Week #16 Final Assignment

The first topic I found interesting this semester was behaviorism and cognitive psychology, as well as the progress of the female industrial occupational psychologist Lillian Gilbreth.
I like the behaviorism and Cognitive because of the work the Alfred Benet did on the intelligence test. I thought it was interesting how intelligence tests were used to test incoming immigrants to the United States and how they were deemed unintelligent because they couldn’t answer the questions in English, or correctly. That section amazed me because I don’t know how people could expect them to answer in English and answer questions that were not things they were culturally aware of. It was interesting to read an research about how intelligence testing has been modified and how intelligence testing is now done in a way where it somewhat caters to an individual’s background and is performed in the person primary language.
I also really enjoy the sections of the book that focused on Jean Piaget and all the research he conducted. While his research was not initially for the education field, it is widely studied in many professional education sequence classes. I enjoyed reading about how Piaget discovered different stages in an individual’s cognitive growth. Piaget’s research really emphasized how psychology can be applied to different subjects or professions to make it more efficient and to provide a better method or approach to conduct business.
My favorite and most interesting topic so far this semester was the section on the Industrial occupational psychologist Lillian Gilbreth, I was really intrigued by how she manager he house and these methods or ideas manifested into the way factories and manufacturing is conducted. I also think that the Cheaper by The Dozen, story is fascinating. She was inspiring and fun to read about. Her intellect is something that should admired, because something as simple as the way she ran her house changed the industries were run.
These topics were interesting because they apply to my major in the aspects of education, and history. I am more interested in things that I can make connections outside the class with, because I feel that what I’m learning is important if it can be connected or relatable to other things I’m learning and it provides a sense of legitimacy.
This class has changed the way I think about psychology in that the history is important because often times when society is faced with a problem, psychology is working on something similar or directly related, to try and understand why that situation or thing is occurring. Psychology before was hard to understand, it was this concept and methods or theories that I found hard to understand. Being a history person it is easier for me to understand why certain issues in psychology are viewed when I see where the ideas came from in the first place. I need to know the origin before I can understand it in its final concrete form or theory.
This class has helped in my education classes, by providing broader insights into other applied psychologists beyond Benet and Piaget. This class has also helped explore and area in history that normal history classes my otherwise over look. Often times in history classes there isn’t time to explore the history of just one subject and this class provided that in way that if I ever have to teach psychology to high school students I have learned about the whole field as it progressed through time which is immensely helpful to me. Most new teachers end up teaching psychology and economics because they are difficult and complex. This course has complemented my overall major in ways that I did not expect. I am really glad for what I have learned, and the blogs have allowed me to explore ways it connects to other material from other classes.

One of the topics that I found very interesting was how psychology can be applied to business. I was able to find a really good online source that showed me how this is applied to marketing. Through my research I found several very interesting marketing examples that incorporate psychology to increase the odds of the success of a product. One of the strategies that really caught my attention was one that implemented Herman Ebbinghaus’s primacy effect. This strategy suggests that you get your most important details about your product across to the consumer right away so they will be most likely to remember the most important details. Another strategy is the foot in the door phenomena in which you get the customer interested in something large by getting their attention with something small. An example would be of offering someone a trial period of your product in hopes that they will like it enough to buy it. Cognitive dissonance can be a real problem for a marketer. Therefore in order to start building a positive outlook on your product a marketer must introduce the customer to a small game or survey to build a positive reputation around the product. This positive correlation will help the customer to become more interested in the product. Also another effective selling strategy is perceived expertise. A seller doesn’t necessarily have to be an expert on the product but if the seller is confident when he speaks and talks about what he is selling with confidence, a sale is more likely to happen. Lastly the concept I found most interesting having to do with marketing deals with priming. This strategy relates a memory that already exists with a product that someone wants to sell. An example would be evoking the memory of a hot summer day if you were going to sell a product that cools and refreshes like a sports drink for instance.
Another topic that I found to be interesting is the types of conditioning. Through my research more in depth on this topic I was able to find that there are more types of conditioning that I originally thought there were. The first type is forward conditioning this type of conditioning allows the subject to learn the fastest out of the various types. This is where the conditioning stimulus precedes the unconditioned stimulus like that of the bell before the salivation. Simultaneous conditioning is where the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus are presented at the same time. Backward conditioning is a little different from the other types of classical conditioning. The conditioned stimulus follows unconditioned stimulus in this scenario the conditioned stimulus is usually meant to inhibit the unconditioned stimulus. During temporal conditioning a stimulus is presented as various time intervals throughout the experiment. The conditioned response occurs when it is correctly timed between unconditioned stimuli. During unpaired conditioning the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are presented at random this approach is often used in sensitization. Lastly extinction occurs when the stimulus used in conditioning is taken away such as the bell in Pavlov’s experiment.
Operant conditioning is different from classical conditioning in that the behavior of the subject is modified voluntarily. Operant conditioning deals largely with reinforcement and punishment in the testing of the subject. There are four different contexts of operant conditioning. The first of these contexts is reinforcement or the rewarding of a desired behavior. Negative reinforcement is something negative occurring until the subject does the targeted behavior. An example of this would be a very loud noise that would continue until the subject being tested hit the correct lever. Positive punishment is another form of operant conditioning. In this form a behavior is reduced by introducing a negative stimulus after the behavior occurs like an electric shock. Negative punishment is the last form of operant conditioning. This works by removing a stimulus after an undesired behavior like taking a toy from a child after bad behavior, resulting in decrees of that behavior. Extinction can also be used in this type of conditioning when no stimulus results from a behavior. Such as if a lever is pressed and nothing happens, there is nothing positive to make it press it again but also nothing negative like a shock to make it not press it resulting in knowledge not to press the lever.
Hypnosis was another topic from the semester that I found to be very interesting. This topic interested me because of the power of suggestion one holds over another in a hypnotic state. Hypnosis is a mental state brought on by the suggestion of a hypnotist. The hypnotist generally uses series of words or suggestions to enter the subject into a trancelike state. Hypnotism can also be self-administered through self-hypnotism techniques. Hypnosis is present in everyday activities that fully engage your mind. These activities can range from watching a movie, mowing the lawn, reading a book, or even driving. The way hypnosis works is that I engage the subconscious mind in a direct way bypassing the person’s conscious thoughts. This is why when people are hypnotized for a show their inhibitions go to the wayside. Also the conscious mind is a person’s main inhibitory factor whereas the subconscious mind is a source of imagination and impulse. With inhibition out of the way the subconscious is free to act imaginatively and impulsively to the suggestions of the hypnotist.
Not only are there differences in behavior when one is hypnotized but also there are physical signs of hypnosis. Heart rate and respiration slow down due to the relaxation process of hypnosis. There is also a change in brain wave activity when a subject is asleep.
Hypnotists use a variety of methods to put their subjects in a hypnotic state. Originally fixed-gaze induction was the most common form where an object was waved in front of the subject and the focus on that object put the subject into a hypnotic state. Rapid hypnosis overloads the mind with sudden firm commands putting the subject into a hypnotic state. The most common form of hypnosis is progressive relaxation and imagery hypnosis. In this form the hypnotist talks to the subjects in a soft slow tone relaxing the subjects into hypnosis. The last form is loss of balance this is most commonly seen in infants as a result of rocking or swaying.
Hypnosis can also be used to treat problems some people may have. Hypnosis is often used to get people to quit smoking. It is also used to rid people of irrational fears and phobias. On some subjects it can be particularly useful to rid patients of pain and other medical ailments but the effectiveness of these treatments is inconclusive. Another application is in law enforcement to pick out dormant memories of interrogated subjects. However, these results are inconclusive as well since the subject while in a hypnotic state does their best to pleas the hypnotist, thus questioning the reliability of these testimonies.
Though this class I have learned a lot about psychology that I never knew before and some stuff that I could have gone without knowing such as the lobotomies. However, it all makes up the whole of the history of psychology. I never realized before this class how deep the history of psychology runs. There were a lot of mistakes made by early psychologists as well. Much of what some early psychologists thought about the body and mind couldn’t have been further off but there were also some early theorists whose views on how the body and mind work were very close. Even though some would call the lobotomies a mistake in the history of psychology the reason that they were done was originally for a noble cause. Through this class I have learned that psychology comes in all different forms and can be applied in many different ways to explain how the mind works. Even though psychology has blossomed into a wonderful science I feel that it has a long way to go before we are truly able to understand everything about how the human mind works.
The material I have learned in this class has complemented the material I have learned about in other classes quite well. Through what I have learned in my sociology class I have come to the realization that these two sciences started out very similarly. This is because originally both of these sciences had their base in philosophy and branched out from there. Also this science both originally had trouble getting backed by main stream science. These sciences also did not originally give much credit to women and people of minorities early on in their history. Another correlation between the two is that as far as these sciences have come we still have a long way to go before we fully understand them.

