Timeline of Psychology - link & response for this week

As I was searching for resources for my paper on J.B. Watson, I came across this synopsis of psychology as a discipline. What is interesting is that it goes MUCH farther back than we were able to study this semester. I find it intriguing to think about psychology as simply a way of thinking rather than a science. When I think this way, I realize that some of the things I have learned in my undergrad career could be considered common sense. What I like about the field of psychology, however, is the way we scientific-ize (I made that word up) the topics that seem to be common sense. Like a study on conditioned emotional responses (you'll learn about that in my presentation!)...we had figured that it's a possibility; before studying psychology we thought that this is possible. But a psychologist made the effort to back up a claim with empirical research. This is what makes our discipline more than "common sense."

Finally, I'll end with another link. I really like this series of podcasts (if you can get past the Australian accents!) and though not many of the episodes related DIRECTLY to the history of psychology, they are all integrated with information from many fields and schools of study. Let me know if you find one in particular that you like!

Your Future and Our Future - link & response for last week

I also enjoyed reading Larry's book. It really put my own education into perspective. How wonderful that many of us will be making history as well! Maybe if Larry writes a sequel later on down the line, some of us (besides Megan Brown of course, who is already in the book) will be included.

Funny to think that all of the trends in the field we've been reading about for the entire semester also translated to our own tiny campus. I think that Beloit's psychology department, for the most part, has always reflected the ideals of the greater field. We may not be big on a map but we sure do know what's popular!

I was really interested in the discussion on the scientific aspect of psychology. I was wondering exactly what Sara was wondering: did Larry think that the move to the Science Center improved other fields' views of ours? Did it improve our own views of ourselves? Are we a more legitimate science because we were invited to be housed in our new state-of-the-art building? I've felt that way; I also feel lucky that as a senior, I was able to experience the psychology major in both ways.

Anyway, since a lot of us are seniors, I looked around for a few sites that could help us potentially make history. If you're still looking for something to do after May 17th (or after you graduate next year, juniors)...here are some helpful websites. I can't take credit for this, though, because I found them on the FACS site. :)

Careers for Psych Majors
Entry Level Jobs for Psych Majors
What to do with your psych degree

Post and Link for last week...my apologies

I so enjoyed reading Larry's book last week and I thought we were able to have some great conversations because of the enthusiasm from everyone in the class that day. (I'm also glad everyone survived the heated trivia game :) I mostly enjoyed learning about how the Psychology Department at Beloit College has survived through so much. I just showed some prospies around ysterday and was proud to say that we were the only social science department housed in the science center. We should be so very proud of this!

To read about the long line of impressive faculty members that have served our psychology department was a pleasure. I wonder how even way back then we attrachted such amazing professors. I was especially impressed with Professor Farris and The de Weerdts. All of these people were focused on their students and the legacy of this focus is so important. Megan mentioned how furtunate we are to be at a student-centered college and she couldn't be more right.

I have attached a '98 Psychobabble. Seems random, but I think it's good to look at just our recent successes. For those of us who are graduating I recommend looking down at "Alumni News" to see all the different jobs alums have pursued from the class of '32 through '97!

http://www.beloit.edu/psychology/archives/Babble/psychobabble98.html

Week 12: Reflection

I really enjoyed Larry's book on the history of psychology at Beloit, as well as the discussion he held in class on Thursday. I think that as students of the department we are really lucky to have something like this and that this will become more meaningful when we're older and are reflecting back on our time at Beloit. Not only have we witnessed the move of the department from South College/random buildings on campus, we're also psychology students during the time of publication of Professor Tawney's Chronoscope. I think both of these events are really important for the presence of psychology as a discipline and major here at Beloit. I agree with earlier posts and with Larry's question of whether we feel more connected to our department after having read this book. Is there any other department on campus whose first professor was a student of the nakesame of their field? One of my favorite parts of the book was Larry's disucssion of being a professor at a small, liberal arts college versus a large, research-1 institution. This seems especially important for me as I am considering being a professor in the long run, and would want to teach at a school like Beloit. It seems that studying psychology here is such a different experience than at a state university. Having professors whose focus is on teaching your class and hearing your ideas is strikingly opposite from those who are focused on their personal research. I definitely don't think I'd feel as confident about my impending graduation if I'd gone to a large university - especially with respect to the current economy. Being student-centered is one of my favorite things about Beloit, and one of my favorite things about being part of a department in which every professor knows my name. How do you guys feel? What are you planning to do with your psychology major when you graduate?

History of Psych at Beloit College Post and Reflection

Larry's book allowed me to feel more connected to Beloit College because I was able to learn about the school and the psychology and major and the historical contexts in which they developed. I was surprised to learn about the department's progressive start and close ties to the very roots of psychology, with Professor Tawney having earned his PhD with Wundt. However, despite the head start, it seems that the dept stalled or lagged behind the interest in psychology nation wide, being carried by only one professor for so many years. I wonder if there was anything that the administration of the school could have done to increase the attraction of the position and retain faculty for longer than a couple years. It's interesting to think about what the dept could have been had it been stronger from the beginning. The history of the dept reinforces what I've learned in several classes, especially social psychology. No individual or institution is an island; they are influenced by the social influences all around. This is evident in the dept's shift to behaviorism during that school's heyday, and eventual conversion to cognitive psych. It is regrettable that during these times one school of thought dominated in the dept to the exclusion of other valuable viewpoints. Presently, I think the dept is doing a wonderful job of including a broad sampling of perspective and I am confident that it will continue to do so. We even continue to do original research, which is difficult to do at a small liberal arts school, because professors' time is taken up by teaching several classes, spending more time with students, etc. Here is a link to the study Greg conducted with one of the founders or positive psychology, Martin Seligman:

http://ft.csa.com/ids70/resolver.php?sessid=4j409lb1lcn4lbddam19lamtk6&server=csaweb106v.csa.com&check=45085fb0d70009bcf60ae0c74fb5811b&db=psycarticles-set-c&key=PRE%2F2%2Fpre_2_1_10a&mode=pdf

Freud's grandson has died

He was successful in many fields. His obituary.

Beloit's Rich Psychological History

I really have enjoyed reading about our long history of psychology right here in Beloit!
It is strange to think that this place has gone through so many changes. I found it interesting that, from the comments made by students at the time (through the Round Table, etc.), it seems like the overall atmosphere of Beloit College hasn't changed much. The professors are still extremely knowledgeable and eccentric, the students still enjoy working closely with faculty members...

Plus, I am so impressed that we have had psychology professors that come from all over the US and some that grew up in distant countries. I think it is amazing that out of the handful of lucky US psychology students that were able to work under Wundt, that one of them came here to work! (if only for a shorter period of time)
I guess this just makes me think that we really should look harder at the old things we throw away!

The Mind as a Computer - link & response for last week

While browsing the web, I found this blog which directly relates to our topic of last week's discussion. More specifically, this post detailed an interesting study that showed, through sensory imaging tests, that the mind-computer metaphor doesn't always work so well.

I find this metaphor interesting. I wonder if von Neumann thought he had hit the theoretical jackpot when he came up with this metaphor. All along, psychologists had been trying to answer the question of, "what is going on in the mind and why?" As Larry White put it in chapter 1 of his book, structuralism was a question of "what is mind?" and functionalism was a question of "what is mind for?" In my opinion, behaviorism was looking at "what can we do to control the mind?" and psychoanalysis was "how can we extract what is happening in the mind?" To answer this with a metaphor that explains the mind as a mass of connections that all have a specific purpose and specific applications seems to be the end point of wondering "what is going on in the mind?"

It doesn't answer the question of "why" though. And even though, at the time, not as much was known about computers as is now, doesn't it impersonalize our existence? If we can be programmed to perform in a certain way (which, I guess was the aim of behaviorism...) what is the point? And the computer metaphor does nothing for explaining emotion and other affectual things about the mind. However I think it was probably a breakthrough metaphor that also influenced the development of technology (which, as we all know, was extremely important and significant - without it we wouldn't be able to blog for class!).

