important to recall the information we learned in a previous chapter about numbers that play an interesting role with our minds. For example chapter 14 went over the number seven. For some people, processing a certain amount of information comes easier than it does for others. I think that the number seven will be a measuring tool for a very long time. This chapter took the number seven and examined it which I also thought was interesting. I think that a very good point was made about how it depends on the type of information the mind has to process. If it is something simple, than the mind will likely be able to remember more of it.
A second subject that I found interesting was the discussion about dichotic listening. I find it difficult to understand that we are not capable of comprehending more than one conversation at a time. I think that our brains are well enough built that they are capable of retaining multiple conversations, or whatever is being listened to. Studies have shown that we only use around 10 percent of our brains any way. I think that we would be better off researching how to use the rest of our brains.
The third subject that I found interesting was artificial intelligence! This may be the most engaging material that I have read all year and definitely plan to write about this topic for Thursday. I think that artificial intelligence is a very dangerous thing to mess with. If anybody has seen The Matrix they would know what I am talking about. I think that machines can’t have feelings for anything, but I do think that they can have a mind of their own if they are programmed in the right way. Attempting to write that kind of computer software would be very difficult. I think that it would be interesting and worth trying if there were strict rules about what the machines or artificial intelligence were capable of. I think if we developed artificial intelligence to help solve our problems with running our country or the world for that matter than it would be positive. However if we let programs with artificial intelligence get out of control we could end up in a world of danger.
One thing that I did not find very interesting was the chapter kind of reviewing the rebirth of cognitive psychology. I enjoyed reading about the material in the beginning relating with magical numbers and dichotic listening. I didn’t think cognitive psychology making its comeback was necessarily the most interesting thing to learn about compared to the other material in this chapter.
I thought that the George Miller was the most interesting applied psychologist. He had a lot to say about the magical numbers, selective filters, and TOTE Units. I think that his insight about the topic helped me understand how psychology can and should take a new perspective on the brain and its capabilities if psychologists have not already.
I think that the most important thing I took away from this chapter that will help me understand psychology from a larger perspective is the subject on magical numbers. I don’t think that it was the most interesting thing I learned in this chapter but I think the conversations that scholars can have about the topic would be very fascinating about what kind of material qualify for the magical number 7. I think that this number can be increased, and hopefully we learn how to do it because it would mean that we have become smarter as a species.
This chapter reviewed a lot of material of a previous chapter on cognitive psychology so it relates to it directly. I believe that George Miller would be the most interesting person to research because of his opinions about magical numbers, selective filters, and TOTE Units. I think that his insight is the most valuable from this chapter because his thoughts to me go outside of the box and he raises questions about these subjects that are interesting to learn about.
I chose to read Chapter 14 because I wanted to read more about what happened after WWII and see if any psychology has progressed since then.
The first thing I found interesting was Frederick Bartlett on Memory. I found this section to be interesting because memory is a hard subject to understand, and I thought with this section I could get a somewhat understanding of what memory is. I found by reading this section memory has a schemata- "active orgainsations of past reactions or past experiences,which must always be supposed to be operating in any well-adapted organic response." After reading this section I have a better understanding what this psychologist found out about our memory.
The second thing I found interesting in this chapter was Leon Festinger in social psychology. I found this section to be interesting because I'm interested in how people interact with others and what that has to do with the history of psychology. I found that cognitive dissonance- "occurs in a state of emotional and cognitive discomfort." Thought the section was different because I didn't know much about social psychology.
The third thing I found interesting in this chapter was personality psychology. I found this section to be interesting because there are two approaches to personality psychology, and each one is different on learning everyone's different personalities. The two approaches to personality psychology is a nomothetic- principles that affect humans in general, and idiographic is a scientific strategy concentrates on the unique individual. Personality psychology looks at humans traits against another human.
I found the section about the brain and behavior to be the least interesting because it was boring to read and I already knew how the stimulus produces changes in the body and the nervous system. I thought this section was just repeating what we have already been taught.
I thought the most interesting applied psychologist was Leon Festinger. I found him to the most interesting because he was the one who created the term cognitive dissonance, and went into detail about social psychology.
This chapter reviewed a lot of other topics in previous chapters. A couple topics that relate to previous chapters is cognitive psychology, it became more popular after WWII and behavior psychology took a back burner. In a previous chapter we talked about Jean Piaget and her theory about developmental psychology. All of this chapter was mostly review of what other chapters have talked about after WWII ended.
I would like to learn more about Gordon Allport because of his knowledge in personality psychology. I didn't know much about personality psychology.
I chose chapter 14 simply because it differs from most of the book as it is about more recent times rather than so long ago. I read about things happening all semester before 1960, & I wanted to read some of the psychology that was going on more recently.
One of the more interesting things I read in this chapter was Bartlett and his take on memory. He felt that research on memory should focus more on the attributes of the memorizer and less on the stimulus. I would have to agree with this. He gave the example of our schema or the way we remember death and dying, and compared that to how other cultures would remember a death of someone, it would be very different, so its more in the person remembering rather that what they are remembering. He also went on to discover how people remember the first thing and last thing in a list much better than the middle, and I have used this discovery in studying for tests. I never study in the same order, but switch it all around so I have a better chance at remembering.
I also got a refresher on Miller’s idea of memory and the magical number seven. He not only researched about how many things the human brain can recall at once, but also researched recoding to take into account the fact that humans have the ability to reorganize data, therefore squeezing in more info per chunk. I always enjoy reading about memory and the ways people study it.
Because of what I read in this chapter, I found it interesting to learn how the name “Cognitive Psychology” came about. It was tossed around for a bit, but it was Ulric Neisser who actually gave it a name and the movement and work of all these other people actually had a title. There were many topics prior to this and the area did not have an identity. Who knew that it would be such a big deal to give something everyone else was already learning & studying a name.
I found the entire chapter pretty interesting, the only things I found myself skipping or skimming over was some of the review things that I already knew, but I cant say that they were not interesting, I just already knew about them.