Going back towards the beginning of this textbook, one of the topics that has stuck with me is Hermann Ebbinghaus and the experimental study of memory in chapter four. Like I had mentioned then, memory is one thing that has always fascinated me. I find it really interesting how our memory is triggered and how easily we forget things without even realizing it. I was really able to relate this chapter to my Psychology and Law class because often times we discussed memory and how easily our memory can be manipulated and how it relates to eyewitnesses of a crime. Back to chapter four, Ebbinghaus’s experiments on nonsense syllables lead him to the forgetting curve and that is the information I found most beneficial. Ebbinghaus wanted to examine the effects of time on memory. According to Ebbinghaus, the level that we can recall information depends on the strength of our memory and the amount of time that has passed since learning. There are also two factors when it comes to retention, which are, repetition and quality of memory representation. The reason I found this so interesting and why I enjoyed the discussion in class is because his ideas are still used today. Professors are always trying to convince us to study and read the book so that way we can do well on our exams. Instead, we find ourselves at midnight, the day of the exam, to pull our notes out to look through them. This is not allowing enough time or enough resources to help the information remain in our memory. We lose it much faster and when we sit down for the exam it is harder for us to retain anything because of the simple fact we didn’t store it correctly in our memory. Maybe one of these days we’ll learn and take Ebbinghaus’s ideas seriously; we may be able to do better in our courses.

Moving on to chapter twelve, where another important issue in psychology was brought to our attention, was the treatment of the mentally ill. I found this interesting because when a person was considered to show abnormal behavior, many people believed that individual was evil or possessed by the devil. Rather than helping a person, many were tortured and put to death. Some were burned while others were drowned as a “witch.” I was able to take this chapter and relate it to my Abnormal Psychology course that I am currently in. We also had discussions in that class that pertained to the mentally ill and how the treatment they received made their conditions worse or they were put to death to, in society’s eyes, eliminate the problem. In both this class and my abnormal course we discussed, if one was considered to be morally deficient and dangerous to society because of their misbehavior, or incurable troubles, they were in need of being locked away from decent folks; out of sight, out of mind. To bluntly state it, putting “them” away, the public would then not have to be bothered by their actions and would not have to deal with the problem. However, this isn’t good for those who are considered mentally ill because they are not getting the proper help that they need and instead may get worse by being locked away and receiving harsh treatment. Even then, there were people who knew that this was not okay and eventually contributed to making changes to the treatment of the mentally ill. Among the many that contributed, Phillipe Pinel and Dorothea Dix were the two that I took interest in learning about. They wanted to improve the treatment of the mentally ill. Pinel introduced the concept of “moral treatment,” while Dix’s efforts lead to the creation of forty-seven mental hospitals and schools for the feebleminded. Both played a huge role along with others to bring awareness to society and to make sure that the mentally ill were getting proper treatment to help them rather than harm them. This is a controversial issue even today and is something that needs to be dealt with in society so that the mentally ill people can get the help they need rather than just being put away like they don’t exist.

Among the many things I found interesting throughout this course, I would have to say the last topic that I have always found interesting and was able to gain more knowledge through research would have to be Carl Rogers’ client-centered therapy which was included in the last chapter I read; chapter thirteen. This topic immediately grabbed my attention because I am in a Clinical Psychology course right now and when discussing client-centered therapy, it was very brief. I never truly understood this approach to therapy or how it was even discovered. This led me to do more research on the topic and I was very satisfied with the information I found. Client-centered therapy is also known as person-centered therapy. This therapy is a “non-directive form of talk therapy that was developed by humanist psychologist Carl Rogers during the 1940s and 1950s. This is the most widely used approach in psychotherapy. Rogers believed that people were basically good and that people have a desire to fulfill their potential and become the best people they can be. However, this wasn’t the original approach, at first, Rogers wanted to be as non-directive as possible, but then realized that therapists do guide clients even in refined ways. That is why this approach was first referred to as non-directive. Upon realizing that clients did look to the therapists for some type of guidance or direction, that is when the therapy changed to client-centered therapy. Rogers emphasized the “client” rather than referring to individuals as “patients.” I really liked that Rogers looked at those individuals seeking help as people, not referring to them as having a problem. Instead, he mentioned that they were seeking assistance, they were not sick. Overall, the client-centered therapy approach, I believe, is good because it shows clients that the therapist is there for them. The therapist is not there to pass judgment on them or to tell them what to do. However, the therapist is there to allow the client to take control of their own thoughts and feelings and apply them to a solution that they, themselves, choose. Just by the client being able to talk in an environment where they are not being judged and are not expected to act a certain way, it makes finding the answers much easier. Along with all of this information I discovered, I also ran across the many conditions that client-centered therapy is helpful with such as depression and stress just to name a few. I also got the chance to look at the benefits when receiving client-centered therapy which was the ability to trust oneself and healthier relationships were among the many included on the list. After doing this research, I now have a better understanding of client-centered therapy and have a deeper appreciation for it.

I would have to say that this course has definitely changed the way I view psychology. I wouldn’t necessarily say that it has changed the way I think about the world; other than the fact that I got to witness the many turning points that took place in the world. Along with that, I would have to say I have more of an appreciation for the freedom we have as students and in society in general to be able to state how we feel about certain topics and are allowed to discover anything we want. Back then, for people to question the church or question the social norms was wrong and heavily frowned upon. No one was allowed to think a different way about the world; especially if it was against everything they were taught. I guess that is how it would change my thinking about the world; just all the advancements that have been made since then and how it has changed world views. This course has definitely, without question, changed the way I think about psychology. I now have an understanding that psychology is still a considered new; it’s only about a hundred years old. We were able to learn about the impact philosophy had on psychology. I was able to get a better understanding of subjects in psychology as well research done; this was because topics were discussed more in depth. In other courses I have taken, the history part is very brief, so fully understanding any given situation doesn’t matter because some feel it is unnecessary. However, studying the history of psychology is extremely important because it gives us a better understanding of how it affects the field now. We do not want to make the same mistakes. Plus certain rules were put in place in order to protect individuals from making the same mistakes. Without the history, we could not have created new developments and approaches to certain situations. All in all, it changes one’s appreciation towards the changes and advancements that have brought us where we are today; that’s why this course is important because we need to have a deeper understanding of the environment around us.