Darnell Wilson

Debra A. Poole and Larry T. White began some research studies after the death of a young boy named Darnell Wilson in Beloit, Wisconsin in the 80's.

Hint: What did they decide to study and why?


Here's a link on some of the background information about the case. It's a little heavy, but you can get the idea...
openjurist.org/942/f2d/1143/dsa-v-circuit-court-branch

Professor Tawney's Chronoscope Book

So, tomorrow Larry White will lead the class in discussion regarding his book and his findings...

After that, we have a fun game for you all, so be sure to come prepared!!!

Cognitive Psych blog

Doing a quick review of last week's readings I noticed something that I hadn't before. In Ch 11 of the blue book, Ludy T. Benjamin Jr. talks a great deal about Gestalt Psychology, Bartlett, and the Computer metaphor, however he only briefly mentions Chomsky, Miller, and Brown. The reason this struck me as strange was because last semester in my Human Learning and Cognition class (in Florida) most of what we learned was coined and developed by Chomsky, Miller, and Brown. So I guess my question is, why did Benjamin not dive deeper into a discussion of those three, when seemingly their concepts are the most well-known or best understood of all that was discussed in Ch 11.

The most interesting part of Ch 11 to me though was the discussion of Bartlett and the mind as actively constructing information. I think it makes perfect sense that when we learn new information our mind doesn't just place it anywhere, but instead finds, I guess, it's common relatives, and places it in that area of your memory. This would explain why sometimes people don't seem to make sense, when in reality the associations being made are directly related to where information is stored in their head. Bartlett's concept of memory as subject to error I believe also makes perfect sense. How many times can I recall holding my daddy's hand in the gas station and looking up and realizing it wasn't my daddy, but according to Bartlett the question becomes, is that really my memory, did my mind fill in the blanks or make part of it up based on what my parents have told me? Hmmmm....

Cognitive Psych Link

http://www.gestalttherapy.net/welcome/index.html

This link is to a website that has blogs for discussion between gestalt therapists, trainees, etc as well as projects that are going on. An interesting aspect of the website is "The Writer's Page" it is a link to the life and work of many gestalt therapists, written by them, discussing their practice, theory, and methods.

Week 11: Reflection and Link

I decided to do some additional exploration of the zeigarnik effect after our wrap-up discussion of cognitive psychology and this phenomenon in particular this past week. As you'll recall from the reading, this effect was coined by the Russian psychologist B. Zeigarnik, who claimed that the recall ratio for tasks interrupted in the middle or toward the end is higher than those interrupted early on. Additional research since this time has shown that this effect is more likely to appear if the subject is ego-involved in the task in some way. In addition, studies have shown that individuals with a genuine level of aspiration to complete the task are also more likely to show the zeigarnik effect than other participants.

Apparently musicians like to utilize this phenomenon when composing "hooks," or for the conclusion of pieces. Being rather non-musically inclined, I'm not entirely sure I understand how this works, but in essence, it involes a suspended chord that created initial dissonance and is then resolved by the final note. Check it out here: http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2008/07/learning-zeigarnik-effect.html. This article claims the effect can be heard at the end of the Beatles' She's Leaving Home.

Interestingly enough, there seems to be a dearth of information on Bluma Zeigarnik beyond short descriptions of her work under Kurt Lewin and subsequent discovery of the phenomenon later named after her. The only other credit I could find to her was her presence in helping to establish experimental psychopathology as a separate discipline. Also, am I the only one that didn't realize Zeigarnik was a woman? Is this due to the tendency to just call scientists by their first intitial/last name, or does it say something more about our tendency to assume important, noted discoveries were made by men? It's interesting to think about the number of men we've studied in this course versus the number of women...

Link and Reflection

The topic that interested me the most this week was the debate about language acquisition during the cognitive revolution. While we were learning about Noam Chomsky's language acquisition device theory and how it opposes Skinner, I was fascinated with the differences between the two. Chomsky's theory makes perfect sense, and I wonder how Skinner completely overlooked these ideas. In my opinion, behaviorism was simply too narrow of a scope to view psychology and it limited research far too much. Skinner MUST have considered the ideas that Chomsky presented because it is so obvious and true. However, Skinner's ideas are clearly lacking important elements that Chomsky discovered. I've discussed my 3 year old cousin on a previous blog post, and I'll refer to him again here. I got him a mini-guitar for Christmas and when he opened the gift he screamed, "How did you know I wanted a buitar? I seeed one of these at the store!" It was funny at the moment because of the words he mispronounced, but it's a great example of Chomsky's theory. There's no way that my cousin was reinforced in the words he said in that sentence. A buitar? Seeed? Sorry Skinner, but I just can't see you point of view. I am very happy that we've moved beyond behaviorism so that research doesn't have to be limited and narrow. Below is a link that provides a pretty cool flow-chart of Chomsky's language/grammar acquisition device, and it has some quotes from Chomsky about his views on bheaviorism.

http://academics.tjhsst.edu/psych/oldPsych/language/chomsky.html

Seth

Cognititve Psych Reflection and Post

In class this week, we talked briefly about the connection between Gestalt Psychology and Cognitive Psych in general, and if cognitive psych today is Gestalt at all. We said that it is not, or at least not very much. However, that does not mean that Gestalt is dead or that it is still not engaging interest and producing research. Here is a link to a society for the promotion of Gestalt. There are a lot of interesting links: http://www.gestalttheory.net/. But just as cognitive psych experienced a rebirth, I think that Gestalt psychology, or at least aspects of Gestalt theory, are experiencing a resurgence in contemporary society. There is great interest in holisting care and alternative medicine among the public, and growing acceptance of it in the medical community. There is also a growing body of research on spirituality, etc in psychological journals and how these various aspects influence health. There is more emphasis on lifestyle change (e.x. diet and exercise) in the prevention and treatment of obesity, heart disease, etc. There is a growing awareness that the whole person must be treated, not simply one part of their body or the disease.


I was surprised to learn that behaviorism had only been dominant in the United States and it hadn't experiences much influence abroad. A part of it was probably some unique American fascination with facts over theory, but I wonder if even this is a valid statement. Ideas come to America: Wundt, Binet, the Gestaltists, Bartlett, etc. But why is it that American ideas don't seem to be spread widely abroad. Perhaps this is a narrow view that I'm talking and that American ideas have spread, but our readings simply didn't focus on that. I also found Mandler's assertion that John B. Watson implanted the seeds of behaviorism's death even its birth surprising as well. It makes a lot of sense. These was such an emphasis on animal research and equating humans with animals that our higher mental process that do exist were necessarily left out. While behaviorism did generate a lot of good research, it was only so long before its shortcomings would be realized and psychologists would have recourse to more cognitive explanations of human behavior and experience.

Freud's apartment - Vienna

Hi all,
I thought I'd post a link to my personal pictures from when I visited Freud's apartment in Vienna, Austria.
Here is a link to the first photo in the series of 23 photos from his house. You're welcome to look at the rest of the photos in that album but those 23 are of course the most relevant to this class!
To scroll through the pictures, use the right-pointing arrow above the photo.

Follow up on Noam

Sorry, I also ran across (totally by accident) an article on the NYT webpage that leads to an entire list of articles by Noam Chomsky if you are interested in what he is up to these days besides talking in Madison.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/noam_chomsky/index.html?inline=nyt-per

Noam Chomsky

Hey,
So I found a link to Noam Chomsky at Madison's Edgewood college.
http://www.uppitywis.org/noam-chomsky-edgewood-last-night

Evidently he has become quite the political theorist and commentator. There are some links on youtube to comments he has on Obama. That (foreign policy) is also what he is presenting about tonight at the Orpheum theater in Madison.
(Just search Noam Chomsky on Obama)

Racial Profiling - link & response for last week

I thought the video we watched last Thursday was really interesting (despite the design and presentation flaws we discussed in class). It led me to think more about the depiction of certain problems in the media, and how psychologists can influence those issues.

In our book, we learned about the alleged racial differences in intelligence and how those research prospects still influence our thinking today. As mentioned in our book, the differences in race (not just in intelligence, but in any aspect of life) tend to be an "American obsesssion."