The most interesting person I found in this chapter was Jean Piaget, just because I love reading about developmental psychology. I am always willing to learn more about Piaget
One of the topics from the chapter that really interested me was the close up on how lobotomies started. Even though I already learned about this process through the video that was shown in class I still find it interesting. I think the reason it is so interesting is just because of the shock value associated with the fact of someone stabbing a pick in your eye in order to damage the brain in hopes of a positive outcome. What prompted this form of treatment was a noble one, in hopes of helping patients everywhere but doctors took the practice too far and the process got out of hand. Soon this process was replaced by medical drugs in order to calm patients that would have otherwise required a lobotomy.
Another topic of interest for me was how once again psychology would be applied to business. In this application the business side failed due to sound psychology. One business in hopes of selling more light bulbs tried to prove that worker productivity increased in better lit areas. The hope was there would be hard evidence to prove that light increased productivity. Unfortunately for the business the findings were inconsistent and the business was unable to sell more light bulbs.
This leads me to another topic of interest for me the Hawthorne effect. This phenomenon attempts to explain how the lighting experiment failed. The theory that was proposed is that the reason the findings didn’t really show anything conclusive is because the workers knew that they were involved in an experiment. This knowledge influenced all of the workers to work harder because they knew that they were apart from the group and doing something special. The effect of this theory is legitimate in a research context but may or may not be the reason for the inconclusive tests of the lighting experiment.
One of the topics that disinterested me from the chapter was the introduction to the section on behavior therapy. The reason I was uninterested in this particular part of the chapter is the fact that a lot of the information talked about was already covered in precious chapters. The introduction to this section went over things like Mary Cover Jones and her systematic desensitization which was cover in depth in a previous chapter.
There are many different topics that will be of great use in better understanding the history of psychology. Particularly the beginning of clinical psychology, the chapter does a great job explaining this. The section on behavior therapy directly relates to previous chapters because it talks about Mary Cover Jones who was covered in depth in previous chapters. The psychologist from the chapter who I would like to learn more about would have to be Carl Rodgers and his Client Centered Therapy.
I chose to read chapter 13 because I was very interested in reading how psychology transitioned from research to real-world practice. I also saw names like Maslow and Carl Rodgers, which I remembered from other classes, and I wanted to read what this author had to say about them.
One thing that I found really interesting and sort of disturbing from this chapter was the statistics on psychiatric problems associated with World War II. The fact that forty percent of casualties that led to evacuations were due to psychological breakdowns was sort of astonishing to me. Also, about half of the medical discharges for the first 1.5 million soldiers were psychiatric reasons. At this point in time clinical psychiatry wasn’t even very popular, so these soldiers probably didn’t get the help they needed.
Another section that caught my attention was the chapter’s close up on lobotomies. From this class and others, lobotomies have become an extremely interesting topic to me. I love studying human anatomy, so learning about where the areas of the brain that are severed and the consequences of this procedure are fascinating. I also find it ridiculous, like one of those “it’s so crazy it just might work” ideas. I thought Walter Freeman might have taken the transorbital lobotomy a little too far, with his “demonstrations” and home visits. I know I would not want to watch an ice pick go into someone’s eye, but to each his own I guess.
Something else that was interesting to me was Carl Rodgers and his client-centered therapy. I’m glad there was someone out there that didn’t think of a patient as a “subject” but as a real human being. He used techniques like empathy and reflection that really had some positive results. I know if I were to go to a therapist, I would want to feel comfortable talking about my problems and feel like the therapist actually listens and cares what I’m talking about. It thought it was also interesting that it was popular in the 1960s and 70s, which makes a lot of sense. Those are the decades I think of when I think love and peace and compassion, so Rodgers’ client-centered therapy fits right in.
I didn’t think that section comparing the Boulder and Vail conferences was very interesting because it was information I didn’t care to learn about. There were important facts about the history of psychology I’m sure, but it just went on about the Ph.D. versus Psy.D. to me. I am not going into psychology for graduate school at all either so this information didn’t pertain to me at all.
I really liked reading about Carl Rodgers because of his beliefs and the hard childhood he had to overcome to become the great psychologist he ended up being. He also has many roots in the Midwest (Wisconsin)! I think I would like to study him further to learn more about his background and how he formed his theories on therapy.
I think the Hawthorne Studies/Effect is a major idea in understanding the history of psychology because psychologists can learn about this study and know what NOT to do when performing experiments. I read that the data was pretty much useless due to a number of factors, so it is good to know how to avoid the same mistakes they made for the future.
This chapter discussed a few things from Chapter 10, including the Little Albert study, Mary Cover Jones and her work on behavior therapy. This chapter talked more about similar ideas to Jones like that of systematic desensitization by Joseph Wolpe where the fear response was gradually weakened and replaced by positive responses. Edmund Jacobson also had similar ideas to Jones with his progressive relaxation techniques. His use of an “anxiety hierarchy” to desensitize patients to a fear all leads back to the work done by Watson and Mary Cover Jones.
I picked Chapter 14 to blog about, because many of my current history classes are also focusing on the post war period in the United States and Europe. Some of the issues that were going on in society are being explored and researched during this time period in Psychology which provides a new insight and perspective to some of the personalities in politics at the time. Some of the new ways that governments were dealing with disabled people, public education, and various other aspects of Psychology that were being applied in various elements of society are all coming together in this chapter for myself in what is currently going on in other classes. I am an individual who tries to make connections between learning in other classes and this chapter seemed a fitter perspective for two other history classes I am currently in.
The first thing I found interesting was the relationship between behavior and the brain which we discussed in class on Tuesday. It has been proven that individuals are not blank slates or “tabula rasa” rather we are born or hardwired to act a certain way in certain situations and that we can control the impulses to act in a certain way and behaviors can be changed and altered.