Like I had mentioned in all of the above paragraphs, this class has extremely complimented the other courses I am in. There was not one class I could not relate to this course. I was able to take the information that I obtained throughout reading these chapters and apply it to other information I was learning in my other courses. Sometimes, we would talk about a topic and the information given to us would be very brief; even in this course we would find where information would be presented very briefly. However, this is when we discovered the importance or researching topics further. We were given a chance every Thursday to look up a topic that either interested us or one that we did not completely understand and research it as well as talk about it. I would like to do this more in my other courses rather than just act as if it is not important. I liked being able to take the time to research a subject further and the fact that we were graded on expanding our minds made it that much more beneficial in the long run. I have a feeling that this course will not just have complimented the courses I am in this semester, but will do so throughout the rest of my college education due to the fact I am a psychology major and will run into these topics numerous times. I now have a better understanding and may be able to apply more information to what I have already learned, which will just help me be a better candidate for becoming a successful psychologist.

When thinking about this year as a whole and what we learned there were definitely a few things that stuck with me more than others. The first thing was Behavior Psychology/ Modification, I got interested in this because it focused less on the cognitive part of psychology and really focused on behaviors, actions, and surroundings as part of our lifestyle. I had been interested in this type of studying for a while,but i didn't know what it was exactly or that it was an actual discipline. So for me it was cool to read that there were people out there conducting tests that were trying to advance this field. I enjoy trying to guess what I think people will do next or try to think about why my friend does or says something to anybody else. Because I know these people on a personal level it is easy for me to guess, but it seemed that there was a specific trend with some people. They do not like to blame themselves for anything, but behaviorism shows that this may not be the case. People are responsible for a lot more than they think they are and our actions and behaviors can have a bigger impact that we realize. Lastly, Behaviorism showed up quite frequently through the book. Either through John Watson or B.F. Skinners crazy experiments or right up until what some people call the "Cognitive Revolution" Behaviorism poked its head into several different areas and was a constant force for the later half of the class.
Building off what I said about Skinner above, I was really intrigued by his work with Operant Conditioning. This is requires that you get a specific response,either positive or negative, from a controlled action in the hopes that eventually the subject will do the outcome without having to be prodded. There are examples of things like this in Pavlov's dog situation but perhaps shown more clearly with what was called the Skinner Box. This was an experimental box that was used on rats and rewarded them with food if they pulled down a lever when a light came on. These were interesting reads by themselves but coming from an education background I was somewhat familiar with the idea of reinforcement and conditioning. We are taught the most effective way to use this strategy as a way to encourage a specific response from our students. While learning about it in those classes I knew that it had an impact on psychology but I wasn't aware just how much until we went over it in class and i saw the impact first hand. With most of the other topics we discussed i liked to try and find uses for it in the real world and this was no different. Obviously it wasn't as barbaric and cruel as some of the experiments were but there are definite situations and scenarios where it is possible to get your desired outcome because of something you did or said to someone,knowing full well that the result would be in your favor.
The last thing I chose to write about was something that stuck with me since the beginning was the idea of studying the size,shape and lumps of the human head. The psudeo-science called Phrenology was talked about early in the semester and was highly controversial according to the book. When it was first conceived,like many weird concepts, it was viewed as a viable option and some thought that it could be taken somewhat seriously as a reliable source. But much like hypnosis and many other fads it would eventually be discredited as a reliable reference and would move into the fringes of more a hobby than an actual science. I was manly interested in this because i feel that although it was eventually taken less seriously, it is still relevant in todays world. There are several shirts and signs that break down the brain into the different sections that they think the bumps correspond with. Also the plasticic brain with the moveable parts can still be seen in malls and other stores. To sum up, although it was proven to to be somewhat outrageous, Phrenology has stood the test of time and still shows up in todays world, even if you have to look all the harder to find it.
This class hasn't really changed the way I think about psychology but the idea of behaviorism has had an impact on how i view the world. I wrote above that Behaviorism is one of the things i will take away from this class the most and i think it stuck with me the most because i feel it has the most "real world" application. I feel that everything we do everyday can almost always bee explained through behaviorism or some aspect of it, obviously there are always exceptions to this idea, but I really think it to be the case. It could be argued that every decision or action is based on some need or desire to get something we want and there is some behavior behind it.
This class didn't parallel or impact any classes I am taking this semester but it dabbled in certain areas of my education classes as well as my level one psych class. I feel if i had taken this class a semester earlier i could have taken full advantage of some of the overlap but overall i think that it was a benefit to take this class when i did. Because I took it without any other classes I was able to focus more clearly on the history and discovery of the ideas and concepts. It was helpful to learn the inception of the ideas and then move onto their practical everyday uses as opposed to learning the term and simply understanding where to apply it in academic situations .

Throughout the semester I found many topics interesting. The three most interesting topics I have chosen to focus on are mental testing, Watson’s use of behaviorism in advertisement, and Edmund Jacobson’s clinical relaxation technique. Each of these topics interests me for different reasons which I will explain further.

For me the section on mental testing was the most interesting. I was initially interested in this topic because of my education background. As a future special educator I know the importance of mental testing, as well as their deficiencies. After taking this class I have learned not just to accept everything I read at face value. I now know the history of mental testing which gives me a better understanding of its initial purpose.

What is interesting, is in another class I am taking this semester, School and American Society, we learned about intelligence testing at the same time as we discussed it in class. In both classes I learned not to take data or information how it is presented, but to look into and question what is being presented. I have also learned more about other topics, which has taught me that I can continue to learn more about what I think may know enough about. As a history major I have learned there is more than one side of history, but multiple perspectives of all involved, similarly to that of the text.

Knowing the initial purpose of mental testing was to help struggling children and not classify or track students. The tests were developed by Benet to help children with intellectual disabilities learn more effectively by testing what they knew not what they were capable of learning, as the American system turned it into being. By understanding the history of the psychological issue I know the true intent of the tests as well as looking for other ways to assess my future student’s abilities.

I also found John B. Watson to be interesting. He is known as the “father of Behaviorism,” but he also pioneered a new wave of advertisement. Watson used his knowledge of behaviorism to play on buyers’ emotions, especially fear, love and rage. An example of how he used these tactics was playing on new mother fears of baby rash to sell baby powder. This tactic was so effective it is still used today. Today advertisers play on emotions all the time. Before Watson, advertisers focused on persuading potential buyers. After Watson’s work the focus changed the way advertisers addressed the public.

In this class I learned more about Watson than I have in my other classes, but I have also learned more about psychology. For example I learned about Watson’s work outside of professional psychology and in the business setting. When I started this class all I knew about psychology related to education. However, now, I have learned that psychology can be seen in businesses and industry as well. I have also come to accept psychology as a science, which I didn’t see before taking this class. By studying the history there are clear signs of science with the experiments, trail, and error.

I also found clinical psychology to be interesting because this is one of the first stereotypes that pops into my head when thinking about psychology. In this way learning more about what clinic psychology consisted of helped broaden my horizons. I found Edmund Jacobson to be interesting because I could relate to his relaxation technique, having learned it when I was younger. I have found this to be true with most everything I think is interesting; if I can relate the topic to my life and make it meaningful, I get a lot more out of what I am learning.

Another reason I was interested in this topic was because it is related to historical events, in fact many psychological movements came about because of historical context, which helped me get a better grasp on what I was learning. In the case of clinical psychology, the influx of soldiers returning home with what we today would call PTSD was more than the current psychologists to handle, opening the door for clinical psychologists to become a viable sect of psychology as a whole.