And as we saw with the Dateline, 20/20, or 60 minutes spot we watched in class, people still tend to "prefer" one race over another, and this leads me to believe that people still see differences between people of different races. Lots of people will claim, "I don't see color," but the research presented in the video we watched tells otherwise. Will this ever go away?

An every day scenario where racial prejudice might come into play is in the phenomenon of racial profiling by police. I found this Time feature article pretty relevant and the interesting part is that it gives multiple viewpoints on this issue. It's kind of long, but I think you'll also find it interesting. (Here also is the photo essay on this subject.)

Last Week's Reflection and Link

We spent a lot of time talking about gender differences last week in class. We discussed what is present in the current research and what we thought should be. Most of the things we mentioned were things that we would have to test and could not look at physiologically. I think it is important to note both sides of this.

It is not important to understand the differences in sexes to answer the ultimate question of which sex is more superior---rather it is best for both sexes involved to learn as much as possible about both sides. I was searching on-line and found the following link that talks about physiological differences that have been found between sexes that I was not aware of. I found the information in "Psychology Today", so its interesting to note who might be reading this type of material. Is it useful? Do we need to understand these differences or does it just polarize the respective genders?

Some of the interesting findings in the article are that women have numerous back-up genes that men don't. The authors speculate that this is the reason why women are less susceptible to mental illnesses (i.e. autism and schizophrenia). We know that women have more gray matter in our brains and really drive home that point, but who knew that men had more white matter and cerebrospinal fluid? The reasoning for this is that it gives men's brains more cushion and protection from the elements when tooling around or battling. Just some food for thought...

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-20030624-000003.xml

Week 10: Reflection and Link

Fifty years after the landmark Brown v. Board decision, the APA's publication, Monitor on Psychology, commemorated this date by publishing an issue centered on currently relevant issues in educational psychology. This coincided with the annual convention (2004), in which Kenneth and Mamie Clark were honored for their contributions which were arguably under-recognized during the Brown era. In addition, the APA's Racial Identity in Context: The Legacy of Kenneth B. Clark, examines Clark's life and incredible achievements in promoting desegregation and racial equality through interviews of 20 prominent psychologists. Reflecting back upon Clark's work and vision for the desegregation process in all American schools, psychologists and sociologists alike are often quick to admit that, discouraging as it is, Clark's projection was rather accurate. He argued that integration would happen to the degree that authorities and the government worked for it - which many would argue has not, to a great degree, happened in our schools. Rather than simply recounting Clark's contributions, however, the book stresses how his focus on the community had and continues to have far-reaching effects on how we conceive of group identity, race, and social psychology.

Other topics in the September 2004 issue of the Monitor on Psychology include desegregating urban schools, the education achievement/opportunity gap (and the significance behind word choice), social hurdles to integration, and the claim that academic placement perpetuates racial segregation. This touches on some of the issues we read and talked about in terms of school psychology, as well as many of the social questions facing those employed in the wide field of applied psychology today. These topics are of personal interest to me as my favorite areas of psychology are development and social, yet I also believe they're relevant to all of us preparing to graduate and enter graduate school or the work force - the burden of racial inequality doesn't stop at the borders of the school yard.

Here's the link to the short articles in the 9/04 issue of the Monitor : http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep04/50years.html

Another Doll Story About Race

Going off of the comments about Kenneth Clark's doll experiments and the impact the results had on all of us, I thought I might add some more thought-provoking material to the discussion. This American Life featured a story a little while back that is incredibly interesting:

Elna Baker reads her story about the time she worked at the giant toy story, FAO Schwartz. Her job was to sell these lifelike "newborns" which were displayed in a "nursery" inside the store. When the toys become the hot new present, they begin to fly off the shelves. When the white babies sell out, white parents are faced with a choice: will they go for an Asian, Latino, or African-American baby instead? What happens is so disturbing that Elna has a hard time even telling it.

The story is only 16 minutes long and completely fascinating. A quote from the author: "What it meant was just too depressing... I still didn't want to face what it said if a factory reject monster baby was adopted before a whole nursery of perfectly cute black babies."

Here is the link. It is the last story on the show so if you let it load all the way and then click to 40 minutes in you'll be queued up perfectly. In case that link doesn't work for you for some reason you can try this one.

I am curious to see your opinions and thoughts.

link and reflection 4/2

This week we discussed social action. We learned about many important psychological contributions to the civil rights movement that had a very positive impact on racial and gender equality. In class on Friday we watched videos of various tests performed to determine if people have a preference toward a particular race. These experiments were designed to recreate the work of Kenneth Clark's doll experiment. The results of these tests are a little shocking and upsetting. It was heart breaking to watch an African American child describe the white doll as good and nice while the African American doll was described as bad. Some of the tests, such as the computerized version, seem like they could have some confounds based on the order of presentation but it is powerful to see multiple tests with multiple generations report basically the same results. it is too bad that we have these preferences and possible prejudices still present in our society. Even th emost well meaning people who would never dream of any racial thoughts or actions still show a preference. These preferences may be due to exposure to popular media and most of us would be completely unware that our experiences would have caused any preference to develop at all. I think it is ok to have these preferences as long as you are able to recognize that you have them, understand that they are unfair, and work to keep them from influeincing your thoughts and actions as best as you can.

Here is a link to the wiki for Jane Elliots brown eye, blue eye experiment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott

Implicit Association Test site

Take the implicit association test.

Link and Reflection

After reading about and discussing Kenneth Clark's work in Brown v. Board of Education, it led me to question how psychology's role in the courts has rapidly grown. Before the Social Science Brief by Clark, the courts never appealed to psychologists for their opinion or testimony. However, the use of psychologists as expert witnesses to testify in court has become a common practice. I think that psychologists can be used in some instances, but sometimes I think it's wrong. For example, the use of psychological studies in Brown v. Board of Education was valid and not a far-fetched argument. The use of psychologists in Dan White's "Twinkie Defense" after the murder of Harvey Milk was ridiculous, and it worked! I feel like juries are unfairly persuaded by psychologists discussing testimony that they have no previous knowledge of.
So where Kenneth Clark's work was valuable and sound, it has led to a practice in our field that I am uncomfortable with. I think that the overuse of psychological expert testimony in court is giving the field of psychology a bad name, and psychologists need to restrict what they testify about. But, this is easier said than done when attorneys hand over huge sums of money for expert testimony. This is another problem in a scientific field that is still young and quickly growing. The link below is an article about why nonforensic psychologists should not participate in forensice investigations. The author points out numerous problems and difficulties such as stretching the truth and unfair persuasion. This is just something to think about this week.

http://www.reidpsychiatry.com/columns/14%20Reid%2003-03%20pp163-166.pdf

Seth

Possible questions for Final Exam

Possible Final Exam Questions (the exam will likely only consist of items from this list, but not all of them will appear on the exam):

1. List the four basic elements involved in every structuralist study and provide an example of each using a single primary source.
2. Define the following terms: daimon, psyche, eidolon, heros, manes, lares, numen.
3. What are the three phases that make up a liminal ritual as described by Arnold van Gennep?
4. List four specifications included in the rubric for a spell induction using the method of free association according to Freud.
5. Discuss the connections of gender and class to mind structure in the works of Titchener.
6. How do the representations of mind in Greek literature reflect the culture of Greece at the time in terms of the theory of boundary mobility and the theory of stasis monitoring?
7. Compare and contrast prayers to the method of introspection.
8. What conclusions can we draw about gender issues in early 20^th Century America and Europe by examining the representation of witches in each society?
9. How might a lack of unemployment mobility be related to the emergence of behaviorism in a sedentary society?
10. Name three psycho-bio-social cults from the current hip-hop world.
11. Describe several reasons why a person might want to contact the dead or alternatively the living dead during history and systems class (via either voice or text messaging).
12. When, why, and where, did the tradition of April Fool’s jokes begin?