The third thing I found interesting was the effect of the social environment on behavior. As a future teacher we learn a lot about nature versus nurture and how the environment can have a huge impact on how a person acts. The social environment of an individual can make a huge difference in what is considered acceptable or appropriate behavior in many different environments. The social environment is very important to education as well as my next point that I found interesting…
I am interested in Jean Piaget’s work in the growth and development of the knowledge of an individual at different stages of their life. As a future teacher Piaget’s work is taught and discussed very extensively and is somewhat of standard or basis for what types of subjects should and can be taught at what ages so that student will learn or be able to grasps the desired concepts at a particular age. Piaget’s work was very important to the better the organization of America’s public schools and the future students learning.
Overall the 3 things I found the most interesting from the chapter were things that pertain to my major, interests in history and also provide a background on Piaget who made a difference in how education or learning is conducted for individuals know because of his work in the field.
The one thing I found least interesting was the parts of the chapter that focused on the revolution from behaviorism to cognitive psychology. It wasn’t interesting because I failed to either notice the reference to this in the chapter, and when it was discussed in class, I still was not able to grasp what the “revolution” was all about. I guess if a revolution takes place in ones field and they really cared they would risk everything regardless of consequences to pursue their point.
I find Piaget to be the most interesting because of his research in Education and the developments he made towards the way students are taught now, as well as what individuals can expect in terms of learning and their cognitive development over the years. This research can also explain the problems that may occur if ones cognitive development is delayed damaged etc.
Each psychologist works on building on previous knowledge of other psychologists and each new development allows for new knowledge to be applied to society, education, politics and the overall aspect of how individuals view or perceive things.
A topic from a previous chapter that relates to the current chapter would be the continuous focus of the work of applied psychologist throughout the history of the United States and the discoveries they have made, and the continuous improvements made to society through their discoveries.
I would like to cover more about Piaget’s personal life and how his life helped to shape his discoveries in education and psychology.
I read the cognitive chapter (it is 13 in my book, but I think it is 14 in the newer ones). I picked that chapter because the cognitive revolution is something I've heard of, but not something I'm incredibly familiar with. I also want to go to grad school for cognitive psychology, so it would probably be a good idea to know where it came from, and what the general ideas were that sparked cognitive psychology as a movement.
Three things I found interesting were the Close-Up about Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Bartlett's work (especially the concept of the schema), and the rise of cognitive science.
I thought the Close-Up on Kuhn's book was really cool, because we read Kuhn in my Philosophy of Science class (we actually had a unit on scientific revolutions, and we read an excerpt from Kuhn's book), and he makes a lot of sense in the area of scientific revolution. I thought it was interesting that when I hear about the cognitive revolution, I think of it as a really big thing, where everyone goes from behaviorism to cognitivism (an earlier chapter on behaviorism applies here as well). As the text discusses, it really didn't happen that way, and Kuhn's book (although it is really cool and he has some great thoughts) planted the idea of revolution in the minds of people of the time, even though what actually happened was less of a revolution, because behaviorism was not unified enough to qualify as a paradigm, and there were still a few cognitivists during its height. Cognitivism had the same two problems: it was not all that unified either, and there were a lot of holdovers (Skinner was a behaviorist until he died in 1990, and there are still a few colleges which offer PhDs in applied behavior analysis), and cognitivism is not entirely unified either. I think this understanding will be the most helpful part of the chapter in terms of helping me understand the history of psychology.
I was interested in Bartlett because of his work with schemas, which I've always thought were an interesting concept. I first encountered them while reading a book by Berkeley linguist George Lakoff called "Don't Think of an Elephant: Know your Values and Frame the Debate". He talks about how the political left should be better at framing issues, which meant strategically selecting wording to take advantage of existing connotations of terms, and building connotations for other terms. For example, when someone hears "tax increase", they have a frame (schema) for that idea already. There are all sorts of associations surrounding that concept. But if you can pick a new one, like the Occupy movement has done with "the 1%", you have the opportunity to create frames in other people's minds. The Occupy movement has been tremendously successful in getting people to hear "the 1%", and think of greedy, nasty people who buy elections and horde money.
Finally, I was interested in cognitive science because I think interdisciplinary work in this area is not only really cool, but really necessary. We've been talking in my Philosophy of Science class about the unity of science. Some people think psychology reduces to neuroscience, and neuroscience to chemistry and biology, and chemistry and biology to physics (in fact, I used to think this way). The more I think about it, the more I think we need multiple approaches to something like how the mind works. We need computer models, lingual studies, sensation and perception, even epistemology.
If I had to pick one thing I was not interested in (or was least interested in), it would be Piaget's work. I realize it's very far-reaching, and I really did not find it uninteresting, but it was the least interesting in this chapter because I've heard it several times before.
I think the most interesting psychologist in this chapter was Bartlett, because of his schema concept. I would like to learn more about his research.
In adjusting my focus after a clarification in discussion section today, I have read further into chapter 15 of our textbook, which is the chapter that discusses minorities in psychological history. I was happy to read more about Francis Sumner of Howard University whom was mentioned in chapter 6 of our textbook and also my blog for 10/4/11. In reference to my own blog I attempted to acknowledge the individuals who seem to be overlooked because of the movement of the “masses” that these individuals may be a part of. I was interest there in the efforts of the APA to represent minorities such as the Task Force on Diversity. I wanted to reflect concerning this chapter because I feel acknowledging effort, struggle, and contribution to psychology on behalf of minorities and women was a strong theme in this textbook and a much appreciated one by me myself personally.
Secondlary, I was interested in the following paragraph discussing the stereotypes of Jewish persons by historian Andrew Wilson (1996) concerned candidates for academic positions and letters of recommendations. I become upset and frustrated with the intro phrases reinforcing a stereotype by trying to disguise a complement or something. Such as; despite the barriers of being a [Jewish Person], she ended up being successful, or what not, etc. This is very difficult not to do though, because often it can be with good intentions. Being the 1st African-American president, the 1st Iowan win a surfing competition, etc.
