I.

Introduction: What is Psychology

What is psychology? To provide you with a reasonable answer to this complex question, this
introductory chapter will take a general look at the field of psychology and psychologists. We
will trace the origin of the word “psychology”, explore the beginning of psychology as a science,
examine early and contemporary approaches to psychology and describe research methods in
psychology and identify some of psychology’s careers and areas of specialization.

1.1 Meaning and origin of the word “Psychology”

The word ‘psychology’ is of Greek origin: ‘psyche’ can be freely translated as ‘mind’ or ‘soul’,
and ‘logos’ indicates ‘study’ or ‘line of teaching’; thus we have ‘ study of the mind’. This
definition exemplifies what psychology was essentially about up to the end of the nineteenth
century. The word psychology is symbolized by the Greek letter psi (φ).

1.2 Definition of Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. There three aspects to this
definition: science, behavior, and mental processes. Let’s examine behavior first. Behavior is
everything we do that can be directly observed-two people kissing, a baby crying, sneezing are
examples. Mental processes are the thoughts, feelings and motives that each of us experiences
privately, but which can not be observed directly.

As science, psychology uses systematic methods to study behavior and mental processes.
Psychology’s methods are not casual. They are carefully and precisely planned and conducted.

1.3 Goals of Psychology

 The study of psychology has four basic goals:

a) Describe – The first goal of psychology is to observe behavior and describe,

often in minute detail, what was observed as objectively as possible. It addresses
the question, “How do people think, feel, and act in various situations?”

b) Explain – While descriptions come from observable data, psychologists must

go beyond what is obvious and explain their observations. In other words, “why
 did the subject do what he or she did? Why did this behavior occur? Which
factors influenced this outcome?” are treated under explanation.

c) Predict – Once we know what happens, and why it happens, we can begin to
speculate what will happen in the future. There’s an old saying, which very often
holds true: "the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior."

d) Control – Once we know what happens, why it happens and what is likely to
happen in the future, we can exert control over it. In other words, if we know you
choose abusive partners because your father was abusive, we can assume you will
choose another abusive partner, and can therefore intervene to change this
negative behavior. Not only do psychologists attempt to control behavior, they
want to do so in a positive manner, they want to improve a person’s life, not make
it worse. This is not always the case, but it should always be the intention.

1.4 THE BEGINNINGS OF PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE

Psychology as a scientific discipline has a short history. Although it dates back to the time of
Plato and Aristotle as a branch of philosophy, it was in 1879 that Wilhelm Wundt opened the
first psychological laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. It is generally agreed that this event heralded
the beginning psychology as a scientific discipline in its own right. Prior to this, Psychology had
generally been regarded as a branch of philosophy. Hence, credit for the establishment of
psychology as a science usually] Wundt goes to considered by many as the “father of
psychology

During the first decades of psychology’s existence as a formal discipline, psychologists came to
hold quite different views about the nature of the mind and the best ways to study it. About the
same time fundamental questions were raised about what should be studied in Psychology:
Should Psychology the study of the mind, should it study Behavior, or should both mind and
Behavior be included? Different influential psychologists of the time held quite different views
on the nature of mind and the proper subject matter for psychology. Schools of thought formed
around these leaders as their students adopted their ideas. These schools of thought are known as
the schools of Psychology. Schools, in this context, can best be thought of as groups of
psychologist who held common beliefs about both the subject matter of psychology and what
methods of study should be used. Most schools developed in revolt against traditional methods
and beliefs at the time. However, they did not always replace earlier schools, but sometimes
existed alongside them. Understanding these schools can help us make sense of the multitude of
ideas and methods which currently characterize psychology. Hence, a brief description of these
schools is given below.

1.5. Schools of Psychology or Early School of Thought

a. Structuralism
Inspired by the pioneering work of Fechner and other scientists, Wilhelm Wundt and his many
collaborators founded the school of structuralism. Wundt believed that psychology should
concern itself with the elementary processes of conscious experience. The structure of
consciousness and immediate mental experience, he contended, could be broken down into basic
elements and compounds in the same way that, in chemistry; one can describe the structure of
water or air.

The goal of the structuralists was to find out the units, or elements, which make up the mind.
They
thought that as in chemistry, the first step in the study of the mind should be the description of
the basic or elementary units of sensation(sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touch which arise
from stimulation of the sense organs) image(experiences not actually present), and
feelings( love, fear, joy and so on) which compose the mind.
Another prominent member of structuralists school, Edward Bradford Titchner, developed and
extended Wundt’s idea and later introduced them to the USA. Structuralism declined in the early
1920s.
b. Functionalism
 While the structuralists emphasized the structure of the mental activity, the functionalists
were concerned with the purposes, functions, of the mental processes.
 Functionalism was influenced by biology and many of the concepts ‘borrowed’ from that
discipline continue to influence psychology today.
 The work and ideas of Charles Darwin had a monumental impact on the emergence of
functional psychology. His theory of evolution provided an account of the way living
organisms change and develop over time through a process of natural selection.
 .
 William James (1842 -1910) was the leading figure in functional psychology. Influenced
greatly by Darwin, he held that the function of consciousness was to enable humans to
behave in ways which would aid survival through adaptation to the environment.
 Functionalists were interested in the fact that mind and Behavior are adaptive- they enable an
individual to adjust to a changing environment. Where these adaptive behaviours were
repeated frequently they became habits. Habits, James believed, provided stability and
predictability in society.

 As with the structuralists, the main method of study was introspection, although
functionalists although encouraged the use of experimentation. The emphasis on the
importance of observing similarities and differences between varying species greatly
influenced the development of comparative psychology.
c. Gestalt psychology
 The leading proponents of Gestalt view were Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Kurt Koffka
( 1876- 1941) and Wolfgang Kohler (1887 -1967).
 Gestalt psychologists opposed the atomist approach of the structuralists and later the
behaviorists. They argued that people perceive the world in ‘wholes’. “ The whole is greater
than the sum of its parts exemplifies this view.
 These psychologists argued that the mind is not made up of a combination of elements. The
German word gestalt refers to form, whole, configuration or pattern.
 Accordingly, the Gestaltists maintained that the mind should be thought of as resulting from
the whole pattern of sensory activity and the relationships and organizations with in this
pattern.
 In brief, the Gestaltists acknowledged consciousness; they just refused to look at it in little
pieces.
 Their goal was to understand the phenomenon of conscious experience in holistic terms and
their subject matter was subjective experience with emphasis on perception, memory and
thinking.
 Nonetheless the influence of gestalt psychology is great in some areas of contemporary
psychology, for example in the study of perception and problem solving.
d. Behaviorism
 This school of psychology came into being with John B. Watson( 1878-1958). Other
proponents include E. Thorndike and B.F. Skinner.
 In an influential paper, “Psychology as the behaviorist views it”, in 1913, Watson attacked
the structuralist emphasis on consciousness and mental experience and also condemned the
use of introspection as a method which claimed to be reliable and objective.
 Psychology, he believed, should be about the study of observable behavior that all could
agree upon. He contended that psychologists should “… never use the terms consciousness,
mental estates, introspectively verify, imagery, and the like.”
 Behaviorists did not reject the existence of mind and consciousness as critics have sometimes
suggested. Rather they viewed these concepts as impossible to observe and contributing little
to a scientific approach in psychology.
 Though Watson’s view of the nature of human beings was considered by critics to be
mechanistic and oversimplified, his focus on the study of observable behavior allowed him to
formulate clear hypotheses which could be tested by experimentation. This shift in emphasis
towards the use of more objective and systematic methods was one of his greatest
contributions to psychology.

e. Psychoanalysis
 Psychoanalysis, which developed from the work and theories of Sigmund Freud (1856-
1939), proposed an account of human mental activity which relied heavily on the notion of
an unconscious mind.
 Freud originated his theory in response to patients whose symptoms, although real, were not
based on physiological malfunctioning. Hence, in the course of treating psychiatric patients
over many years, Freud became convinced that many of the nervous symptoms displayed by
patients could not be explained purely from a physiological point of view. Nor could the
rational and systematic laws of science be applied to irrational and self-defeating behaviors
such as phobias and conversion hysterias (physical complaints that have no apparent
physiological cause).
 Just as people have conscious motives or wishes, Freud argues, they also have powerful
unconscious motives that underlie their conscious intentions.
 Freud considered the relation between conscious awareness and unconscious mental forces
analogues to the visible tip of an ice berg and the vast, submerged hulk that lies out of sight
beneath the water.
 Freud argued that conscious awareness is merely the tip of the mental iceberg. Beneath the
visible tip, he said, lies the unconscious part of the mind, containing hidden wishes,
passions, guilty secrets, unspeakable yearnings, and conflicts between desire and duty. We
are not aware of our unconscious urges and thoughts as we go casually about our daily
business, yet they make themselves known- in dreams, slips of the tongue, apparent
accidents, and even jokes.
 Before Freud’s time, most people believed their own and other’s actions were directed by
their conscious wishes and beliefs. In contrast, Freud emphasized that these conscious
desires themselves may reflect unconscious conflicts and compromises.
 The methods used by psychoanalysts flow from their aims. They seek to interpret meanings,
that is, infer underlying wishes, fears, and patterns of thought, from an individual’s
conscious, verbalized, thought and behavior. Based on this goal, a psychoanalyst observes a
patient’s dreams, fantasies, posture, and subtle behavior toward the therapist. Thus,
psychoanalysis lends itself to the case study method.
 In classical psychoanalysis, therapy involves Transference, the client’s projection and
displacement of thoughts and feelings on to the analyst; Free association, where the client
says what ever comes into mind, no matter how trivial or irrelevant it may seem; and
dream analysis, which involves the analyst interpreting the content of the client’s dreams.
 Though the psychoanalytic process may sound quite straightforward, it is usually difficult
and time consuming.
 In conclusion,the discourse made by the structural, Gestalt, and functional schools of
psychology have become part of the general store of psychological knowledge; but the
schools as such, have vanished.
 Behaviorism and Psychoanalysis on the other hand are still, in modified forms among the
current psychological perspectives.
1.6. Modern approaches or Perspectives

 These approaches include physiological, behaviorist, psychodynamic, cognitive, socio-

cultural and humanistic.
a) The physiological approach
 Psychologists who subscribe to this approach look to biology as a means of describing
and explaining psychological functioning.
 This perspective holds that an understanding of the brain and the nervous system is
central in the understanding of behavior, thought and emotion. That is, our behavior, even
what we think and feel, is assumed to be linked to our physiological make up
 Some of the labels attached to researchers who take this approach, albeit in different
ways, are biopsychologist, neuropsychologist, psychobiologist, and physiological
psychologist.
 Physiological psychologists are interested in a wide range of phenomena and issues.
Research has developed rapidly over recent years into the functions of the nervous
system (particularly the brain) and the hormonal system, and into how these two systems
interact and influence behavior and mental activity.
 b) The Behaviorist Approach
 Behaviorists or learning theorists focus on the influence of the environment. They choose
not to be concerned with the internal mechanisms which occur inside the organism. Put
more simply, according to this approach, learning and experience the kind of person you
become.
 The behaviorist approach to psychological functioning is rooted in the works of Pavlov,
Thorndike, Watson and Hull all of whom studied learning in the form of conditioning.
 Behaviorism had a profound influence on the course of psychology during the first half of
the twentieth century
c) The cognitive Approach
 This approach contrasts sharply with that of both the psychoanalysts and the behaviorists.
 Cognitive psychologists believe that the event s occurring within a person must be
studied if behavior is to be fully understood.
 These internal events, often referred to as mediators, since they occur between the
stimulus and the behavior, include perception, thinking processes such as problem
solving, memory and language.
 What cognitive psychologists have in common is an approach which stresses the
importance of studying the mental processes which affect our behavior and enable us to
make sense of the world around us.
 Clearly the processes that cognitive psychologists study are not directly observable; one
can not lift off the top of an individual’s head and observe memory at work! However, it
is recognized that insights into mental processes may be inferred from an individual’s
behavior, provided that such inferences are supported by objective, empirical data.
Therefore, the experimental method, with its emphasis on objectivity control, and
replicability, is often used.
 One of this perspective’s most important contributions has been to show how people’s
thoughts and explanations affect their actions, feelings and choices.
 The cognitive approach is one of the strongest forces in psychology today, and it has
inspired an explosion of research on the intricate workings of the mind.
d) The socio-cultural approach
 The socio-cultural perspective focuses on social and cultural forces outside the
individual. It emphasizes that culture, ethnicity, and gender are essential to
understanding behavior, thought and emotion.
 Most of us underestimate the impact of other people, group affiliations, and cultural
rules on our actions. We are like fish that are unaware they live in water; so obvious
is water in their lives.
 Socio-cultural psychologists study the water- the social and cultural environment that
people “swim” in everyday.
 Within this perspective, social psychologists focus on social rules and roles, how
groups affect attitudes and behavior, why people obey authority, and how other
people- spouses, lovers, friends, bosses, parents and strangers, affect each of us.
 Cultural psychologists examine how cultural rules and values- both explicit and
unspoken- affect people’s development, behavior and feelings.

1 .7.Research Methods in Psychology

Psychology is not an absolute science and is often referred to as a 'Social Science' or a

'Soft Science.' This is because it deals with human thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and
as we are all aware, humans are not always predictable and reliable. Instead, we interact
with our environment in ways that alter how we behave, how we think, and how we feel.

Nevertheless, research plays an extremely important role in psychology. Research helps

us understand what makes people think, feel, and act in certain ways; allows us to
categorize psychological disorders in order to understand the symptoms and impact on
the individual and society; helps us to understand how intimate relationships,
development, schools, family, peers, and religion affect us as individuals and as a society;
and helps us to develop effective treatments to improve the quality of life of individuals
 and groups.

In this sense, psychological research is typically used for the following:

 Study development and external factors and the role they play on individuals' mental
health

 Study people with specific psychological disorders, symptoms, or characteristics

 Develop tests to measure specific psychological phenomenon

 Develop treatment approaches to improve individuals' mental health

In the following sections, you will learn about how research is conducted and the different types
of research methods used to gather information

Naturalistic observation

 In naturalistic observation, psychologists observe behavior, in real world settings and

make no effort to manipulate or control the situation.

 It often involves counting behaviors, such as number of aggressive acts, number of

smiles, etc.

 Psychologists conduct naturalistic observations at football games, day care centers,

kindergartens, college dormitories, shopping malls, restaurants, and other places
people live in and frequent.

Case Study

 A case study is an in-depth look at a single individual. It refers to following a single

case, typically over an extended period of time.

 It is used mainly by clinical psychologists when, for either practical or ethical

reasons, the unique aspects of an individual’s life cannot be duplicated.

 A case study provides information about one person’s fears, hopes, fantasies,
traumatic experiences, upbringing, family relationships, health, or anything that helps
the psychologist understand the person’s mind and behavior.
  A case study can involve naturalistic observations, and include psychological testing,
interviews, interviews with others, and the application of a treatment. A case study
can gather extensive information, both qualitative and quantitative and it can be
helpful in better understanding rare cases or very specific interventions.

 In case study, usually only one case is involved, severely limiting the generalization
to the rest of the population. It can also be be very time consuming and can involve
other problems specific to the techniques used, including researcher bias.

Survey

 Everyone has probably heard of this and some of you may have been involved
in research involving surveys. They are often used in the news, especially to
gather viewer opinions such as during a race for president.

 Psychologists use surveys to find out about a people’s experience and

attitudes by asking a large sample of participants questions about their
attitudes and behaviors.

 The two most frequently used tools of survey researchers are questionnaires,
which participants fill out by themselves, and interviews in which researchers
ask questions using a standard format.

 In surveys it is possible to gather large amounts of information in a relatively

short time, especially now with many surveys being conducted on the internet.

 However, survey data is based solely on subjects’ responses which can be

inaccurate due to outright lying, misunderstanding of the question, placebo
effect, and even the manner in which the question is asked

Correlational Studies

 Correlation means relationship, so the purpose of a correlational study is to

determine if a relationship exists, what direction the relationship is, and how
strong it is.

 This is a useful strategy because the more strongly events are correlated
 ( related or associated), the more effectively we can predict one from the
other.

 However, based on results from correlational research one cannot make any
assumptions of cause and effect (explain how third variable can be involved,
or how the variables can influence each other).

Experimental Methods

 An experiment is a carefully regulated procedure in which one or more of the

factors believed to influence the behavior being studied is manipulated and all
others are held constant.

 If the behavior under study changes when the factor is manipulated, we say
that the manipulated factor causes the behavior to change.

 Every experiment has two types of variables:

o Independent Variable (IV) – the variable that is manipulated by the

experimenter (input variable)

o Dependent Variable (DV) – the outcome variable (results of the

experiment)

By defining our variables that we will use to test our theory we derive at our Hypothesis which
is a testable form of a theory.

As an example of this, let’s say that we have a theory that people who drive sports cars are more
aggressive in theory interactions with others. Our independent variable would be the type of car
you drive (sports, sedan, SUV, etc.). Our dependent variables, the outcome of our research,
would be aggression. We would need to further define aggression so that it is something we can
test such as speeding or cutting other people off in traffic. We now have the basics of our very
simple experiment and can write our Hypothesis: People who drive sports cars drive over the
speed limit more frequently than people who drive other types of cars.

uble-Blind study, which means that both the experimenter and the subjects are blind to the
purpose and anticipated results of the study.