Throughout this class my definition of psychology has broadened as has my overall interest in the subject matter. I feel more confident in my abilities to teach a high school psychology course if I had to, but mainly I am more confident that I can ask the right questions. Questioning is skill I have learned to use more effectively this semester because of this class as well as another educational class, these two classes complement each other well and I am glad I took them together.

Before taking this class I knew little about psychology, let alone the history of psychology. As this class has progressed my understanding of psychology has grown. Psychology is more than I came into this class thinking it was, a bunch of men sitting in offices or labs talking to patients or doing experiments on people. I have learned psychology has played a role inventions and innovations we use and see today. For example, the mental testing movement was propelled by psychologists, advertisement as we know it was introduced by Watson, and Ebbinghaus’ work with memory has left an impact on education today.

Some topics in the book that I found interesting and which have had some influence on my understanding of psychology & the world in general are:

I thought that the section on Darwin’s impact on psychology (chapter 5) was interesting, because it showed how research in one field can affect the understanding of another. This seemed like much more of a ‘revolution’ to me than the ‘Humanistic Revolution’ of the 1960s (chapter 12), because it rapidly and (nigh) completely overthrew the old viewpoint that Man was a special and unique creation, and allowed us to come to a much broader understanding of human beings in the context of the animal kingdom (thus eventually spawning comparative psychology and behaviorism). It is sometimes prudent to be reminded that we are not necessarily the top of the food chain.

I thought that the sections on phrenology (chapter 3), hypnotism (chapter 12), and industrial psychology (chapters 8 and 13) were interesting, because they show how the public is generally more interested in practical applications (not to mention showy demonstrations and legal proceedings) than esoteric theories. Face it: most people are more aware of the PMS defense and issues regarding eyewitness identification than they are of Rogers, Skinner, Watson, et al. It just makes better TV. (I suppose this might be good to remember if you intend to commit a crime, or want to have a theory or disorder named after you.)

I thought it was interesting to learn how the history of psychology appears to be chiefly comprised of various Old Boys’ Clubs (Wundt, Freud, Titchener, Skinner, et al) who tried to monopolize the field and suppress competing ideas. It’s one thing to try to push the ‘kooks’ off to the fringe, so that the public doesn’t write the whole lot of you off as charlatans; but stifling new ideas simply to maintain the status quo doesn’t seem like good science to me.

I did like the section on Ebbinghaus (chapter 4) and the additional material I read about him online. I can actually see using some of his ideas on memory (i.e., the serial position effect and the forgetting curve) myself -- such as when doing presentations. However, I also think that Bartlett was correct in his assertion that, since we actually do use associations to remember things, research like Ebbinghaus’ (using only nonsense-syllables which generate no such associations) provides a very narrow picture of the process (chapter 14). Keeping this in mind would also be helpful when doing presentations, as you could select material to intentionally create associations amongst the information so that your audience would remember it better.

As I mentioned, I liked (for the most part) the various sections relating to industrial psychology; and I especially liked reading about the Gilbreths (chapter 8). Again, we see the American fascination for applied science. I’m very disappointed that Industrial Psychology isn’t offered next term, because -- as I have a background in industry and plan to be a voc rehab counselor -- this field is very relevant to me. (I did sign up for Organizational Psychology though, which is also pertinent.)

I liked Goodwin’s explanation of the historicist vs. the presentist view of history (chapter 1), as well. It’s easy to get sucked into an historical account, believing everything you read is an objective, indisputable, authoritative fact; so being reminded at the beginning of a text that ‘history’ is fluid and subject to interpretation and spin is well worthwhile.

I also thought it was interesting to learn how Miller, et al were responsible for the now-common (if not entirely accurate) view that the brain is like a computer (chapter 14). There are things that you have heard all your life, and it never occurs to you that someone, somewhere, must have been the first to come up with it. This is another little tidbit that I will try to apply to my life in the future -- asking more questions about where information comes from, rather than simply accepting it at face value (cough-Wikipedia-cough).

Some of the course material did complement other classes that I have taken at UNI. We studied Kuhn and scientific revolutions in Philosophy of Science, which relates to the so-called ‘Humanistic Revolution’ in psychology (chapter 12). That’s why I didn’t consider Goodwin’s description to fit a ‘revolution’: it wasn’t an abrupt shift in the paradigm to a new model that was generally embraced and accepted.

We studied perception in Phenomenology, which relates to early psychological research into perception (chapter 3). I’m still not entirely sure how it applies to either philosophy or psychology, though.

We studied Descartes and his mind-body dichotomy in History of Philosophy: Renaissance to Enlightenment, which relates to the development of psychology as a science (chapter 2). Descartes thought that there was some kind of interface between the mind and body, some kind of mechanism by which one could affect/influence/stimulate the other (i.e., the ‘animal spirits’) (Goodwin, 33-37). Research into this 'mechanism' allowed psychology to move from being a purely introspective philosophical matter to a (social/behavioral/cognitive/medical) science.

We discussed Existentialism in my Existentialism class (naturally), which relates to the Existentialist/Humanistic approach to therapy (chapter 12). Specifically, it speaks of individual responsibility and the freedom to make choices, which can affect the client’s (or a student’s) outlook.

Early treatment of those with psychological disorders was also discussed in my Abnormal Psychology class, and some of the theoretical approaches & their 'founders' (e.g., Rogers, Adler, Freud) were discussed in my Introduction to Professional Counseling class.

I didn’t realize how unclear the history of psychology actually is; Ebbinghaus said, “Psychology has a long past, yet its history is short” (1908, as cited in Goodwin, 28), but it seems to me that the profession does not really acknowledge that ‘long past’ in deference to the ‘short history’ of the 19th Century and later. Granted, psychology (qua philosophy and philosophy of the mind) had its ups and downs in those dark, early days; but I think that the same could also be said of the compressed, foreshortened history of the past century or so.

And I think that I still have a somewhat confused understanding of what psychology actually is, myself. Some of the early material on reflexes and afterimages and their importance in psychology is still very unclear to me.

I was surprised that Goodwin gave such short shrift to Kant (57-58), who basically claimed that we invent the world around us by mapping sensory perception onto a priori structures such as space and time; and even more surprised that he seemed to attribute Hegel’s concept of the Zeitgeist to Boring (66). Goodwin might also have referred to Heidegger and other Phenomenologists in the various sections on perception.

