Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Definition of Psychology
Psychology is the science of behavior and mind, including conscious and unconscious
phenomena, as well as thought. It is an academic discipline of immense scope and
diverse interests that, when taken together, seek an understanding of the emergent
properties of brains, and all the variety of epiphenomena they manifest. As a social
science it aims to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles
and researching specific cases.
At the turn of the century, many advances in science were occurring due to a fundamental
concept that philosophers of science refer to as "elementism". Elementism refers to the
conception of complex phenomena in terms of basic parts or elements. This conception of
science was leading to many important discoveries with important applications in areas such as
the biological sciences in the late 1800s. It was at this time that, what most psychologists
acknowledge as, the first "school of psychology" began. In 1879 Wilhelm Wundt began the first
psychological laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. The school of psychology that Wundt began and
championed all his life is referred to as "structuralism". For this reason, Wundt is often referred
to as the father of structuralism.
Wilhelm Wundt instructed Titchener, the founder of structuralism, at the University of Leipzig.
The 'science of immediate experience' was stated by him. This simply means that the complex
perceptions can be raised through basic sensory information. Wundt is often associated in past
literature with structuralism and the use of similar introspective methods. However, this is not
the case. Wundt makes a clear distinction between pure introspection, which is the relatively
unstructured self-observation used by earlier philosophers, and experimental introspection.
Wundt believes this type of introspection to be acceptable since it uses laboratory instruments
to vary conditions and make results of internal perceptions more precise.
The reason for this confusion lies in the translation of Wundt's writings. When Titchener brought
his theory to America, he also brought with him Wundt's work. Titchener translated these works
for the American audience, and in so doing misinterpreted Wundt's meaning. He then used this
translation to show that Wundt supported Titchener's own theories. In fact, Wundt's main theory
was that of voluntarism.
Titchener believed that the goal of psychology was to study mind and consciousness. He
defined consciousness as the sum total of mental experience at any given moment, and the
mind as the accumulated experience of a lifetime. He believed that if the basic components of
the mind could be defined and categorized and why they interact in the ways that they do (why)
was the basis of reasoning that Titchener used in trying to find structure to the mind.
Introspection literally means 'looking within', to try to describe a person's memory, perceptions,
cognitive processes, and/or motivations.
The main tool that Wundt used to try to determine the different components of consciousness
was introspection. Unlike Wundt's method of introspection, Titchener had very strict guidelines
for the reporting of an introspective analysis. The subject would be presented with an object,
such as a pencil. The subject would then report the characteristics of that pencil (color, length,
etc.). The subject would be instructed not to report the name of the object (pencil) because that
did not describe the raw data of what the subject was experiencing. Titchener referred to this as
stimulus error.
Structrist's theory began with the question of what each element of the mind is. He concluded
from his research that there were three types of mental elements constituting conscious
experience: Sensations (elements of perceptions), Images (elements of ideas), and affections
(elements of emotions).These elements could be broken down into their respective properties,
which he determined were quality, intensity, duration, clearness, and extensity. Both sensations
and images contained all of these qualities; however, affections were lacking in both clearness
and extensity. And images and affections could be broken down further into just clusters of
sensations. Therefore by following this train of thinking all thoughts were images, which being
constructed from elementary sensations meant that all complex reasoning and thought could
eventually be broken down into just the sensations which he could get at through introspection
Once Wundt identified the elements of mind and their interaction, his theory then asked the
question of why the elements interact in the way they do. In particular, Wundt was interested in
the relationship between the conscious experience and the physical processes. Titchener
believed that physiological processes provide a continuous substratum that gives psychological
Functionalism arose in the U.S. in the late 19th century as an alternative to Structuralism
(psychology). While functionalism never became a formal school, it built on structuralism's
concern for the anatomy of the mind and led to greater concern over the functions of the mind,
and later to behaviorism.
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and
psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology
course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth
century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States
has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology".
William James (1842-1910) brother of novelist Henry James has been called the first American
psychologist.