What we’ve focused on what is called Experimental Methods, the true experiment. It involves
randomized assignment of subjects, standardized instructions, and at least one IV and one DV.
There are several other types of research that are not as rigorous, but that you need to be aware
of.

1.8. Sub-fields in psychology

1. Clinical Psychology
 Clinical psychologists diagnose and treat emotional and behavioral disorders that
range from mild to very severe. They are trained to do psychotherapy with highly
disturbed people, as well as with those who are simply troubled or unhappy or who
want to learn to handle their problems better.

 People often confuse clinical psychologist with three other terms: psychotherapist,
psychoanalyst, and psychiatrist. But these terms mean different things.
 A psychotherapist is simply anyone who does any kind of psychotherapy
(psychological treatment)
 A psychoanalyst is a person who practices/ uses the particular psychotherapeutic
techniques, which originated with Sigmund Freud and his followers. Anyone who has
the training who has the training to use these techniques can be a psychoanalyst.
 A psychiatrist is a medical doctor (M.D.) who has done 3 to 4 years of residency
training in psychiatry, the medical specialty concerned with mental disorders,
maladjustment, and abnormal behavior. During the residency period, a psychiatrist
learns to diagnose and treat mental disorders under the supervision of more
experienced physicians.
 Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists do similar work, but psychiatrists, because of
their medical training, tend to focus on possible biological causes of mental disorders
and to treat these problems with medication. They can write prescriptions, whereas
clinical psychologists cannot (or at least not yet; in many states, psychologists are
pressing for prescription- writing privileges). Psychiatrists are however, are often
untrained in current psychological theories and methods.
2. Counseling Psychology

 Counseling psychologists are concerned with “normal” problems of adjustment

that most of us face sooner or later, such as choosing a career or coping with
marital problems.
 They deal with countless personal problems that do not involve psychological
disorders.
 A number of counseling psychologists try to help people who are having
problems with; family living; these are marriage and family counselors.
3. School Psychology
 Much of the school psychologist’s job consists of diagnosing learning difficulties
and trying to remedy them.
 Using tests and information gained from consultations with the students and his
parents, the school psychologist tries to pinpoint the problem and suggest action
to correct it.
 For instance, a school psychologist might suggest that a poor reader be assigned
to a remedial reading class.
 Other school psychologists are involved in vocational and other forms of
counseling. These are the school counselors.

4. Educational Psychology

 Educational psychology may include school psychology, but educational

psychologists as such are usually involved with more general, less immediate
problems than are most school psychologists or school counselors.
 Educational psychologists are especially concerned with increasing the
efficiency of learning in school by applying their psychological knowledge about
learning and motivation to the curriculum.

5 Industrial and/or Organizational Psychology

 Industrial/or Organizational psychologists study behavior in the workplace.

  They address the problems of training personnel, improving working
conditions, and studying working effects of automation on humans.
 The primary concern of industrial/or organizational psychologists is to make-
work as pleasant as pleasant and productive as possible.
 They apply psychology to problems of management and employee training, to
supervision of personnel, to improving communication withI the organization,
to counseling the employees, and to alleviate industrial strife.

6. Social Psychology

 Social psychologists study the way we affect and are influenced by other
people, both in groups and in intimate relationships.
 This focus covers a wide range of possible interests. For example, it
includes the study of the ways in which we perceive other people and how
those perceptions affect our behavior toward them.
 Similarly, it involves concerted efforts to understand the determinants of
interpersonal influences and of attitude change.
 Thus, social psychologists might study how perceptual stereotypes affect
interactions or how the decisions of a committee member are influenced by
what others on the committee do or say.

7. Developmental Psychology

 The developmental psychologists study mental, physical and social

development of humans over the entire life span (from the prenatal period
through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
 Child psychology, the study of children’s behavior, comprises a large part
of developmental psychology. But, developmental changes also occur in
adolescence, adulthood, and old age; and so the study of these changes is
also a part of developmental psychology.
II. Sensation and perception
2.1. Sensation and the senses

 Sensation is the simple experience that arises from the stimulation of the sense organs.
 It is the detection of physical energy emitted or reflected by physical objects. The cells
that do the detecting are located in the sense organs- the eyes, ears, tongue, nose, skin,
and internal body tissues.
 Sensory processes tell us what is happening, both inside our bodies and in the world that
exists beyond our own skins. Without sensation, we would lose touch-literally- with
reality.
 At some point you probably learned there are five senses, corresponding to five sense
organs: vision (eyes), hearing (ears), taste (tongue), touch (skin), and smell (nose). But,
actually there are more than five senses, though scientists disagree about the exact
number.
 The skin, which is the organ of touch or pressure, also senses heat, cold, and pain, not to
mention itching and tickling.
 The ear, which is the organ of hearing, also contains receptors (called vestibular senses)
that account for a sense of balance.
 The vestibular sense informs us about the movement and stationery position of the head.
 The skeletal muscles contain receptors (called kinesthesis, sense of bodily movement)
responsible for a sense of bodily movement.
 Sensation, in general, begins with the sense receptors, cells located in the sense organs.
When these receptors detect an appropriate stimulus- light, mechanical pressure, or
chemical molecules- they convert the energy of the stimulus into electrical impulses that
travel along nerves to the brain. This process is known as TRANSDUCTION.

Measuring Sensitivity of the Senses

 Absolute thresholds: one way to find out how sensitive the senses are is to show people a
series of signals that vary in intensity and ask them to say which signals they can detect.
 The smallest amount of energy that a person can detect reliably is known as the absolute
threshold. “Reliable” detection is said to occur when a person can detect a signal 50
percent of the time.
 By studying absolute thresholds, psychologists have found that our senses are very sharp
indeed. If you have normal sensory abilities, you can see a candle flame on a clear dark
night from 30 miles away. You can hear a ticking watch in a perfectly quiet room 20 feet
away. You can taste a teaspoon of sugar diluted in two gallons of water, smell a drop of
perfume diffused through a three-room apartment, and feel the wing of a bee falling on
your cheek from a height of 1 centimeter ( Galanter, 1962).
 Difference thresholds: Psychologists also study sensory sensitivity by having people
compare two stimuli and judge whether they are the same or different.
 For example, a person might be asked to compare the weight of two blocks, the
brightness of two lights, or the saltiness of two liquids.
 The smallest difference in stimulation that a person can detect reliably (again, half of the
time) is called the difference threshold, or just noticeable difference (jnd).
 Signal detection theory: To measure absolute and difference thresholds, we need to ask
people to tell us about their sensations. This assumes that people can and do report their
sensations faithfully regardless of other factors. Signal detection theory is the theory that
sensitivity to sensory stimuli depends on a variety of factors besides the physical intensity
of the stimulus and the sensory ability of the observer. Despite their usefulness, absolute
and difference thresholds have serious limitations as measurements for any given
individual may be affected by the person’s general tendency, when uncertain, to respond.
 According to signal detection theory, an observer’s response in detection task can be
divided into an initial sensory process, reflecting the observer's sensitivity to the
stimulus- how well the person sees, hears or feels the stimulus and a decision process,
reflecting the observer's response bias (decision criterion) which refers to the subject's
readiness to report detecting a stimulus when uncertain.
 Therefore, sensation is not a passive process that occurs when the amount of stimulation
crosses critical threshold; rather experiencing a sensation means making a judgment
about whether a stimulus is present or absent.
  Methods are available for separating these two components. The information can be fed
into a mathematical formula that yields separate estimates of person’s response bias and
sensory capacity. The individual’s true sensitivity to a signal of any particular intensity
can then be predicted.
 The old method of measuring thresholds assumed that a person’s ability to detect a
stimulus depends solely on the stimulus. Signal detection theory assumes that there is no
single “threshold,” because at any given moment, a person’s sensitivity to a stimulus
depends on a decision that he or she actively makes.

SENSORY ADAPTATION
 Our senses are designed to respond to change and contrast in the environment.
 When a stimulus is unchanging or repetitious, sensation often fades or disappears.
This can be usually beneficial because it allows us not to be distracted by the many
sensations we constantly experience. However, it can also be detrimental in that we
can become less sensitive to toxic stimuli, like smoke or harmful chemicals.
SENSORY DEPRIVATION AND SENSORY OVERLOAD
 Human brain requires a minimum amount of sensory stimulation in order to function
normally.
 This need may help explain why people who live alone often keep the radio or
television set running continuously and why prolonged solitary confinement is used
as a form of punishment or even torture.
 If too little stimulation (sensory deprivation) is can be bad for you, so can too much
(sensory overload), because it can lead to fatigue and mental confusion.

2.2 Perception
 Perception refers to our understanding of the world. It is the way the world looks, sounds,
tastes, or smells. In other words, perception can be defined as whatever is experienced by
a person. For much of what we perceive, the sensory input patterns provide only the raw
material for experience.
  In the brain, sensory signals that give rise to vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are
combined from moment to moment to produce a unified model of the world. This is a
process of perception. Perception, in general, consists of three basic processes:
a) Selection/Attention
B) Organization
C) Interpretation
 A) Selection: The first step in perception is selection in which we select the stimuli to
which we will attend. At any given moment, our sense organs are bombarded by a
multitude of stimuli; yet we perceive only a few of them clearly. For example, if you are
sitting in a stadium watching a football game, you cannot concentrate your attention
equally on the crowd, the action of the teams on the field, and the comments of a person
beside you, all at the same time at any particular time moment, one of these activities will
claim your attention. This process is known as selective attention.
 There are three groups of factors that influence the process of selective attention.
A) Environmental/Stimulus factors: Generally, the focus of attention is attracted to objects
or events that possess unusual characteristics or that provide strong stimulation to the
sense organs. Some of these qualities of objects/ events (stimuli) are the following.
 Intensity: The more intense the stimulus the more it will be attended. A
bright color will attract us more than a dull one.
 Size: We tend to notice larger compared to smaller ones.
 Contrast: What contrasts with the surrounding environment attracts attention
easily. For example a banana in a bowel of oranges.
 Repetition: A fleeting stimulus will not catch our attention as easily as one,
which is repeated. That is, objects
 Movement: Something, which moves, is more likely to attract attention than
something stationary.
 Novelty: A sudden or unexpected stimulus is likely to catch our attention more
easily than one we have been expecting or that we have encountered.
B) Psychological factors: The focus of attention is also affected by certain characteristics of
individuals. We will mention some of them.
 Motivation: What we choose to hear or perceive is determined largely by your current level
of satisfaction or deprivation. For example when you are hungry, you are much more likely
to notice TV commercials for doughnuts, hamburger, or Pizza than those for cars or
detergent.
 Emotions: In a similar way you will find that when you are lonely, your perceptions will be
so affected that it will seem that everyone is part of a happy couple except you.
 Personality and interests: For example, in a foot ball game, an ex-player may give attention
to the foot ball game; his wife, a singer, may give attention to the music I the stadium; and a
friend, a commentator may give attention to the way the referee is handling crisis situations
in the play.
C) Physiological factors: One of the major physiological factors in selection is the presence of
specialized cells in the brain called feature detectors (or feature analyzers) that respond only to
certain sensory information.

b) Organization in perception
 The process by which we structure the input from our sensory receptors is called
perceptual organization
 Once we have completed our selection of incoming information, we must organize this
information into patterns or principles that will help us to understand the world.
 The organization of sensory data can be divided into the following areas.

Form Perception
 Refers to the way sensations are organized into meaningful shapes and patterns. It was first
studied systematically in Germany by Gestalt Psychologists in the early 20th century. Gestalt
Psychologists were concerned with meaningful patterns or wholes.
 They argued that perceptions are more than the sum of their sensory parts. They proposed six
major perceptual rules the brain follows automatically and unconsciously as it organizes
sensory input into meaningful wholes:
1. Figure and ground: Perhaps the most fundamental process in form perception is
the recognition of a figure on a ground. According to this principle, we see the
objects and forms of everyday experience as standing out from a background. For
 example, while reading this material your eyes are receiving sensations of black
lines and white paper, but your brain organizes these sensations and perceives
letters and words against a backdrop of white pages- the letters are the figure and
the pages are the ground.
2. Proximity/Nearness: states that objects or stimuli that are near each other in
place or time tend to be grouped together even though they are dissimilar.
3. Similarity: objects that are alike in some way (for example in color shape or size)
tend to be perceived as belonging together.
4. Closure: the brain tends to fill-in gaps in order to perceive complete forms. That
is we tend to perceive a complete object event though parts of it may be obscured
or missing. Someone listening to a conversation over a very bad telephone
connection may hear only bits and pieces of what the other person is saying, but
he will fill in the gaps and perceive these sounds as whole words and sentences.
5. Good Continuation/ Continuity: States that lines, patterns or objects tend to be
seen as continuing in one direction even if interrupted by another object.

Perceptual constancy
Your perceptual world would be a confusing place without another important perceptual skill.
Lighting conditions, viewing angles, and the distances of stationery objects are all continually
changing as we move about, yet we rarely confuse these changes with changes in the objects
themselves. This ability to perceive objects as stable or unchanging even though the sensory
patterns they produce are constantly shifting is called perceptual constancy. Without perceptual
constancies, our world would seem totally chaotic. Things would seem to grow as e got closer to
them, to change shape as our viewing angle changed, and to change color as light levels changed.
The best-studied constancies are visual and they include the following.
 Shape Constancy: the principle of shape constancy states that we continue to perceive
objects as having a constant shape even though the shape of the retinal image produced
by an object changes when our point of view changes.
 Size Constancy: This principle states that we continue to perceive a familiar object as
having a constant size even when its retinal image becomes larger or smaller as we get
closer to or farther from it. A friend approaching on the street does not seem to be
 growing. Size constancy depends in part on familiarity with objects. It also depends on
the apparent distance of an object.
 Brightness Constancy: This principle states that we continue to see objects as having
relatively constant brightness, even though the amount of light they reflect changes as the
over all level of illumination changes. Snow remains white even on a cloudy day.
 Location Constancy: We perceive stationery objects as remaining in the same place,
even though the retinal image moves about as we move our eyes. As you drive along the
high way, telephone poles and trees fly by- on your retina. But you know that these
objects do not move on their own, and you also know that your body is moving, so you
perceive the poles and trees as staying put.
 Color Constancy: We see an object as maintaining its hue despite the fact that the
wavelength of light reaching our eyes from the object may change somewhat as the
illumination changes.

Depth and Distance Perception

Ordinarily we need to know not only what something is, but also where it is. Touch gives us this
information directly, but vision does not, so we must infer an object’s location by estimating its
distance or depth. Our remarkable ability to judge accurately how far objects are from us or from
each other is referred to as Depth or Distance Perception. To perform this remarkable feat, we
rely in part on binocular cues- cues that require the use of two eyes. One is convergence, the
turning of the eyes inward, which occurs when they focus on nearby object. The closer the
object, the greater the convergence (as you know if you have ever tried to “cross” your eyes by
looking at your own nose). As the angle of convergence changes, the corresponding muscular
changes provide the brain with information about distance.
The two eyes also receive slightly different retinal images of the same object. You can prove this
by holding a finger about 12 inches in front of your face and looking at it with only one eye at a
time. Its position will appear to shift when you change eyes. Now hold up two fingers, one closer
to your nose than the other. Notice that the amount of space between the two fingers appears to
change when you switch eyes. The slight difference in lateral (sideways) separation between two
objects as seen by the left eye and the right eye is called Retinal Disparity. Because retinal
disparity increases as the distance between two objects increases, the brain can use it to infer
depth and calculate distance.
Binocular cues help us estimate distances up to about 50 feet. For objects farther away, we need
only monocular cues, cues that do not depend on using both eyes. They are clues about distance
that are obtained from the image in either eye alone. Some of these cues include:
 Linear Perspective: When two lines known to be parallel appear to be coming together or
converging, they imply the existence of depth. For example, if you are standing between
railroad tracks, they appear to converge in the distance.
 Interposition: When one object obstructs the view of another object, generally the object that
is entirely in view will be perceived as the closer of the two.
 Aerial Perspective: Objects that are far away look “fuzzy” and blurred in comparison to near
objects because of intervening particles of dust, haze, or smoke in the atmosphere.
 Light and shadow: Brighter objects are perceived as closer, while darker, dimmer objects are
perceived as farther away. This occurs because we normally expect light to come from
above.
 Texture Gradients: Close objects appear to have a rough or detailed texture; as distance
increases, the texture appears become finer and finer.
Motion/ Movement Perception
During the course of each day, we perceive objects that move. Adaptive behavior in the visual
world requires that we perceive movement accurately. But, how do we perceive movement?

Psychologists are interested in both real movement and apparent movement. Real movement
is the result of an actual change in the object’s position in space. There are basically two ways
that we perceive real motion: 1) an image moves across the retina, and 2) the eye moves in the
head to follow the path of the moving object. However, movement perception does not depend
solely on the real physical movement of objects in the environment. It is possible to perceive
movement in the absence of any real motion. Movement perceived without the physical motion
of objects is called Apparent Motion. Let us see some examples.
 Stroboscopic Motion: If you are seated in a darkened room and look at two adjacent
lights being turned on, one after the other, it will seem that a single light is jumping back
and forth- a process known as stroboscopic motion or the phi phenomenon.
  Autokinetic Motion: Another form of apparent movement is autokinetic movement-
perceived motion of a single stationery light or object. You can experience this illusion
by looking at a small dim light at the far end of a completely dark room (the glowing end
of a cigarette is a good example). If you stare at the light for a few seconds, it will appear
to wander around erratically.
 Induced Movement: Induced movement occurs if a stationery spot or object is perceived
as moving when its frame or background moves. For example, the moon is often
perceived as moving behind a thin layer of cloud. Actually the moon is relatively
stationery and it is the moving clouds, which induce movement on the moon.