April Fools Reflection

So, I was thinking about our conversation on Tuesday about psychology and social action. We discussed many famous studies that have enlightened us on different aspects of society, including group conforming, and segregation. What I guess I was wondering was if there really are any studies being conducted now, or recently, that in the future will be considered just as groundbreaking. What are psychologists doing today that will find their way into history of psychology books.

Now on a completely different topic, the reading that struck me the most was Leta Hollingworth's article on impelling women to have children. I'd like to connect this idea of society trying to manipulate women to bear children with a discussion I had in my Drugs and Behavior class about the right to tell a woman NOT to have children. We were talking about taking antipsychotics when pregnant and how that is a big no-no and whether or not a doctor has a right to say that a schizophrenic woman canNOT have a child. It is interesting how much the times have changed. Decades ago, as Hollingworth pointed out, society wanted nothing, but for woman to remain at home and give birth and raise their children. Nowadays, women and men are being prevented or told to not procreate, or maybe to consider adoption instead. Who are we to dictate whether or not a woman should or should not have a child.

April Fools Link

http://thesituationist.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/clark-doll-test.jpg
Here is a picture of Clark with a small boy picking between the white and black dolls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybDa0gSuAcg
This video is by a student who sort of tried to recreate Clark's original doll test. It's pretty interesting the reason one girl picks the white doll over the black doll.

reflection on MK-ULTRA info

I really thought class was interesting last week regarding the discussion of MK-ULTRA and how the CIA was able to use mind control on innocent people. Many think these actions are continuing today, and once again, we are just not aware of what exactly the government is doing.

These tests lasted at least 20 years, and from some people's testimony... more like 3 decades.

Some believe that these mind experiments led to the creation of MPD in patients. What do you think? Is this possible?

And I find it appalling that they used mixed methods of hypnosis along with LSD and other wonderful methods of drugging to conduct these experiments, when they clearly didn't know what the effects would be. Obviously, they didn't care, since they saw this as "helping our country."

I found this article informative, so if interested--have a glance...

http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/jewell.htm


So, do you think mind control is still being used today, but in different forms?

MK-ULTRA info

I found some interesting testimony on youtube from MK-ULTRA patients...check it out if interested, they are pretty short segments.... the reasoning "serving the country for a means of an end to communism" is what some of the patients were told...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-ES8Bv0_8w


and some info from a former CIA operative

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i46RI2twVao

Check it out...

Week 9: Link & Reflection

As we have talked a good deal in class about school psychology, my reflection and link for this week focus on the industrial-organizational aspect of psychology. Our readings for the week in the blue book mentioned the Hawthorne studies, conducted in the Hawthorne Works factory outside of Chicago. I decided to focus on one of the experiments, conducted by Mayo, that took place on an assembly line. Mayo was interested in how fatigue and job monotony affected productivity and how to control them through variables such as rest breaks, work hours, temperature and humidity. "In the process," says one of the links listed below, "he stumbled upon a principle of human motivation that would help to revolutionize the theory and practice of management." Interestingly, it appears Mayo used women for his study, removing them from their position working on the assembly line of a factory and isolating them, frequently changing their work environments. I couldn't find any information as to why Mayo decided to use women, but I would guess he had some sort of motivation to do so.. ?

The first link below gives good description of Mayo's method, including having the team of 6 women be observed by a friendly coworker instead of a domineering supervisor. Be sure to check out the conclusion, such that after series of changes that had positive and negative effects, the team was most productive at the very end of the experiment when placed back in their original working conditions! The key concept here is all about how one feels about their work environment - their level of control and freedom in the situation, their willingness to participate, etc. It's really interesting! Check it out: http://accel-team.com/motivation/hawthorne_02.html

I found the best explanation of the Hawthorne studies as a whole, including diagrams for another of the experiments, here: http://www.analytictech.com/mb021/handouts/bank_wiring.htm

Here's the Link!

Here's the link to the NASP newsletter that I talked about in my reflection. The artcile is found on pages 1, 26-27 and is entitled "The 1968 National Invitational Conference of School Psychologists: Is This the 41st Anniversary of NASP?" Enjoy!

http://www.wooster.edu/psychology/wscott/nasp.pdf

History of a Psychiatric Hospital and Whatever happened to Little Albert

On his pages, "The Psych Files", Michael Britt has an interview you can listen to about the history of the Hudson River Psychiatric Hospital which is quite informative.

He also has an audio presentation regarding what really happened to Little Albert with good references on the page.

Week of 3/24 Reflection

This week we read about different applied fields in psychology. The field that I am interested in and will be pursuing a future in is School Psychology. The blue book discussed the many people that can be accredited for developing the field. The first school psychologist, Arnold L. Gesell impressed me so much! I feel like he should get more credit and attention than he does. He developed a set of normative tables on children that not only school psychologists use, but also parents, medical professions, and other educational professionals! Can you imagine where we would be in so many child focused fields if Gesell hadn't put this table together?

Also I wanted to add a little bit more about why the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) was founded. The book briefly mentioned the tiff between the APA and school psychologists. Their Divsion (16) was present, but school psychologist wanted more from the association. I will post the NASP newsletter, Communique, which includes an article that goes into more detail about why and how NASP was created. Some of the reasons are as follows: identity, represent specific interests, strongly support non-doctoral professionals, and understand the complexities of working in public schools.

Link and Reflection

Here is a link to a website that nicely details the differences between a Ph.D. and a Psy.D. At one point in my college career I seriously considered going for a Psy.D. after Beloit and becoming a clinical psychologist, but after careful thought I chose my law school path. However, I still believe that the Psy.D. degree is very valuable and a great degree to have in psychology.

http://www.internationalgraduate.net/psyd.htm

After our assigned readings, I began to wonder what would have happened in psychology if WWI and WWII had not occurred. WWII is frequently cited as helping the U.S. pull out of the Great Depression, but I think that psychology also benefited from U.S. involvement. The field of clinical psychology was somewhat established pre-war, but there were still many steps to take and questions to be answered. During and after both wars, the government and VA hospitals gave enormous amounts of money to psychologists for testing and treatment of soldiers. This gave the field of psychology resources and test subjects that otherwise would have been impossible to amount. Psychologists took advantage of this and developed various mental and intelligence tests, therapies, and theories of psychopathology. As a result, the Boulder Conference, along with other smaller ones, were required to unify the quickly growing field.
I believe that if it wasn't for either war, the field of psychology would not have developed nearly as quickly. There would have been no demand for a large-scale conference in 1949. In high school history I learned about numerous effects and influences that WWII had on many parts of our country, but there was never any mention about psychology. I think that should change because WWII had a direct role in the expansion of our discipline, and we would be years behind without that influence.

Blog and Link for 3/24

http://www.apa.org/divisions/div12/homepage.html

This is a link to the clinical psychology division of the APA. I thought it would be interesting to look at since it took so long for the APA to accept clincial psychology into the organization.

I wanted to comment on how the VA and the government really had to push the APA and the AAAP to come together to help the war veterans after WWII. Benjamin, in the blue book, discussed how it wasn't until the war ended that the need for clinical psychologists was pushed to the forefront. Benjamin also commented on how many of the clinical psychologists of the time, although practicing had not ever really had the appropriate training, and there was a substantial lack of research confirming or denying the effectiveness of certain clinical techniques and methods. What really suprised me was that because the demand for psychologists was so high after the war that unqualified, or should I say MORE unqualified, psychologists were treating war veterans suffering from a multitude of maladies, most common being PTSD. So this all made me wonder, what sort of mistakes doing you think psychologists made? Do you think there were misdiagnoses, any that were harmful?

CBT - link and response for last week

While talking about behaviorism, I was thinking about how it applies directly to our lives as psychology students. Beyond knowing about classical and operant conditioning (which helps us shape our professors to stand in corners), how can it directly help us if we decide to go into careers in psychology?

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a type of therapy that we've all heard about. It is a combination of studying behavior (what we do) and studying the cognition that causes our behavior (what we think). It's an interesting way that we can take Watson's idea of the "prediction and control" of behavior and apply it to a theraputic, clinical practice. I think it even helps to combine the psychology of the late 19th century (before behaviorism), the study of consciousness and its processes, with behaviorism.