James was the first American psychologist, he wrote the first general text book on psychology,
Coining the phrase 'stream of consciousness', James proposed that mental life is a unity that
flows and changes. In Principles of Psychology he presented illuminating ideas concerning
consciousness, attention, memory, habits, and emotions. He eventually concluded that he
had contributed all he could to psychology and moved on.
James was major figure in the development of psychology in the United States. He focused on
the relation between consciousness experience and behavior .He argued, for example, that the
stream of consciousness is runny and continuous. Introspection convinced him that
experience cannot be broken down into objective sensations and subjective feeling as the
structuralists maintained
James was a founder of a school of functionalism. Question what is functionalism? The school
of functionalism focused on behavior in addition to the mind or consciousness.
James was also influenced by Charles Darwin’s (1809-1882) theory of evolution. Earlier in the
19th century, the British naturalist Darwin had argued that organisms with adaptive feature that
is fittest-survive and reproduce. Functionalists adopted Darwin theory and proposed that
adaptive behavior patterns are learned and maintained. Maladaptive behavior tend to drop out
and only the “fittest “behavior patterns survive. These adoptive actions tend to be repeated and
become habits. James wrote that ”habits is the enormous flywheel of society”. Habit keeps the
engine of civilization running.
Habits include such simple acts how we lift a spoon to our mouth or turn a doorknob.
This idea of learning by repetition is also basic to the behavior tradition in psychology
Psychodynamic theory was born in 1874 with the works of German scientist Ernst von
Brucke, who supposed that all living organisms are energy systems governed by the
principle of the conservation of energy. During the same year, medical student Sigmund
Freud adopted this new “dynamic” physiology and expanded it to create the original
concept of “psychodynamics,” in which he suggested that psychological processes are
flows of psychosexual energy (libido) in a complex brain. Freud also coined the term
“psychoanalysis.” Later, these theories were developed further by Carl Jung, Alfred
Adler, Melanie Klein, and others. By the mid-1940s and into the 1950s, the general
application of the “psychodynamic theory” had been well established.
Freud’s theory of drives evolved throughout his life and work. He initially described a
class of drives known as the life instincts and believed that these drives were
responsible for much of behavior. Eventually, he came to believe that these life instincts
alone could not explain all human behavior. Freud determined that all instincts fall into
one of two major classes: the life instincts or the death instincts.
1. Death Intincts (Thanatos), Initially described in his book Beyond the Pleasure
Principle, Freud proposed the theory of aggression and stated that “the goal of
all life is death” (1920). He noted that after people experience a traumatic event
(such as war), they often reenact the experience. He concluded that people hold
an unconscious desire to die, but that this wish is largely tempered by the life
instincts.
Freud believed that the mind is like an iceberg, mostly hidden (Figure ), and that free
association would ultimately let a patient retrieve memories from the unconscious,
memories not ordinarily available because they are threatening in some way.
1. Conscious awareness (the visible part of the iceberg) floats above the surface.
The conscious mind includes everything that we are aware of. This is the aspect
of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally.
2. The preconscious (the area only shallowly submerged) contains thoughts and
feelings that a person is not currently aware of, but which can easily be brought
to consciousness. Our feelings, motives and decisions are actually powerfully
influenced by our past experiences, stored in the pre-conscious. It exists just
below the level of consciousness before the unconscious mind.
3. The unconscious (the larger, deeply submerged portion of the iceberg) contains
thoughts, feelings, and memories of which a person is unaware and many of
which have been repressed, or forcibly blocked from consciousness. Freud
viewed the unconscious as a storage area for socially unacceptable ideas,
sexual wishes or desires, traumatic memories, and painful emotions put out of
mind by the mechanism of psychological repression. However, the contents did
not necessarily have to be solely negative.
Personality has three structures: the id, the ego, and the superego.
Children pass through a series of psychosexual stages during which the id seeks
pleasure from body areas, erogenous zones, that change during development. If
children have difficulty passing through a particular stage, they are said to have become
During a child's development, the ego strategically uses defense mechanisms to deal
with the anxiety produced by conflicting impulses from the id (operating on the pleasure
principle) and the superego (using internalized representation of the parents' value
system).