1. Interpretation
 The processes of perceptual organization organize sensations into stable, recognizable forms,
but they do not endow them with meaning. In other words, perceptual organization does not
classify objects or determine their emotional or adaptive significance. Generating meaning
from sensory experience is the task of perceptual interpretation.
 Perceptual interpretation lies at the intersection of sensation and memory, as the brain
interprets current sensations in light of past experience.
 Like selection, the process of interpretation is also influenced by several factors. The
following can be examples.
 Beliefs: What we hold to be true about the world can affect the interpretation of ambiguous
sensory signals.
 Emotions: Our emotions or moods also influence our interpretations of sensory information.
 Expectations: Experience with the environment often affects how we perceive the world by
creating perceptual expectations. These expectations called perceptual set make particular
interpretations more likely. Two aspects of perceptual set are the current context and
enduring knowledge structures.

Visual Illusion
Perceptual constancies allow us to make sense of the world. Occasionally, however, our
perceptual systems make inappropriate assumptions, and the result is a kind of erroneous
perception called perceptual illusion. One of the most famous illusions is the Muller- Lyer
Illusion, named after the German sociologist who first described it in 1889. In the Muller-Lyer
illusion two line segments of equal length appear to be different lengths when Vs and
arrowheads are added to them.
In everyday life, most illusions are harmless, or even useful or entertaining. Occasionally,
however, an illusion interferes with the performance of some skill. For example, because large
objects often appear to move more slowly than small ones, drivers sometimes underestimate the
speed of onrushing trains at railroad crossings and think they can “beat” the train, with tragic
results.

Extrasensory Perception (ESP)

 Eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and skin- we rely on these organs for our experience of the
external world.
 Some people, however, claim they can send and receive messages about the world
without relying on the usual sensory channels, by using Extrasensory Perception (ESP).
 Reported ESP experiences fall into four general categories:
 Telepathy is a direct communication from one mind to another without the usual
visual, auditory and other sensory signals.
 Clairvoyance is the perception of an event or fact without normal sensory input.
 Precognition is the perception of an event that has not yet happened.
 Psychokinesis is the ability to affect the physical world purely through thought.
Persons with such abilities claim to move or affect objects without touching them.
 Normal perception depends on the ability to detect changes in energy in the physical world.
Claims for most forms of ESP, however, challenge everything we currently now know to be
true about the way the world and the universe operate.

III. Learning

 Much of what we do results from what we have learned. In psychology, learning is any
relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of practice or experience.
 The definition has three important elements:
 Learning is a change in behaviour, for better or worse.
  It is a change that takes place through practice or experience; changes due to growth
or maturation are not learning.
 Before it can be called learning, the change must be relatively permanent; it must last
as fairly long time.
 Research on learning has been heavily influenced by behaviourism, the school of
psychology that accounts for behaviour in terms of observable acts and events, without
reference to mental entities, such as “mind” or “will.”
 Behaviourists focus on a basic kind of learning called conditioning, which involves
associations between environmental stimuli and responses.
 Behaviourists have shown that two types of conditioning- classical conditioning and
operant conditioning- can explain much of human behaviour.
 But, other approaches, known as cognitive learning theories hold that omitting mental
processes from explanations of human learning is like omitting passion from description of
sex: you may explain the form, but you miss the substance. To cognitive learning theorists,
learning is not so much a change in behaviour as a change in knowledge that has the
potential for affecting behaviour.
 Consequently, most psychologists today seem to agree that learning is the result of three
basic processes: Classical Conditioning, operant conditioning and cognitive learning.
 These theories of learning tend to share three assumptions. The first is that experience
shapes behaviour. Particularly in complex organisms such as humans, the vast majority of
responses are learned rather than innate. Second, learning is adaptive. Just as nature
eliminates organisms that are not well suited to their environments, the environment
naturally selects those behaviours in an individual that are adaptive and weeds out those
that are not. A third assumption is that careful experimentation can uncover laws of
learning, many of which apply to human and non human animals a like.

3.1 Classical Conditioning

 Classical conditioning was the first kind of learning to be studied systematically.

 At the turn of the 19th century the Great Russian physiologist was studying salivation in dogs
as part of a research program on digestion.
 One of his procedures was to make a surgical opening in a dog’s cheek and insert a tube that
conduct saliva away from the animals salivary gland so that the saliva could be measured.
 To stimulate the reflexive flow of saliva, Pavlov placed meat powder or other food in the
dog’s mouth.
 During the salivation studies, one of Pavlov’s students noticed something that most people
would have overlooked or dismissed as trivial.
 After a dog had been brought to the laboratory a number of times, it started to salivate before
the food was placed in its mouth. The sight or smell of the food, the dish in which the food
was kept, even the sight of the person who delivered the food each day or the sound of the
person’s footsteps were enough to start the dog’s mouth watering.
 At first, Pavlov treated the dog's salivation as just an annoying secretion. But, he quickly
realized that his student had stumbled onto an important phenomenon, one that Pavlov came
to believe was the basis of a great deal of learning in human beings and other animals. He
called that phenomenon a conditional reflex- conditional because it depended on
environmental conditions.
 Later, an error in the translation of his writings transformed conditional into conditioned, the
word most commonly used today.
 Pavlov soon dropped what he had been doing and turned to the study of conditioned reflexes,
to which he dropped the last three decades of his life. Why were his dogs salivating to things
other than food?
 At first Pavlov speculated about what his dogs might be thinking and feeling to make them
salivate before getting their food. Eventually, however, he decided that speculating about his
dog’s mental abilities was pointless.
 Instead, he focused on analysing the environment in which the conditioned reflex arose. The
original salivary reflex, according to Pavlov, consisted of an unconditioned stimulus (US),
food, and unconditioned response (UR), salivation.
 By unconditioned stimulus, Pavlov meant an event or thing that elicits a response
automatically or reflexively. By an unconditional response, he meant the response that is
automatically produced.
 Learning occurs, said Pavlov, when a neutral stimulus is regularly paired with an
unconditioned stimulus. The neutral stimulus then becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS),
 which elicits a learned or a conditioned response (CR) that is usually similar to the original,
unlearned one.
 In Pavlov’s laboratory, the sight of the food dish, which had not previously elicited
salivation, became a CS for salivation. The procedure by which a neutral stimulus becomes a
conditioned stimulus became known as Classical Conditioning, also called Pavlovian or
Respondent conditioning.
 Since Pavlov’s day, many automatic involuntary responses besides salivation have been
classically conditioned- for example, heartbeat, stomach secretions, blood pressure, reflexive
movements, blinking, and muscle contractions.
 The optimal interval between the presentation of the neutral stimulus and the presentation of
the US depends on the kind of response involved; in the laboratory, the interval is often less
than a second.
 In general for classical conditioning to be most effective, the stimulus to be conditioned
should precede the unconditioned stimulus rather than follow it or occur simultaneously with
it. The diagram below summarizes the steps involved in classical conditioning.

Steps in Classical conditioning

Before Conditioning
Neutral Stimulus (CS?) No Response/ Irrelevant Response
(Bell)
Unconditioned Stimulus (US) UR (Salivation)
(Meat)

During Conditioning
NS (CS?) (Bell)
+
US (Meat) UR (Salivation)
After Conditioning

CS (Bell) CR (Salivation).
Factors that Affect Classical conditioning
Several factors influence the extent to which classical conditioning will occur. These include the
inter stimulus interval, the individual’s earning history and the organism’s preparedness to learn.
1. Interstimulus interval: This is the duration of time between the presentation of the CS and
the US. For most motor and skeletal responses, the optimal interval between the CS and the
US is very brief. The temporal relationship between the CS and US- i.e. which stimulus
comes first- is also crucial. Maximal conditioning occurs when the onset of the CS precedes
the US, known as forward conditioning. Less effective than forward conditioning is
simultaneous conditioning, in which the CS and US are presented at the same time. A third
pattern, backward conditioning, is the least effective of all. Here, the CS is presented after the
US has occurred.
2. The individual’s learning history: An extinguished response tends to be easier to learn the
second time around because the stimulus was once associated with the response. Sometimes
previous conditioning can also hinder learning. Consider a dog that has been conditioned to
salivate at the sound of a bell. The researcher now wants to condition the dog to associate the
food with an additional stimulus, a flash of light. The dog will probably have difficulty
learning this new association. This phenomenon is known as blocking. It is failure of a
stimulus to elicit a CR when it is combined with another stimulus that is already effective in
eliciting the response.
3. Preparedness to learn: This bears the imprint of evolution. Subsequent research suggested
that some responses can be conditioned much more readily to certain stimuli than to others
and that this contributes to adaptation. From an evolutionary perspective animals appear to
have become prone to connect certain stimuli and responses through natural selection.
Principles of Classical Conditioning
 Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery: Extinction in classical conditioning refers to a
condition by which a CR is weakened by presentation of the CS without the US. Without
the continued association with the US the CS loses its power to illicit CR. In other
words, if after conditioning, the CS is repeatedly presented without the US, the CR
eventually disappears, and extinction is said to have occurred. Pavlov rang the bell
repeatedly in a single session and did not give the dog any food. Eventually, the dog
stopped salivating.
 Extinction is not always the end of the CR. After extinction a CR may suddenly reappear
even without further conditioning trials. This is referred to as Spontaneous Recovery.
The day after Pavlov extinguished the conditioned salivation at the sound of a bell, he
took the dog to the laboratory and rang the bell, still not giving the dog meat powder. The
dog salivated, indicating that an extinguished response can spontaneously recur. The
spontaneous recovery of CR is short lived however, will rapidly extinguish again without
renewed pairings of the CS and US.

.
  Stimulus Generalization and Discrimination: After a stimulus becomes a conditioned
stimulus for some response, other, similar stimuli may produce a similar reaction- a
phenomenon known as stimulus generalization. It occurs when an organism produces a
CR to other stimuli that have not been paired with the original US. For instance, in
Watson and Rayner’s experiment, the pairing of the rat and the loud noise produced a
fear n little Albert not only of the rat but also of other furry or hairy objects, including the
rabbit, the dog, the fur coat, and even Santa’s face. As one might guess, the more a
stimulus resembles the original CS, the more likely stimulus generalization will take
place.
 The capacity for stimulus generalization is highly adaptive. A child who associates
feelings of comfort and relief with the neighborhood police officer will seek out other
officers when she needs help because they, too, evoke feelings of relief. Generalization is
not always adaptive however. A major component of adaptive learning knows when to
generalize and when to be more specific or discriminating. Maladaptive patterns in
humans often involve inappropriate generalization from one set of circumstances to
others, as when a person who has been frequently criticized by a parent responds
negatively to all authority figures.
 Most of the time, however, people do not generalize quite so broadly. Instead like other
animals, they discriminate between stimuli. Stimulus generalization is the opposite of
stimulus generalization. Pavlov’s dog did not salivate in response to just any sound.
 Higher Order Conditioning: Sometimes a neutral stimulus can become a CS by being
paired with an already established CS, a procedure known as higher order conditioning.

3.2. Operant Conditioning

 An emphasis on environmental consequences is at the heart of Operant Conditioning (also

called Instrumental Conditioning), the second type of conditioning studied by Behaviourists.
 In operant conditioning, the organism's response operates or produces effects on the
environment. These effects, in turn, influence, whether the response will occur again.
 Operant conditioning has been studied since the start of the 20 th century, although it was not
called that until later. Edward Thorndike set the stage by observing cats as they tried to
escape from a complex “puzzle box” to reach a scrap of fish located just outside the box.
 In this study a hungry cat was placed in a small cage, or “puzzle box” with food available
just outside. The cat could escape to obtain the food by performing a simple response such as
pulling a wire or depressing a lever. After each escape the cat was rewarded with a small
amount of food and then returned to the cage for another trial.
 Thorndike monitored how long it took the cat get out of the box on each trial- over a long
series of trials. If the cat could think, Thorndike reasoned, there would be a sudden drop in
the time required to escape when the cat recognized the solution to the problem.

 Instead of a sudden drop, Thorndike observed a very gradual, uneven decline in the time it
took the cats to escape from his puzzle boxes. The decline in solution time showed that the
cats were learning but, Thorndike concluded that their learning did not depend on thinking
and understanding.
 Instead he attributed this learning to a principle called the law of effect. According to the law
of effect, if a response in the presence of a stimulus leads to satisfying effects, the
association between the stimulus and the response is strengthened.
 This general principle was elaborated and extended to more complex forms of behaviour by
B.F Skinner. He moved beyond Thorndike by arguing that this principle governs complex
human learning as well as simple animal learning.
 Skinner argued that to understand behaviour we should focus on the external causes of an
action and the action’s consequences. To explain behaviour, he said, we should look outside
the individual, not inside.
 In Skinner’s analysis, a response (“operant”) can lead to three types of
consequences:
a) A neutral Consequence that does not alter the response.
b) A reinforcement that strengthens the response or makes it more likely to recur. A
reinforcer is any event that increases the probability that the behaviour that precedes it will
be repeated. There are two basic types of reinforcers or reinforcing stimuli: primary and
secondary reinforcers.
o Primary reinforcers: Food, water. Light, stroking of the skin, and a comfortable air
temperature are naturally reinforcing because they satisfy biological needs. They are,
 therefore, known as primary reinforcers. Primary reinforcers, in general, have the
ability to reinforce without prior learning.
o Secondary Reinforcers: Behaviours can be controlled by secondary reinforcers.
They reinforce behaviour because of their prior association with primary reinforcing
stimuli. Money, praise, applause, good grades, awards, and gold stars are common
secondary reinforcers.
 Both primary and secondary reinforcers can be positive or negative. Positive reinforcement is
the process whereby presentation of a stimulus is makes behaviour more likely to occur
again. Negative reinforcement is the process whereby termination of an aversive stimulus
makes behaviour more likely to occur. The basic principle of negative reinforcement is that
eliminating something aversive can itself be a reinforser or a reward. For example, if
someone nags you all the time to study, but stops nagging when you comply, your studying is
likely to increase- because you will then avoid the nagging.
 This can be an example of what is called escape learning. In escape learning animals learn
to make a response that terminates/stops a noxious, painful or unpleasant stimulus. Another
kind of learning, which is similar, but not the same as escape learning is Avoidance
Learning, which refers to learning to avoid a painful, noxious stimulus prior to exposure.

Schedules of reinforcement
 When a response is first acquired, learning is usually most rapid if the response is reinforced
each time it occurs. This procedure is called continuous reinforcement.
 However, once a response has become reliable, it will be more resistant to extinction if it is
rewarded on an intermittent (partial) schedule of reinforcement, which involves reinforcing
only some responses, not all of them. There are four types of intermittent schedules.
1. Fixed-ratio schedules: On fixed ration schedules reinforcement occurs after a fixed
number of responses. They produce very rate of responding. Employers to increase
productivity often use fixed ration schedules. An interesting feature of a fixed ratio
schedule is that performance sometimes drops off just after reinforcement.
2. Variable Ratio Schedules: In variable ratio schedules reinforcement occurs after
some average number of responses, but the number varies from reinforcement to
reinforcement. Variable ratio schedules produce extremely high steady rates of
 responding. The responses are more resistant to extinction than when a fixed ratio
schedule is used.
3. Fixed Interval Schedules: In fixed interval schedules reinforcement of a response
occurs only if a fixed amount of time has passed since the previous reinforcer.
4. Variable Interval Schedule: In variable interval schedule reinforcement of a
response occurs only if a variable amount of time has passed since the previous
reinforcer.
 A basic principle of operant conditioning is that if you want a response to persist after it has
been learned, you should reinforce it intermittently, not continuously. Because the change
form continuous reinforcement to none at all will be so large that the animal/ person will
soon stop responding. But if you have been giving the reinforcement only every so often, the
change will not be dramatic and the animal/ person will keep responding for a while.

c) Punishment that weakens the response or makes it less likely to recur. Punishers can be any
aversive (unpleasant) stimuli that weaken responses or make them unlikely to recur. Like
reinforcers, punishers can also be primary or secondary.
 Pain and extreme heat or cold are inherently punishing and are therefore known as primary
punishers.
 Criticism, demerits, catcalls, scolding, fines, and bad grades are common secondary
punishers.
 The positive negative distinction can also be applied to puishment. Something unpleasant
may occur following some behaviour (positive punishment), or something pleasant may be
removed (negative punishment).
The Pros and Cons of Punishment
When Punishment works:
 Immediacy – When punishment follows immediately after the behaviour to be
punished.
 Consistency- when punishment is inconsistent the behaviour being punished is
intermittently reinforced and therefore becomes resistant to extinction.
  Intensity- In general terms severe punishments are more effective than mild ones.
But, there are studies that indicate that even less intense punishments are effective
provided that they are applied immediately and consistently.
When punishment fails
1. People often administer punishment inappropriately or mindlessly. They swing in a blind
rag or shout things they do not mean applying punishment so broadly that it covers all sorts
of irrelevant behaviors.
2. The recipient of punishment often responds with anxiety, fear or rage. Through a process of
classical conditioning, these emotional side effects may then generalize to the entire situation
in which the punishment occurs- the place, the person delivering the punishment, and the
circumstances. These negative emotional reactions can create more problems than the
punishment solves. A teenager who has been severely punished may strike back or run away.
Being physically punished in childhood is a risk factor for depression, low self-esteem,
violent behavior and many other problems.
3. The effectiveness of punishment is often temporary, depending heavily on the presence of the
punishing person or circumstances
4. Most behavior is hard to punish immediately.
5. Punishment conveys little information. An action intended to punish may instead be
reinforcing because it brings attention.
Shaping
 For a response to be reinforced, it must first occur. But, suppose you to train a child to
use a knife and a fork properly. Such behaviours, and most others in everyday life, have
almost no probability appearing spontaneously.
 The operant solution for this is shaping. Shaping is an operant conditioning procedure in
which successive approximations of a desired response are reinforced.
 In shaping you start by reinforcing a tendency in the right direction. Then you gradually
require responses that are more and more similar to the final, desired response. The
responses that you reinforce on the way to the final one are called successive
approximations.