Thirdly, I was interest in Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark and their social scientific research relating to the issue of segregation on development and impact on monumental case of Brown V. Board of Education. I was thrilled to read that they were influenced by Francis Sumner, who helped provide opportunities for a wider range of individuals which lead to the betterment of our nation’s individuals and society.
I did not interest much in the section of “The Future: Psychology or Psychologies” as I was focusing on my interests of minority and women representation in earlier portions of the chapter.Thanks!!
I decided to choose chapter 14. I chose this chapter because it looked more interesting than chapter three did. In general, chapter three was more towards the organizational side of psychology and chapter fourteen covers cognitive processes.
The first thing that I found in this chapter that is interesting is the studies of Sir Frederick Bartlett on memory. In one of Bartlett's experiments he used post card stimuli. One a post card he would have a picture of a military man. There were five pictures total and he would show them one at a time to the person in his experiment. He placed these in front of his subjects always in the same order. While one post card was being shown the other four were face down. After the series of cards were showed Bartlett would wait thirty minutes. After the thirty minutes were up he would ask the participants to describe the pictures that they saw thirty minutes prior. Bartlett found that the participants could perfectly recall the first face as well as the last one. The middle face was not easily recalled. This was really interesting to me because I have always enjoyed studies of memory.
The second thing that I found very interesting is George Miller and his information theory. The concepts bits and channel capacity can explain a person’s limit to process information. Miller argued that people could only process between 5 and 9 words or items at a time. Miller referred to information being held in immediate memory as a chunk. His term recoding tells us that humans can reorganize data and squeeze this data into a chunk. I thought this was interesting because instead of studying a person’s reaction to memory, memory is being studied in how a human processes it.
The third thing that I found interesting in chapter fourteen is the artificial intelligence section of the chapter that discuses algorithms and heuristics. An algorithm is a set of rules guaranteed to produce a solution by working systematically through all possible steps. A heuristic is a more creative strategy or "rule of thumb" that, while not guaranteeing a solution, is more efficient than an algorithm. I found this interesting because this section of the chapter seems to contradict itself. An algorithm will always have a solution and a heuristic does not guarantee a solution. It is odd that a heuristic is more effective than an algorithm.
The one thing that I did not find interesting in this chapter is the part of the chapter that talks about cognitive dissonance. It says that people are motivated to be consistent with their feelings, emotions and thoughts. If this consistence is thrown off, then cognitive dissonance will happen leaving the person with discomfort. I thought that this was least interesting because the terms seem like they should just be common sense.
The psychologist that I found most interesting is Jean Piaget. I always remembered his experiments of showing children two different glasses then transferring the water out of one into the other leaving them to question which glass has the most water in it. Piaget is from Switzerland and even graduated from college at the age of 18. He received his doctorate in biology and eventually his interest turned into wondering about thinking processes.
I think that the psychologists in the chapter will be an important element to further understanding psychology in the future. If we know which kinds of experiments they conducted and what they had for conclusions then we can begin to design new researches to modify or advance on those conclusions. This chapter can relate to any of the previous chapters because it discusses memory and most of psychology has to do with memory processes. I would like to learn more about Jean Piaget. I have learned about him very little in school but what I have learned has been interesting so far. I feel that anyone in psychology should have a good idea of who Jean Piaget is.
I chose to read chapter 14 for this assignment (Psychological Science in the Post-War Era) because I noticed it was mainly about cognitive psychology and the major effects it has had on the field of modern psychology. I have always found cognitive psychology to be the most logical type of psychology, and from my experience, cognitive therapy is one of the best types of treatment out there. The first thing I found interesting here was the section on Bartlett and memory. The concept of schemata has always seemed pretty fascinating to me, so it was fun to read more about them. I also enjoyed reading about Bartlett's various tests on people's memories.
Another portion of the chapter I found interesting was the part on social psychology. I find the theory of cognitive dissonance to be very interesting, especially Festinger's example of an "intelligent person who smokes." The section on experimental reality seemed especially fascinating; I wanted to read more about it, but there wasn't much there. The final thing that was interesting for me was the section on Piaget. Piaget is without a doubt one of the most influential developmental psychologists in history, and his thoughts on epistemology and how children develop have always been pretty cool to me.
One thing I did not find to be the least bit interesting was actually something to do with cognitive psychology. I HATE the human-as-computer stuff. I can't really explain why, but it is just so boring to me - no appeal whatsoever. I understand that for many, it's a logical metaphor for the way our brains process information and such; I just have never been able to get my head around comparing myself to a computer.
I think Piaget was by for the most interesting of the psychologists mentioned in the text for today. He also had perhaps the biggest impact on the field of developmental psychology. We use his terms and theories today more often than we realize. I think the entire chapter was useful to know when studying the history of psychology. It's very important to know how each field of psychology came about and evolved, and that's basically what the whole chapter concerned. I suppose this chapter would relate somewhat to chapter 13 - while chapter 13 focused on different types of therapies and treatments, chapter 14 focused on the different fields of emerging psychology.
I would like to learn more about Allport. He seemed to play a pivotal role in personality psychology, yet there wasn't that much information on him.