Going beyond that, I was thinking about a discussion question I would have liked to ask in class last week. Do you agree or disagree with the "prediction" aspect of Watson's goal of psychology? How about the "control" aspect? I think it's interesting that he lumped the two together. In earlier psychology, we were interested in reaction time, for example, which would help us to predict aspects of human consciousness. However, when did control come into the picture? When did it become desirable to control humans through the study of their mind/consciousness/behavior? This is something that I think applied psychology really influenced. Without applied psychology, we never would have thought to control aspects of people, especially not their behavior. Yet with the research produced in the subfield of behaviorism, we learned that people can be predicted, controlled, and manipulated. This is such a far cry from any ideas that the earliest psychologists had, but they are some of the most pervasive ideas to this day.

Women in Psychiatry

Picture of young Elizabeth Blackwell


Many people chose to answer the question regarding women in psychology in its early history. Here is an excerpt from the National Library of Medicine at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/diseases/debates.html about

Women in 19th-Century American Psychiatry

Women were not welcomed into the medical profession during the first half of the 19th century: medical schools did not admit them. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first American woman to gain admission to a medical school and graduated from Geneva (N.Y.) Medical College in 1847. She spearheaded the push for women to enter medicine. With the support of women and some men, 17 medical schools for women were established but after some 50 years all but The Women's Medical College in Philadelphia closed, as all-male medical schools in Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, and elsewhere began opening their doors to a small number of women towards the end of the century.

Many arguments against women becoming physicians were physiological and neurological: would the education and training required make a woman unfit for her "primary duty," childbirth? And was rest (physical and mental) necessary during menstruation? In 1876, noted physician Mary Putnam Jacobi undertook a study of women's physiology, and specifically blood pressure, during menstruation, proving that menstruation posed no physical constraints on women. She entered her paper on the subject for the Boylston Prize at Harvard University anonymously and won it, much to the chagrin of many opponents to women's medical education. (See: M. P. Jacobi, The Question of Rest for Women During Menstruation, New York, 1877).

Psychiatry in the 19th century was based in the mental hospitals. The asylum superintendents voiced divided opinions about employing women doctors. Dr. John Gray of Utica, Dr. Thomas Kirkbride in Philadelphia, and Dr. John Chapin of Willard (N.Y.) wrote letters to their governors opposing the employment of women physicians, but legislatures especially in New York and Pennsylvania mandated they do so. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, in his 1894 address at The Association meeting, had urged that women take care of women patients. But discrimination prevailed. Women doctors in many institutions received less pay than their male counterparts performing the same work. They were denied promotions and received little recognition, and as a result many did not remain long at the hospitals.

The earliest record of employment of a woman physician in an asylum was in 1869, when Worcester (Mass.) State Hospital hired Dr. Mary Stinson. Iowa followed in 1873, as did Michigan and hospitals elsewhere. Dr. Alice Bennett, M.D., (also the first woman to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania), remained at Norristown, Pennsylvania for 12 years in charge of the women's division, from 1880 to 1892. Gradually, as more women entered medicine, they were employed at state hospitals. Not until after WWII did the numbers of women physicians increase significantly, however. Eventually, psychiatry became a specialty of choice for many women, and a large number of them entered private practice.

Week 8: Reflection & Link

Of the topics we've covered recently, one that I'm most interested in is the concept of eugenics, and how this has played out in our society historically. I'd heard about eugenics through other disciplines before, namely history classes covering WWII and Nazi Germany and a Race Theory course in which I'm currently enrolled, though I wasn't very knowledgeable on the relationship between psychology and eugenics. I think it's safe to say we'd agree our country has progressed to a place in which outright acts of discrimination are unacceptable, and that we pride ourselves on being a so-called equal society. Our past has clearly not always embraced these ideals, however, which we can see through examples of mental (and anthropometric) testing, attempting to dictate hierarchical relations between the races, and the instance of providing tests to determine one's aptitude for a certain vocation or skill. Do you guys think we're sincerely moved to a post-eugenics society? How does the correlation between race and class that characterizes our country support or refute the idea of eugenics? I believe in terms of social psychology, such that we tend to foster relationships with those that live in close proximity to us or tend to favor things with which we are more exposed, that traces of eugenics can still be seen. The class discrepancy plays out in the ways that our cities and neighborhoods are constructed, which dictates how much contact members of different races will have. And, if the majority of resources are allocated to those high up on the social ladder, who will likely be mating with those of similar race and class backgrounds, doesn't that further segregate us? I certainly don't mean to say that we fully support the idea of eugenics (consciously, that is), but I believe it's an important consideration, especially in light of our tendencies to congratulate ourselves on being active members of such an equal and progressive society.

The first link is a short video explaining eugenics, and the second is a professor discussing the relationship between the Nazi doctors, American eugenics, & psychiatry (it's the first of a 3 part series if you're interested).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GcSpV1jioA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKAvtwVhnUk

More on that little boy named Albert....

Notes Regarding Little Albert’s "Phobia"

When Albert was conditioned again to the rat, 10 days after the initial trials, Albert…

..fell over to the left side, got up on all fours and started to crawl away. On this occasion there was no crying but strange to say, as he started away he began to gurgle and coo, even while leaning far over to the left side to avoid the rat…

- in addition, on this same day he was again conditioned to fear the rabbit, albert’s response was reported as,

…fear reaction slight. Turned to the left and kept face away from the animal but the reaction was never pronounced.

31 days after being shown the rat, Watson reports that when in the same room as the rat "He allowed the rat to crawl towards him without withdrawing"

On the final day of testing when albert was exposed to the rabbit to which he had been conditioned to fear, he did not avoid the rabbit at all. Watson (1920) reports:

..after about a minute he [Albert] reached out tentatively and …touched the rabbit’s ear with his right hand…

Objects Albert was supposedly afraid of, but for which there is no evidence:
Cats
Fur muffs
White furry gloves
Albert’s aunt (who wore fur)
Albert’s mother’s fur coat
A teddy bear

Most overlooked facts:

The study is not an experiment (an experiment requires at least two levels of an independent variable). It is a pilot study at best.

The study had only one subject.

The study has never been replicated.

I thought this was interesting and found it at ....
http://www.thepsychfiles.com/2008/02/19/episode-47-the-little-albert-study-what-you-know-ismostly-wrong/

Whatever happened to Little Albert???

Here is an interesting article from Vassar College regarding Watson's study a little more in depth.

However, one thing to note* it appears there is much misrespresentation regarding little Albert and in the study itself. Basically, it seems as if many of the details have been fabricated and glossed over throughout the years.

If you'd like to learn more about this popular study... check it out here....



http://htpprints.yorku.ca/archive/00000198/01/BHARRIS.HTM

Bizarre science

We discussed the ethics of J.B. Watson's work with "Little Albert" in class. Here is a list of 10 bizarre studies, most of which are psychological (and the two that are not make for interesting speculation regarding the psychology of the researcher).
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19626281.600-top-10-bizarre-experiments.html?full=true

Walden II today

Here's a link to the Twin Oaks Community (http://www.twinoaks.org/) that is the continuing communal program that was originally based on Skinner's vision in Walden II.

st pattys day reflection and link

http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/pub/eres/EDSPC715_MCINTYRE/cartoon12.JPG
This link is to a cartoon that I thought was pretty hilarious, dealing with Freud and Pavlov. If you google behaviorism cartoons and go to images there are some pretty hilarious cartoons, a few of which seem to be illustrating a fight between Freud and Pavlov.

I want to reflect on the reading about Behaviorism and its lack of acceptance in the psychological community. I thought it was really interesting that at the beginning of the emergence of psychology there was a shift towards science and proving that psychology was rooted in science and not philosophy, yet once behaviorism came into the picture, rooted in experiments (not many, but some), psychologists were unwilling to give introspection for science.