Principles of Operant Conditioning

 Extinction: In operant conditioning, extinction refers to the gradual weakening of and
disappearance of a response tendency because the response is no longer followed by a
reinforcer.
 Spontaneous Recovery: Just as in classical conditioning, animals and people whose operant
behaviors have been extinguished may recover them. This is called spontaneous recovery.
 Stimulus Generalization: Stimulus generalization describes the phenomenon whereby an
animal or person has learned a response to one stimulus and then applies it to other similar
stimuli.
 Stimulus Discrimination: The tendency for a response to occur in the presence of a stimulus
but not in the presence of other, similar stimuli that differ from it on some dimension.

3.3. Cognitive Learning Theories

 For half a century, most American learning theories held that learning could be explained by
specifying the behavioral “ABCs” – antecedents (events preceding behavior), behaviors, and
consequences.
 In the 1940s, two social scientists proposed a modification they called social learning theory.
Most human learning, they argued, is acquired by observing other people in social context,
rather than through standard conditioning procedures.
 By 1960s and 1970s, social learning theory was in full bloom, and a new element had been
added: the human capacity for higher level of cognitive processes.
 Its proponents agreed with behaviorists that human beings, along with the rat and the rabbit,
are subject to the laws of operant and classical conditioning. But, they added that human
beings, unlike the rat and the rabbit, are full of attitudes, beliefs and expectations that affect
the way they acquire information, make decisions, reason, and solve problems.
 These mental processes affect what individuals will do at any given moment and also, more
generally the personality traits they develop.

Learning by observing
 Refers to learning by watching what others do and what happens to them for doing it).
 Behaviorists have always acknowledged the importance of observational learning, which
they call vicarious conditioning, and have tried to explain it in stimulus response terms.
 But social cognitive theorists believe that in human beings, observational learning cannot be
fully understood without taking into account the thought processes of the learner.
 They emphasize the knowledge that results when a person sees a model- behaving in certain
ways and experiencing the consequences.
 Many years ago, Albert Bandura and his colleagues showed just how important observational
learning is, especially for children who are learning the rules of social behavior.

Latent Learning
 ‘Latent’ means hidden, and thus latent learning is learning that occurs but is not evident in
behavior until later, when conditions for its appearance are favorable.
 It is said to occur without reinforcement of particular responses and seems to involve changes
in the way information is processed.
 In a classic experiment, Tolman and C.H Honzic(1930) placed three groups of rats in mazes
and observed their behavior each day for more than two weeks.
 The rats in Group 1 always found food at the end of the maze. Group 2 never found food.
Group 3 found no food for ten days but then received food on the eleventh. The Group 1 rats
quickly learned to head straight the end of the without going blind alleys, whereas Group 2
rats did not learn to go to the end. But, the group three rats were different. For ten days they
appeared to follow no particular route. Then, on the eleventh day they quickly learned to run
to the end of the maze. By the next day, they were doing, as well as group one, which had
been rewarded from the beginning.
 Group three rats had demonstrated latent learning, learning that is not immediately expressed.
A great deal of human learning also remains latent until circumstances allow or require it to
be expressed.

Insight Learning
 It is cognitive process whereby we reorganize our perception of a problem. It doesn’t
depend on conditioning of particular behaviours for its occurrence. Sometimes, for
example, people even wake from sleep with the solution to a problem that they had not
been able to solve during the day.
  In a typical insight situation a problem is posed, a period follows during which no
apparent progress is made, then the solution comes suddenly. What has been learned in
insight learning can also be applied easily to other similar situations.
 Human beings who solve a problem insightfully usually experience a good feeling called
an 'aha' experience.

IV Memory
4.1 Nature and Definition

Memory is the retention of information/what is learned earlier over time. It is the way in
which we record the past for later use in the present. Memory is a blanket label for a large
number of processes that form the bridges between our past and our present. To learn about
the nature of memory, it is useful to separate the process from the structure.
4.1.1 Memory Processes
Memory process is the mental activities we perform to put information into memory, to keep
it there, and to make use of it later. This involves three basic steps:
a) Encoding: Taken from computer science, the term encoding refers to the
form (i.e the code) in which an item of information is to be placed in
memory. It is the process by which information is initially recorded in a
form usable to memory. In encoding we transform a sensory input into a
form or a memory code that can be further processed.
b) Storage: To be remembered the encoded experience must leave some
record in the nervous system (the memory trace); it must be squirreled
away and held in some more or less enduring form for later use. This is
 what memory specialists mean when they speak of placing information in
storage. It is the location in memory system in which material is saved.
Storage is the persistence of information in memory.
c) Retrieval: is the point at which one tries to remember to dredge up a
particular memory trace from among all the others we have stored. In
retrieval, material in memory storage is located, brought into awareness
and used.
Note that failures to remember can result from problems during any of the three phases of the
memory process. If, fore example, you encode a new item of information only as a sound pattern,
there would be no memory trace of its meaning. If both the sound and the meaning were encoded
and held for the length of the retention interval, the item might have been misfiled in memory. If
so, the item might be impossible to retrieve even though it is still stored in memory.

4.1.2 Structure/stages/forms of Memory

 Memory structure is the nature of memory storage itself- how information is
represented in memory and how long it lasts and how it is organized.
 Although people usually refer to memory as a single faculty, the term memory actually
covers a complex collection of abilities and processes.
 The cognitive perspective has dominated psychology’s view of memory for the past
years although in recent years it has become integrated with understanding of the neuro-
psychology of memory. Many cognitive psychologists relate the mind to an information
processor, along the lines of a digital computer that takes items of information in;
processes them in steps or stages, and then produces an output.
 Consider how the computer works; First, it takes in information (for instance via
keystrokes) and translates the information into an electronic language, then the
computer permanently stores the information on a disc, and finally it retrieves the
information (file) stored on a disc on to a working memory (which also receives new
information from the keyboard) and the information is put on to the screen as part of the
working memory.
  Models of memory based on this idea are Information processing theories. Like the
computer, we also store vast amounts of information in our memory store house. From
this storehouse, we can retrieve some information onto a limited capacity working
memory, which also receives information from our current experience. Part of this
working memory is displayed on the mental “screen” we call consciousness. A number
of such models of memory have been proposed. One of the most important and
influential of these is the one developed by Richard Atkinson and Richard
Shiffrin(1968). According to Atkinson and Shiffrin, memory has three structures:

1. Sensory Memory/Sensory Register: It is the entry way to memory. It is the first

information storage area. Sensory memory acts as a holding bin, retaining information until
we can select items for attention from the stream of stimuli bombarding our senses.
It gives us a brief time to decide whether information is extraneous or important. Sensory
memory includes a number of separate subsystems, as many as there are senses. It can hold
virtually all the information reaching our senses for a brief time.

For instance, visual images (Iconic memory) remain in the visual system for a maximum of one
second. Auditory images (Echoic memory) remain in the auditory system for a slightly longer
time, by most estimates up to two second or so.

The information stored in sensory memory is a fairly accurate representation of the

environmental information but unprocessed.

Most information briefly held in the sensory memory simply decays from the register. However,
some of the information that has got attention and recognition pass on short-term memory for
further processing.

2. Short-term Memory: is part of our memory that holds the contents of our attention. Unlike
sensory memories, short-term memories are not brief replicas of the environmental message.
Instead, they consists the by-products or end results of perceptual analysis. STM is important
in a variety of tasks such as thinking, reading, speaking, and problem solving. There are
 various terms used to refer to this stage of memory, including working memory, immediate
memory, active memory, and primary memory.

Short term memory is distinguished by four characteristics:

 It is active- information remains in STM only so long as the person is consciously
processing, examining, or manipulating it. People use STM as a “workspace” to process
new information and to call up relevant information from LTM.
 Rapid accessibility - Information in STM is readily available for use. In this respect, the
difference between STM and LTM is the difference between pulling a file from the top of
a desk versus searching for it in a file drawer, or between searching for information in an
open computer file versus s file stored on the hard rive.
 Preserves the temporal sequence of information- Subjects provided with a list will
generally remember it (and repeat it if asked) in just that order
 Limited capacity- Years ago, George Miller (1956) estimated its capacity to be “the
magic number seven plus or minus 2”. That is, on the average, people can hold about
seven pieces of information in STM at a time; with a normal range from five to nine
items. Some researchers have questioned whether Miller’s magical number is so magical
after all. Everyone agrees, however, that the number of items that short-term memory can
handle at any one time is small.

According to most models of memory, we overcome this problem, by grouping small groups of
information into larger units or chunks. Chunking is the grouping or “packing” of information
into higher order units that can be remembered as single units. Chunking expands working
memory by making large amounts of information more manageable. The real capacity of short-
term memory, therefore, is not a few bits of information but a few chunks. A chunk may be a
word, a phrase, a sentence, or even a visual image, and it depends on previous experience.

STM memory holds information (sounds, visual images, words, and sentences and so on)
received from SM for up to about 30 seconds by most estimates. It is possible to prolong STM
indefinitely by rehearsal- the conscious repetition of information. Material in STM is easily
displaced unless we do something to keep it there.
3. Long term Memory
It is a memory system used for the relatively permanent storage of meaningful information.
The capacity of LTM seems to have no practical limits. The vast amount of information
stored in LTM enables us to learn, get around in the environment, and build a sense of
identity and personal history. LTM stores information for indefinite periods. It may last for
days, months, years, or even a lifetime.
The LTM is assumed to be composed of different sub systems:
 Declarative/ explicit memory- the conscious recollection of information such as
specific facts or events that can be verbally communicated. It is further subdivided into
semantic and episodic memories.
 Semantic memory- factual knowledge like the meaning of words, concepts and our
ability to do math. They are internal representations of the world, independent of any
particular context.
 Episodic memory- memories for events and situations from personal experience.
They are internal representations of personally experienced events.
 Non-declarative/ implicit memory- refers to a variety of phenomena of memory in
which behaviour is affected by prior experience without that experience being
consciously recollected. One of the most important kinds of implicit memory is
procedural memory. It is the “how to” knowledge of procedures or skills. Knowing how
to comb your hair, use a pencil, or swim
Serial Position Effect
 The three-box model of memory is often invoked to explain interesting phenomenon
called the serial position effect. If you are shown a list of items and are then asked
immediately to recall them, your retention of any particular item will depend on its
position in the list. That is, recall will be best for items at the beginning of the list (the
primacy effect) and at the end of the list (the recency effect). When retention of all the
items is plotted, the result will be a U-shaped curve.
 A serial position effect occurs when you are introduced to a lot of people at a party and
find you can recall the names of the first few people you met and the last, but almost no
one in between.
  According to the three-box model, the first few items on a list are remembered well
because short-term memory was relatively “empty” when they entered, so these items
did not have to compete with others to make it into long term memory. They were
thoroughly processed, so they remain memorable.
 The last few items are remembered for a different reason: At the time of recall, they are
still sitting in STM. The items in the middle of the list, however, are not so well retained
because by the time they get into short-term memory, it is already crowded. As a result
many of these items drop out of short-term memory before they can be stored in long-
term memory.

Forgetting

 Psychologists generally use the term forgetting to refer to the apparent loss of
information already encoded and stored in the long-term memory.
 The first attempts to study forgetting were made by German psychologist Hermann
Ebbinghaus(1885/1913). Using himself as his only subject, he memorized lists of three
letter non-sense syllables- meaningless sets of two consonants with a vowel in between,
such as FIW and BOZ.
 By measuring how easy it was to relearn a given list of words after varying periods of
time from initial learning had passed., he found that forgetting occurred systematically.
 The most rapid forgetting occurs in the first hours, and particularly in the first hour. After
nine hours, the rate of forgetting slows and declines little, even after the passage of many
days.
 Ebbinghaus’s research had an important influence on subsequent research, and his basic
conclusions had been upheld. There is almost always a strong initial decline in memory,
followed by a more gradual drop over time.
 Further more, relearning of previously mastered material is almost always faster than
starting from a scratch, whether the material is academic information or a motor skill
such as serving a tennis ball.
 Psychologists have proposed five mechanisms to account for forgetting: decay,
replacement of old memories by new ones, interference, motivated forgetting, and cue
dependent forgetting.
1. The Decay Theory

 The decay theory holds that memory traces or engram fade with time if they are
not “accessed” now and then. This explanation assumes that when new material is
learned a memory trace or engram- an actual physical change in the brain- occurs.
 In decay, the trace simply fades away with nothing left behind, because of the
passage of time. We have already seen that decay occurs in sensory memory and
that it occurs in short term memory as well, unless we rehearse the material.
However, the mere passage of time does not account so well for forgetting in
long-term memory. People commonly forget things that happened only yesterday
while remembering events from many years ago.
 Although there is evidence that decay does occur, it does not seem to be the
complete explanation for forgetting. Memory specialists have proposed an
additional mechanism: Interference

2. Interference

 Interference theory holds that forgetting occurs because similar items of information
interfere one another in either storage or retrieval. The information may get into memory,
but it becomes confused with other information.
 There are two kinds of interference that influence forgetting: proactive and retroactive.
In Proactive Interference, information learned earlier interferes with recall of newer
material. If new information interferes with the ability to remember old information the
interference is called Retroactive Interference.

3. New memory for old/ displacement theory

 This theory holds that new information entering memory can wipe out old information,
just as recording on an audio or videotape will obliterate/wipe out the original material.
This theory is mostly associated with the STM, where the capacity for information is
limited to seven plus or minus chunks. It cannot be associated with the LTM because of
its virtually unlimited capacity.
4. Motivated Forgetting

 Sigmund Freud maintained that people forget because they block from consciousness
those memories that are two threatening or painful to live with, and he called this self-
protective process Repression.
 To day many psychologists prefer to use a more general term, motivated forgetting.

5. Cue Dependent Forgetting

 Often when we need to remember, we rely on retrieval cues, items of information that
can help us find the specific information we’re looking for.
 When we lack retrieval cues, we may feel as if we have lost the call number for an entry
in the mind’s library. In long-term memory, this type of memory failure may be the most
common type of all.
 Cues that were present when you learned a new fact or had an experience are apt to be
especially useful later as retrieval aids.
 That may explain why remembering is often easier when you are in the same physical
environment as you were when an event occurred: Cues in the present context match
from the past.
 Your mental or physical state may also act as a retrieval cue, evoking a state dependent
memory. For example if you are intoxicated when something happens, you may
remember it better when you once again have had a few drinks than when you are sober.
 Like wise, if your emotional arousal is specially high or low at the time of an event, you
may remember that event best when you are once again in the same emotional state.

Improving Memory

 Someday in the near future, drugs may be available to help people with memory
deficiencies to increase normal memory performance. For the time being, however,
those of us who hope to improve our memories must rely on mental strategies.
 Some simple mnemonics can be useful, but complicated ones are often more bother
than they are worth. A better approach is to follow some general guidelines.
 Pay Attention: It seems obvious, but often we fail to remember because we never
encoded the information in the first place. When you do have
something to remember, you will do better if you encode it.
  Encode information in more than one way: The more elaborate the encoding of
information, the more memorable it will be
 Add meaning: The more meaningful the material, the more likely it is to link up with
information already in long-term memory.
 Take your time: If possible, minimize interference by using study breaks for rest or
recreation. Sleep is the ultimate way to reduce interference.
 Over learn: Studying information even after you think you already know it- is one of
the best ways to ensure that you’ll remember it.
 Monitor your learning: By testing yourself frequently, rehearsing thoroughly, and
reviewing periodically, you will have a better idea of how you are doing.

5. Motivation
5.1 The Nature of Motivation

 The word motivation comes from a Latin root meaning “to move” and the
psychology of motivation is indeed the study of what moves us, why we do what we
do.
 In other words, motivation refers to the forces that initiate and direct behavior, and
the variables that determine the intensity and persistence of that behavior. It is
concerned with factors that direct and energize the behavior of humans and other
organisms.
 When we are hungry, for example, we initiate food seeking. This initiation can be
prompted from within the individual or the external environment- we might be
hungry because of low blood sugar level (internal) or because we just saw a delicious
dessert (external). Motivation also directs our behavior. When we are hungry we seek
food rather than read a newspaper. Motivation also determines the intensity and
persistence of our behavior. Intensity has to do with the strength of the behavior. For
 instance you might be a little hungry and if food is readily available, you would eat,
but if there is no food in the immediate vicinity, you would probably engage in some
other behavior. On the other hand, if you are extremely hungry, you will most likely
engage intensively in food seeking behavior, doing whatever it took to obtain it. How
motivated we are, still influence our persistence. Sometimes we will persist in
obtaining a goal for a long time, while at other times; we’ll give up after a brief time.
 An important characteristic of motives is that we never observe them directly.
Psychologists often measure motivation by observing what individuals do (initiation),
how they make choices (direction), noting the strength of their behavior (intensity) and
how long they engage in them (persistence).