I chose to read chapter 14 and the section I found most interesting was titled Frederick Bartlett: Constructing Memory. I had heard of Bartlett in the past so I was surprised to read reviewers first said his book, Remembering: A Study of Experimental and Social Psychology would not make any strides in the psychology world. I think it is interesting that Bartlett took the approach of focusing on the memorizer rather than the material that is to be remembered. I found his The War of the Ghosts study very interesting because it relates a lot to situations we see with identifying criminals in the courtroom. Where our memory stops, our brain often fills in blanks for us to complete a story or a sentence. I think that this research is something that every jury member should keep in mind when "facts" don't quite add up in trials. I enjoyed reading about these "controlled demonstrations," as the book put it, but I have to say that I learned about this subject in a way that was very useful to me. Today in class discussion, we were talking about the (r)evolution of behaviorism and Mr. MacLin asked a fellow student what her opinions on this were. She said that that area of the text did not stick out that much to her, but focused on Bartlett's work instead. When Mr. MacLin asked why, she said that she remember what she was interested in. The conversation continued with talk of the Bartett's experiements and so on. I thought this was a great application of the subject and how we, as students, remember the material we read and study. Even the remembering how we remember the subject of remembering plays into this class and that is what I like about History and Systems. It seems as though a lot of what I do can be applied to the material we have covered. A part of chapter 14 that I would like to learn more about is Leon Festinger. I also think that since I enjoyed reading about Bartlett's work on memory, I might enjoy his book Thinking: An Experimental and Social Study. The part of chapter 14 that I did not to be as interesting was the section called Evaluating Cognitive Psychology. I don't think that there was enough information provided to back up any of the criticisms. Also, I respect a lot of the people we read about and the work that they did, so I am not too interested in ripping up apart every detail and finding what was wrong, but instead, taking those flaws and learning from them.
This week, I chose to read chapter thirteen because I am actually in Clinical Psychology right now. When discussing the history of clinical psychology in class, it is just a brief description, so I wanted to read this chapter so I could obtain more information and gain a better understanding of this field and those who have contributed.
I was immediately drawn into this chapter when it discussed the emergence of modern clinical psychology. This section discusses the struggle that took place when going into clinical psychology. The likelihood of becoming an independent professional was unheard of before the war. At the time, clinical psychologists were put in mental hospitals and clinics where they would be under the supervision of psychiatrists. This gave little room for these individuals to grow until the war ended. When the war ended, that’s when there was a high demand for clinicians. Due to the massive return of veterans, clinicians were needed to help provide services to the mentally wounded. Veterans were now able to talk about what they had witnessed in the war and they were able to do this without being judged by a professional. I was shocked to read that 45 percent, of the 1.5 million solders given medical discharges, were for psychiatric reasons. After the war, there were 44,000 veterans who were in Veterans Administration hospitals suffering from various mental disorders compared to only 30,000 hospitalized with physical wounds. This just goes to show how much the demand increased; and because it increased so much, it became too much to handle and psychiatry simply was forced to back out. However, the government stepped in, seen the need, and began funding training programs at universities in order to gain help. All in all, clinical psychology emerged and was now making it easier for clinical psychologists to work as independent professionals rather than working under the orders of a psychiatrist.
Another part of this chapter that caught my attention was Abraham Maslow’s self-actualization. This humanistic approach to psychotherapy was much different than that of Freud. I like the quote that was used by Maslow to describe the difference between his approach and Freud’s: “the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology….The study of self-actualizing people must be the basis for a more universal science of psychology.” The reason I liked this statement is because I found a lot of truth in it. The way I interpreted it is, Freud looks at things in childhood whereas Maslow believes in self-actualization. This proposed that the qualities best characterizing humans are free will and a sense of responsibility and purpose, a forward-looking lifelong search for meaning in one’s life, and an innate tendency to grow towards self-actualization. Maslow created a hierarchy of needs, a model that was arranged in a pyramid, with the lower level and the more basic needs at the bottom and self-actualization at the top. Since it has been a while since I had looked at Maslow’s model, I decided to look it up so I could refresh my memory. http://theskooloflife.com/wordpress/self-actualization-in-the-maslow-hierarchy/ : This website here shows Maslow’s model as well as providing some information gained from Abraham Maslow through an interview. I enjoyed this website because it gave a lot of positive advice to help people achieve self-actualization. I just like the whole idea of self-actualization because it seems positive and allows for many possibilities. This can be summed up at the end of this section: “Maslow’s work, and his unceasing optimism about the possibilities for human existence, a movement that emphasizes mental health rather than mental illness, and examines such topics as happiness, optimism, and creativity.
One of the other parts of this chapter that I found interesting was the Hawthorne Effect. I liked the first experiment they presented where they examined the effects of lighting on worker productivity. They were in fact sponsored in part by the electrical industry, which hoped to find evidence for its belief that there was a simple correlation between lighting and productivity-the more light in the work space, the higher the productivity. Evidence of this, of course, would help sell light bulbs. However, research failed to show any relationship between lighting and work output. But, Hawthorne found that the physical environment was not as important for productivity as the “human factor.” Workers knew they were in a study and that the results were important, so their productivity remained high because they felt valued. This experiment alone is a great and simple example of how the Hawthorne Effect works; the tendency for performance to be affected because people know they are being studied in a research project. We also see this happen a lot when people are being tested. When people’s personalities are being questioned, when they start to catch on and find a trend, they tend to provide answers that will be well liked rather than stating how they really feel. There is a demand in society to be a good person and if someone doesn’t fit the bill or may be a little different, there is a chance that people will look at them differently; no one wants that kind of attention. Overall, I found the Hawthorne Effect to have some interesting studies and the idea has a lot of truth to it.
The one part of this chapter that I did not find too interesting was the section of behavior therapy. Even though I have found this interesting in previous chapters, I felt that this was just a repeat of that information and did not provide me with any new, helpful information. So this section was rather boring and I found myself already knowing what the next sentence would discuss because I’ve covered the information so many times. Other than that, the rest of the chapter was helpful in providing new information and talked about some topics, I have heard about and didn’t understand, more in depth which was very helpful.
I, like many others, found Carl Rogers to be the most interesting. I have heard about his work in client-centered therapy before, but I thought that this book did a better job of explaining Rogers. I have always taken an interest in client-centered therapy and would like to learn more about it just because I do find it to be a good approach.
