social sciences

odule 6:  Principles of Psychology

Review the slides with this lecture:  SOSC_101_M6_PP. Download SOSC_101_M6_PP.

Difference Between Sociology and Psychology

Throughout this course, we have been talking about sociology. And sociology, as we should know by now, studies societies in terms of structure, function, conflict, and other perspective from which we create frameworks that help us understand the complexities of the social. Sociology looks at religion, culture, government and other social institutions, and tries to understand how they work as they interact with the rest of the elements of society. Psychology on the other hand looks at human thought, or mind, and is more concerned with the individual and how that individual behaves, acts, and interacts with the world. Psychology wants to understand how we create meaning, or how the way we create meaning for ourselves affects the way we live. Is our behavior conducive to a healthy way of being? Psychology also wants to know what is in the human mind. It is a core question in in this field to try to figure out if we could ever reach the mind. Can we find happiness?  The main reason we might need to study psychology in our sociology course is the fact that the institutions that are created and sustained within a society are based on the members that constitute that society. We need to understand to what point the social institutions in society affect the thinking of the individuals that constitute it. For example, what type of education is established in such and such society, what are the core values that guide the selection of the curriculum for its schools. We will learn then how that educational establishment affects the individual members of society. Again, sociology looks at the whole social picture. Psychology focuses in the individual. When we look at the individual and her connection to the whole of society we are doing both.  

Origins of Psychology

Homo sapiens sapiens is the animal that is aware of being aware. For this reason, we are aware of our death, among other things. We are the only animal as far as we know that is conscious of dying. Since then, we have been trying to figure out what is life all about. If we die at the end, what is the meaning of living? We have been trying to figure ourselves out. We started by naming and interpreting the mysteries that affected us. We created religion, designated shamans, recommended behaviors and rituals. We went from our primitive speculations of the mysteries that surrounded us to the age of neuropsychology and the use of technology to decipher the intricate realm of thought and mind.  For reasons we do not yet understand, consciousness took hold in different places around the world starting around 2,500 years ago. In China, for example, Confucius (427-367 BC) “saw human growth as a lifelong process with personality development occurring in early childhood (FMG, 2006).”  This is the beginning we might say of the study of human development in terms of how it shaped personality. Lao Tzu (570-490 BC) understood life as the balance between passive yin and aggressive yan. We will see later psychologists talking about the importance of that balance. Similar maybe to what Plato proposed with his myth of the cart, where reason makes sure that the two horses of desire and will are kept in check to find balance. Finally, Chuang Tzu (369-268 BC) was already meditating on being, a question that many philosophers are still trying to figure out right now. “I can understand the absence of being, but who could understand the absence of nothing (FMG, 2006)?” In India, the Buddha (560-480 BC) has influenced the world through his teachings. Although Siddhartha Gautama lived more than 2,500 years ago, he had already asked himself what the meaning of life is when we all perish. He suggested the four noble truths to reach nirvana. It’s hard for us to identify with the Buddha today in a world that gives us meaning based on what we possessed. But the Buddha knew we do not take anything with us when we die.  Greece saw an approach to meaning and life more structured in logic. Plato (460-367 BC) considered that human action could be justified through knowledge and reason. That a balanced soul would act rightly. In medicine, Hippocrates considered mental illness treatable through therapy. We should know by now his oath to “first do no harm”. Hippocrates knew that the body needed some specific type of treatment that went beyond superstition. To approach illness this way was very significant. Humans were realizing the need to develop knowledge to solve problems. Aristotle (384-322 BC) who was Plato’s student, even developed theories around habit formation and doing the right actions based on virtues and a balance.  Out of one of the provinces of the Roman empire came a man who would revolutionize the direction of meaning-making for many people around the world. Jesus of Nazareth (0-34 AD) proposed a life of goodness and a God watching over us making sure we act right. Now humans were offered a direct connection with God, and the possibility of salvation through spirituality within the Christian tradition. Later, Augustine of Hippo argued that the mind is the seat of the intellect. Human beings were connected to God through our souls. Psychologically speaking, we were somewhat divine as we connected with our soul and acted according to the teachings of the Bible. For Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) we received our ideas through divine revelation. This is going to be a theme that will repeat itself later in thinkers like John Locke, although Locke suggested we did receive ideas from the environment. In Persia, Avicenna (980-1037) proposed understanding the mind through five inner senses: imagination, common sense, sense judgement, memory, and fancy. We might connect this approach later in the history of psychology with structuralism.  Something extraordinary happened in the 15th century; the invention of the press by Johann Gutemberg (1398-1468) in 1455. Now knowledge could be passed on and widespread to anyone who could read. At the same time, we need to think that the ideas being shared were the ideas of those who could read and had developed intellectually. This was basically the people from different religions. From here on those who were interested in learning about the mind and human thought could share their ideas, which would reach others with similar interests.  Johann Weyer (1515-1588) reasoned that witches were mentally ill and not cursed or enchanted, and he suggested cures through therapy. Some consider him the father of psychiatry. Rudolph Goclenius (1547-1628) coined the term psychology trying to keep focus on this discipline. Psy, from psyche, meaning soul, and logy from logic or logos meaning “the study of”. These approaches, as we see later, were trying to study the human soul. But this was too big of a challenge for a science since, even today we haven’t been able to demonstrate the soul. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) talked about the mind and the body and tried to suggest that there was a connection within us that show their relation. Although he failed at it, even today we are trying to figure out how mind and body connect. Thought was very important for Descartes. For him only thought was evidence of our existence. On the other hand, Baruch Spinoza suggested that human behavior is completely determined and that there is no free will. Again, today we are dealing with these questions. If there is no free will, does that mean all our actions are predetermined? If they are predetermined, does that mean we can’t be held responsible for our mistakes?  The empiricists John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1760) suggested that all our knowledge derived from experience. There are no inner thoughts that we are born with, but everything we think about is learned. Locke was famous for saying, for example, that we are a tabula rasa, an empty slate in which experience imprints concepts and ideas that turn into out thoughts. Although George Berkeley (1685-1753) was also an empiricist, he argued that God is speaking to us when we perceive any ideas from the world. Humans would not be able to know the world if God did not intervene in the process.  Then came Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and changed the way we understood thinking and the mind. In his book, The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argues that we need to understand the way the mind processes experience. For Kant, our minds are structured in such a way that they will understand experience in certain ways. Other animals might understand the world differently because their minds are structured in a different way. So is the mind that is giving us a reality which is an interpretation of the world out there. But we never reach the “thing in itself”. Reason was prevalent in these thinkers from Germany. GWF Hegel thought that to reach absolute knowledge we needed to go through a process he called dialectic in which we start with an idea or thesis; that idea goes against a new idea, or anti-thesis, and finally we reach a closer conception of truth and reality when we get to the synthesis.  Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) brought a different approach to psychological treatment, hypnosis. For Mesmer it was possible to cure a variety of illnesses by channeling the powers of animal magnetism. This is where we get the concept, “mesmerized” (FMG, 2006). These psychologists start approaching the treatment of humans in ways that were more humane. Phillipe Pinel (1745-1826) discontinued inhumane physical treatments. He is considered the father of modern psychiatry. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) recognized drug and alcohol addiction as mental illness, and therefore suggested people with such problems needed treatment and not punishment.   