5.1.1 Some Theories of Motivation

a) Drive Theories- Push theory of motivation

 According to drive theories, when we experience a drive, we are motivated to pursue actions
that will lead to drive reduction. A drives is an internal state of tension that motivates
(pushes) an organism to engage in activities that should reduce this tension.
 In general drive theories say the following: When an internal driving state is aroused, the
individual is pushed to engage in behavior which will lead to goal that reduces the intensity
of the driving state. In human beings, at least, reaching the appropriate goal, which reduces
the drive state, is pleasurable and satisfying.
 According to drive theories motivation is said to consist of
1. a driving state
2. the goal directed behavior initiated by the driving state.
3. the attainment of an appropriate goal and
4. the reduction of the driving state and subjective satisfaction and relief when the goal
is reached. After a time the driving state builds up again to push behavior toward the
appropriate goal. This sequence of events is sometimes called the motivational cycle.

b) Incentive Theories- Pull theory of motivation

 This theory suggests that motivation is not primarily a matter being pushed from within by
various urges; rather, it is more a question of being pulled from without by expectations of
attaining desired outcomes (incentives).
 Incentive theories appear to explain why many people engage in complex effortful or even
painful behaviors such as working many hours on their jobs, or studying long into the night.
 Incentive theory has been applied to many aspects of human motivation. Perhaps, though, it
has found its most important practical use with respect to work motivation- the tendency to
expend energy and effort on one’s job.

c) Opponent Process Theory

 The opponent process theory takes a hedonistic view of motivation. Basic to this theory is
the observation that many emotional-motivational states are followed by opposing, or
opposite states.
 Opponent process theory of motivation seeks to explain the motivation behind such
phenomena as drug addiction and the psychological and emotional reactions that occur
as a result of extremes of physical danger, as in skydiving.
 According to this theory, stimuli that first produce increases in arousal later produce an
opposite calming reaction in the nervous system, where as stimuli that first produce
decreases in arousal later produce an increase in arousal. Moreover, with each exposure
to a stimulus, the original response to the stimulus remains fairly stable or perhaps even
declines, while the opponent process- the reaction to the original response- tends to grow
in strength.
 In sum, opponent process theory helps explain why people hold strong motivation for
behavior that on the surface has few benefits. It is frequently the opponent process not the
initial reaction, which maintains the motivation to carry out such behavior.
d) Arousal theories/ optimal level theories/just right theories
 Arousal theories seek to explain behavior in which the goal is the maintenance of or an
increase in excitement. These theories say that there is a certain optimal or best level of
arousal that is pleasurable.
 According to arousal theory, each of us tries to maintain a certain level of stimulation
activity. As with the drive reduction model, if our stimulation and activity levels become
 too high, we try to reduce them. But the arousal model also suggests something quite
different from the drive reduction model: If the levels of stimulation and activity are too
low, we will try to increase them by seeking stimulation.
 Arousal theory has significant applications to a variety of fields. For example, students
who are highly anxious while taking tests on complex material may perform well below
their ability because of their high level of arousal.

d) Maslow’s Hierarchy: Motivational Needs

 Abraham Maslow, a prominent humanistic theorist, proposes that human motives are
organized into a hierarchy of needs, a systematic arrangement of needs according to
priority, which assumes that basic needs must be met before less basic needs are
aroused.
 Maslow’s model considers different motivational needs to be ordered in a hierarchy,
and it suggests that before more sophisticated, higher order needs can be met, certain
primary needs must be satisfied.
 The model can be conceptualized as a pyramid in which the more basic needs are at the
bottom and the higher levels needs are at the top.
 The most basic needs are those described as primary drives: needs for water, food,
sleep, sex and the like. In order to move up the hierarchy, the person must have these
basic physiological needs met.
 Safety needs come next in he hierarchy; Maslow suggests that people need a safe,
secure environment in order to function actively. Safety needs reflect concern about
long-term survival.
 Safety and security needs motivate adults to seek a stable job, to buy insurance, and to
put money in their savings accounts.
 Physiological and safety needs compose the lower order needs. Only when the basic
lower order needs are met can a person consider fulfilling higher order needs,
consisting of love and belongingness, esteem and self-actualization.
 Love and belongingness needs include the need to obtain and give affection and to be
a contributing member of some group or society. After these need are fulfilled the
person strives for esteem.
  In Maslow’s thinking esteem relates to the need to develop a sense of self worth by
knowing that others are aware of ones competence and value. People with esteem needs
become concerned about their achievement, and the recognition and the recognition
respect and status that they earn.

 Once these four sets of needs are fulfilled- no easy task- the person is ready to strive for
the higher level need, self-actualization.
 Self- actualization is a state of self-fulfillment in which people realize their highest
potential. The important thing in self-actualization is that people feel at ease with
themselves and satisfied that they are using their talents to the fullest.
 In a sense, reaching self-actualization produces a decline in the striving and yearning
for greater fulfillment that marks most people’s lives and instead provides a sense of
satisfaction with the current state of affairs.

5.1.2 Classification of Motives

 Motives can be divided into three major categories:
1. Primary / Biological /Physiological Motives
 Theses motives are, to a large extent, rooted in the physiological state of the body.
 Primary motives are innate in nature and must be met for survival.
 The most important primary motives include hunger, pain avoidance, a need for oxygen,
sleep, elimination of wastes, and regulation of body temperature.
 Many biological motives are triggered, in part, by departures from balanced physiological
conditions of the body. The body tends to maintain a state of equilibrium called homeostasis
in many of its internal physiological processes.
2. Stimulus Motives: Motives to know and to be effective
 These are motives to
o seek variety in stimulation,
o process information about the world around us,
o explore and to be effective in mastering challenges from the environment.
 The purpose of stimulus motives seems to be to provide the nervous system with useful
information and stimulation.
  The stimulus motives cause the individual to seek out sensory stimulation through
interaction with the environment. They include activity, curiosity, exploration,
manipulation, and physical contact.
 Because these motives are so persistent and seem to exist to one degree or another in
everyone they are often considered innate, part of the human species heritage. In a sense,
these motives are behind our greatest human accomplishments and also, unfortunately,
our greatest failure.
3. Social Motives
 Social motives are the complex motive states, or needs that are the sources of many human
actions.
 They are called social because they are learned in social groups, especially in the family as
children grow up and because they usually involve other people.
 These human motives can be looked upon as general states that lead to many particular
behaviours. Not only do they help to determine much of what a person does, they persist
never fully satisfied, over the years. No sooner is one goal reached than the motive is directed
toward another one.
 Thus, social motives are general persisting characteristics of a person, and since they are
learned, their strength differs greatly from one individual to another.
 Consequently, social motives are important components of personality.
 Many social motives have been proposed. Some of these include needs for achievement,
affiliation, power, approval, status, security, and aggression.

5.1.3 Frustration

 The term frustration refers to the blocking of any goal directed behaviour. If motives are
frustrated, or blocked, emotional feelings and behaviour often result. People who cannot
achieve their important goals feel depressed, fearful, anxious, guilty, or angry. Often they
are simply unable to derive ordinary pleasure from leaving.

5.1.3.1 Sources of Frustration

 Environmental forces: Environmental factors can frustrate the satisfaction of motives by
making it difficult or impossible for a person to attain a goal.
  Personal inadequacies: Setting unattainable goals can be important sources of
frustration. People are often frustrated because they aspire to goals- have a level of
aspiration- beyond their capacity to perform.
 Conflict of motives: Conflict exists whenever a person has incompatible or opposing
goals. The frustration comes from being unable to satisfy all the goals. Whatever goal the
person decides to satisfy, there will be frustration, most likely preceded by turmoil,
doubt, and vacillation.
 Of the three general sources of frustration described above the one that often produces the
most persistent and deep-seated frustration in many individuals is motivational conflict.
There are about four basic kinds of motivational conflicts.
1. Approach- Approach Conflict
 Occurs when one is simultaneously/ equally attracted to two or more desirable goals/
outcomes.
 Generally, such conflicts cause little distress and are easily resolved. The reason is that
although we must choose one alternative now, we can often obtain the other at a later time.
2. Avoidance- Avoidance Conflict:
 This conflict occurs when we are motivated to avoid each of two (or more) equally
unattractive choices, but must choose one.
 Avoidance- avoidance conflicts tend to involve a great deal of vacillation and hesitation.
Moving closer to one of the unattractive choices increases our discomfort and leads us to
retreat. This retreat brings us closer to the other unattractive alternative, and we retreat in the
opposite direction.
3. Approach avoidance conflict
 This kind of conflict occurs when a person is motivated to both approach and avoid the same
goal.
 In these kinds of conflicts both attraction and repulsion are typically strongest when you are
nearest the goal.
 The closer you are to something appealing, the stronger your desire to approach it; the closer
you are to something unpleasant, the stronger your desire to flee.
 As with avoidance-avoidance conflicts, vacillation is common in these conflicts. Often
however the negative valence is not repellent enough to stop the approach behaviour.
 In such cases people reach the goal but much more slowly and hesitantly than they would
have without the negative valence; until the goal is reached there is frustration.
 Even after the goal is reached, an individual may feel uneasy because of the negative valence
attached to it.
 Wherever a person is frustrated by not reaching it at all, emotional reactions such as fear,
anger, and resentment commonly accompany approach avoidance conflicts.

4.Multiple approach-avoidance conflicts

 Such conflicts are the ones we most often face in life. These involve situations in which
several options exist, with each one containing both positive and negative elements.
 Not surprisingly these are the hardest to resolve and the most stressful.

5.2. EMOTION AND STRESS

5.2.1. Emotion

 Defining an emotion is not an easy task. It almost seems as if there are as many
definitions of emotions as there are writers on the subject. There is general agreement
among scientists who have studied emotions, however, that they involve three major
components:

1. Physiological components- This refers to internal bodily changes associated with emotions.
Examples include shifts in heart rate, blood pressure, breathing digestion etc.
2. Subjective Experience – This involves the personal experience we label as emotions. It is
what it feels like to be angry, sad, happy or elated.
3. Emotional Expression – This refers to outward signs internal bodily reactions. That is, the
ways in which emotions are expressed in language, facial expression and gestures etc.
 Emotions are personal. No one can truly share our subjective experiences. Yet we are able to
recognize the presence of various emotions in others, and we are able to communicate our
own feelings to them as well. This occurs because of the presence of nonverbal cues-out-
ward, observable signs of others’ internal emotional states.
 Several decades of research on nonverbal cues suggests that this kind of communication
occurs through several basic channels or paths simultaneously. The most revealing of these
consists of facial expressions, eye-contact, body movements and posture, and touching.
Facial expressions

 One of the main ways of showing emotions is through facial expression. It is possible to
learn much about others’ current moods and feelings from their facial expressions. That
is, moods and feelings are often reflected in the face and can be read there from specific
expressions. Facial expression is a valuable source of feedback to a speaker and can
indicate that others are interested and listening
  It appears that there are six different emotions, which are clearly represented on the face.
These are anger, fear, sadness, disgust, happiness and surprise. Of course, this in now as
implies that we are capable of showing only six different facial expressions.
 Until recently, it was widely assumed that basic facial expressions such as those for
happiness, anger, or disgust are universal: they are recognized as indicating specific
emotions by persons all over the world.
 However, a recent review of the evidence on this issue (Russel, 1994) suggests that the
interpretation of facial expressions may be strongly influenced by cultural factors and that
recognition of them may not be as universal as was previously assumed.

Eye contact
 We do often learn much about others feelings from their eyes. For example, we
interpret a high level of gazing from another as a sign of liking or friendliness. In
contrast, if others avoid eye contact with us, we may conclude that they are
unfriendly, don’t like us, or are shy.
 While a high level of eye contact from others is usually interpreted as a sign of
liking or positive feelings, there is one important exception to this general rule. If
another person gazes at us continuously and maintains such contact regardless of
any actions we perform, she/he can be said to be staring. Staring is often
interpreted as a sign of anger or hostility.
Body Language
 Our current mood or emotion is often reflected in the gesture, posture,
position, and movement of our body. Together, such non-verbal behaviors are
termed as Body Language.
 Gestures tell us a great deal about the emotional state of the other person. For
example a nervous interviewee may wring the hands, fidget the fingers by
fiddling with objects or hair, wriggle or curl the toes- such involuntary
gestures leakage because the true feeling leak out at the edges. Embarrassment
is shown by a hand over the mouth, anger by clenched hands, and shame by
covering the eyes.
 When we like someone we tend to use more open gestures than when we do
not. Open gestures are those which do not create barriers between us and
others. Thus crossed arms and crossed legs signal that we are unsure/uneasy/
defensive/ do not like the other person, and are called closed gestures.
 In addition, body posture, the way in which we sit or stand is a good indicator
of the way we feel. For example a drooping body posture can show that a
person is very depressed, while a taut, upright position might show extreme
anxiety.
Touching
 The amount and type of touch which is acceptable varies according to sex and
society. But, in general growing evidence indicates that when one person
touches another in a manner that is considered acceptable in the current
context, positive reactions generally result.

3.4. Some Theories of Emotion
James – Lange Theories (William James and Carl Lange)
 This theory suggests that subjective emotional experiences are actually the result of
physiological changes within our bodies (internal changes in the autonomic nervous system
or movements of the body. You feel frightened for instance, when making a public speech
because you notice that your heart is racing, your mouth is dry and soon.

Cannon – Bard Theory (Walter Cannon and Philip Bard)

 This theory suggests that various emotion provoking events induce simultaneously the
subjective experiences we label as emotions and the physiological reactions that accompany
them.
 In contrast with the James – Lange theory, this theory holds that bodily reactions and the felt
emotion are independent of each other in the sense that bodily reactions are not the basis of
the felt emotion.

Schachter – Singer Theory (Stanley Schachter & Jerome Singer)

 According to this view, emotion-provoking events produce increased arousal. In response to
feelings of arousal, we search the external environment in order to identify the causes of such
feelings. The causes we then select play a key role in determining the label we place on our
arousal, and so in determining the emotion we experience.
 If we feel aroused after a near-miss in traffic, we’ll probably label our emotion as ‘fear’ or
perhaps “ anger” If, instead awe feel aroused in the presence of an attractive person, we may
label our arousal as “attraction” or “love”
 In short, this theory holds that the emotion we feel is due to our interpretation of an aroused
or “stirred up “bodily state.

Lazarus Theory
 Lazarus Theory states that a thought must come before any emotion or physiological arousal.  In
other words, you must first think about your situation before you can experience an emotion.
 
EXAMPLE:  You are walking down a dark alley late at night.  You hear footsteps behind you
and you think it may be a mugger so you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your
breathing deepens and at the same time experience fear.
 

 
Facial Feedback Theory
 
According to the facial feedback theory, emotion is the experience of changes in our facial
muscles.  In other words, when we smile, we then experience pleasure, or happiness.  When we
frown, we then experience sadness.  it is the changes in our facial muscles that cue our brains and
provide the basis of our emotions.  Just as there are an unlimited number of muscle
configurations in our face, so to are there a seemingly unlimited number of emotions.
 
EXAMPLE:  You are walking down a dark alley late at night.  You hear footsteps behind you
and your eyes widen, your teeth clench and your brain interprets these facial changes as the
expression of fear.  Therefore you experience the emotion of fear.

  
5.2.2 Stress and Coping
 Stress is an internal state, which can be caused by physical demands on the body (disease
conditions, exercise, extremes of temperature, and the like) or by environmental and social
situations, which are evaluated as potentially harmful, uncontrollable or exceeding our
resources for coping.
 It refers to a challenge to a person’s capacity to adapt to inner and outer demands, which may
be physiologically arousing and emotionally taxing and call for cognitive or behavioral
response.
 In other words, stress can be defined as any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to
threaten our well being and that there by tax our coping abilities.
 The threat may be to our immediate physical safety, our long-range security, our self-esteem,
our reputation, our peace of mind, or many other things that we value.
 The experience of feeling threatened depends on what events we notice and how we choose
to appraise and interpret them. Events that are stressful for one person may be routine for
another.
 Generally, the major factors that influence our subjective appraisals of potentially stressful
events are familiarity with the challenge, the controllability of the events, and the
predictability of the events.
 The less familiar you are with a potentially stressful event, the more threatened you are likely
to feel. In short, familiarity with a challenge can make yesterday’s crisis today’s routine.
Similarly, events are usually less stressful when we see them as being under our control. We
also prefer predictable stress over surprise packages.

Sources of Stress
 Stress is unavoidable part of life. Events that often lead to stress are called stressors.
Although they are not entirely independent, the four principal types of stressors are:-

1. Life changes
2. pressure
3. conflict of motives ( to be discussed under the chapter “Motivation”
4. frustration( to be discussed under the chapter “Motivation”
 1. Life changes/Life events
 Life changes are any noticeable alternations in one’s living circumstances that
require readjustment. One of the most significant sources of stress is change.
Virtually any event that requires someone to make a readjustment can be a
stressor. According to researchers, changes in personal relationships, changes at
work, so on can be stressful even when the changes are welcomed.
2. Pressure
 Pressure involves expectations or demands that one behave in a certain way.
Pressure can be divided into subtypes. You are under pressure to perform when
you are expected to execute tasks and responsibilities quickly, efficiently, and
successfully. Pressures to conform to other’s expectations are also common in
our lives. E.g. Military cadets are expected to adhere to their commanders.