One of the most interesting topics of this semester for me was reading about some of the women in this book. Each one of them made remarkable advancements for their time. Most of them went on to college, earned PhD’s and studied things that men were not studying, which for in the 1800’s was something that didn’t happen. They had to go through many more struggles than their male counterparts and had a much more difficult time getting people to take them seriously, getting into certain programs, and advanced trained for women was quite limited. Mary Whiton Calkins was a great example. She tried to get into Harvard and had some support =, but the officials there made it clear that she was an unofficial guest. Women were not officially allowed into college but Edmund Sanford let her into his lab. She was later able, after many struggles and being “behind” many men, to complete some incredible research on association and paired associate learning. There were many women like this in this book including Lillian Moller Gilbreth who invested a lot of time and research in industrial psychology and Margaret Floy Washburn who published a lot of research in the areas of perception, imagery and social consciousness. I envy a lot of the women in this book for the struggles they faced and the amazing things they did to overcome these. It is very motivating for a female, and makes me very thankful of the rights and opportunities we have now.
I also enjoyed reading “and re-learning” about Gordon Allport and his idea that everyone had a unique personality and that we could learn a lot by the careful study of individuals. He came up with the idea that the basic unit of individual personality was a trait. I took Psychology of Personality last Spring and one of my favorite parts in that class was learning about traits (cardinal traits and central & secondary traits.) it is interesting to study these individual aspects of people like my friends, family and even myself. I also enjoyed reading about how Allport was not at all a fan of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. I found it interesting because he did reject the concept of the unconscious, but rather just didn’t think it was useful in understanding one’s personality. He also thought Freud’s emphasis on sex was too excessive and a few other theories of Freud. I enjoyed reading about this because he didn’t just say it was not a good theory, but he said some of the theories were true, he just didn’t agree with what they were explaining.
I really enjoyed the entire chapter on mental illness and its treatment. My interest in mental illness is what led me to psychology, so there were many parts of this chapter that I enjoyed. Reading about how the early treatment of the mentally ill was handled is always a bit disturbing, but comforting to see how far we have come since these inhumane processes with the idea of out of sight out of mind. Mesmerism and hypnosis were also intriguing to me in this chapter. Actually the controversies over whether hypnotism was real thing or not was more interesting to me just because I like reading debates and hearing both sides of any argument.
This book and this class changed the way I thought about psychology because I always thought psychology was a very new school of thought and really had no idea it went back so far. When I first signed up for this class I thought we would be learning about people and thins that happened in psychology in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s at the latest, but had no idea I would be reading about people like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the late 1600’s and Immanual Kant in the 1700’s.
Learning more about the history of some of the major contributors in psychology rather than just their major accomplishments helps complement what I have learned in previous classes at UNI. I knew about people like Allport, Freud, Piaget etc, but this class and this book really taught me more of the history of how they got to their major accomplishments. It helps to know what someone has gone through to get to where they are to really appreciate the advancements they made. This class also compliments other clasees by breaking down each person a bit more and not just talking about one category of psych such as developmental or social. It sort of reminded me of my intro class with a lot more detail, and made more sense because I have a lot more Psych knowledge now while taking this class. This book also gave good descriptions of things like the chapter on behaviorism talked about so many different people but also so many different theories and features of behaviorism. For the most part, I enjoyed this book. a

This class was very informative and I found numerous things that were interesting. The top three things that stand out to me from this book was the history of mental illness, Flaurens and his method of ablation, and Mary Carver and how she helped children get over their fears.

I have always been interested in mental illnesses and how they affect behavior in the individual. So naturally chapter 12 was very fascinating to me and I enjoyed reading it. The thing that I liked most about the chapter was the history of mental illness and how they used to be treated during the enlightened period. The mentally ill were inumanely treated in midevil times. in the late 18th century is when the reforms started to take place. Mentally ill patients used to always be put in chains and Phillipe Pinel (who is the most well known reformer during this time) removed them. However the patients were still restrained, but Pinel started the movement of changes in the mental institutions. The most interesting idea was from Benjamin Rush who wanted to provide relief for the mentally ill by adding a scientifc approach to it. Rush said that mental illnes came from problems with the blood and circulatroy system, so his remedy was called bloodletting. Bloodletting was done by opening veins and removing blood until the person was in a more calm state. He also had the tranquilizer chair which restrained the patient and had a box over the head to reduce all movement to reduce the pulse rate. The ideas behind some of these scientific ideas to help the mentally ill baffeled me.

The second thing I was most interested in was in chapter 3. Pierre Flourens was a physiologist and he disagreed with prenology and he wanted to prove they were wrong. Flourens did an experiment to see where the mind and certain areas in the brain were located. To do this he used a mehtod called ablation. Flourens took certain sections of the brain out and observed what happened next. Flourens used many different species so he could try and generalize it. Flourens showed that the cerebral cortex operates as a whole and that there are certain areas in the brain that have certain functions. Flourens found that the cerebellum was in charge of the motor coordination and when he removed them from his animals, they had trouble walking/flying etc. He found that the cortex was in charge of intellegence and perception. He used an example of a pigeon without a cerebellum would attempt to fly and couldn't, and the pigeon without a cortex wouldn't even realize he could fly. Flourens was able to prove that phrenology wasn't true. I found this to be interesting becuase it first shows how psychology evolves off of the past and previous ideas. I also find Flourens ablation experiements to be interesting and highly intelligent.

The third thing that I enjoyed was reading about Mary Cover Jones and her study of children unlearning fears. Jones started to research how to help children get rid of their fears by seeing Watson's Little Albert study and how Little Albert never got rid of his fears that Watson taught him. Jones used many methods but many did not work, she tried to give them time, bullied etc. Jones did find that by gradually bringing the fear closer and showing that it did no harm helped the child feel more comfortable and slowly the fear is reduced. This is better known as systematic desensitization. Jones would put the animal or the thing feared in the same room as the child was dong something they liked, then she would slowly move it closer while the child continued the pleasureable responses which subsitutes the good response to the feared one. I found this interesting because she was one of the first to start reducing fears in children. It started a trend that is still in therapy today, to help get over our fears and problems (anxiety, feared stimulus, depression etc).

The material in this class has made me understand psychology much more. I knew the basic psychologists and their experiments and studies, but learning about the small details and how many pscyhologists knew and were influenced by each other was vry interesting. It seemed to me that psychology just grew on what was known by psychologists who took a previous researcher's work and changed it just a little to make a new idea/term for a behavior. Psychology is a science that just continues to grow while the world does. As the world evolves so do new things to study in behavior which keeps this science going. This material has helped me see the world that everything evolves and grows off of everything that happens. When a mistake is made the best thing to do is learn from it and change the way it is done next time. With the brain, highly educated doctors thought that by feeling bumps on someones head can tell you something about them, that was disproved by Flourens and the method of ablation which was disproved by more educated doctors. Everything builds off of everything and continues to add knowledge as the world. I have learned a lot at UNI and I feel that this class has continued to build off of my other psychology classes and also brings some topics together. Its nice to learn about the topics from previous classes but more in depth in a historical way. I appreciate that. Overall I enjoyed reading the book and learning about how everything is tied together. Thanks for a great semester!

The first person that I recall when thinking about the information I read and learned in this course is Francis Galton. I found him to be extremely interesting not only because of his genius, but because it also led to his belief in eugenics. It makes sense to think as he did, but by today’s standards we would have to question the ethics of what he wanted to do. And by question I mean to oppose! I found his fascination with eugenics to be the most interesting part, but his work was also very intriguing as well. I thought it was awesome that he invented the concept of correlation as I am always interested in who is the first to do something or invent something, but correlation is an integral part of statistics which covers all scientific fields. Not only does it cover all scientific fields it also covers all parts of my life and can demonstrate how two things are affected by one another. Of course by saying that, I also must note that correlation does not equal causality. Either way it is an integral part of the world today. His study of intelligence was also important to furthering psychology and can be seen as a step toward the intelligence testing movement. His contributions to psychology and the world never seem to end as his many other contributions include fingerprinting and systematic weather maps.

The second item from this semester that I still think about all the time is the mental testing movement. The reason I probably think about this topic is because it seems like all the time when I am surfing the internet I see advertisements that want the consumer to take an intelligence test to determine one’s IQ. While the quality of intelligence testing is still kind of in question, psychologists have come a long way since its beginnings. From the birth of the Binet intelligence tests to the Stanford-Binet IQ test to the Army Alpha and Army Beta tests the list seems to go on and on. Either way it is fascinating to look at the wide variety of intelligence tests that psychologists have come up with over the years although many were not the most accurate or reliable. They still help companies and businesses the applicant and interview processes, although of a different form than a straight intelligence test, but still perform an important role in the screening process. The Kallikak family study that came out of the intelligence testing movement was also incredibly interesting because it demonstrates the over importance psychologists, and scientists in general, placed on inherent intelligence. They all completely neglected the fact of environmental factors in the role on intelligence and how certain aspects of income, education, and diet can play a role in one’s overall knowledge.

