Psychology and More

The New York Times Book Review has reviewed a new book by George Makari which looks at the history of Freud’s ideas and the individuals around him who helped inform his theories. The review is not altogether positive, but I found this quote interesting:

Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis – George Makari – Book Review – New York Times:

Over the years, Makari writes, psychoanalysis created “the richest systematic description of inner experience that the Western world had produced.” It addressed “sex, love and death; childhood, parenting and family; cruelty, fear, jealousy, envy and hate; identity, conscience and character; desire and mourning.” Yet rather than the integrated, universal system Freud envisioned, his insights seem more a cabinet of curiosities, not unlike the antiquities displayed on his desk.

Technorati Tags: abnormal psychology, mental illness, psychology

• Covers historical understanding of abnormal behavior and mental illness, from 1100 to present. Also contemporary perspectives on understanding the causes of mental illness.

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• The scientific method, and methods of experimentation in psychology. Covers independent & dependent variables, control & experimental conditions, sampling, assignment, statistics.

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The history of psychology weblog, Advances in the History of Psychology, has a posting on an upcoming documentary about Walter Freeman, who promoted and performed lobotomies on individuals with (and without) mental illnesses. The show will be on this Monday night, January 21st.

Advances in the History of Psychology: PBS Documentary on Chief American Lobotomist:

Freeman developed the transorbital lobotomy (often called the “ice-pick” lobotomy) in the 1930s at George Washington University as a “cure” for many types mental illness. He then relentlessly promoted his procedure, which was inflicted on nearly 3,000 people up into the 1960s.

Technorati Tags: abnormal psychology, mental illness, psychology

PSY201A Episode 3 – History, Systems & Methods Part 1

• This episode covers history of psychology post-renaissance, perspectives in psychology, and begins discussion of systems and methods: Scientific terminology.

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The Washington Post published an obituary today for Ralph White. He was a seminal figure in what would become known as peace psychology. I admired his research and writing, and he was an inspiration for me to study peace psychology. Thanks Dr. White.

Ralph K. White, 100; Studied War Psychology – washingtonpost.com:

Dr. White was among the first people to analyze how underlying psychological causes and misunderstandings can lead nations to engage in warfare. He was perhaps best known for his theory distinguishing between empathy and sympathy for one’s adversaries.

Technorati Tags: peace psychology, psychology

PSY 239 Podcast Episode 1 – Course IntroductionThis episode covers the course policies and procedures. Read the rest of this entry »

Covers electronic resources for learning & studying: MyPCC; textbook & MyPsychLab sites; podcast; weblog. Began survey of philosophy of mind-body dualism. Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas. Read the rest of this entry »

Introduction to my course in introductory psychology. Course policies and procedures. Psychophysiology labs. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the topics we will be studying later in the term is memory — specifically, how memory can be easily distorted, or even fabricated. The British Psychological Society’s weblog has an interesting summary of an article demonstrating that memory recall can be distorted by making people aware of stereotypes (a related topic is known as stereotype threat)…

BPS RESEARCH DIGEST: Gender stereotypes can distort our memories:

Plenty of research has shown that some stereotypes are not only offensive, they can also have a detrimental effect on people’s behaviour.

For example, women’s maths performance suffers after they are reminded of the stereotype that men are better than women at maths.

Now Armand Chatard and colleagues have taken this line of research a step further by demonstrating that being reminded of gender stereotypes can distort students’ memories of their prior exam performance.

Technorati Tags: memory, psychology, social psychology, stereotypes