Coping with Stress

 Coping consists of all things people do to control, tolerate or reduce the effects of
life is stressors-perceived threats, existing problems, or emotional losses. Is not
single strategy that applies to all circumstances The techniques people use change
over time and circumstance, depending on the nature of the stressor and the
particular situation.
 Researchers often distinguish three types of coping strategies:
1. Efforts to change the situation
 Efforts to cope by changing the situation typically involve problem solving. The individual
may try to remove the stressor, plan ways of resolving the situation, or seek advice or
assistance from others in changing the situation.
 People high in problem solving ability and who have a problem solving orientation (a
tendency to define potential problems as challenging and to confront them directly) tend to
report less stress and fewer psychological symptoms than other subjects.

2. Efforts to alter one’s cognition about the situation

 Coping by changing one’s cognition or appraisal of the situation often involves reframing an
event mentally to make it seem less threatening.
 This can be done through turning problems to challenges, loses to unexpected gains,
considering experiences as lessons, making social comparisons.

3. Efforts to alter the unpleasant emotional consequences of the stress.

 A third way people cope with stressful situations is by trying to relive the associated
emotional state.
 This can be done through relaxation, body massage, and physical exercise
 5. Personality

 Personality refers to a distinctive pattern of behavior (thoughts, motives and emotions)

that characterizes an individual’s adaptation to the situations of his or her life. It includes
the behavior patterns a person shows across situations or the psychological characteristics
of the person that lead to those behavior patterns.
  The term personality is used in two different, but related ways. On the one hand
personality refers to the characteristics that differentiate people- those behaviors that
make an individual unique.
 On the other hand, personality is used as a means of explaining the stability in people’s
behavior that leads them to act uniformly both in different situations and over extended
periods of time.
 Personality has been studied in a number of different ways. Some have developed broad
theories to explain the origins and make up of personality. Others have focused only on
one or two issues, such as the influence of heredity on personality.
 The first approach, theory construction was popular for many years. As a result, we have
many personality theories. Most of these broad theories can be grouped into the following
four categories:

6.1 Type and trait Theories

 Type and trait theories of personality both focus on people’s personal characteristics.
However, various type theorists and trait theorists differ in the ways they use those
characteristics to describe people.
 Type Theories: Classifying people into types is one device many of us use to try to
make sense out of others’ behavior and to anticipate how they will act in the future.
 One of the first type theories that we know of was proposed about 400 B.C by
Hippocrates. He grouped people into four temperament types: Sanguine- cheerful,
vigorous, and confidently optimistic; Melancholic- depressed, morose; Choleric- hot-
tempered, and Phlegamitic- slow moving, calm, unexcitable.
 Since the time of Hippocrates, countless other ways of grouping people into types have
been tried. The groupings or sets of types are called Typologies.
 Trait theories: If someone were to ask you to characterize another person, it is
probable that you would come up with a list of that individual’s personal qualities, as
you see them. But how would you know which of these qualities were most
important in determining the person’s behavior?
 Personality psychologists have asked similar questions themselves. In order to answer
them, they have developed a sophisticated model of personality known as Trait
 Theory. Traits are enduring dimensions of personality characteristics along which
people differ.
 Trait theorists do not assume that some people have a trait and others do not; rather
they propose that all people have certain traits, but that the degree to which the trait
applies to specific person varies and can be quantified.
 For instance, you might be relatively friendly, where as I might be relatively unfriendly.
But, we both have a “friendliness” trait, although you would be quantified with a higher
score and I with a lower one.
 The major challenge for trait theorists taking this approach has been to identify the
specific primary traits necessary to describe personality.

6.2. Dynamic Personality Theories

 Involve a search for the process by which needs, motives and impulses- often hidden
from view- interact to produce the individual’s behavior.
 According to these groups of personality theories, our behavior is triggered largely by
powerful forces within personality of which we are not aware.
 These hidden forces, shaped by childhood experiences, play an important role in
energizing and directing our everyday behavior.
 The most important theorist to hold such a view and indeed one of the best-known figures
in all psychology is Sigmund Freud. He is the originator of the theory called
psychoanalytic theory in the early 1900s.

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory

 This is the first systematic and comprehensive theory of personality. It attempts to
explain personality, motivation, and psychological disorders by focusing on the influence
of early childhood experiences, unconscious motives and motives and how people
cope with their sexual and aggressive urges.
 Freud’s psychoanalytic theory has three major parts:
1. A theory of the structure of personality
2. A theory of personality dynamics
3. A theory of psychosexual development
Structure of Personality
 To describe the structure of personality, Freud developed a comprehensive theory, which
held that personality consisted of three separate, but interacting components: the id, the
ego, and the super ego.
 Although Freud described these in very concrete terms, it is important to realize that they
are not actual physical structures found in certain part of the brain. Instead, they represent
aspects of general model of personality that describes the interaction of various processes
and forces with in one’s personality that motivate behavior.
 The id: The id is the raw unorganized, inherited part of personality whose sole purpose is
to reduce tension created by primitive drives related to hunger, sex, aggression, and
irrational impulses. These drives are fueled by “psychic energy” or libido, as Freud
called it.
 The id operates according to the pleasure principle, in which the goal is the immediate
reduction of tension and the maximization of satisfaction.
 Unfortunately for the id- but luckily for people and society-reality prevents the demands
of the pleasure principle form being fulfilled in most cases. Instead, the world produces
constraints: we cannot always eat when we are hungry, and we can discharge our sexual
drives only when time, place-and-partner- are willing.
 To account for this fact of life, Freud suggested a second part of a personality, which he
called the ego.
 The Ego: The ego provides a buffer between the id and the realities of the objective,
outside world. In contrast to the pleasure seeking nature of the id, the ego operates
according to the reality principle, in which instinctual energy is restrained in order to
maintain the safety of the individual and helps integrate the person into society.
 In a sense, then, the ego is the “executive” of personality: It makes decisions, controls
actions, and allows thinking and problem solving of higher order than the id is capable of.
 The ego is also the seat of higher cognitive abilities such as intelligence, thoughtfulness,
reasoning, and learning.
 The superego: the final personality structure to develop represents the rights and wrongs
of society as handed down by a person’s parents, teachers and other important figures.
 It becomes part of personality when children learn right from wrong and continues to
develop as people begin to incorporate into their own standards the broad moral
principles of the society in which they live.
 The super ego actually has two parts, the conscience and the ego ideal. The conscience
prevents us from doing morally bad things, while the ego ideal motivates us to do what
is morally proper.
 The super ego helps to control impulses coming from the id, making them less selfish and
more virtuous.
Personality Dynamics and Levels of Consciousness
 Freud did not intend to divide personality into three separate components but rather to
convey a lively, ongoing interplay among the id, the ego and the super ego. In this
interplay Freud saw the ego acting as a sort of mediator between the id-with its blind
demands for instant gratification- and the superego-with its rigid, often irrational rules,
prohibitions and ideals. The ego’s task of satisfying both id and super ego requires a
somewhat risky balancing act. The ego’s task often involves finding a compromise
between the instinctual gratification sought by the id and the strict rule- following sought
by the superego.
 Thus, Freud’s general notion that our behavior s influenced by biological drives (id),
social rules (super ego), and mediating thought processes (ego) may not seem farfetched.
However, his heavy emphasis on the primitive, sexual nature of human drives and energy
(libido) helped make his theory very controversial.
 Less controversial but equally novel was Freud’s notion of unconscious processes. He
used this concept to explain why people often act in ways that seem irrational.
 Freud proposed three levels of consciousness, awareness: the conscious, the
preconscious, and the unconscious.
 At the conscious level, we are aware of the certain things around us and of certain
thoughts. At the preconscious level are memories or thoughts that are easily available
with a moment’s reflection.
 In contrast, the unconscious contains memories, thoughts, and motives, which we cannot
easily call up. Many of life’s experiences are painful, and the unconscious provides a
“safe” haven for our recollection f such events, a place where they can remain without
 continually disturbing us. Similarly, the unconscious contains instinctual drives: infantile
wishes, desires, demands, and needs that are hidden from conscious awareness because of
the conflicts and pain them would cause us if they were part of our everyday lives.
 The entire id is unconscious; the ego and the superego include material at all three levels
of consciousness.
Psychosexual Stages of Development
 Freud strongly believed that if people look at the development of their behavior, they
could gain insight into their current behavior.
 This belief led him to an elaborate stage theory of personality development. According to
him the first five years of life have a decisive effect on the development of the adult
personality.
 Freud put a heavy emphasis on biological development in general and on sexual
development in particular. Freud’s idea was that from birth on we have an innate
tendency to seek pleasure, especially through physical stimulation and particularly
through stimulation of parts of the body that are sensitive to touch: the mouth, the anus,
and genitals. Freud called these parts of the Erogenous Zones.
 Freud argued that all people pass through five critical stages of personality development.
 What is especially noteworthy about the stages is that they it suggests how experiences
and difficulties during a particular childhood stage may predict specific sorts of
idiosyncrasies in adult personality. The theory is also unique in focusing each stage on a
major biological function, which is assumed to be the focus of pleasure in a given period.
 We turn now to a description of theses stages of personality called psychosexual stages.
The Oral Stage (12-18 months)
 In this first period of development the baby’s mouth is the focal point of pleasure. The
infant at this stage interacts with the world mainly through eating.
 Infants at this stage suck, mouth and bite anything that will fit into their mouth.
 To Freud this behavior suggested that the mouth was the primary site of a kind of sexual
pleasure, and if infants either overly indulged or frustrated in their search for oral
gratification, they might become fixated at this stage.
 Fixation refers to an unresolved conflict or emotional hang-up caused by overindulgence
or frustration. Displaying fixation means that an adult shows personality characteristics
that are related to an earlier stage of development.
 For example fixation at the oral stage might produce an adult who was an usually
interested in overtly oral activities- eating, talking, smoking- or who showed symbolic
forms of oral interests: being “bitingly” sarcastic or being very gullible (“swallowing”
anything).
The Anal Stage (12-18 until 3 years of age)
 This stage occurs when parents are toilet training their children and teaching them to
avoid prohibited behavior connected with excretion.
 At this point, the major source of pleasure changes from the mouth to the anal region, and
children derive considerable pleasure from both retention and expulsion of feces.
 If toilet training is particularly demanding, the result may be fixation. If fixation occurs
during the anal stage, Freud suggested that adults might show unusual rigidity,
orderliness, punctuality- or extreme disorderliness or sloppiness (carelessness,
negligence).
Phallic Stage (about age 3)
 This time, interest focuses on the genitals and the pleasures derived from fondling them.
During this stage pleasure, presumably, comes from masturbation, sex play, and other
genital stimulation.
 This is a stage of one the most important points of personality development, according to
Freudian Theory, the Oedipal Conflict.
 As children focuses their attention on their genitals, the differences between female and
male anatomy become more salient. Furthermore, at this time Freud believed that the
male begins to develop sexual interests in his mother, starts to see his father as a rival,
and harbors a wish to kill his father.
 But he views his father as too powerful; he develops a fear of retaliation in the form of
“castration Anxiety.” Ultimately, the fear becomes so powerful that the child represses
his desires for his mother and instead chooses identification with his father, trying
to be as much like him as possible.
  For girls, the process is different. Freud reasoned that girls begin to feel sexual arousal
toward their fathers and that they begin to experience Penis Envy. They wish they had
the anatomical part that seemed most clearly “missing” in girls.
 Blaming their mothers for lack of a penis, they come to believe that their mothers are
responsible for their castration.
 As with males though they find that in order to resolve such unacceptable feelings, they
must identify with the same sex parent by behaving like her and adopting her attitudes
and values.
 If difficulties arise during this period, all sorts of problems thought to occur including
improper sex-role behavior, and the failure to develop a conscience.
Latency Stage (around age 5 or 6)
 During this period, little of interest is occurring; sexual concerns are more or less put to
rest, even in the unconscious. As the child learns more about the world, sexuality is
largely repressed and the ego expands.
Genital Stage
 During adolescence sexual feelings reemerge, marking the start of the final period, the
genital stage that extends until death.
 The focus in the genital stage is on mature, adult sexuality, which Freud defined as
sexual intercourse.

Defense Mechanisms
 Defense mechanisms are normal coping processes that distort reality in the process of
reducing anxiety. They are unconscious strategies people use to reduce anxiety by
concealing the source from themselves and others.
 People use defense mechanisms to reduce their anxiety and guilt. Psychoanalytic theory
holds that because the id’s unconscious demands are instinctual, infantile and amoral
they must often be blocked by the ego and the superego. Because of this conflict and the
persistence of unsatisfied demands, anxiety (vague fearfulness) and guilt are aroused.
 The person then seeks way to protect the ego from this anxiety by setting up defenses.
Freud described several defense mechanisms by which the ego disguises, redirects,
 hides, and otherwise copes with the id’s urges. The dynamic theorists who followed
Freud have added others.
 Many psychologists do not agree with Freud’s view that defense mechanisms originate
in conflicts among the id, ego, and superego. However, many do agree that these
mechanisms account for some of the ways people cope with their problems.
 Thus, defense mechanisms- an intellectual bequest from the dynamic theories- are
generally accepted as a useful way of looking at how people handle stressful situations
and conflicts.
 In this section we’ll try to see some of these mechanisms.
 Repression: Repression is an active mental process by which a person “forgets” by
“pushing down” into the unconscious any thoughts that arouse anxiety. “We forget and
then forget that we forgot.”
 Regression: In the face a threat, one may retreat to an earlier pattern of adaptation,
possibly a childish or primitive one. This is called regression. That is people using
regression behave as if they were an earlier stage of development.
 Reaction Formation: Reversal of motives is another method by which people attempt
to cope with conflict. A motive that would arose unbearable anxiety if it were recognized
is converted into its opposite.
 Projection: Blaming others or projection is a way of coping with ones unwanted
motives by shifting onto someone else. The anxiety arising from the internal conflict can
then be lessened and the problem dealt with as though it were in the external world.
 Rationalization: This defense mechanism substitutes an acceptable conscious motive
for unacceptable unconscious one. Put another way, “we make excuses” giving a
reason different from the real one for what we are doing. Rationalization is not lying we
believe our explanations.
 Intellectualization: Related to rationalization is intellectualization, which involves
reasoning. In intellectualization, however, the intensity of the anxiety is reduced by
retreat into detached, unemotional, abstract language.
 Displacement: In displacement, the motive remains unaltered, but the person substitutes
a different goal object for the original one. Often the motive is aggression that for some
reason, the person cannot vent on the source of the anger.
 Sublimation: Sublimation consists of a redirection of sexual impulses to socially valued
activities and goals.

6.3 Learning Approaches

 Learning approaches to personality focus on the outer person. According to strict learning
theorists, personality is simply the sum of learned responses to the external
environment.
 Internal events such as thoughts, feelings and motivations are ignored; though there
existence is not denied, learning theorists say that personality is best understood by
looking at features of a person’s environment.
B.F Skinner’s learning theory of personality
 According to the most influential of the learning theorists B.F. Skinner, personality is a
collection of learned behavior patterns. Similarities in response across different situations
are caused by similar patterns of reinforcement that have been received in such situations
in the past.
 Strict learning theorists such as Skinner are less interested in the consistencies in
behavior across situations, however, than in ways of modifying behavior. Their view is
that human beings are infinitely changeable.
 If one is able to control and modify the patterns of reinforcers in a situation, behavior that
other theorists view as stable and unyielding can be changed and ultimately improved.
 Learning theorists are optimistic in their attitudes about the potential for resolving
personal and societal problems through treatment strategies based on learning theory.
Social Learning Theories of Personality
 Not all learning theories of personality take such a strict view in rejecting the importance
of what is “inside” the person by focusing on solely on the “outside.”
 Unlike other learning theories of personality, social learning theory emphasizes the
influence of a person’s cognitions- their thoughts, feelings, expectations, and values- in
determining personality.
 According to Albert Bandura, the main proponent of this point of view, people are able
to foresee the possible outcome of certain outcomes in a given setting without actually
 having to carry them out. This takes place mainly through the mechanism of
observational learning- viewing the actions of others and viewing the consequences.
 Bandura places particular emphasis on the role-played by self-efficacy, learned
expectations regarding success, in determining the behavior we display. Self- efficacy
underlies people’s faith in their ability to carry out behavior; regardless of how successful
they have been in the past or what barriers currently lie in their paths. The greater the
person’s sense of self- efficacy, the more likely it is that success will take place.
 Compared with other learning explanations of personality, social learning theories are
distinctive in the emphasis they place on the reciprocity between individuals and their
environment. Not only is the environment assumed to affect personality, but also
people’s behavior and personalities are assumed to “feed back” and modify the
environment-, which in turn affects behavior in a web or reciprocity.
 In fact, Bandura has suggested that reciprocal determinism is the key to understanding
behavior. In reciprocal determinism, it is the interaction of environment, behavior, and
individual that ultimately causes people to behave in the ways that they do.

