Social Psychology

If you have ever wandered why people do certain things, and why people do not do certain things, social psychology has an explanation to it. If you have ever been completely struck by the atrocities that occur and people do not report, there is an explanation for it through social psychology. On March 13, 1964, a woman named Kitty Genovese was murdered in New York City. What was shocking to most people was the fact that there were several witness and very few, in fact none did something about the murdering. What exactly was the cause of this phenomenon? No one was completely sure about it; Because of this, psychological experiments were set out to figure out the cause. What was discovered, was later known as the bystander effect. The bystander effect is a phenomenon that happens when people see something, potentially bad, happening such as someone being beaten, someone being shot, someone being killed, or even someone in pain, and they do not offer help or any type of assistance. What is interesting about the bystander effect is that the more people, or bystanders that are around, the less people are going to be willing to offer help. What this was identified as later, is a diffusion of responsibility. The responsibilities that someone has to help people are diffused among all of the people. Above, and on a link in this page, there is a video of an example of this.

If you have ever been in a game of tug-of-war, you have experienced something that psychologists call social loafing. Social loafing is when there is a lot of people around, people are likely to exert less amount of force to achieve the same results. A psychology experiment that blindfolded people and either told them that they were in a group of different people tugging on a rope, or tugging on a rope by themselves. The people that were told that they were with a group tugging, all exerted less amount of force. This also happens in groups and projects where one will put less time and effort, only because they know that there are other people in the same group.

Something that happens often between groups is groupthink. If you have ever been in a group and realize that as things are being discussed, you tend to favor and "accept" other theories and topics given to you, only for the reason of not getting into an argument, you are going through what psychologists call group think.

Another thing that social psychology explains is something they call social facilitation. If you remember being a child trying to learn how to do something new and you felt accomplished that you had learned it, you always wanted to show someone else. When you showed someone what you had learned to do, you would get excited and completely fail at the task that you were trying to do. This is what social facilitation is; the tendency to do complicated tasks WORSE in front of people and to do simple tasks BETTER in front of people. Social psychology is one of those topics of psychology that explain all the little mysteries that people have had since they were little. It is an evolving part of psychology and in the future, it will possibly, explain a lot more.

Egocentrism, Conservation, and development

The number one topic that people think about when they imagine psychology, is child development. It is one of those topics that mothers of all ages worry about and ask themselves "is my child growing up in the proper pace?" "Does my child have a learning disability?" "How come my child is doing that?" Developmental psychologists have come up with different theories and stages to classify children in as they grow. One of the most and simple set of stages is Piaget's Cognitive Development model. This model starts out with the sensorimotor stage, which is when a child starts to learn about himself and others through personal experiences and through actions. This stage lasts until the child is about 2 years old. In this stage, the child develops object permanence, which is the "knowing" that an object continues to exist even when it cannot be seen. In the pre operational stage, egocentrism is widely seen in the child as he/she tries to understand the world. Many tests and experiments have been done on children to classify egocentrism; It is when a child fails to perceive the world from another viewpoint. In the concrete operational stage, which happens from about 7 to 11 years, a child shows inductive logic. At this stage, conservation, or the knowing that the amount of something stays constant regarding its shape or size. The last phase, the formal operational stage, advanced logic and abstract is seen in a person. Out of the other theories of development, there is Erik Erikson theory of personality that describes children's personalities as being divided into stages that contain crisis situations, such as autonomy vs. shame and doubt. Kohlberg also has theories on moral development, which divide morality into 3 basic stages called pre-conventional stage, conventional stage, and post-conventional stage. The first stage deals with a child thinking "how can i avoid punishment" when they are making moral judgments. The second stage deals with what is socially acceptable and what is seen in a better way. The last stage deals with what is actually right and ethical. Aside from the listed theories of development, there is also stages from other psychologists; from them, including Sigmund Freud, who came up with the stages of psychosexual development. If child development is something that is bothering you, it will not take you long to research development theories before you find a good number of accepted development theories.

Operant Conditioning

PREFERABLY TO WATCH THIS VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euINCrDbbD4

"Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything." -B.F. Skinner.

This famous quote said by B.F. skinner will never be forgotten; These famous words that were said by such an important psychologist are what have encouraged and given depressed parents, and even pet owners strength and courage. B.F. skinner is credited for the main discoverer and researcher on operant conditioning. He was the same man that came up with the skinner box, which is also called the operant conditioning chamber. In this chamber, there was a bar or key that when placed, the animal that was inside of the chamber would receive a reinforcer, such as food or water. With time passed, it was discovered that the animal would peck or press the bar more because of the reinforcer that was being given. This is in accordance with one of the most important laws in operant conditioning, the law of effect. This law states that any behavior that is followed by a favorable consequence, such as food or something good, will increase the likelihood of that behavior to be done. This is where the good news comes for those parents or pet owners; Skinner's operant conditioning has something called shaping, which is basically a procedure that "shapes" humans or animals into applying the behavior that is desirable for them. They are shaped by sets of punishments and reinforcements; Punishments when undesirable behavior is performed, and reinforcement when desirable behavior is performed. This means that when one has a child or pet that behaves undesirably, everything one has to do is undergo sets of reinforcement and punishment upon the pet or child until slowly, their behavior is changed. Positive Reinforcement, when something is added in order to increase a response, such as giving a dog a treat when they sit or lay down. Negative reinforcement is taking something that is not pleasant away in order to increase a good response, such as screaming while a dog is going to the bathroom in the house. Slowly, a pet or child can be shaped and molded into anything that one wants.