Psychopathology can result if an individual does not pass through the stages of
psychosexual development and becomes fixated, or fails to pass to the next stage. For
example, a person fixated at the oral stage could, among other things, exhibit symptoms
While this school of thought dominated psychology early in the twentieth century, it began to
lose its hold during the 1950s. Today, the behavioral perspective is still concerned with how
behaviors are learned and reinforced. Behavioral principles are often applied in mental
health settings, where therapists and counselors use these techniques to explain and treat
a variety of illnesses.
Classical Conditioning:
Classical conditioning involves placing a neutral signal before a naturally occurring reflex. Ivan
Pavlov provided the most famous example of classical conditioning, although Edwin Twitmyer
published his findings a year earlier(a case of simultaneous discovery). During his research
In order to understand how more about how classical conditioning works, it is important to be
familiar with the basic principles of the process.
A neutral stimulus that when paired with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) elicits a similar
response
A response that is learned by pairing the originally neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) with the
unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
Acquisition
The acquisition phase is the consistent parings of the CS (bell) and the UCS (food) that
produces a CR (salivation). In the example above, this phase occurs when the dog begins to
salivate at the sound of the bell. Conditioning occurs more rapidly when the food follows the
bell by a half a second.
The extinction phase is when the conditioned response no longer occurs after repeated pairings
without the unconditioned stimulus. The dog’s response to the bell can be extinguished by
repeatedly presenting the bell (CS) without the food (UCS). The dog has not completely
forgotten the association between the bell and the food. If the experimenter waits a day, the
dog may have a spontaneous recovery of the conditioned response and salivate again to the
bell.
Generalization
Occurs when there is a small difference in the presented stimulus and the original conditioned
stimulus. If Pavlov’s dog heard a bell of a similar tone, the dog would still salivate.
Discrimination
The opposite of generalization, discrimination happens when a conditioned response does not
occur when there is a difference between the presented stimulus and the original conditioned
stimulus. If Pavlov’s dog heard a bell with a different tone and was not awarded the
unconditioned stimulus (food), the dog would learn not to salivate to the second tone.
Burrhus Frederic "B. F." Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990)
Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He
was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his
retirement in 1974.
Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner Box. He was a
solid believer of the idea that human free will was actually an illusion and any human action was
the result of the consequences of that same action. behaviors followed by pleasant
consequences tend to be repeated and those that produce unpleasant consequences are less
likely to be repeated. In short, some consequences strengthened behavior and some
consequences weakened behavior. He called this the principle of reinforcement.
Contemporary academia considers Skinner a pioneer of modern behaviorism along with John B.
Watson and Ivan Pavlov.
B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) is the person whose work is most often cited in connection with
operant conditioning. His book "The Behavior of Organisms", published in 1938, initiated his
lifelong study of operant conditioning and its application to human and animal behavior.
Following the ideas of Ernst Mach, Skinner rejectedThorndike's reference to unobservable
mental states such as satisfaction, building his analysis on observable behavior and its equally
observable consequences.
To implement his empirical approach, Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber in
which subjects such as pigeons and rats were isolated from extraneous stimuli and free to make
one or two simple, repeated responses. Another invention, the cumulative recorder, produced a
graphical record of these responses from which response rates could be estimated.
Reinforcement and punishment, the core tools of operant conditioning, are either
positive (delivered following a response), or negative (withdrawn following a response).
This creates a total of four basic consequences, with the addition of a fifth procedure
known as extinction (i.e. no change in consequences following a response).
It is important to note that actors are not spoken of as being reinforced, punished, or
extinguished; it is the actions that are reinforced, punished, or extinguished.
In social learning theory Albert Bandura (1977) states behavior is learned from the
environment through the process of observational learning.
Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways. This is illustrated
during the famous bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961).
Individuals that are observed are called models. In society children are surrounded by many
influential models, such as parents within the family, characters on children’s TV, friends
within their peer group and teachers at school. Theses models provide examples of
masculine and feminine behavior to observe and imitate.