6.4 Humanistic Theories of Personality

 The term “ humanistic psychology” was coined by Abraham Maslow to describe a
position that focuses on the creative potentialities inherent in human beings and that
seeks ways to help them realize their highest and most important goals. Virtually all of
the humanistic theories postulate the existence of an innate growth mechanism with in
individuals that will move them toward realization of their potentialities if environmental
conditions are right. This growth process has been variously labeled by its numerous
proponents as the drive toward self-actualization, self-realization or self-hood.
 The roots of the humanistic movement can be found in the writings of Jung, Adler,
Horney, Kohut, Allport, Maslow, Rogers, May, and others. These theorists emphasize the
uniqueness of individuals and believe that all individuals should be free to make their
own choices about the direction they want to take in their own lives.
 People should be allowed to organize and control their own behavior; they should not be
controlled by society. Society is generally seen as the “bad guy”- the enforcer of rules
and regulations that stifle personal growth.
 According to the humanists, a benevolent, helpful attitude toward people enables them to
grow and prosper. Most societies, they believe, by their very nature coerce individuals
into behaving appropriately- that is, normally. The result is rather dull, conventional
people who usually obey, without much question, the moral prescriptions of the majority.
In other words, the result is the average, law-abiding man or woman.
 The humanistic psychologists argue, instead, for allowing individuals to develop their
fullest potential. They see people as naturally striving to be creative and happy rather
than mediocre and conventional. Of course, the assumption that what is mediocre and
what is conventional is open to question, especially in a society that encourages people to
strive for excellence.
 Another assumption underlying many of the humanist positions is that the universal set of
values can be specified that will provide people with a moral anchor so that they can
decide what is right or wrong and good or bad. Such a set of values, rooted in biology,
would allow people to make moral decisions by looking inside themselves, instead of
relying on the judgments of society.
 Yet philosophers or psychologists have never been able to agree on a universal set of
values, although numerous attempts to devise such a list have occurred.
 In general, according to the humanistic theorists, all of the theories of personality that we
have previously discussed share a fundamental misperception in their views of human
nature.
 Instead of seeing people as controlled by unconscious, unseen forces (as does
psychoanalytic theory), a set of stable traits (trait theory), or situational reinforcements
and punishments (learning theory), humanistic theory emphasizes people’s goodness
and their tendency to grow to higher levels of functioning.
 It is this conscious, self-motivated ability to change and improve, along with people’s
unique creative impulses that makes up the core personality.
 The major representative of the humanistic point of view is Carl Rogers. Rogers suggests
that people have a need for positive regard that reflects a universal requirement to be love
and respected. Because others provide this positive regard, we grow dependent on them.
We begin to see and judge ourselves through the eyes of other people, relying on their
values.
  According to Rogers one outgrowth of placing importance on the values of others is that
there is often some degree of mismatch between a person’s experiences and his or her
self-concept, or self-impression. If he discrepancy is minor, so are the consequences. But,
if it is great, it will lead to psychological disturbances in daily functioning, such as the
experience of frequent anxiety.
 Rogers suggests that one way of overcoming the discrepancy between experience and self
–concept is through the recipient of unconditional positive regard from another person – a
friend, a spouse or a therapist.
 Unconditional positive regard refers to an attitude of acceptance and respect the part of
an observer, no matter what a person says or does. This acceptance says Rogers, allows
people the opportunity to evolve and grow both cognitively and emotionally, as they are
able to develop more realistic self-concepts.
 To Rogers and other humanist personality theorists, an ultimate goal of personality is
self-actualization. Self- actualization is a state of self-fulfillment in which people realize
their highest potential.
 This, Rogers would argue, occurs when their experience with the world and their self-
concept are closely matched. People who are self-actualized accept themselves as they
are in reality, which enables them to achieve happiness and fulfillment.

Maslow’s Self-actualization Theory

 Maslow believed that each person has an essential nature that “presses” to emerge, like
the “press” within an acorn to become an oak tree.
 Maslow laid the groundwork for his theory of self-actualization by assuming that in each
of us is an intrinsic nature that is good or at least neutral. Because this inner nature is
good or neutral, he argued, encouraging its development enables individuals to maximize
their potential. Healthy development is likely, however, only in a society that “ offers all
[the] necessary raw materials and then gets out of the way and stands aside to let the …
organism itself utter its wishes and demands and make its choices.”
 If the environment is restrictive and minimizes personal choice, the individual is likely to
develop in neurotic ways, because this inner nature is weak, and subject to control by
 environmental forces. Maslow believed that our inner nature, though weak, remains and
continuously presses toward actualization
 In his view we all have higher-level growth needs-such as the need for self actualization
and understanding of ourselves- but these higher needs only assume a dominant role in
our lives after our more primitive needs (physiological needs, safety needs, needs for
love and “belongingness” and self-esteem needs are satisfied.
 Maslow directed most of his attention to establishing a psychology of personal growth
and creative striving, and he studied the behavior of psychologically healthy people in
order to learn more about the growth process.
 Maslow posited a universal stage emergent theory of personal development, in which the
individual must satisfy, at least to a certain extent, the lower needs before higher ones
can become operative.
 The emergence or nonemergence of the stages depends on a considerable degree on the
environment. Environments that threaten the individual and do no allow for the
satisfaction of basic needs are detrimental to growth, whereas environments that support
and gratify these needs promote growth toward self-actualization.
 In Maslow’s view, environment is crucial in the early stages of development when
people are struggling to gratify basic needs. The needs for safety, love and belongingness
all depend on the cooperation of other people for gratification.
 Later on, as the higher needs emerge, people become, less dependent on the environment
on the environment and on rewards or approval from others.
 They rely increasingly on their own their to guide behavior- and on their inner nature,
capacities, potentialities, talents and creative impulses.

7. Social Psychology

 We spend much of our lives in the presence of other people, with whom we interact in a
variety of ways and in different settings.
  Social psychologists study the way we affect and are influenced by other people, both in
groups and in intimate relationships.
 Social psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the way individuals’
thoughts; feelings and behaviors are influenced by others.
 This focus covers a wide range of possible interests. For example, it includes the study of
the ways in which we perceive other people and how those perceptions affect our
behavior toward them. Similarly, it involves concerted efforts to understand the
determinants of interpersonal influences and of attitude change. Thus, social
psychologists might study how perceptual stereotypes affect interactions or how the
decisions of a committee member are influenced by what others on the committee do or
say. Sometimes the interest is on the mutual influence exerted by individuals in close
relationships, such as marriage.
Social Cognition: Understanding Others
 One of the most dominant areas of study in social psychology during the last few years
has focused on learning how we come to understand what others are like and how we
explain the reasons underlying others’ behavior.

Understanding what others are like

 Consider for a moment the enormous amount of information about other people to which
we are exposed. How are we able to decide what is important and what is not, and to
make judgments about the characteristics of others?
 Social psychologists interested in this question study social cognition- the processes that
underlie our understanding of the social world. They have learned that individuals have
highly developed schemas, sets of cognitions about people and social experiences.
These schemas organize information stored in memory; represent in our minds the way
the social world operates; and give us a frame work to categorize and interpret
information relating to social stimuli.
 We typically hold schemas for particular types of people in our environments. Our
schema for “teacher,” for instance, generally consists of a number of characteristics:
knowledge of the subject matter she/he is teaching, a desire to impart such knowledge,
and an awareness of the student’s need to understand what is being said.

Impression Formation
 The earliest work on social cognition was designed to examine impression formation, the
process by which information about others is converted into more or less enduring
cognitions or thoughts about them.

Attribution Processes: Understanding the causes of behavior

 Most of us have, at one time or another, puzzled over the reasons behind someone’s
behavior.
 In contrast to work on social cognition, which describes how people develop an overall
impressions about others personality traits, attribution theory seeks to explain how we
decide, on the basis of samples of an individuals behavior, what the specific causes of
that person’s behavior are.
  When trying to understand the causes underlying the given behavior, individuals typically
try first to determine whether the cause is situational or dispositional.
 Situational causes are those brought about by something in the environment. For
instance, someone who knocks over a quart of milk and then cleans it up is probably
doing so not because he or she is necessarily a terribly neat person, but the situation is
one that requires it.
 In contrast, a person who spends ours shining the kitchen floor is probably doing so
because he or she is a neat person- hence, the behavior has a Dispositional cause,
prompted by the person’s disposition (his or her internal traits or personality
characteristics).
 In general, an attributional pattern that overemphasizes the importance of external
causes is maladaptive for it reduces people’s sense of personal responsibility for
success or failure. But, when attributions are based on internal factors, they suggest that a
change in behavior- such as increased effort- can bring about a change in success.

Social Influence
 Social influence is the area of social psychology that considers situations in which the
actions of an individual (or a group) affect the behavior of others. We’ll consider three
major types of social influence: conformity, compliance, and obedience.
Conformity: Following what others do
 Conformity is a change in behavior or attitudes brought about by a desire to follow the
beliefs or standards of other people.
 Among the most variables producing conformity are the following.
1. The characteristics of the group. The more attractive the group is to its
members, the greater its ability to produce conformity. The lower the status-
the social rank held with in a group- of a person and the greater the similarity
of the individual to the group, the greater is the power of the group over the
individuals behavior.
2. The nature of the individual’s response. Conformity is considerably higher
when people must make a response publicly than when they can respond
privately.
3. The kind of task. People working on tasks and questions that are ambiguous
(having no clear answer) are more susceptible to social pressure. Moreover,
tasks at which an individual is less competent relative to the group create
conditions in which conformity is more likely.
4. Unanimity of the group. Conformity pressures are more pronounced in
groups that are unanimous in their support of a position.
Compliance: Submitting to direct social pressure
 When we discuss conformity, we are usually talking about a phenomenon in which the
social pressure is not in the form of direct order. But, in some situations social pressure is
much more obvious, and there is direct, explicit pressure to endorse a particular point
of view or behave in a certain way.
 Social psychologists call the type of behavior that occurs in response to direct social
pressure Compliance.
The foot- in- the door: when a small request leads to a larger one
 According to this technique, you first ask a person agree to a small request and later ask
the person to comply with a more important one. It turns out that compliance with the
ultimate request increases significantly when the person first agrees to the smaller favor.
The door- in- the- face Technique: Where a large request leads to a smaller one
 In this technique a large request, refusal of which is expected, is followed by a smaller
one. The use of this technique is wide spread in everyday life. You may have used it at
some point yourself, perhaps by asking your parents for a very large increase in your
allowance and later settling for less.
Low-balling
 In low-balling an agreement is reached, but then the seller reveals additional costs.
That is not all technique
 In this procedure, you are offered a deal in an inflated price. But immediately
following the initial offer, the salesperson offers an incentive, bonus, to clinch the deal.
In one study, the experimenters set up a booth and sold cupcakes for 75 cents each. In
one condition, customers were told directly that the price was 75 cents. But, in another
condition, they were told the price was $1.00, but had been reduced to 75 cents. As the
that’s- not- all technique would predict, more cupcakes were sold at the reduced price-
even though it was identical to the cost in the other experimental condition.
 The not so free sample: If you are ever given a free sample, keep in mind that it comes
with a psychological cost. Although they may not catch it in these terms, salespeople
who provide samples to potential customers do so in order to instigate the norm of
reciprocity. The norm of reciprocity is the well-accepted societal standard dictating
that we should treat other people as they treat us.
 Recipient of free sample, then, suggests the need for reciprocation- in the form of a sale
of course.

Obedience: Obeying direct orders

 Compliance techniques provide a means by which people are gently led toward
agreement with another person’s request.
 In some cases, however, requests are geared toward producing obedience, a change in
behavior that is due to the commands of others. Although obedience is
considerably less common than conformity and compliance, it does occur in
several specific kinds of relationships. For example, we may show obedience to our
boss, teacher, or parent merely because of the power they hold to reward or
punish us.
Forming and Maintaining Attitudes
 Attitudes are learned predispositions to respond in a favorable or unfavorable manner
to a particular person or object.
 Social psychologists generally consider attitudes to follow the ABC model, which
suggests that an attitude has three components: affect, behavior, and cognition. The
affect component encompasses our positive or negative emotions about something-
how we feel about it.
 The behavior component consists of a predisposition or intention to act in a
particular manner that is relevant to our attitude.
 Finally, the cognition component refers to the beliefs and thoughts we hold about
the object of our attitude. For example someone’s attitude towards Aster Awoke
may consist of a positive emotion (the affect component), an intention to buy her
latest recording (the behavior component) and the belief that she is a good singer (the
cognition component).
 Every attitude has these three interrelated components, although they vary in terms of
which element predominates and in the nature of their relationships. All attitudes
however, develop according to the general principles that social psychologists have
discovered about their formation, maintenance, and change.
 Although people do not enter the world holding well-defined attitudes toward any
particular person or object, any one who had seen an infant smile at her parents
knows that at least certain attitudes develop quickly. Interestingly, some of the same
principles, which govern how attitudes are acquired and develop in the youngest of
children, continue to operate through out life.
 Classical Conditioning: Learning to like and learning to hate- People develop
associations between various objects and the emotional reactions that accompany
them.
 Operant Conditioning: Attitudes that are reinforced, either verbally or nonverbally
tend to be maintained. Conversely, a person who states an attitude that elicits ridicule
from others may modify or abandon the attitude. Vicarious learning, in which a
person learns something through the observation of others, can also account for
attitude development.
Persuasion: Attitude change
 Research has identified a number of factors that promote effective persuasion:
 Message Source: The individual who delivers a persuasive message has a major
impact on the effectiveness of that message. Communicators who are both physically
and socially attractive seem to produce greater attitude change.
 Moreover, the expertise and trustworthiness of a communicator are related to the
impact of a message- except in situations in which the communicator is believed to
have an ulterior motive.
 Characteristics of the message: It is not just who delivers a message but what the
message is like that affects attitude and behavior change.
 One-sided arguments- in which only the communicator’s side is presented- are
probably best if the communicator’s message is initially viewed favorably by the
audience.
 But, if the audience, receives a message an unpopular viewpoint, two-sided messages-
which includes both the communicator’s position and the one he or she is arguing
against- are more effective probably because they are seen as more precise and
thoughtful.
 In addition, fear producing messages are generally effective, although not always.
Fear appeals work best if they include precise recommendations for actions to avoid
danger.
 Characteristics of the recipient or target: The weight of research carried out on the
subject suggests that those who are of high intelligence are more resistant to
persuasion than those of lower intelligence.
 One factor that is important in determining whether a message is accepted is the type
of information carried out by the recipient.
 There are two routes to persuasion: central and peripheral. Central route
processing occurs when the recipient thoughtfully considers the issues and arguments
involved in the persuasion. Peripheral route processing, in contrast, occurs when the
recipient uses more easily understood information that requires less thought, such as
the nature of the source, or other information less central to the issue involved in the
message itself.
Interpersonal attraction and the development of relationships
 While perception and influence are always involved in our relationships with others,
social psychologists have studied a number of other factors, which help to determine the
formation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships.
 Why people are initially attracted to each other? What processes are involved in shaping
the nature of the relationships as they develop? The answers to these questions are the
focus of the next sections.

Interpersonal Attraction
 Why do you like some people more than others? The general answer is that we like
people to the extent that that our interaction with them are rewarding or
reinforcing.
 With this in mind, we can examine some of the specific factors that have been found to
affect the attraction one person feels for another, in each instance keeping alert to the role
of reinforcement.
 Proximity: One of the factors, which has been shown to affect the degree of attraction
one person feels for another is physical nearness, or proximity. If you live in a dormitory
or an apartment, consider the friends you made when you first moved in. Chances are you
became friendliest with those who lived geographically closest to you.
 Attitude similarity/ similarity: We tend to like those who are similar to us. Discovering
that others are similar in terms of attitudes, values, or traits promotes liking for them.
 One reason similarity increases the likelihood of interpersonal attraction is that we
assume that people with similar attitudes will evaluate us positively. Because there is a
strong reciprocity of liking effect (a tendency to like those who like us), knowing that
someone evaluates us positively will promote attraction to that person. In addition, we
assume that when we like someone else, that person likes us in return.
 Physical Attractiveness: People who are physically attractive are more popular than
those who are physically unattractive, if all other factors are equal.
 One of the remarkable things about physical attractiveness is the degree of consensus
about what constitutes beauty. People have clear and similar preferences regarding the
specific dimensions of facial configuration, which make a face attractive.
 Need Complementary: Some couples seem totally mismatched in terms of personality,
interests, and attitudes, yet are clearly quite captivated with one another.
 Social psychologists have explained that instances in which people are attracted to
dissimilar others by considering the needs that their partners fulfill. According to this
reasoning, we may be attracted to this reasoning; we may be attracted to those people
who fulfill the greatest number of needs for us. Thus a dominant person may seek
someone who is submissive and vice versa.
Aggression and Pro-social Behavior

Hurting Others: Aggression

 We need look no further than our daily paper or the nightly news to be bombarded with
examples of aggression, both on a social level (war, invasion, assassination, and
terrorism) and on an individual level (crime, child abuse, and the many petty cruelties
that humans are capable of inflicting on one another.
 Most social psychologists define aggression in terms of the intent and purpose of behind
the behavior. Aggression is intentional injury of or harm to another person.
Approaches explaining aggression:
- Instinct approaches- aggression is primarily the outcome of innate- or inborn-
urges. According to proponents of this approach human beings along with
members of other species, have a fighting instinct, which in earlier times ensured
protection of food supplies and weeded out of the weaker of the species.
- Frustration- Aggression approaches- Aggression as a reaction to frustration.
- Suppose you’ve been working on paper that is due for a class early the next
morning, and your word processor printer runs out of ink just before you can print
out the paper. You rush to the store to buy more ink, only to find the salesclerk
locking the door for the day. Even though the clerk can see you gesturing and
literally beginning him to open the door, he refuses, shrugging his shoulders and
pointing to a sign that says when the store will open the next day.
- At that moment the feeling you experience toward the salesclerk probably place
you on the verge of real aggression of some sort, and you probably are seething
inside.
 Observational Learning Theories: Learning to Hurt Others
 Do we learn to be aggressive? The observational learning (sometimes called social
learning) approach to aggression says we do.
 Taking an almost opposite view from the instinct, which focuses on the innate aspects of
aggression, observational learning theory emphasizes how social and environmental
conditions can teach individuals to be aggressive.
 Aggression is seen not as inevitable, but as learned response that can be understood in
terms of rewards and punishments.
 This approach has important implications for understanding the effects of aggression
observed in the media.
Helping Others: The brighter side of human nature
 Turning away from aggression, we move now to the opposite- and brighter- side of the
coin of human nature: helping behavior. Helping behavior or pro-social behavior as it is
more formally known, has been investigated under many different approaches, but the
question that psychologist have looked at most closely relates to bystander intervention
in emergency situations. What are the factors that lead someone to help a person in
need?
  One critical factor is the number of others present. When more than one-person bears
witness to an emergency situation, there can be a sense of diffusion or responsibility
among others.
 Diffusion of responsibility is a tendency for people to feel that responsibility for acting is
shared, or diffused, among those present.
 The more people that are present in an emergency, then, the less personally responsible
each individual feels-and there fore the less help is provided.
 Altruism: is helping behavior that is beneficial to others but clearly requires self-
sacrifice.