This chapter, like the ones before, is helpful in understanding the history of psychology because we are seeing how the demand for clinical psychologists increased after the war. In past chapters, we have heard about the struggles that different psychologists went through because many people questioned their ideas and work. Here, in this chapter we see that people’s opinions are changing and more and more people are seeking help from psychologists. This chapter also relates to other chapters because it continues to question some old theories as well as present us with new and improved ways of using other practices. We are seeing how the field of psychology is advancing and how using past theories has helped modify or create new practices. We see psychologists from past chapters being brought into new chapters. Altogether, we are seeing how the history of psychology and through reading each of these chapters continues to make changes and advances in society; it’s an interesting thing to see!
I would like to learn more about Carl Rogers and his work in Client-Centered Therapy. I would like to know more about how he came up with this approach and a little more information regarding his background.
I decided to read chapter 13. I was very much interested in the development of clinical psychology and the usefulness of psychology during and after the world wars. A lot of times when talk about war we think of the physical wounds but forget about the mental scars. I was also very interested in the section on lobotomies. I have actually watched a movie called Suckerpunch that had this procedure in it and I had always wondered exactly why this was done and who developed such a strange treatment. This treatment of course seemed civil at the time but I glad that they are no longer necessary. I can not imagine what it would be like to live like a zombie every day after having that procedure done. Of course, thought I know of an individual who suffers from a severe mental illness that is almost zombie like at times because of his medication but that is something that can always be modified unlike scrambling your frontal lobes.This section of course can be related to Chapter 12 because of how it discusses the development of treatments of the mentally ill. The third thing I was interested in was humanistic psychology. I have never understood much about this topic but it allowed me to understand its formation and what it is about more.
One thing that I did not find interesting was the section on business and psychology. I have never had much interested in the business aspect of psychology. I am sure it has it's importance but it does not peak my interest.
The people I found to be most interesting in this chapter was Carl Rogers and Walter Freeman. I was interested in Carl Rogers because he helped to develop the humanistic view on treatments and I had known very little about it. I was interested in Walter Freeman because of the development of the lobotomy and how he promoted its usage. I would love to learn more about either of these people.
I decided to do my blog on chapter 13 because I had already read half of it before I knew we’d have a different blog, so I just finished it this past weekend.
My first favorite part of chapter thirteen was learning about the Hawthorne Effect. As I have said in previous blogs, one of my favorite things about psychology is explaining common sense things. The Hawthorne Effect talks about how someone’s performance will be altered if she or he knows they are being watched. I’m taking Industrial Psychology right now, and we learned that one of the number one way to motivate employees is to do performance evaluations. This is because they know they are being observed, so they try harder: The Hawthorne Effect.
Another section I found interesting was the section on lobotomies. I came into UNI as a biology major, so I love biopsychology – it’s one of my favorite fields of psychology. Therefore the brain and surgeries of the brain interest me. I also almost always love the close-up sections. This is a major surgery that had lots of controversy behind it. Obviously death was the main concern, and unfortunately fatalities did occur. However, comparing our medical advances to way back when, fatalities actually did not happen as much as one might think. I did like this section, although reading about how an ice pick was used as a surgical instrument was somewhat unsettling. It made me think of a bones episode where the killer used an ice pick to scramble his victim’s brains.
The third thing I found interesting was the all the statistics on how the war “helped” psychology. Though these are unfortunate circumstances, I believe necessary for the field of psychology. Some people don’t “believe in” psychology, and after traumatic events, like the war, I feel like it helps people see the importance of psychology and how people really do need help with their mental and emotional health problems.
The part I did not find interesting was the Boulder and Vail part. It was a LOT of information that I kept reading, but realized I wasn’t actually retaining anything. So I kept having to read it over and over to get anything out of it. It reminded me of my Applied Psychology class when we learned about the difference between a Ph.D and a Psy.D. It is a lot of knit picky details that don’t interest.
My favorite psychologist was Carl Rogers. I really like client-centered therapy. It gives me warm fuzzies. It was fun to read about the development of this. This is also the psychologist I would like to learn more about. I’ve learned about him in other classes and I find his work really fascinating.
Chapter 14 appealed to me more than 13 because I wanted to see how psychology shifted after the world was disrupted in war.
I realize I’m tackling these questions out of order, but this is how it makes sense to me! First, I found Leon Festinger extremely interesting (the most interesting of the applied psychologists from Ch 14), mostly because he’s responsible for introducing my first interesting topic from Chapter 14. Festinger was a post-war Jewish NYer who ended up attending UofI and gaining a loyal following of students. He created theories about social psychology, such as cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance means that we are always trying to maintain a comfortable level of cognitive existence, and when that balance isn’t achieved, our instincts motivate us to get back to that balance. He also studied other aspects of social theory like the Social Comparison theory that explains how we compare our own emotions and ideas to others around us to determine where we stand (whether we’re a good or bad person, etc…)
Another interesting topic was the idea of cardinal and central traits. A cardinal trait is something that is so defining of a person that it overshadows all other traits. One such trait could be if a person is seen as controlling, or perhaps greedy. Allport studied these types of characteristics in people and declared that each of us is unique and much is to be gained by simply studying which traits we have and to what extent.
A third topic was AI – Artificial Intelligence. I grew up in the days of Terminator when Arnold Schwarzenegger warned us of what was to come if computers took over, and frankly? It still scares the crap outta me! It was neat to read about the idea of algorithms versus heuristics, and the explanation of a heuristic really made sense to me. Most interesting, though, was the Turing test. I’d heard of it before, but it was mentioned in Chapter 14. This test is when a person seated in a separate room asks questions of both a computer and another person and tries to determine which is which. If no difference can be detected, it is concluded that the computer is equal to human capabilities in that test.
I was definitely less interested in the Developmental Psychology portion of the chapter, simply because I’d taken several abnormal psych classes and a developmental psych course and all of them relied heavily on learning the history of Piaget and his contributions.
I would either like to learn more about Festinger (due to the reasons already given above) or perhaps Bartlett, simply because he had some fascinating studies on recall, in particular the stories of the Native Americans.