The third thing I vividly remember from the textbook that I liked was the information on mesmerism and hypnosis. I was not aware mesmerism was actually named after the man who started it named ‘Mesmer.’ Like many medicinal treatments used before modern medicine mesmerism seemed shocking when I first read it. The thought of putting high doses of iron in a person’s body and then passing a magnet over their bodies seems like if a large enough amount of iron was used along with a large enough magnet it could kill someone by procuring a hole somewhere in a person’s internal components. His techniques obviously evolved into a more trance like procedure that resembled hypnotism. Either way, it was interesting reading about the success he achieved in the general public before the scientific community declared his medicinal practices had no scientific backing. However, it was found in India that using mesmerism in surgery was extremely effective for the time. It doesn’t seem that it would work well, but at a time when the mortality rate during surgery was around 40 percent, mesmerism lowered it to less than 5 percent! Part of the reason it gained more backing was my changing the name to hypnotism. I commented on it in my blog post that in an episode of the TV show ‘Scrubs,’ one of the doctors tries using hypnotism during a surgery at a patient’s request. While when I first saw the episode I thought it was ridiculous, but found myself shocked when I read about it during this semester.

The material I learned in this class has changed the way I think about psychology in that I had no idea about the true roots of psychology. Before I started this class I had been told that Freud started psychology which seems ridiculous now after reading this book considering he wasn’t even mentioned until Chapter 12. While I knew that psychology was a relatively new field of science, I was not aware at all that at the beginning the philosophy and psychology departments in universities were together, or just in general that psychology started as a branch of philosophy. I never looked at psychology that way before. I just kind of assumed that psychology started when scientists began to study the brain, but technically that has been going on since the ancient civilizations. And because of that I learned psychology has a much longer history than I anticipated. When I started the course I didn’t have any idea what we would study, but if I took a guess on the years that would have been studied I probably would have said around 1880 to the present. I look at the world differently now in that a lot of items that I wouldn’t have thought were related to psychology I can view from a psychological perspective. For example, as I am a social science teaching major I look at behaviorism to get ideas about how to manage my classroom. It gives me ideas on how and when to use rewards and punishments for students. It also makes me more of an objective person in keeping an open mind that a student, or person in general, may be acting in a certain way because of underlying factors like the way they were raised or a possible mental issue that I was unaware of.

This class has complemented my Introduction to Psychology course, obviously, by going into more detail about topics that we covered. This class has helped also in that there are many times where I hear a name mentioned that I have heard of, but have no knowledge on, like Maslow or Wundt. Now after taking this class I have some knowledge on these people other than just knowing their names. Although it may have not necessarily complemented other courses I have taken hear at UNI, the Thursday topical blogs have helped my knowledge in general by being able to go a little more in depth about something I found to be interesting, and that has helped my knowledge in everything in general.

One of the most interesting things that I learned in this chapter regarded Lillian Moller Gilbreth. I found it very interesting that t she raised 12 children, ran a consulting business, and taught part-time. I would like to learn more about her accomplishments and contributions. She was the first person to be granted a Ph.D. in industrial psychology. With her husband, she worked on a consulting business, which she continued after his death. She was very interested in ergonomics and had a lot of influence on kitchen appliances and tools, such as the pop-up trash can. I was really interested in her accomplishments as a woman in a time when women were not meant to fulfill multiple tasks, only to be mothers. She not only fulfilled the role as a mother of 12 children, but she also fulfilled the role of a working woman. I think her accomplishments are amazing!

Another thing that I found interesting throughout this course was the topic of treatment of the mentally ill. I have always found the advancement of treatment of the mentally ill to be interesting, so I enjoyed learning and discussing it more in this course. Methods of treatment that are seen as unethical today, such as bloodletting, the tranquilizer chair, abuse, and neglect, were very prominent ways of treating mentally ill individuals. With the help of reformers, these treatments became more humane and more civil. Asylum reforms took place by the help of reformers to better the way that mentally ill patients lived and were treated. I think that this is interesting because if some people wouldn’t have been willing to stand up for what they felt was wrong, we could still be treating people like this.

A third that that I found interesting was Carl Rogers and his client-centered therapy. Carl Rogers was a major person involved in humanistic psychology’s development. He created a therapy in which clients are the main center of attention. The therapist is not supposed to try and analyze the patients past or try to diagnose the patient; they are just supposed to listen. The therapist has to be genuine, accepting, and have empathy towards the patient. With these things, the client will be able to open up about the issues that are present, and will gain more healthy characteristics and behaviors. I feel that this was really important because it may seem like common sense, but often people get so worked up about trying to come up with a diagnosis they forget to listen.

The material I have learned in this class has changed the way I think about psychology and the world in a variety of ways. I have learned a lot about the development of the field of psychology in regards to testing, ethics, and assessments. I have also learned a lot about the founders of various theories. This knowledge has helped me to see how important the advancements that have been made are. I have also learned more about the field of psychology and how it is involved in many of the aspects in the world we live in. Psychology is not just in psychiatric hospitals, but is in businesses, schools, and many other settings. I have also found that by looking at an abundance of information and figuring out what I find interest in, I am more likely to learn more. Coming into this course, I was slightly worried that I would be given a history book and expected to memorize the contents. Instead, I got to pick out what interested me and do more research on it. It has made learning the history of psychology an interesting experience., and will be something that I utilize in future psychology courses, as well as in everyday situations.

The material I learned in this course has complemented a lot of the information that I have gained from other courses at UNI. In my blog posts I have often referenced my interest stemming from what I learned in another course. Courses such as research methods and clinical psychology gave me a basic understanding of a variety of topics. Through this class, I was able to expand that understanding , learn about how the topics developed, and do further research on the topics that interested me. I now feel comfortable asking questions about things, and I also feel as though I learned more from this course than just the history of psychology.

One of the first topics that I found interesting in this course was Chapter 12. I have always been interested in mental illness because it has been so personal to me and has influenced my life significantly. I enjoyed learning about this chapter because it is always useful to know where things started out especially with mental illness treatment. It makes one more humble and grateful that we were able to move beyond these past treatments that seem almost primitive and sometime barbaric in their usage on those afflicted with mental illness.
Another topic I was interested in was the development of women in the psychology field. Women struggled to become accepted and included in this field as with so many other fields of work. I enjoyed reading about their findings and struggles. It is always inspiring as a woman to see other females succeeding even when what they were doing was looked down upon. I really enjoyed reading about Dorothea Dix. She worked hard to help others and to make things better for those with mental health issues. Her work seemed so thoughtful and a true passion to her.
The third topic I was interested in was Freud. In every psychology class I have taken he has been mentioned. He seems the most well known of the psychologist but I never knew very much in depth about what he had done for the psychological field. It was nice to better understand such an iconic figure.
I have only known a small spectrum of what psychology was about. This class helped me to broaden my understanding and to not lump all psychology in to one category. It was interesting to see all these areas and their developments. I can apply this information to many of my classes because I may someday have to work with trouble people who need a better understanding of our behaviors and how we think. Thank you for a wonderful year and showing us a better way to learn and the history and possibilities of understanding psychology.

