Applied Psychology - link & response for this week

Searching on the web for applied psychology brings up a lot of hits about graduate programs in the field, but the most interesting website I found was from West Chester University regarding careers in 10 different subsets of applied psychology. There is a TON of information and for those of us (According to the informal poll in class, it is most of us!) who would like to go into some sort of applied psychology, it's actually pretty useful!

This got me thinking about the purpose of psychology. Wundt (the father?) defined the goal of the field as discovering "the facts of consciousness, its combinations and relations, so that" ultimately, we could "discover the laws which govern these relations and combinations." (Benjamin, 39). There is no mention about any practical purpose of psychology. Psychology arose partly from the field of philosophy, which is more a field that is used solely for the purpose of studying. Wundt's background in philosophy made him more interested in studying the question of "why?" rather than "what for?" which is the aim of applied psychology. Wundt's interest and expertise in physiology is also under question...what is the point of studying physiology (or psychology) if you can't apply it to life?

When applied psychology started becoming more popular (with the Child Study Movement at first, followed by many other subsets - business psych, legal psych, and the ever popular clinical psych), the purpose of psychology shifted from studying for the sake of studying - as with philosophy - to studying for the purpose of solving real life problems. Even its short life span of just over 100 years, I don't think any of us can really comprehend a field of psychology without the applied aspect. I would imagine that many of us would consider psychology an applied field in and of itself. Even those research psychologists are studying aspects of psychology and looking to apply them to real life. It's a simple path for our minds to take - why study something if the findings can't be put to good use?

Medicating Children

http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec01/medicating.html

This article on the APA website discussed the medicating of school children with ADHD and other options besides medication.

Last year I did a presentation on ADD/ADHD and one thing that I found very interesting was that more and more kids are becoming diagnosed with ADHD, kids as young as 4, sometimes even 2 years of age. In my personal experience, I have yet to encounter a toddler or preschool-aged child who was not running around with excess energy. It suprises me that parents are assuming the worst about their children instead of dealing with the childrens excess energy and the process of growing up naturally. A 6 year old can't seem to focus in kindergarten so we immediately assume the child has ADD, or maybe it's that young children often have a hard time focusing on one thing for a long period of time (Sesame Street Syndrome).

I have seen first hand what unmedicated ADHD in children can be like and although it may seem unbearable at times to deal with, at some point a parent can only do so much. So yes, I support the medicating of children with ADD/ADHD, however I think the guidelines for diagnosis need to be stricter and more clear-cut, because I am positive that many of the children who are being diagnosed aren't ADHD, but simply regular kids with pent up energy or other things on their mind.

2/17, 2/19 post and reflection

Here is a website about Darwin's perception of women. There is an interesting section on skull measurements, and a slew of quotes including our discussion of women's friendship being better than dogs’. I couldn't find anything worth posting about the sexist beliefs of Hall and Galton, so I decided to look at it from Darwin's perspective.

Why, you ask?

Well that brings me to the week in review. This week we talked about Structuralism and Functionalism: their makers, beliefs, uses, and practicality. Structuralism was practiced primarily by Titchner and emphasized discovering the structures of consciousness. Functionalism was practiced by Dewey, Angell, Hall, James, and Cattell. With respect to consciousness, functionalism sought to understand what id did, how it came to be, and what it was for.

I think functionalism is influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, especially natural selection. The idea that we are in constant competition for resources and survival has led us to question how we came to be, why we think the way we do, and what it is for. Sexism arises with the idea that women were less variable than men, and generally less competent than men. It is interesting to see how psychologists have shaped their studies and biases around belittling women, and even more interesting how scientific perceptions can be a social weapon.

I enjoyed the discussion we had about publication censoring, whether it can be good in some cases or if knowledge is knowledge, no matter what it implies. I invite you to reply with any new thoughts on what would, or would not, be okay to publish for the sake of social norming.

Another thought: do you think there is any popular opinion today that we will look back on and think "My god, I can't believe we ever thought that and allowed such things to be studied!"

Shows to watch

Please watch the Frontline shows about medicating kids for ADHD (there is also a newer one on medicating kids for bipolar disorder) and the show about advertising (the Persuaders) at:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/watch/

and

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/

especially watch the chapter in each concerning the "science" (in the medication video the chapter might be labeled "promoting" ADHD or something like that)

Are these "applied" activities really for the greater good?

What the mid-term exam will consist of?

The mid-term exam will be an essay test that will ask you to write about the ideas we have covered so far in this course. Questions might be something like "How did the ideas of late 19th century psychology support or refute the eugenics movement?" You will be expected to use all of of the material of the course to answer these questions. The relavent material includes the readings, the class discussions, and the material provided by you and your fellow students in this blog. You will be allowed to bring to class any hand-written notes that you want but you will not be allowed to consult the texts or use a computer in composing your answers.

Science as Art - link & response for last week

From last week's readings on the development of psychology in America (with a focus on functionalism v. structuralism)...

I found Titchener's "periodic table" of the sensational elements of psychology fascinating. I wonder what the over 44,000 distinct sensations could be. I searched far and wide (well, Google searched) for a list of the "periodic table" of the sensations, but I couldn't find it. Has anyone else been successful?

Anyway, I found this article instead. It really got me wondering about the type of thinking involved with inventive psychology. During the late 1800's, when psychology was just a baby, it took a lot of creative thinking to come up with some of these schools of thought. A couple weeks ago in class we had a discussion about James and his artistic background. The article I pulled up on Titchener made me believe that he, too, had an artistic mind. The language he uses is very visual, descriptive, and I think he's done his best in trying to impress specific sensations upon the reader. The imagination abilities involved with making great strides in science are great; it takes more than just a knowledge of the basic theories of science, it takes creativity.

However, the way Titchener has written this piece makes me want to find his list of sensations even more!!

Link for Week of 2/17 - 2/19

Here is a link for the Psychology of Women Quarterly which is published by Division 35 of the APA, which Sam mentions in her post below. I thought it was important to put some positive information out there about where women are today in the field of Psychology.

http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0361-6843