I believe that the shift in focus from the post-war questions of the way people had treated others (Holocaust) along with the advent of computer science really changed the way psychology was approached. More intriguing social questions were being asked and the research was being carried out in ways that had previously been undreamed of, thanks to computers. Watching the theories and research unfold in this chapter really hit home how important context is. It definitely helps me to understand the history of psychology better.
In Chapter 11, the text examined one theory of how the rats learned the maze as a cognitive mapping exercise, and for some reason that’s what came to mind when reading about magical numbers and selective filters. It’s as if we select which information will help us (ie, get us through the maze) and discard most of the rest. It made me wonder if the rats simplified the data down to the things that helped them learn where to turn in order to escape.
I chose this chapter because I am interested in clinical psychology, so it was more interesting to me than the cognitive chapter was. What I found interesting in this chapter is the Hawthorne Effect. This was a study done to see if lighting effected productivity. However, the problem in this study was that the workers knew that they were being observed, so they altered their performance. I think that this theory is very true. If I know someone is watching me do something, I feel a lot more pressure to perform well, so I typically do my best. An example of this in my life is when I am studying or doing homework with someone else around, I tend to do it faster and not get distracted by facebook, because I know they can see what I am doing, and I don’t want them to think that I am lazy.
The second thing that I found interesting was Carl Rogers’ client centered therapy. I liked how Rogers saw something that was not working in therapy and he decided to make a change and come up with his own way of doing things. I think he laid out his therapy in a very practical way with three components that are easy for other therapists to follow. I liked that one of the aspects is to be genuine and honest. I have heard from some people who have seen counselors and they feel like that counselor didn’t actually care about their life, so they did not effectively help them with their problem. I think this is an interesting approach to counseling.
The third thing that I found interesting was the section about lobotomy. It seems so unethical looking back at this and curious as to why people thought this was helpful. Even the doctors knew that this was turning individuals into zombie like beings, but they argued that it was better for them. A procedure like this would hopefully not be allowed today, but I am sure there are things that we are doing now that we will look back on and question.
I found the section about researchers and practitioners boring because it was kind of just a brief overview. I think Carl Rogers therapy is helpful to understanding psychology, because it shows where this type of therapy originated from. I found Carl Rogers to be the most interesting psychologist, because I feel like he genuinely wanted to help others with their problems. This chapter relates to chapter 12 with clinical psychology because they are both showing the history and progression of the treatment of the mentally ill. I would like to learn more about Carl Rogers, because I find his therapy interesting.
I looked at the title of both the chapters and choose to read chapter 13. This is because in chapter 14 I saw the words Post War, and knew that I did not want to read anything dealing with the war or post war era. When reading chapter 13, I found many things interesting as well as repetitive. As I read through the chapter and at times skimmed it. I started to get irritated because I do not find topics interesting; it’s the people that interest me. However this chapter had me more interesting in topics them it did people.
The first thing that interested me was the part on behavior therapy. However as I was reading, I thought that I already knew most of it. But I will still write about it because I love Mary Cover Jones!! In this chunk of the chapter it talked about items that we learned in chapter ten. The chapter talked about Mary Cover Jones a little bit along with her systematic desensitization. However I was more compelled to reading about the other principles with conditioning principles that were applied in the clinical setting. I learned and found interesting about the studies that were done. The first one was done in Russia, and it took the principles from Pavlov. This study was done on treating alcoholism by paring alcohol with electric shock and hysteria by conditioning movement in the limbs that appeared to be paralyzed. The next study was done in the U.S. and it was a treatment for bedwetting. What they did was very interesting just like what they did for alcoholism. They created a crib pad that rang a bell as soon as the pad became wet. Although many arguments were made about this process and what the Mowrers were committing to do, it was very interesting. Yet again it was very interesting to read and I wish I was in the era where things were being invented!
The next item that I found interesting was the term self-actualization. This term meant that humans have a free will and have a sense of responsibility and purpose, a forward looking lifelong search for meaning in one’s life and an innate tendency to grow. This term made me think about life in general and its very true. Many people have a pull or they gravitate towards looking for a meaning in their owns life. We see this happening in the real world all the time. Many people do not know what their purpose or meaning in life is. This term is related to humanistic psychotherapy. The two people largely associated with this is Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. Many times Maslow argued that the study of self-actualization in contract with a strategy that examines disorders would however produce a healthier psychology. He put in a famous quote “the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology…. The study of self-actualizing people must be the basis for a more universal science of psychology.” For years Maslow did a large amount of studies on self-actualization.
Next I enjoyed reading about Rogers and what he thought where the key components of having an effective- therapist-client relationship. He thought that first the therapist must be genuine and honest with the client. Second the therapist must be accepting of the client as a person, meaning a warm regard for him as a person of unconditional worth. Third the therapist must have empathy. I enjoyed reading all of this because it made me think about my therapeutic communication class which I am taking this semester. We talk about these three components more often than not. These components are strongly many times enforced in the social work field. When I was reading over what Carl Rogers believed in, I was completely shocked and amazed because these concepts are widely used in the social work field more often than not!!
One think that I found least interesting was the part in the book that was very repetitive. I did not enjoy re reading material that I have reread many other times throughout the book and other classes. Other than that there was nothing else that I did not like reading about.
I truly found Rogers to be most interesting due to the fact that I was able to relate his ideas to concepts that are found in different fields today. I found that he was completely on topic with his ideas and they were beyond brilliant. He knew what he was doing, just at times needed someone or something to back him up.
I found reading chapter ten to be most useful, due to it dealing with behavior modification. This is because psychology deals a lot of material on behavior and how we can change our behaviors. We are able to explain why we do what we do and in detail without any questions, because we now have research to back us up. I found that many people are unaware of what they are doing or how their actions can be changed. This chapter relates to the current chapter because there was a section about behavior therapy. It even covered material that was in chapter ten as well as new material.
The reason that I chose to read this chapter was because it was the next chapter in the book. It really did not matter much to me which one I read. The one thing that did catch my attention was the title. Knowing that this chapter was going to cover those actively involved in the practice of psychology and not just in labs made me want to read it.