8. Abnormal Behavior
Meaning of Abnormal Behavior: Normal versus Abnormal
 There appears to be no simple ways of distinguishing abnormal behavior from normal
behavior. The two lie on a continuum and one often shades into the other.
 This difficulty in distinguishing normal from abnormal behavior has led to a diversity of
approaches for devising a precise, scientific definition of “abnormal behavior.”
 Over the years, in fact, the definitions of what constitutes normal and abnormal have taken a
number of twists. We examine next the four major approaches employed at one time or
another.
o Deviation from the average/cultural standards: Every society sets up standards for
its members to follow, and those who break the rules are considered deviant or
disturbed. Many of these rules are specific to a particular time or group. This
approach defines abnormality as deviation from the average- a statistical
definition. In order to determine abnormality, we simply observe what behaviors are
rare or infrequent in a given society or culture and label these deviations from the
norm as abnormal. Although such a definition may be appropriate in some instances,
its drawback is that some behaviors that are statistically rare clearly do not lend
themselves to classification as abnormal.
o Subjective Discomfort/Distress: One of the most useful definitions of abnormal
behavior concentrates on the psychological consequences of the behavior for the
individual. In this approach, behavior is considered abnormal if it produces a sense
of distress, anxiety, guilt or other negative feelings in an individual- if it is
harmful to others in some way. Some behavior is harmful to the individual- for
example a man who drinks so much that he cannot keep a job, and a student who is so
anxious that he cannot take exams. In other cases, the individual may report feeling
fine and may deny that anything is wrong, yet behave in ways that are disruptive or
dangerous to the community or out of touch with reality- as when a child set fires,
compulsive gambler losses the family savings or a woman hears voices telling her to
stalk a celebrity. I
o Impairment of Adaptive functioning: Most people are able to feed themselves,
hold a job, get along with others and in general live as productive members of
the society. Yet there are those who are unable to adjust to the demands of society or
function effectively. According to this approach, people who are unable to function
effectively and adapt to the demands of society are considered abnormal
 None of the approaches alone is broad enough to cover all instances of abnormal behavior,
and the division between normal and abnormal often remains indistinct, sometimes even to
trained professionals.
 Probably the best way to deal with this imprecision is not to consider abnormal and normal
behavior as absolute states. Rather they should be viewed as marking the two ends of a
continuum (or scale) of behavior, with completely normal functioning at one end and totally
abnormal behavior at the other. Obviously, behavior typically falls somewhere between
these two extremes.
 Because the difference between normal and abnormal behavior is indistinct, the issue of
when society should intervene and require treatment for people displaying abnormal behavior
is also ambiguous.
Classifying Abnormal Behavior: The ABCs of DSM
 Society has long placed labels on people displaying abnormal behavior. Unfortunately,
most of the time these labels have reflected intolerance, and they have been used with
little thought to what the label signifies.
 Providing appropriate and specific names and classifications for abnormal behavior has
presented a major challenge to psychologists. It is not too hard to understand why,
given the difficulties we discussed earlier in simply distinguishing normal from
abnormal behavior.
 Yet classification systems are necessary in order to able to describe and ultimately
understand abnormal behavior.
 Over the years many different classification systems have been used, varying in terms
of their utility and how universally they have been accepted by mental health workers.
 Today, however, one standard system, devised by the American Psychiatric
Association, has emerged and is employed by most professionals to classify abnormal
behavior.
 The classification system is known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV).
 The manual is primarily designed to help mental health workers recognize and
correctly identify (diagnose) specific disorders. Hence, hundreds of specific
disorders are described in the manual. The manual lists the symptoms of each
disorder, wherever possible, gives information about the typical age of onset,
predisposing factors, course of the disorder, prevalence of the disorder, sex ratio
of those affected, and cultural issues that might affect diagnosis.
 Another important feature of DSM-IV is that it classifies disorders along five axes,
rather than merely assigning them to a given category. Clinicians are encouraged to
evaluate each client according to five axes, or dimension:
1. The primary clinical problem (Axis I) –relates to the major disorders
themselves.
2. Ingrained aspects of the client’s personality that is likely to affect the
person’s ability to be treated (Axis II). It relates to maladaptive aspects
of personality that exert powerful effects on individual’s behavior and
lives.
3. Medical conditions that is relevant to the disorder (Axis III)
4. Social and environmental problems that can make the disorder worse
(Axis IV).
 5. A global assessment of the client’s overall level of functioning in
work, relationships, and leisure time, including whether the problem is
of recent origin or of long duration, and how incapacitating it is.
 By evaluating individuals along these five axes, the DSM-IV offers a fuller and more
sophisticated picture of individual’s current psychological condition than earlier
systems of diagnosis. DSM-IV is the first version of DSM to which psychologists
have had major inputs.
 As mentioned earlier, the DSM-IV lists and describes literally hundreds of different
psychological disorders. Here, we will focus on some of those disorders that are most
common and hence have received most attention in systematic research by psychologists.

Anxiety Disorders
 All of us, at one time or another, experience anxiety, a feeling of apprehension or
tension, in reaction to stressful situations. There is nothing wrong with such anxiety;
every one feels it to some degree, and usually it is a reaction to stress that helps, rather
than hinders, our daily functioning. Without anxiety, for instance, most of us would not
be terribly motivated to study hard, to undergo physical exams or to spend long
hours at hour jobs.
 But, some people experience anxiety in situations in which there is no external reason
or cause. When anxiety occurs without external justification and begins to impede
people’s daily functioning, it is considered a psychological problem known as Anxiety
Disorder.
 There are four major types of anxiety disorders:
 Generalized Anxiety Disorder: As the name implies generalized anxiety disorder refers
to disorders in which an individual experiences long-term, consistent anxiety without
knowing why. Such people feel afraid of something, but are unable to articulate what
it is.
 Because of their anxiety they are unable to function normally. They cannot concentrate,
set their fears aside, and their lives become centered around their anxiety.
 Such anxiety may eventually result in the development of physiological problems.
Because of heightened muscle tension and arousal, individuals with generalized anxiety
disorder may begin to experience headaches, dizziness, heart palpitations, or insomnia.
 Panic Disorder: In panic disorder a person has recurring attacks of intense fear or
panic, with feelings of impending, unavoidable doom or death.
 Although symptoms differ from person to person, they may include heart palpitations,
shortness of breath, unusual amounts of sweating, faintness and dizziness, an urge
to urinate, gastric sensations- in extreme cases- a sense of imminent death. After such
attack it is no wonder that people tend to feel exhausted.
Phobic Disorder
 Phobias are intense, irrational, fears of specific objects or situations. For example,
claustrophobia is a fear of enclosed places, acrophobia a fear of high places, and
xenophobia a fear of strangers.
 Although the objective danger posed by an anxiety producing stimulus is typically small
or nonexistent, to the individual suffering from the phobia it represents a great danger,
and a full-blown panic attack may follow exposure to the stimulus.
 Phobic disorders differ from generalized anxiety disorders and panic disorders in that
there is a specific, identifiable stimulus that sets off the anxiety reaction.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
 In obsessive-compulsive disorder people are plagued by unwanted thoughts, called
obsessions, or feel that they must carry out some actions, termed compulsions, against
their will.
 An obsession is a thought or idea that keeps recurring in one’s mind. For example, a
student may not able to stop feeling that he has neglected to put his name on a test may
think about it constantly for the two weeks it takes to get the paper back.
 As part of an obsessive compulsive disorder people may also experience compulsions,
urges to repeatedly carry out some act that seems strange unreasonable, even to them.

Personality Disorders
 Personality disorders are different from the other problems discussed above for there is
often little sense of personal distress associated with the psychological adjustment of
those affected.
 In fact, people with personality disorders frequently lead seemingly normal lives- until
one looks immediately below the surface. There one finds a set of inflexible,
maladaptive, personality traits that do not permit the individual to function
appropriately as a member of society.
 The best-known type of personality disorder is anti-social or socio-pathic personality
disorder. Individuals with this disturbance tend to display no regard for the moral and
ethical rules of society or for the rights of others. Although they appear intelligent and are
usually likeable at first, they can be seen as manipulative and deceptive upon closer
examination. Moreover, they tend to share certain other characteristics.
 Lack of conscience, guilt, or anxiety over transgressions. When those
with an antisocial personality behave in a way that injures someone else,
they understand intellectually that they have caused the harm but feel no
remorse.
 Impulsive behavior and an inability to withstand frustration.
Antisocial personalities are unable to withstand frustration without
reacting in some way-which may include violating the rights of others, if
doing so allows them to remove the frustration.
 Manipulation of others. Antisocial personalities frequently have very
good interpersonal skills: They are charming, engaging, and able to
convince others to do what they want. Some of the best con men have
anti-social personalities. Without a second thought, they are able to get
people to hand over their life savings. The misery that follows in the
wake of such activities is not cause for the antisocial personality.
 Another example of a personality disturbance is the narcissistic personality disorder,
characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-importance.
 Those with the disorder expect special treatment from others while at the same time they
disregard others’ feelings. In some ways, in fact the main attribute of the narcissistic
personality is an inability to experience empathy for other people.
 Schizophrenia
 Schizophrenia refers to a class of disorders in which severe distortion of reality occurs.
Thinking, perception, and emotion may deteriorate; there may be a withdrawal
from social interaction; and there may be displays of bizarre behavior.
 Although several types of schizophrenia have been observed, the distinctions between
them are not always clear-cut. Moreover, the symptoms displayed by a schizophrenic
person may vary considerably overtime, and people with schizophrenia show significant
differences in the pattern of symptoms even when they are labeled with the same
diagnostic category.
 Nonetheless, a number of characteristics reliably distinguish schizophrenia from other
disorders. They include:
 Decline from a previous level of functioning. An individual can
no longer carry out activities he or she was once able to do.
 Disturbances of thought and language. Schizophrenics use logic
and language in a peculiar way; their thinking does not make
sense and they do not follow conventional linguistic rules.
Subtypes of Schizophrenia
 Disorganized (hebephrenic) Schizophrenia:
 Show disorganized speech, behavior, flat or inappropriate affect.
 Inappropriate laughter and giggling, silliness, incoherent speech,
infantile behavior, strange and sometimes obscene behavior.
 Paranoid Schizophrenia
 Have delusions of Persecution- they see plots to harm them
everywhere.
 These delusions are sometimes coupled with delusions of grandeur.
That is they believe that they must be enormously important people,
frequently seeing themselves as great inventers, or as great religious
or political leaders.
 Catatonic schizophrenia
 Show marked disturbances in motor behavior.
 Many alternate between total immobility and wild excited activity.

Mood Disorders: The feeling is wrong

 Sometimes we are happy, perhaps even euphoric; at other times we feel upset, saddened, or
depressed. Such changes in mood are a normal part of everyday life.
 In some people, however, moods are so pronounced and so long-lasting that they interfere
with the ability to function effectively. In extreme cases a mood may become life threatening,
and in other it may cause the person to lose touch with reality. Situations such as these
represent mood disorders, disturbances in emotional feelings strong enough to intrude on
every day living.
Major Depression:
 When psychologists speak of major depression they do not mean the sadness that comes
from experiencing one of life’s disappointments. Some depression is normal following
the break up of a long-term relationship, the death of a loved one, or the loss of a job. It is
 even normal for less serious problems: doing badly in school or not getting into college
of one’s choice.
 People who suffer from major depression experience similar sorts of feelings, but the
severity tends to be considerably greater. The may feel useless, worthless, and lonely
and may despair over the future- feelings that may continue for months and years.
 The may have uncontrollable crying jags disrupted sleep. The depth of such behavior and
the length of time it lasts are the hallmarks of major depression.
Mania and Bipolar Disorders
 While some people are inking into the depths of depression, others are
soaring high emotionally experiencing what is called mania.
 Mania refers to an extended state of intense euphoria and elation.
 People experiencing mania feel intense happiness, power, invulnerability,
and energy. They may become involved in wild schemes, believing that
they will succeed at anything they attempt.
Bipolar Disorder (Manic-depressive disorder)
 Mania is often paired with bouts of depression. This alteration of mania and
depression is called bipolar disorder. The swings between highs and lows
may occur as frequently as a few days apart or they may alternate over a
period of years.
 In addition, the periods of depression tend to be longer in most individuals
than the periods of Mania, although this pattern is reversed in some.

Substance Related Disorders

 Substance related disorders include disorders related to the taking of a drug of abuse
(including alcohol), to the side effects of medication, to toxin exposure.
 There are three major diagnoses related to the use of drugs. The first is substance
dependence. The symptoms that lead to that diagnosis are a) the need for higher levels
of the drug to achieve the desired effects of (i.e., tolerance), b) the presence of
withdrawal symptoms when substance use is reduced, c) the taking of larger
amounts of the substance than was intended, d) unsuccessful attempts to cut down
or control substance use, and e) reduction of participation in normal social,
occupational and recreational activities caused by the use of the substance.
 The second major diagnosis is substance abuse, and that diagnosis is made when the
individual is not dependent on a drug but the use of the drug repeatedly leads to a serious
impairment in the individual’s functioning. Examples that would qualify for the diagnosis
of the substance abuse include a student who misses school occasionally due to a “crash”
after taking a drug, a person who repeatedly drives while intoxicated, and an individual
who alienates other people because of the drug use.
 The third diagnosis is substance-induced psychotic disorder. The diagnosis is used
when an individual develops psychological symptoms such as hallucinations and
delusions after taking too much of a drug. High doses of many drugs can cause those
effects, but it commonly occurs when persons take amphetamines.
 Substance induced disorders can be serious, but they dissipate as the drug wears off.

Types of drugs
 Drugs can be divided into four classes based on their effects:
a. Depressants, which have a general sedating effect.
b. Narcotics, which have a dulling effect on sensory experiences.
c. Stimulants, which have a general arousing effects.
d. Hallucinogens, which have a distorting effect on sensory experiences.

Depressants
 Depressants reduce physiological arousal, reduce psychological tension, and help individuals
relax. They are most frequently used to counteract the stress of daily living. Examples
include a drink at the end of the day, a sleeping pill, a Valium taken when anxiety or muscle
tension gets too high. Although depressants usually reduce arousal, large quantities
consumed at one time can cause a brief high or “rush.” Three types of depressants:
alcohol, barbiturates, and benzodiazepines.
Alcohol
 You may be surprised that alcohol is a depressant because after a few drinks, many people
become more outgoing and expansive, less inhibited and “high” rather than subdued.
The uplifting effect of alcohol is due to the fact that at first alcohol depresses inhibitory
centers of the brain, causing the individual to become less inhibited and more expansive.
 However, as the level of intoxication increases, the depression effect becomes more
widespread and reduces activity in the areas of the brain that are responsible for arousal
and then sedation and sleep set in.
 Apart from its elating and depressing effects, alcohol affects vision and balance and reduces
muscle control, so speech become slurred and coordination decreases. It also impairs
concentration and judgment, so individuals make poor decisions.
 The combination of impaired vision, lessened muscle control and impaired cognitive
functioning can lead to disastrous consequences, specially in the case of driving.
Problems of misuse
 Tolerance for alcohol developed rapidly, within a few weeks, dose levels must be increased
by 30 % to 50 % to achieve the desired effect. The tolerance develops because drinking
alcohol stimulates the production of substances in the body that destroy it, so the more
alcohol that is consumed, the more is destroyed.

 After a period of chronic consumption, cessation of alcohol intake leads to withdrawal

symptoms include agitation and involuntary contraction of the muscles (the “shakes”).
Next the individual experiences muscle cramps, nausea, vomiting, and profuse sweating.

 In extreme cases, the withdrawal involves delirium (hallucinations) and seizures.

 Withdrawal can be eased by giving the individual small amounts of other short acting
depressants, thereby permitting withdrawal with fewer symptoms