References

Edward B. Titchener. (2021, June 12). In  Wikipedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_B._TitchenerLinks to an external site.

Films Media Group. (2006).  Ethics, logic, and truth: Part 3—history of psychology. Films On Demand. 

odule 6:  Principles of Psychology

Review the slides with this lecture:  SOSC_101_M6_PP. Download SOSC_101_M6_PP.

Difference Between Sociology and Psychology

Throughout this course, we have been talking about sociology. And sociology, as we should know by now, studies societies in terms of structure, function, conflict, and other perspective from which we create frameworks that help us understand the complexities of the social. Sociology looks at religion, culture, government and other social institutions, and tries to understand how they work as they interact with the rest of the elements of society. Psychology on the other hand looks at human thought, or mind, and is more concerned with the individual and how that individual behaves, acts, and interacts with the world. Psychology wants to understand how we create meaning, or how the way we create meaning for ourselves affects the way we live. Is our behavior conducive to a healthy way of being? Psychology also wants to know what is in the human mind. It is a core question in in this field to try to figure out if we could ever reach the mind. Can we find happiness?  The main reason we might need to study psychology in our sociology course is the fact that the institutions that are created and sustained within a society are based on the members that constitute that society. We need to understand to what point the social institutions in society affect the thinking of the individuals that constitute it. For example, what type of education is established in such and such society, what are the core values that guide the selection of the curriculum for its schools. We will learn then how that educational establishment affects the individual members of society. Again, sociology looks at the whole social picture. Psychology focuses in the individual. When we look at the individual and her connection to the whole of society we are doing both.  