I feel that I learned a great deal in History and Systems of Psychology. First, I was happy with our textbook. It is shaped like the old school textbooks from high school and it reminded me of standing in line, waiting to read the two digit number written on the inside flap of the book. Our teacher would write it in a notebook, and then put that notebook in a safe place all year long until we turned them in before summer. Ah, how I miss the days before technology ruled our lives and paper savings bonds were still a respected stable of our economy. The shape of our textbook took me back to that era, so I had a good feeling about the class right away. I found most of the chapters to be quite interesting and others not so much. I feel that the biggest learning moment in this class was reading chapter five and finding out more about Darwin. As I mentioned in my earlier blog, I previously had a tainted concept of Charles Darwin and his thoughts on evolution. I now know that I was looking at Darwin’s theories with a presentist view. I was interpreting the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” only with my present day thoughts on it. In the past when this subject came up, it was usually from someone that wanted to argue about it. I was once a bartender and I have heard and been involved in one too many discussions about religion versus evolution. In turn, through my second interest area (operant conditioning), I have avoided the topic. Some would call it your classic case of Positive Punishment. Something bad was started or presented and a behavior was decreased. The argument was positively undesirable (read: bad) and the behavior decreased (read: avoid the subject of evolution) and one, two, three, MAGIC! I never had the interest to learn anything more about Charles Darwin. Then I came to UNI. The moment was in late September, and it was like I was experiencing John Locke’s “white paper” theory. I had somehow tip-toed around what my brain was conditioned to think, and allowed myself a clean slate for the idea evolution. The idea that got me (a little) on board was Darwin’s finches and the constant struggle to survive. The evolution of animals is something that I had never read about before. When Charles Darwin took his first, grand adventure to the Galapagos Islands, he noticed that finches with tough beaks lived in areas scattered with hard shelled nuts. Finches and other birds with thinner beaks lived in areas that required them to have such a beak to spear insects that were present in that climate. Over time, birds’ beaks seemed to adapt to their environment. This made so much sense to me and the book explained it in a way that I could relate to human beings. There were no arguments, no one raising their voice or doubting anyone else’s believes. It felt good to open myself up to new things. It felt wise.
My third area of interest from this class came from chapter 3 of our textbook. The story of Phineas Gage and the tamping rod that was lodged in his skull was definitely one of intrigue. As I began reading this chapter, I found that I was instantly curious about what happened to this man and how it impacted a history of psychology. If my memory serves me correctly, Phineas Gage was involved in a mining accident that left a four foot long pole stuck in his head. Although Gage lived, he was never the same. The frontal cortex of his brain was damaged and it impacted his behavior in a hefty way. I was pleased that I chose Phineas Gage for my topical book during chapter 3. I learned from the internet that two researchers from the University of Iowa further investigated this phenomenon 130 years after it happened. The site to which I referred stated that these researchers, Hanna and Antonio Damasio, were so inspired by Gage and John Harlow (the doctor that treated Gage and in turn, made the case his life’s work), that they used to computer imaging to research the matter further.
To answer the question of if this class changed the way I think, the answer would be yes. Otto MacLin, Distinguished Scholar, made a great point about what students are learning in school and HOW they are learning it. This class inspired me to ponder the education system. I have learned the same way, for so many years, that it was what I was accustomed to. Tests, cramming and memorization seemed like the way of the life within the classrooms I was blessed with. Dr. MacLin brought up some new styles of teaching and learning that I had never used before this semester. For example, the topic of test taking was discussed in class. Looking back, I know that there were times that I was so distracted about am upcoming exam, that I didn’t allow myself to absorb information being presented in other classes or that I knew wasn’t going to be on that particular exam. So was I really learning at that time, or was I just temporarily distracted by what letter was going to be written in red ink on the upcoming test? History and Systems of Psychology was informative and thought provoking, and to me that is more valuable than a class that only makes me memorize vocabulary and dates. Thank you, Otto MacLin, for sharing your knowledge and inspiring me to challenge my comfort zone!

Over the course of this semester, History and Systems has become one of my favorite psychology classes. I learned a lot using the hybrid style of the course, and I found many things particularly interesting from the book, class discussions, and additional research. One of the major themes of the book that kept my attention was the emphasis on the struggle women had in psychology to make a name for them. I knew that they had a harder time than men to become respected contributors to psychology, but I never imagined how difficult it was for them. I really enjoyed reading about figures like Lillian Gilbreth, Christine Ladd-Franklin, Mary Whiton Calkins, and others. Their battles to reach the levels they did are very inspiring to me, and it makes me proud that they didn’t succumb to the social pressures of being a “housewife.” These women were all very determined and had strong personalities; I think those are the characteristics they must have had to possess in order to get to that point. I know if I were a female growing up in that time would be so frustrating. It makes my blood boil just reading about it! These women’s struggles make me so thankful for their persistence; it only motivates me more to reach my goals.

Another topic that I thought was very interesting in the semester was the mental testing movement and intelligence testing. Intelligence quotients, or IQs, are widely known intelligence tests, but I had never really known how it came to be and who contributed to this phenomenon. I think chapter 8 in the book was my favorite one because it talked a lot about the origins of mental testing and how it grew. I liked learning about the formation of Binet’s tests, the Kallikak study done by Goddard, and of course Lewis Terman’s process of creating the IQ tests. I also felt that the Alpha and Beta testing used in the Army was fascinating. The fact that they weren’t very useful at all was kind of funny, but what was so weird to me was that the company that made these tests still exists today and makes the awful GRE tests! It sort of makes sense considering I feel like the GREs are a waste of my time and money.

The chapter on mental illness, chapter 12, was also a very enlightening chapter to me. I knew that the early treatment of the mentally ill was not very good, and the author pointed that out. Surprisingly, I remembered that he also stated it wasn’t as bad as some people portray it. That took me back a little, but then I had to read on to see what the author had to say. To me, the conditions of some of the institutions were still disgusting. I thought some of the early treatments were very intriguing, especially the blood letting techniques, tranquilizer chair, and gyrator all created by Brandon Rush. I wish I could be a fly on the wall to some of these great psychologists from the book, just to observe the processes they went through, and the untold stories they possess.

Because the hybrid format of this class was new to me, I wasn’t sure how I was going to like it. I ended up enjoying it a lot because I was able to complete the assignments when I had the time, especially with the more flexible due date times. It allowed me to post on the blog with complete answers to the questions. I think the online format made it more comfortable to express my honest opinions on the reading materials. I think I learned about psychology in a very different but beneficial way through using the blog format. I read others’ comments about the chapter, and I got a lot of intriguing points of view on the same material. The assignments that required me to research things further that interested me expanded my learning about psychology more than if we had just read and discussed the book. I looked up a lot of different psychologists for these assignments, so I gained a deeper understanding of their lives and accomplishments. My ideas of some of the psychologists I looked up changed after reading more about them.

I remember from the very first chapter, the author compared presentism and historicism. This idea stuck in my head mainly because I was a culprit of the presentist views so many times. I really stepped back and thought about how ignorant this sort of thinking really was. The psychologists that came up with their theories and ideologies during their time didn’t have the knowledge that I have today, so why would they know that their idea was not the correct one. After reading this, I have begun to think in more of the historicist viewpoint because then the context of the situation stands out from the possible unknown mistakes one great mind of his or her time may have made. This and many other things from this class have changed the way I have viewed the world. I am more comfortable expressing my dislike for something, as long as I have reasons to support my beliefs.

I think this class really tied together all of my psychology classes at UNI. I probably learned most of the same names in other classes that I did here, but I remember them better from this class for some reason. I think it’s because I found connections between the different psychologists’ lives and theories to my life. The format of this class forced me to do that, and I am grateful it did. I now remember some of the information that may have entered one ear and out the other in some of my other psychology classes. This class is also a great complement to the other information I have learned in previous classes because of the outside research I was able to do. I got more background information and learned things I was interested about, which only strengthened my knowledge of more psychology.