They pay attention to some of these people (models) and encode their behavior. At a later
time they may imitate (i.e. copy) the behavior they have observed. They may do this
regardless of whether the behavior is ‘gender appropriate’ or not but there are a number of
processes that make it more likely that a child will reproduce the behavior that its society
deems appropriate for its sex.
Psychology is a broad and diverse field. A number of different subfields and specialty
areas have emerged. The following are some of the major areas of research and
application within psychology:
11) Personality Psychology looks at the various elements that make up individual
personalities. Well-known personality theories include Freud’s structural model of
personality and the "Big Five" theory of personality. A goal of personality psychology is
to investigate enduring patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion in individuals.
Personality psychologists are especially interested in individual differences.
12) School Psychology is the branch of psychology that works within the
educational system to help children with emotional, social and academic issues.
13) Social Psychology is a discipline that uses scientific methods to study social
influence, social percept
ion and social interaction. Social psychology studies diverse subjects including group
behavior, social perception, leadership, nonverbal behavior, conformity, aggression and
prejudice.
14) Health psychology concerns itself with understanding how biology, behavior,
and social context influence health and illness. Health psychologists generally work
alongside other medical professionals in clinical settings, although many also teach and
conduct research.
19) Neuropsychology involves the study of the structure and function of the brain as
it relates to specific psychological processes and overt behaviors. Neuropsychology
shares much with neuroscience, neurology, cognitive psychology, and cognitive science
Types of Motivation
There are two types of motivation, Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation. It's important to
understand that we are not all the same; thus effectively motivating any person requires
that you gain an understanding of the different types of motivation.
Theories/Approaches of Motivation
We all want to be more productive but getting motivated enough to actually get things
done can seem impossible. Social scientists have been studying motivation for
decades, trying to find out what motivates our behaviour, how and why.
Dozens of theories of motivation have been proposed over the years. Here are 5
popular theories of motivation that can help you increase workplace productivity…
Analysing the responses of 200 accountants and engineers who were asked about their
positive and negative feelings about their work, Herzberg found 2 factors that influence
employee motivation and satisfaction.
1. Motivator factors – Simply put, these are factors that lead to satisfaction and
motivate employees to work harder. Examples might include enjoying your work, feeling
recognised and career progression.
2. Hygiene factors – These factors can lead to dissatisfaction and a lack of motivation
if they are absent. Examples include salary, company policies, benefits, relationships
with managers and co-workers.
While motivator factors increased employee satisfaction and motivation, the absence of
these factors didn’t necessarily cause dissatisfaction. Likewise, the presence of hygiene
factors didn’t appear to increase satisfaction and motivation but their absence caused
an increase in dissatisfaction.
i. This theory implies that for the happiest and most productive workforce, you
need to work on improving both motivator and hygiene factors.
ii. To help motivate your employees, make sure they feel appreciated and
supported. Give plenty of feedback and make sure your employees understand
how they can grow and progress through the company.
iii. To prevent job dissatisfaction, make sure that your employees feel that they are
treated right by offering them the best possible working conditions and fair pay.
Make sure you pay attention to your team and form supportive relationships with
them.
The Hierarchy of Needs theory was coined by psychologist Abraham Maslow in his
1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation”.
The crux of the theory is that individuals’ most basic needs must be met before they
become motivated to achieve higher level needs.
1. Physiological – these needs must be met in order for a person to survive, such as
food, water and shelter.
2. Safety – including personal and financial security and health and wellbeing.
5. Self-actualization – the desire to achieve everything you possibly can and become
the most that you can be.
According to the hierarchy of needs, you must be in good health, safe and secure with
meaningful relationships and confidence before you are able to be the most that you
can be.
i. Chip Conley, founder of the Joie de Vivre hotel chain and Head of Hospitality at
Airbnb, used the Hierarchy of Needs pyramid to transform his business.