I was not satisfied with the reasons given for why behaviorism didn't seem to catch on for a few years. I didn't understand the lack of evidence. It must be very hard to push a new point of view onto people when you only have one experiment to rely on. Even then, the one experiment, now, would be considered completely unethical. One of the reasons given for why it was not accepted right away was because it was so practical. To me that doesn't make sense, if something is practical aren't you more likely to believe it...and what does that say about introspection, is it so impractical that it's believable? I don't know I'm just confused I guess.

What to know for the exam on Thursday

People you should be acquainted with for the test on Thursday:

Ludy Benjamin, Jr. Anna O. (Bertha Pappenheim) Martha Bernays E. Bleuler E.G. Boring F. Brentano J. Breuer M.W. Calkins J.McK. Cattll J-M Charcot C.R. Darwin J. Dewey H. Ebbinghaus G. Fechner P. Flourens

James R. Angell. C.G. Jung O. Kulpe F.J. Gall F. Galton H. Goddard G.S. Hall HY. Helmholtz H.L. Hollingworth L.S. Hollingworth K. Horney W. James J. Jastrow F.A. Mesmer J.S. Mill K. Pearson C. Stumpf

Alfred Adler W. Reich J.P. Rushton W.D. Scott E.B. Titchener M.F. Washburn E. Weber P. Broca C. Wissler R.S. Woodworth H.T. Woolley W. Wundt T. Young L. Witmer H. Munsterberg G.E. Muller

Concepts you should be acquainted with for the test on Thursday

Absolute threshold Difference threshold Act psychology Hall on adolescence Early history of APA Analytical psychology Animal magnetism Orgone Applied vs. basic research Brass instrument testing Apperception Young-Helmholtz theory Coca-Cola trial Correlation coefficient First psychological clinic Introspection by analogy Repression Seduction hypothesis Women in psychology

Theory of evolution Cortical localization Theories of consciousness Dream analysis Dynamic psychology Psychophysics Weber and Fechner’s law Free association Forgetting and memory Functionalism Structuralism Genetic psychology Hypnosis Imageless thought Interference theory Introspection Tabula rasa Transference Unconscious

Leipzig laboratory Libido Memory drum Tachistoscope Reaction time Mind-body problem Moral therapy Oedipal Complex Paired-associate learning Penis envy Phrenology Pragmatism Psychoanalysis Reaction time Recapitulation theory Eugenics Resistance Self psychology Serial order effect

some history on Karen Horney

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/horney.html check out this link for some history on Karen Horney. Thought it was interesting that at a young age she was in love with her brother, but he rejected her... What????

Psychoanalysis Post and Reflection

Previous to the readings this past week, particularly Hornstein's "The Return of the Repressed: Psychology's Problematic Relations with Psychoanalysis, 1909-1960", I had no idea that psychoanalysis and the larger psychology community in the United States were at odds with each other. Having always learned about psycholanalysis in the context of a psychology class, I was unaware that they had previously tried to establish separate spheres for themselves, and that psychoanalysis was competing with the new psychology in America for scientific authority and establishment. As Horstein's article states, at first psychology was just amused by psychoanalysis and thought it was a passing craze. To some extent it was. Some people tried to capitalize on psychoanalysis by offering fake services. One such person was Alphonse Animus in Chicago. Follow this link to read his story: http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue153/psychoanalysis.html. It seems to me a shame that the two sides had to fight so bitterly to defend themselves. Even though I mostly agree with psychoanalysis's critics, I think new and different ideas are at least worth being explored. If creativity in psychology is suppressed, the field will stagnate. However, I agree with Hornstein that this battle turned out to be a positive experience for psychology: "The psychology that emerged from these wrenching experiences was stronger and more resilient, able to tolerate a greater degree of diversity among its members that would once have been unthinkable." Psychology needed to challenge an opponent and more definately define itself in defense to shake up the field enough for it to be able to move forward

reflection on freud

So, after all of the Freud info. we received this week... I was kind of shocked to realize that after all my years of college, I never even realized that Freud was married. Not only that, but he had 6 kids in his first 9 years of marriage. I guess this shocked me since many times Freud is shown throughout history as someone whose ideas are so far off base, they seem unbelievable. And yet he was a family man too.

I wonder how his wife felt about his ideas on "penis envy" and the oedipal complex. I always assumed he was a single man, possibly against women and their place in society---so imagine my surprise to learn he was a family man.

Also, I found it interesting that it seems like America took a greater interest to Freud than the medical profession in England did. How is Freud perceived in history books in Austria, Paris, and England compared to ours in America? Is there such an emphasis on him in those areas of the world?

After taking this class so far, I'm finding that my opinions on who the most influential person in psychology was is now shifting. When the semester first started, the only person I could think of was Freud, but now I wonder just how influential he really was compared to some of the rest....

post and reflection 3/5

Here is a good link I found with information about Neo Freudians.

http://allpsych.com/personalitysynopsis/psychodynamic.html


I am always very interested in the work of Freud. I always wonder why his studies lead him to the beliefs and principals he developed. I think it is very interesting that every time I read about a new view or idea (such as Freud's psychoanalytic theory0 I find myself trying to fit it to my own life. Sometimes it is easy to find examples abd other times I have to stretch a few things to make it fit. Whenever you introduce some new explanation for the way people behave it is only natural for people to search for the evidence in their own lives. This could be why people have such strong feelings one way or another, either they can identify these ideas in their own life or, in Freud's case, are so disgusted by the ideas that they refuse to accept them. I believe that we can use Freud's ideas to explain some of our behavior and development, but we can alo use many other theories out there. Every person is different and it is impossible to develope one theory that encompasses everything about everyone.

I really liked the work of Karen Horney. It really seemed like she jsut took a lot of Freud's ideas and through them back in his face. I like how she flipped the idea of women being jeaslous of men for having a penis into men being jealous of women for having a womb. I am not sure if she truely believed all of these ideas or if she merely used them to state how rediculous some of Freud's ideas were. I also liked how she stood up and said that men intentially maintained sexual barriers in society because they were threatened by women. She really tried to use her knowledge and field to stand up for women's rights and point out a lot of issues that were not fair for women at the time.

Week 7: Link and Reflection

I decided, in light of the many posts about Freud this week, to focus my reflection on the conference at Clark University in 1909. As we learned in the video, this was Freud's one and only visit to the states, at the request of G. Stanley Hall. Apparently Freud was appalled at the 20th celebration of Clark University, as the university in Leipzig was over 500 years old at the time. I am really interested as to how receptive the audiences were, seeing as how Freud delivered his three lectures in German. Bill, do you have any additional information on this? It seems fitting that Freud would decide to do such a thing, what with his opinion of the US and all.

I would be really curious to read first hand accounts of the conference at Clark, as it brought together not only Freud, but also Carl Jung - outside of Europe, nonetheless. I decided to do a little investigative work about Clark and the historic conference that took place there in 1909. It's interesting to reflect on the idea that, while probably any student of psychology would known Freud and Jung's names automatically, their fame wasn't widely prevalent in the states before their visit. Clark, however, had gained international attention for housing the second graduate program to open in the country as well as general promotion of quality scholarship. Hall's focus of the conference was "Challenge Convention, Change our World," a motto which Clark University still embraces.

Clark will be celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the conference this year, emphasizing the role of psychology in a world that is undergoing rapid change. Presenters will reflect upon how the conference aided in developing the role of science to help sever national and cultural boundaries, as well as how Hall's "user-oriented" vision centered on the "unity of inquiry, learning, and teaching." Beyond this, the centennial conference will strive to understand how psychology has to change in the face of globalization (yet increasing localization), and how these large issues can be tied back to local communities, social justice and social progress. Field trip?

