Miss Gardner

Psychology and You 2 nd Ed. AKA Outdated The Book

 Brains  Children  Language  Sex  Memory  Madness  Disgust  Racism  Love  Many Others

 What explains the differences between men and women?  Can animals learn language?  Why do certain things gross us out?  Why do some of us eat too much and what can we do to stop?  Why do people go crazy in groups?  Can you trust your childhood memories?  Why do some people become depressed and others don’t?

 You’re crazy and want to become less crazy  Learn how to study better  Learn how to interpret your dreams  Learn how to improve your dating life (not until college)  Learn how to win friends an influence people

 To provide you with a state-of-the-art introduction to the most important topic there is: US- How the human mind works, how we think, what makes us who we are  Connect your understanding of psychology to economics, philosophy, literature, computer science, history, entertainment, theology, and anthropology

 Terry Schaivo  Physical Nature of Mental life  Coma=Loss of consciousness as a result of damage to the brain  Physical basis for free-will, morality, emotions

 How do we come to have knowledge of language, the world, other people?  “The Child is Father to the Man”?  “They mess you up, your Mum and Dad They may not mean to, but they do They fill you with the faults they have And add some extra just for you”

 Pandas vs. Attractive Humans  Why is not all beauty linked to sex?  What makes someone attractive?  Does attractiveness vary across cultures?

 What makes someone evil? 1.Institutional Cruelty 2.Not due to Malice 3.Due to situation the person is in 1. Mass Murderer? 2. Driven by a political cause? 1. Crazy vs. Evil 2. Can someone be born evil?

 What makes someone good?  Why can heroes not be predicted?  What would we do in these circumstances?

 Phineas Gage- Railroad Spike  Dissociative Identity Disorder- Sybil  Capgras Syndrome- The people you love most have been replaced (high violence)  Cotard’s Syndrome- You believe you are dead

 Not Common- Not morbid curiosity  All of the aforementioned problems located at pinpoint parts of the brain  Looking at extreme cases helps us understand normal life and what we take for granted!!!!!!!!!

 The study of psychopathy (born with no moral understanding) helps us deal with questions of free will/responsibility  Dissociative Identity Disorder- What is the self? To what extent are we composed of multiple people? Do these become unified over time?  Capgras- How do we see the world? Is there a difference between naming and knowing?

The Story of Psychology

 Who are we?  How do our minds work?  Where do our thoughts, feelings, and actions come from?  How do our bodies relate to our minds?  How much of what we know comes built in? How much is a result of experience?

 Prescientific Psychology  In India, Buddha wondered how sensations and perceptions combined to form ideas

 Confucius ( B.C.)  “Learning without thought is labour lost, thought without learning is perilous”  In China, Confucius stressed the power of ideas and the importance of an educated mind

 Hebrew Scriptures  Hebrew Scriptures linked mind and emotion to the body

 Socrates ( B.C.) and Plato ( B.C.)  Socrates and his student Plato believed the mind was separate from the body, the mind continued to exist after death, and ideas were innate.

 “The soul is not separable from the body, and the same holds good for different parts of the soul”  Aristotle ( B.C.)  Aristotle suggested that the soul is not separable from the body and that knowledge (ideas) grow from experience

 Rene Descartes ( )  Believed in soul (mind)- body separation, but wondered how the immaterial mind and physical body communicated

 Francis Bacon ( )  One of the founders of modern science, particularly the experimental method

 John Locke ( )  Locke held that the mind was a tabula rasa, or blank slate, at birth, and experiences wrote on it

A. Blank Slate, Empty Vessel B. Flame to be lit?

 What is the relation of the mind to the body? Mind and Body are ConnectedMind and Body are Distinct The HebrewsSocrates AristotlePlato AugustineDescartes

 How are ideas formed? Some ideas are inbornThe mind is a blank slate SocratesAristotle PlatoLocke

 Structuralism  Wundt and Titchener studied the elements (atoms) of the mind by conducting experiments in Liepzig, Germany, in 1879

 Functionalism  Influenced by Darwin, William James established the school of functionalism, which opposed structuralism

 The Unconscious Mind  Sigmund Freud and his followers emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind and its effects on human behavior

 Behaviorism  Watson (1913) and later Skinner emphasized the study of overt behavior as the subject matter of scientific psychology

 Humanistic Psychology  Maslow and Rogers emphasized current environmental influences on our growth potential, and our need for love and acceptance

The scientific study of behavior (what we do) and mental processes (inner thoughts and feelings)

 Nature vs. Nurture  Darwin stated that nature selects those that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment

Biological Genetic Predispositions and Mutations Natural Selection Genes Responding to the Environment Psychological Learned fears/expectations Emotional Responses Cognitive Processing Socio- Cultural Presence of others Cultural/Social expectations Peer/Group influences

PerspectiveFocusSample Questions Neuroscience How the body and brain enable emotions, thoughts, and behaviors How are messages transmitted in the body? How is blood chemistry linked with moods and motives? Evolutionary How the natural selection of traits promotes the perpetuation of one’s genes How does evolution influence behavior tendencies? Behavior Genetics How much of our genes/environment Influence our individual differences To what extent are intelligence, personality, sexual orientation, and vulnerability to depression linked to our genes?

PerspectiveFocusSample Questions Psychodynamic How behavior stems from unconscious drives and conflicts How can personality traits and disorders be explained as a result of childhood experiences? Behavioral How we learn observable responses How do we learn to fear certain situations? What is the most effective way to alter behavior?

PerspectiveFocusQuestions Cognitive How we encode, process, store, and retrieve information How do we use information in remembering? Reasoningg? Problem-Solving? Socio-Cultural How behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures How are we- as Africans, Asians, North Americans- alike? As products of our environments, how do we differ?

PsychologistWhat he/she does Biological Explore the link between the brain and the mind Developmental Study changing abilities from womb to tomb Cognitive Study how we perceive, think, and problem solve Personality Investigate our persistent traits and how the affect us Social Explore how we view and affect one another

Clinical Psychologist (Ph.D.) Psychiatrist (M.D.)  Studies, assesses, treats troubled people with psychotherapy  Usually many more sessions  No medication involved  Medical Professionals (Docs)  Use combination of drugs and psychotherapy to treat diseased patients  Biological view

 Specializations in Psychology (Pg. 5) 1. Choose a specialization of interest (no more than 2 people on a topic) 2. Research your specialization 3. Prepare a three minute presentation including: a) What the psychologist does b) Who do they work with? Where might they work? c) What perspectives of psychology might they use? Why? d) What is their importance to society? e) Example from news/magazine/article (If Possible)