Winnie The Pooh- Psychological Disorders

Who would of ever thought that psychological disorders are in so many places; in some child TV shows such as Winnie the Pooh, psychological disorders are more than obvious. Most of you did not realize or process the fact that Winnie the Pooh is based off of more than 5 psychological disorders. The impulsivity of Rabbit and the obsession of Rabbit always protecting it's carrots clearly shows that Rabbit suffered Obsessive compulsive disorder. The constant phobias and fearful attitude of piglet showed that piglet suffered from anxiety. Tigger's hyperactivity and failure to calm down depicts Attention deficit hyper-active disorder. Pooh's disorder is not to agreed upon, but it can be said that Pooh has an eating disorder, from all of the honey that he eats. Eyore's constant sadness and low self-esteem signifies depression. It is not to clear, but it can be argued, in my opinion, that Christopher has schizophrenia because of the delusions that he has of all of the animals talking and having personalities and living ordinary lives. It is truly amazing how a show that a lot of people watched as children can have so much psychology, and most people not even notice it. This is one of those examples that shows that psychology is everywhere and it can be discovered in the smallest of things. Maybe when winnie the pooh was written, it was intended for the author to get a point out about the importance of psychology and its disorders. Maybe, this whole theme of psychological disorders was an accident, but whatever the reason for so many disorders to be showed in one TV show alone, it shows how vast psychology is and how it can account for explaining so many abnormalities that people are not to knowledgable of. I personally, as a kid enjoyed watching winnie the pooh and the fact that each character had such a different personality amused me. I think that this is the reason for the success of that show and the reason that it has so much to it.

Psycho-Analysis

Sigmund Freud is well known as the creator of Freudian psychology, or Psycho-Analysis.Freud was an Austrian psychologist that focuses on the unconscious and the subconscious. Today, psychoanalysis is criticized for its extreme methods and its inability to be tested and proved. Some terms coined by Freud such as the Oedipus Complex, or the theory that as a male child, one possesses sexual desires towards his mom and a sense of competition or jealousy towards the father, were completely ridiculed at by society and criticized. In modern day, such theories are still being criticized and challenged. What a lot of people do not know is that even though such Freudian theories are disregarded by people as being valid, many concepts that Freud introduced were taken to a whole new level by psychologists, opening up a new era of psychology. Terms such as the id, or the pleasure principle, and the ego, or the reality principle are used interchangeably to describe desires that humans might have. In modern day, the most common type of psychoanalysis is treating patients with emotional problems such as not being able to sleep well, having recurring nightmares, or even in more extreme cases, social cases. It has evolved into more of a "talking" therapy where the patient reveals intimate information to the therapist and the therapist provides SIMPLE healing techniques. This is one of the most common misconceptions that people have about modern psychoanalysis. It is hard for people to comprehend how such abstract and ridiculous-sounding ideas Freud had made it to modern psychology and are still used today. Freud in fact did come up with a lot of theories and ideas on the human mind, including ideas on hidden sex drives, and ideas such as that women feeling inferior because they do not have male reproductive organs, or interpreting latent content, or hidden storyline of a dream. In fact, this is not what made Freud successful and popular. What Freud left in psychology is the idea that the brain is separated into levels of functioning that one is not completely aware of. Using this information, therapists in modern day psychoanalysis strive to find the right things to say to their patients to help work through problems. Although a lot of Freud's original ideas were not passed down, his contribution to psychology has been enormous.

Nature-Nurture

The Nature-Nurture argument is an ongoing debate whether behavior traits such as homosexuality, as seen in the video above, are due to your nature, or the psychological makeup in your brain that dictates your behavior, or nurture, the way that you were raised and brought up. Developmental Psychology has done experiments on people and have observed people as they develop, looking for clues or anything that can help them identify causes for behavior, whether it is because of the way that one is raised, or the way that one is born. Twin studies have been made to test whether the way that people are brought up, affect their personalities. Fascinatingly, it has been found that Identical Twins, which are those developed from a single egg, and have been separated at birth have more in common than the usual. It is not to relevant whether Fraternal Twins have a similarity in twin studies. This research shows that there is more to behavior than the way that one is raised because in these twin studies, each twin had a completely different environment and a completely different way of life; Yet, they shared many characteristics and followed a similar life style. Although twin studies have proven that nature provides a huge amount of difference in people's behaviors, they showed that the environment also plays a vital role in identifying one's self. This is called Interaction; when one factor depends on another factor. This could possibly mean that the reason that environment shapes people is the tendency for them to be shaped into a specific something, favoring the nature side. Other studies have shown that people's temperament, behavior,and personality differ based on the area that they live in. For example; if you live in a very diverse area with a lot of people and social connections, it is likely for you to not be as judging of other people and other cultures as if you lived in another area. This could also affect your personality due to the different cultures that you are living with. This debate is ever-lasting and filled with new discoveries.