You can read about the Centenntial Conference to be held this year at Clark University here: http://www.clarku.edu/~psydept/centennial/index.cfm

Freud Link and Reflection

This is a link to a site that has all kinds of information about dream theory and how we sleep. There's a good overview of Freud's theory as well.

http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/freud.htm

What interests me most about Freud are his dream theories. Freud believed that our dreams reflected our unconscious urges and impulses (the id). In everyday we life we have to suppress the id, but when we sleep it is free to express itself. However, our mind still protects us when we sleep from scary thoughts and impulses by coding frightening dreams into confusing symbols or stories. Personally, I've had many dreams where I've woken up thinking "what did that mean?" So, based on my experiences it would seem like Freud's theory is perfectly logical and must be true.
I wish it were this easy, but it's not. In Physiological Psychology we learned that many scientists believe that dreams are merely random images and ideas streaming through our cortex while we sleep. Everyday we have new information that goes to our brain, and activity does not stop while we sleep. This also makes sense to me.
This leaves me, like many people, completely confused about what dreams are and what do they mean. I could counter Freud's theory by pointing out that dogs have dreams, so do they have a suppressed id like humans? I don't think dreaming is exclusive to humans, so this point may support the scientists theory. But, in response to the scientists I could ask if my dreams are just random thought processes in my cortex, then why do they have ongoing plots sometimes that make perfect sense like a film?? This point seems to support Freud's theory. So I'm back to where I began- confused about dreams and really wanting to actually know the mechanism and meaning. Hopefully in our generation it will be figured out, but I highly doubt it. Have a good break!

Reflection & Link for 1st week of March

There is just so much to talk about this week! I want to stray a little from Freud in my reflection, however, because I feel like I've had a bit too much 'Siggy'. I will focus on his ideas, but not him as a person...

In preparing to facilitate class I came up with a question with Sam that I would like to take the time to reflect on now. "Why do you think that Garrigues Boring (self-acknowledged dean of experimental psychology) wanted to believe in psychoanalysis so badly?"

In my opinion, Boring was a desperate and depressed man that was yearning for some treatment to work. Although his background was strictly scientific, he never knocked on psychoanalysis. At that point in his life he was looking for a last resort, and psychoanalysis had yet to be disproved. I think it was disheartening that he had to seek treatment in private and tell colleagues he was investigating psychoanalysis instead of receiving treatment. Who knows, we might now some people like this too. Anyone you know seeking treatment in the closet? Why do they feel they have too? Is it because of the stigma of therapy in general or are they seeking some form of "alternative" treatment like poor Mr. Boring?

Just for fun I have included this link that talks about Freud's alleged affair with his wife's sister. You should at least click on it to check out the awkward photo. A lot of current professors in universities across the U.S. give their take on things. Enjoy!

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/24/europe/web.1224freud.php

week of 3/2 link and reflection

http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/freud.html

Since this was mentioned a few times in the reading I thought it would be interesting to look up the Freud covers of TIME Magazine. The article mentions some interesting points. For instance, it factors in religion as the cause of Jung and Freud's split, Jung and his commitment to religion and Freud as an atheist.

There were a few things that struck me while reading and so I will just comment on them briefly here. Freud talked about doctors distaste for people diagnosed with hysteria instead of a brain injury, yet for some reason Breuer, being a neurologist, took up Anna O. as a patient. This puzzled me. Why did Breuer begin and continue to see Anna O, when other doctors would have shunned her as a patient? On the same note, I found the movie a little cryptic in terms of Breuer's relationship with Anna O. Does noone really know what actually happened? Because honestly, I demand an explanation!! Why did Freud not bring up the "hysterical pregnancy" and such up in his writings? It seems to me that the relationship between Anna O. and Breuer would be an excellent example of transferene and counter-transference.

I found it amusing that it took American psychologists so long to realize that they could just test Freud's theories and try to refute them rather then constantly bashing him in academic journals and the popular press. There was such a distrust and a dislike for Freud and psychoanalysis at first in America it begs the question why wasn't there such a distrust for such theories in Europe. It seems from the readings that Freud and his theories, though causing some controversy, became quite popular, quite fast. As much as I think Freud suffered from his own sexual repressions which manifested themselves in his penis envy, Oedipal complex theory, etc, some of his theories and ideas really do strike a chord with me. For one, although our dreams aren't necessarily our unconscious and repressed feelings coming out, I have begun to believe, based on my own dreams, that, at least my dreams, are almost like manifestations of fears or worries that I have. They serve as a reminder for me to always be wary.

Conflicts of interest

I received the following today from Mike Palij at NYU. I think it is appropriate.
----------------------------
An article in today's NY Times reports that U.S. feds will be
cracking down on physicians and surgeons for taking illegal
kickbacks from drug and medical device companies. One
example of this has been Eli Lilly's illegal marketing of Zyprexa
for which Lilly has agreed to pay a $1.4 billion fine. See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/health/policy/04doctors.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=gardiner%20harris&st=cse
or
http://tinyurl.com/bxbkf9

There are new regulations coming into place that would require
drug and device makers to make public (e.g., posted on a website)
what sorts of payments and gifts have given to physicians.
Minnesota has such a program already in place but complaints
about it have already started. Consider the following quote from
the NYT article:

|Dr. Richard Grimm, a Minnesota researcher, twice served on
|government-sponsored hypertension panels that create guidelines
|about when to prescribe blood pressure pills. But when state records
|revealed that he had earned more than $798,000 from drug companies
|from 1997 to 2005, invitations to serve on such panels dried up, he said.
|
|"There's this automatic assumption that if you make money from a drug
|company, you must be corrupt," Dr. Grimm said.

However, elsewhere in the article, the following view is presented:

|A common problem in illegal drug and device marketing cases is
|doctors' willingness to delude themselves into thinking that cash,
|lucrative trips and other kickbacks do not affect them, said Mr. Morris,
|the chief counsel.
|
|"Somehow physicians think they're different from the rest of us," Mr. Morris
|said. "But money works on them just like everybody else."

Freud - link & response for this week

I am fascinated by Freud. In our readings for this week (and the movie we watched on Tuesday), we get the impression that Freud and his ideas were very controversial and disliked. In his time, he was sort of a rebel. He was bringing up ideas that seemed so bogus and unscientific. He attributed everything (it seems like) to sexuality. But he really did contribute a lot to the field and I think it's telling that pretty much anyone in the world would associate his name with the field of psychology.

What is it that made Freud's ideas so controversial? Was it that they were so different than the themes studied by his contemporaries? Or do we still consider them bogus? Do we still consider him a quack? We've discussed this before, but what ideas do we have right now in the field of psychology that in 50-100 years will seem absolutely ridiculous? Or what ideas do we have right now that will last for 50-100 years and only at that time will seem valuable to the field? It's interesting that Freud was sensationalized for his very controversial work in sexuality and psychoanalysis, but the man also studied a lot of other things that we still consider valuable to this day: free association, defense mechanisms, and the subconscious.

I found a link to the Sigmund Freud museum in Vienna, Austria, which is housed in his old apartment. I've visited this museum and found Freud to be a very interesting man with interesting ideas (most of the work housed at this museum is uncontroversial and it details more a history of his life in general and of his clinical practice). I tried to post pictures from my visit but apparently I am technologically illiterate.

2/26 post and review

First, I thought for those of you have not taken psychological disorders, it may be interesting to know what different IQ scores mean and how 'intelligent' the majority of individuals are relative to others. Although this gives a brief account of how the IQ test came to be, a better history is outlined at this cite, which is also useful if you are looking to improve your cognition with any of their fine products for sale at an internet near you! Besides buying into the amazing Audiblox, there are several links along the side of the page and if you click on "Intelligence and IQ", there are several articles on IQ and genetics, IQ and learning disabilities, and how IQ is interpreted.

Now lets talk about what we learned this last week in History and Systems of Psychology, shall we? To remind you, we talked about applied psychology vs. pure basic research. There are many jobs that fall under the applied umbrella including clinical, sports, forensic, industrial, marketing, and testing psychology. Lightner Witmer, founder of the first psychology clinic (and thus, clinical psychology), was a leading proponent of applied psychology whereas Edward Titchener, the founder of structuralism, believed in pure science without regard to utility.

Obviously, there are beneficial components to both applied psychology and pure research for if there were no research, we would not know what to apply, and if there were no application, there would be no point in doing research. I am personally much more interested in the research component of psychology, but I have intentions to use the findings in a way such that everyone can reap the benefits of my discovery.