Throughout this semester I enjoyed learning a lot of the material in James Goodwin’s book, A History of Modern Psychology. There were several topics that stuck out for me that I really enjoyed reading about. I also had fun researching some of these topics more in depth and writing about them. Three of them that stood out for me were puzzle box learning, artificial intelligence, and the army testing program. Each of the three topics, are interesting in their own way. I like how we were able to choose what was interesting to us from each of the chapters, and then write about it. This method of learning has been a breath of fresh air. It is a neat way to engage students and I hope to utilize this method in my future classroom someday.
Puzzle box learning was an interesting topic to me because I enjoyed learning about the results of the research. I find it interesting to see how smart different animals are. I think it is neat how other animals are able to figure out what they need to do to survive. It’s fascinating to see some of the escape techniques that Thorndike had positioned in his puzzle box and to see if the animals were smart enough to use that escape route on the first or second trial.
The second topic that I found interesting was the Army Testing Program. This topic really grabbed my attention because I have always had an interest in military history. I think that Robert Yerkes created a neat tool. These tests at the time played an important role with placing a soldier in a position that would best serve the military and the country. There were two kinds of tests that were administered for the soldiers back in the early twentieth century. There was Army Alpha and Army Beta. Army Alpha was a test administered to those who could read and comprehend. Army Beta was administered to those who could not read and follow written directions. Thirty percent of the soldiers had to take Army Beta.
The third topic that I found interesting was the topic of artificial intelligence. This was probably my favorite topic to read about. I also enjoyed researching and writing my thoughts about it. I believe that artificial intelligence is a fascinating subject. If we are able to control our machines that have artificial intelligence to help us with problems and situations where they could be beneficial, than it’s a neat project to continue on with. However singularity is what could be the problem with artificial intelligence. Could machines separate themselves from our control? Could they in fact break away from our control purposely and free themselves forever? It is an interesting thing to imagine. Several very good movies have been created to give people an idea of what it could be like if there was singularity in a machine with artificial intelligence.
All three of these subjects and many others with them have helped me analyze the world and everything in it differently and more in depth. I think about things differently now. If I see something that interests me now on television or something outside I sometimes research it now and learn about it. I like to talk about those things I see that fascinate me with my friends and try and get their understanding of it to better help my understanding. This class has taught me to utilize different kinds of resources when I am studying in another class. This class has also taught me to use my colleagues as a study aid. In class and outside of class I try and start a conversation with a friend or a colleague about a class were both in. It could be about anything related to that class. It is sometimes about the teacher, the homework, tests, or papers. Expanding discussions about whatever topic I am curious about helps me develop more knowledge about it. Reading, writing, and talking about subjects with people takes that curiousness past the short term memory of your brain and into the long term memory, which is what is very important to anyone’s learning; getting a lot of information stored in your long term memory.

There were a lot of interesting in things that i learned about in this class.I really like the way this class was structured as writing the blog posts actually made me read each chapter and learn something new every week without making it seem like a burden or boring.
Although it is difficult choosing only three things that i found interesting in this class,the three things that i choose to write about are:
1.I really found reading about the actual events and situations in the past that lead to the discovery and development of various psychological concepts.All the chapters very precisely explained the history of psychology.
2.The second thing that i found interesting was reading about was reading about the contribution of women to the field of psychology.To be more precise i really liked to read and write about Mary Whiton Clarkins and the comtribution of women in the history of psychology.I had not read about women psychologists much before i read about it in this class.The in depth explanation of all the importanat theories was another thing that i really liked about the textbook.
3.The third thing that i found interesting was the sysytematic timeline of the important and significant events in the history of psychology followed in the class and the textbook.It really helped me understand the material in a much better way as i knew the reasons and the circumstances when the events occoured.I topical blogs really helped me to learn more about the psychologsists life and not only their work which helped me understand how their ordinary lifes were transformed because of their extraordinary talent.I got to learn more my favourite psychologists like Carl Rogers ,Sigmund Freud etc.
This material that i learnt has not just complimented and added to my knowledge in psychology but has added to my general knowledge and how ordinary the lifes of the famous names in psychology were and how their belief in their ablity and their theories took them far in life and we still talk about their work.
The material that i have learnt in this class has certainly complimened and added to my knowledege of psychology as i have known about the various theories such as the psychodynamic theory ,client centered therapy etc.The material i learnt in this class has contributed and expanded the knowledge as previously i had only known about the basic ideas of these therapies but know i know about them in more detail and also know more about the psychologists.
In conclusion i really liked the way this class was stuctured ,being an international student it was a new way and took time to got used to the concept of blogging but soon i realised how much i have actually learnt and the absence of pressure actually made me learn and not just finish my assignments just to get a good grade and i am very thankful to Dr.Maclin for the same.

I found the portion on phrenology to be extremely interesting! I'm not really sure why, but I found it fascinating how Gall supported his theory of "localization." It's true (and very much supported today) that each portion of the brain is responsible for different parts of who we are. However, Gall believed in the "doctrine of the skull," which would definitely be laughed at if it were proposed to the field today. Phrenologists at the time believed that by feeling the various lumps and bumps on one's skull and measuring the circumference of the head, we could figure out the strength of their different skills. Today we know that part of this theory holds true: if a person is particularly skilled in music, say, the portion of the brain responsible for musical skill is a bit larger than others'. But we can definitely not determine this simply by feeling around a person's head.

I also enjoyed the chapter on Darwin and his theory of evolution. I have always been a strong supporter of the theory of evolution, and the evolutionary approaches regarding why we are the way we are have always seemed the most logical to me. It was very interesting to read more about Darwin and his work - he wasn't just the founder of evolution; he was a zoologist and a traveler as well. I also liked reading about the serious controversy that erupted after Darwin published his first popular work, especially in the church community. I don't think that psychology would be where it is today if not for Darwin and his ideas on comparative psychology and individual differences.

I loved the chapter on behaviorism and how it was brought into the field of psychology. The portion on B. F. Skinner was of particular interest to me. I find Skinner's life and work to be very fun to read about. Operant conditioning and the concept of reinforcement makes a lot of sense to me, and I believe that operant conditioning is one of the best-working behavior modification systems. Skinner's experimentation with rats and their behaviors (particularly when he stumbled upon the theory of extinction) was also very interesting to read about.

The material I have learned in this course hasn't necessarily changed how I thought/felt about psychology; however, I have learned to open my mind up to different psychologists' ideas in a way. For example, before this course, I was a big believer in cognitive/behaviorial psychology. But now, I have realized that there are upsides and downsides to each type of psychology, and they all have their own concepts and ideas that are very valid and logical. I have also learned a ton more about famous (and not so famous) psychologists in history. For example, I had no idea that Darwin had such a huge career before his presentations on evolution. It was very cool to be able to broaden my horizons, in a way, and learn much more about psychologists who I thought I had already learned everything about. I have also learned how to better relate the material I read in the textbook to real life circumstances and situations, especially in the media.

This course seems to have complemented my other psychology courses very well. I took abnormal psychology and child and adolescent psychopathology during this same semester, and it seemed to follow the same path in terms of chapter topics and such. It was interesting to read about something in one textbook, and then later read about (or research) the same thing in this class, but learn about it in much more detail. I didn't learn only about the different types of psychology and how they work, but the history and origins of them as well, which was really nice.