Origins of Psychology

Homo sapiens sapiens is the animal that is aware of being aware. For this reason, we are aware of our death, among other things. We are the only animal as far as we know that is conscious of dying. Since then, we have been trying to figure out what is life all about. If we die at the end, what is the meaning of living? We have been trying to figure ourselves out. We started by naming and interpreting the mysteries that affected us. We created religion, designated shamans, recommended behaviors and rituals. We went from our primitive speculations of the mysteries that surrounded us to the age of neuropsychology and the use of technology to decipher the intricate realm of thought and mind.  For reasons we do not yet understand, consciousness took hold in different places around the world starting around 2,500 years ago. In China, for example, Confucius (427-367 BC) “saw human growth as a lifelong process with personality development occurring in early childhood (FMG, 2006).”  This is the beginning we might say of the study of human development in terms of how it shaped personality. Lao Tzu (570-490 BC) understood life as the balance between passive yin and aggressive yan. We will see later psychologists talking about the importance of that balance. Similar maybe to what Plato proposed with his myth of the cart, where reason makes sure that the two horses of desire and will are kept in check to find balance. Finally, Chuang Tzu (369-268 BC) was already meditating on being, a question that many philosophers are still trying to figure out right now. “I can understand the absence of being, but who could understand the absence of nothing (FMG, 2006)?” In India, the Buddha (560-480 BC) has influenced the world through his teachings. Although Siddhartha Gautama lived more than 2,500 years ago, he had already asked himself what the meaning of life is when we all perish. He suggested the four noble truths to reach nirvana. It’s hard for us to identify with the Buddha today in a world that gives us meaning based on what we possessed. But the Buddha knew we do not take anything with us when we die.  Greece saw an approach to meaning and life more structured in logic. Plato (460-367 BC) considered that human action could be justified through knowledge and reason. That a balanced soul would act rightly. In medicine, Hippocrates considered mental illness treatable through therapy. We should know by now his oath to “first do no harm”. Hippocrates knew that the body needed some specific type of treatment that went beyond superstition. To approach illness this way was very significant. Humans were realizing the need to develop knowledge to solve problems. Aristotle (384-322 BC) who was Plato’s student, even developed theories around habit formation and doing the right actions based on virtues and a balance.  Out of one of the provinces of the Roman empire came a man who would revolutionize the direction of meaning-making for many people around the world. Jesus of Nazareth (0-34 AD) proposed a life of goodness and a God watching over us making sure we act right. Now humans were offered a direct connection with God, and the possibility of salvation through spirituality within the Christian tradition. Later, Augustine of Hippo argued that the mind is the seat of the intellect. Human beings were connected to God through our souls. Psychologically speaking, we were somewhat divine as we connected with our soul and acted according to the teachings of the Bible. For Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) we received our ideas through divine revelation. This is going to be a theme that will repeat itself later in thinkers like John Locke, although Locke suggested we did receive ideas from the environment. In Persia, Avicenna (980-1037) proposed understanding the mind through five inner senses: imagination, common sense, sense judgement, memory, and fancy. We might connect this approach later in the history of psychology with structuralism.  Something extraordinary happened in the 15th century; the invention of the press by Johann Gutemberg (1398-1468) in 1455. Now knowledge could be passed on and widespread to anyone who could read. At the same time, we need to think that the ideas being shared were the ideas of those who could read and had developed intellectually. This was basically the people from different religions. From here on those who were interested in learning about the mind and human thought could share their ideas, which would reach others with similar interests.  Johann Weyer (1515-1588) reasoned that witches were mentally ill and not cursed or enchanted, and he suggested cures through therapy. Some consider him the father of psychiatry. Rudolph Goclenius (1547-1628) coined the term psychology trying to keep focus on this discipline. Psy, from psyche, meaning soul, and logy from logic or logos meaning “the study of”. These approaches, as we see later, were trying to study the human soul. But this was too big of a challenge for a science since, even today we haven’t been able to demonstrate the soul. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) talked about the mind and the body and tried to suggest that there was a connection within us that show their relation. Although he failed at it, even today we are trying to figure out how mind and body connect. Thought was very important for Descartes. For him only thought was evidence of our existence. On the other hand, Baruch Spinoza suggested that human behavior is completely determined and that there is no free will. Again, today we are dealing with these questions. If there is no free will, does that mean all our actions are predetermined? If they are predetermined, does that mean we can’t be held responsible for our mistakes?  The empiricists John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1760) suggested that all our knowledge derived from experience. There are no inner thoughts that we are born with, but everything we think about is learned. Locke was famous for saying, for example, that we are a tabula rasa, an empty slate in which experience imprints concepts and ideas that turn into out thoughts. Although George Berkeley (1685-1753) was also an empiricist, he argued that God is speaking to us when we perceive any ideas from the world. Humans would not be able to know the world if God did not intervene in the process.  Then came Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and changed the way we understood thinking and the mind. In his book, The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argues that we need to understand the way the mind processes experience. For Kant, our minds are structured in such a way that they will understand experience in certain ways. Other animals might understand the world differently because their minds are structured in a different way. So is the mind that is giving us a reality which is an interpretation of the world out there. But we never reach the “thing in itself”. Reason was prevalent in these thinkers from Germany. GWF Hegel thought that to reach absolute knowledge we needed to go through a process he called dialectic in which we start with an idea or thesis; that idea goes against a new idea, or anti-thesis, and finally we reach a closer conception of truth and reality when we get to the synthesis.  Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) brought a different approach to psychological treatment, hypnosis. For Mesmer it was possible to cure a variety of illnesses by channeling the powers of animal magnetism. This is where we get the concept, “mesmerized” (FMG, 2006). These psychologists start approaching the treatment of humans in ways that were more humane. Phillipe Pinel (1745-1826) discontinued inhumane physical treatments. He is considered the father of modern psychiatry. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) recognized drug and alcohol addiction as mental illness, and therefore suggested people with such problems needed treatment and not punishment.   

References

Edward B. Titchener. (2021, June 12). In  Wikipedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_B._TitchenerLinks to an external site.

Films Media Group. (2006).  Ethics, logic, and truth: Part 3—history of psychology. Films On Demand.