Despite my love of “knowledge for knowledge’s sake”, I see the application of psychology all around me. Why, for instance, did I choose to buy this particular cell phone? Obviously, it probably works well, has neat technological features, but why must it be black, sleek, and shiny? A psychologist trained in marketing may tell you that it is because many people have black cell phones and I wish to conform, or that I derive a sense of sophistication and class from having a new phone. But did they just guess all this? No! Studies have been done that show how others respond to people differently based on their perceptions of a person’s status and class.

In short, I personally believe research and application go hand in hand regardless of how heavily our psychological predecessors debated such things. I think that one would be silly without the other, and I would like to believe that there is less of a divide today between those who practice and those who research. We are all striving for the same thing: to explain psychological forces in the world and determine how they can be altered for optimal gratification. Do you agree?

Another applied psychology link

Just in case you're not tired of applied psychology yet, I thought I would provide you with a link that is near and dear to my heart: the website to the American Dance Therapy Association. With any luck, I will be attending graduate school to get my master's in dance/movement therapy in the fall, and I thought I would take this opportunity to give you guys a little taste of what this subset of clinical psychology is all about.

Week 5: Applied Psychology in Advertising - Link and reflection

The first thing I think about when people start talking about the psychology (or the "tricks") of advertising is this video:

[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg

Give it a watch; it's less than 7 minutes, and pretty amazing stuff.

So basically, this bloke Derren Brown is a mentalist. That is, he has such an acute understanding of how people's minds work that he can manipulate them without them noticing anything is out of the ordinary. He's done a lot of different things (and I encourage you all to check out his other videos as well, they are quite extraordinary) but this particular example is most applicable to our readings right now. What he does is manipulate two advertising people into creating an advert that matches almost exactly his intended design, though they thought they were working on their own creativity, simply by giving them subliminal imagery on their trip over. It's an example of how gullible we are as a species, but more importantly it shows the awesome power of applied psychology. Granted, this man is exceptional and most people cannot match his results, but he is living proof that the field of psychology has enormous potential for understanding how people's minds work and how it can be applied to our everyday lives.

Assigned readings for week of 3/2

Hey guys Emily and I are leading class discussion this week, so we would like you to read the blue book for Tuesday and the other book for Thursday. THANKS!

reflection and link for 2/27

Here is a link I found that provides some information on psychology in advertising.

http://www.users.muohio.edu/shermarc/p324ads.shtml

This weeks reading were probably my favorite so far. I really liked reading about how psychology began to be put to use in everyday life. I have always been interested in the psychology of advertising and the various strategies used to attract consumers. It is interesting to read about how so many varieties of psychology began to develop at their own pace, with clinical psychology, school psychology, business psychology, and the psychology of law it would have been an interesting and exciting time to be a psychology student. I also really enjoyed reading about Hollingworth's study on caffine for Coke. I kinda felt bad for the guy when the book was talking about his financial situation but one study for Coke will fix that. It was alos interesting to read about Leta Hollingworth and her suggestions for certification of practicing psychologiest. I had a very hard time in class trying to define what seprates a psychologist from just a person giving advice, I was very impressed with Leta's suggestions since they were the first to try and define and legitimize psychologists.

week 5 (2/27) post and reflection

Here is a link for information about Morton Prince. He was listed on the syllabus but was not mentioned at all in the readings, so I thought we could all know a little more about him, particularly that he established the psychological clinic at Harvard in 1927, placing him firmly within applied psychology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton_Prince

I would like to reflect on the videos that Bill had us watch and how they connect to our readings this week. In the readings, applied psychology was discussed in the context of trying to benefit humanity, through the opening of psychological clinics, vocational guidance, and engineering, and in the context of selling a "product" to the public, a way for applied psychology to establish itself, but which led to less altruistic activities such as the psychology of advertising and business. In the readings, applied psychology was talked about in glowing terms of how it could others and created new professions. Indeed, this is how I conceptualize applied psychology, taking knowledge gained from research and using it towards the public good. However, the videos that Bill assigned made me think twice about this rosy picture. What was originally conceived with the best of intentions has been utilized with harmful consequences.

The first video discussed the ethics of medicating children. No doubt the professionals, psychiatrists and teachers, involved want only to help the kids. However, this can be taken too far. I agree with Sam and Emily that in principle, medicating kids is alright since it does seem to be of huge benefit for some. However, I think a line has been crossed when teachers pressure parents into medicating their children to the point that teachers wanted to medicate a three year-old. It seemed ridiculous to me when a teacher describes a the three year-old that she suspected of having ADHD as being "immature". He's only three! How "mature" can you expect him to be? I believe that there is over-diagnosis of ADHD because what is in reality normal of slightly above normal energy and inattentiveness of children is construed as a mental dysfunction. I believe that we should medicate children who truly need and would benefit from it. But when children don't conform to ideal classroom behavior and aren't the "perfect" pupil, this is not cause for medication.

The second video was about the use of psychological principles for advertising. Use of psychology in advertising in the early 20th century seemed to be for the cause of making applied psychology more widely useful, garnering more support for the discipline, and disseminating psychological ideas and making them important to the wider public. This seems innocent enough, but the psychology of advertising has turned into a money-hungry business that exploits our natural tendencies to make us the perfect consumers. Although this may be more a criticism of our culture, while it seems natural to use psychology in advertising, it should be discarded when it ceases to be in our best interests as persons and is used only to line the pockets of corporate giants and to dishonestly sway our opinions about political candidates.

Week 6: Reflection and Link

After our discussion of different applied psychologies on Tuesday of this week, I've decided to post on the topic of sport psychology. This is arguably one of the lesser known branches, and definitely a rapidly-growing one. Sport psychology focuses on the relationship between psychological factors and one's performance in sports. Those who specialize in this area must know a great deal about kinesiology in addition to the typical techniques of visualization, awareness, goal setting and control.

Some say that the first sport psychology lab in the US was opened in 1920 by a man in Germany (shocking). Over time, the focus of sport psychology seems to have shifted from attitudes to more research-based exploration of performance, including stress management and the effects of exercise. The acknowledgement that physical activity and healthy mental adjustments are correlated signifies an important moment in the history of this discipline.

One interesting fact I learned in my reading about sport psychology is the prevalence of 'criticism' in the field. Criticism is defined as an aspect of motivational theory that is necessary to improve performance. Based on delivery, criticism may drastically enhance or reduce performance. The best type of criticism is constructive, delivered through the sandwich method: First offer a compliment, then direct criticism and feedback, then finish with a compliment.

Check out the North American Society of Sport Psychology and Physical Activity here: http://www.naspspa.org/

Also, here's the website of a (psychotherapist turned) sport psychologist. Bizarre. http://www.stayinthezone.com/?gclid=CPikjMDC_ZgCFSQMDQod5AwqnA

Link for ADHD assessment

This is a link from NASP (National Association of School Psychologists). It gives a brief run-down of all the steps a school psychologist must take in order to assess a student for ADHD and how they can benefit from different education acts. It's nice and concise. Enjoy!

http://www.nasponline.org/resources/factsheets/add_fs.aspx

Reflection on ADHD meds

After watching the video that Bill posted from pbs.org about ADHD in children and reading Sam's take on the situation, I thought I should add a bit more. Treating and diagnosing ADHD is so much more complicated than we can imagine. There are parents out there that want to have to kids diagnosed so they can "benefit" from the accommodations they now can receive under the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) like the video informs us. I think this is awful and ludicrous, but there are true cases of ADHD and many children that can benefit from the use of drugs like Adderall.

One case that I witnessed last semester while doing fieldwork with a school psychologist was that of a fifth-grade boy. The boy came into the principal's office with another student to invite him to their class's Thanksgiving supper. The boy was thoughtful, well-spoken and cheerful. After the student left, I was informed that just a month ago this student was down in the office every day for behavioral problems in the classroom. He didn't do any work and was constantly frustrated and in foul moods. It's not to say that medication is a cure-all, end-all for every student, but if medication not only helped this student perform, but also improved his moods and began to enjoy school--it makes me question my strong stance against medicating children.