Mary Cover Jones was interesting to me because she did the work that I think Watson and Rayner should have done. She found a way to remove the fears that people have. I think that is of much more worth than to just figure out how to make individuals fear. Her case in which she gradually move at rabbit close to a young boy really sticks out in my mind.
Another person that I thought was very interesting was Carl Rogers. I thought that the creation of client centered therapy was a genius idea. At first it kind of sounds like you just sit around and let your patient ramble and takes their money. Rogers knew how to be supportive of his patients however. He stated that it was the therapist job to model the stability that the patient should have in the way that they interact. I thought I was interesting that he emphasized empathy and reflections.
In my opinion it was about time that more psychologist have non Academic jobs. Although the psychologist in academia did not like this shift I think it was for the better. There are lots of people in the world who need clinical help and psychology has the means to do so, so it is necessary that they give individuals help. To just stay in academia would have been to limit the good that the field could do.
The section about Eysenck was not really that interesting to me. I think that I was pretty turned off to it because he made accusations about the practice of psychotherapy, but the research he had in support was not good. In fact his evidence had a lot of methodological problems. I always like it when individuals are inspired to add good to the field by improving on current practices that are bad, but when damage is done to a current strategy for no reason at all I feel that it is a waste of time.
The psychologist that I found to be most interesting was Abraham Maslow. I found him interesting because he started off like a lot of psychologist. Being trained as a research psychologist he did a lot of work with animal. I was glad to read that he thought that there was something better that he could be doing so he chose to take a humanistic approach. His most well known work is the hierarchy of needs. I think that the hierarchy of needs is a great way to look at life because when individual’s satistfy needs in their lives they do develop more and more as a person.
I think that the most important thing in this chapter was the fact that the majority of psychologist were finally working outside of academic settings. I think that psychology’s strength is its application so it was good to see that they were finally doing this. It was also good to see the growth of clinical psychology. The work done by psychologist was finally seeking to improve people’s quality of life first and foremost, that is what I believe is the most important thing.
Systematic Desensitization is a topic that was discussed in earlier chapters. In this chapter it was brought up to discuss the work that Joseph Wolpe was doing. This type of technique is said to be the best behavior therapy technique. In the work that Wolpe was doing he studied cats and their phobic reactions which he later applied to humans. He called that progressive relaxation in which he was able to decrease anxiety in nervous individuals.
Carl Rogers is the psychologist that I would like to learn more about. First of I am just really interested in the humanistic approach to psychotherapy. Client centered therapy is also very interesting to me. I think it probably works well because sometimes the best thing for people who are having issues is just to talk without receiving advice. I think it would be very cool to find some of his research or case studies and see exactly how the therapy affected some of his patients.
I read chapter 13.It was basically about the parctice of clinical psychology.The first thing i liked in this chapter was about Carl Rogers client centered therapy.I liked it as i have read about it briefely in a lot of other classes but this chapter provided me with a lot more information about his life and the basic principle of this therapy about not stressing on the clients past and making them feel like they can control the situations.
The second thing i liked about this chapter was about Eyesenk's aggument about the traditional ways of psychotherapy and replacing them with new and more humanistic therapies.
The third thing i liked about this chapter was reading about Hawthorne studies.Hawthorne Studies example perfectly compliments what this chapter is about ie the humanistic therapies and approaches.The Hawthorne Studies are also very popular and have been mentioned in a lot of my other psychology classe.The Hawthorne studies proved that the present state of mind a person is in was more imporant than any other external factors and it was imporant aspect to consider.
The was nothing that i realy disliked in this chapter.
It would be interesting to know more about the work of Eyesenk.
We have read about behavioural therapies in the previous chapters hence it is related to the past readings.
I read both chapters, but I’ll pick Chapter 13 since it comes first. No other reason.
I thought the discussion of the “Humanistic Revolt” in psychology was interesting, because it really seems to be overstating the case. I read about Kuhn’s concept of ‘paradigm shift’ in a Philosophy of Science class, and the ‘Humanistic Revolution’ does not seem to meet the criteria. There was no clear and immediate shift in the paradigm (behavioralistic vs. humanistic); The behaviorists simply died out, allowing others to express long-held (and long held only privately) dissenting opinions. And there was no comprehensive paradigm that filled the void: humanistic psychology’s supporters had different ideas about what it meant.
I thought that Maslow was interesting, because he claimed that a humanistic approach to psychology (re- self-actualization) would “produce a healthier psychology” (Goodwin, p449). Yet it seems to me, we don’t cure most diseases by looking at healthy people.
It was interesting to me that Rogers’ approach was criticized as being “relevant only for articulate people with mild problems” and that Rogers was unsuccessful in his attempt to counter these claims (Goodwin, p451). I think that many people have this image of scientists as coldly objective, dispassionate researchers who are seeking to arrive at the Truth (with a capital T); but studying the history of psychology suggests that many (Watson and Titchener come to mind, from earlier chapters) are more interested in their careers and personal ambitions than they are the ‘truth’. Not that the same couldn’t be said of most groups -- but still, holding steadfast to an idea despite valid criticism simply out of self-interest is unlikely to yield accurate results.
I was also interested in how clinical psychologists fought with psychiatrists for professional recognition and rights, and how this battle still continues (re- prescribing meds). Since I will probably be pursuing my Mental Health certification, this issue seems relevant to me. (Personally. See how they get you? That’s why I think it is worthwhile to study history.)
I found it more distasteful than disinteresting, but I think that the Hawthorne Studies demonstrate a number of things that can be wrong with research studies, the need for double-blind conditions, and the importance of eliminating researcher self-interest as a factor. Otherwise, you will only find the answer that you are looking for -- not necessarily the correct answer.
I would like to find out more about Carl Rogers, simply because many seem to endorse his approach to counseling and I want to have enough info to make an informed choice about this myself.