According to Chip, many managers struggle with the abstract concept of self
actualization and so focus on lower levels of the pyramid instead.
ii. Conley found one way of helping with higher levels was to help his employees
understand the meaning of their roles during a staff retreat…
iii. “In one exercise, we got groups of eight housekeepers at a table and asked an
abstract question: if someone from Mars came down and saw what you were
doing as a housekeeper in a hotel, what name would they call you? They came
up with “The Serenity Sisters,” “The Clutter Busters,” and “The Peace of Mind
Police.” There was a sense that people were doing more than just cleaning a
room. They were creating a space for a traveler who was far away from home to
feel safe and protected.”
iv. In order to get the most out of your team, you should also make sure you support
them in other aspects of their lives outside work. Perhaps you could offer flexible
working hours to give employees time to focus on their families and make sure
they are paid fairly to help them feel financially stable.
3. Expectancy Theory
Expectancy Theory proposes that people will choose how to behave depending on the
outcomes they expect as a result of their behaviour. In other words, we decide what to
do based on what we expect the outcome to be. At work, it might be that we work longer
hours because we expect a pay rise.
However, Expectancy Theory also suggests that the process by which we decide our
behaviours is also influenced by how likely we perceive those rewards to be. In this
instance, workers may be more likely to work harder if they had been promised a pay
rise (and thus perceived that outcome as very likely) than if they had only assumed they
might get one (and perceived the outcome as possible but not likely)
1. Expectancy – the belief that your effort will result in your desired goal. This is based
on your past experience, your self confidence and how difficult you think the goal is to
achieve.
2. Instrumentality – the belief that you will receive a reward if you meet performance
expectations.
Therefore, according to Expectancy Theory, people are most motivated if they believe
that they will receive a desired reward if they hit an achievable target. They are least
motivated if they don’t want the reward or they don’t believe that their efforts will result
in the reward.
The key here is to set achievable goals for your employees and provide rewards that
they actually want.
i. Rewards don’t have to come in the form of pay rises, bonuses or all-expenses
paid nights out (although I find these are usually welcomed!) Praise,
opportunities for progression and “employee of the month” style rewards can all
go a long way in motivating your employees.
Weiner theorised that specific attributions (e.g. bad luck, not studying hard enough)
were less important than the characteristics of that attribution. According to Weiner,
there are three main characteristics of attributions that can affect future motivation.
1. Stability – how stable is the attribution? For example, if the student believes they
failed the exam because they weren’t smart enough, this is a stable factor. An unstable
factor is less permanent, such as being ill.
However, in negative situations, such as failing the exam, stable attributions can lead to
lower expectations in the future.
For example, if the student believes it’s their own fault they failed the exam, because
they are innately not smart enough (an internal cause), they may be less motivated in
the future. If they believed an external factor was to blame, such as poor teaching, they
may not experience such a drop in motivation.
i. Make sure you give your employees specific feedback, letting them know that
you know they can improve and how they can about it. This, in theory, will help
prevent them from attributing their failure to an innate lack of skill and see that
success is controllable if they work harder or use different strategies.
ii. You could also praise your employees for showing an improvement, even if the
outcome was still not correct. For example, you might praise someone for using
the correct methodology even though the results weren’t what you wanted. This
way, you are encouraging employees to attribute the failure to controllable
factors, which again, can be improved upon in the future.
iii. Contactzilla is simple, secure contact management that blends into your existing
workflow seamlessly. Share address books with your colleagues, collaborate on
Social influence
Social influence occurs when a person's emotions, opinions, or behaviors are affected
by others. Social influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity,
socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing.
In 1958, Harvard psychologist Herbert Kelman identified three broad varieties of social
influence.
1. Compliance is when people appear to agree with others but actually keep their
dissenting opinions private.
Social influence, however, is the process by which individuals make real changes to
their feelings and behaviors as a result of interaction with others who are perceived to
be similar, desirable, or expert. People adjust their beliefs with respect to others to
whom they feel similar in accordance with psychological principles such as balance.
Conformity
Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms. It is a change
in behavior or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure.
Social control is established by encouraging individuals to conform and obey social norms,
both through formal and informal means. Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs,
and behaviors to group norms. The tendency to conform occurs in small groups and in society
as a whole, and may result from subtle unconscious influences or direct and overt social
pressure. Conformity can occur in the presence of others or when an individual is alone. For
example, people tend to follow social norms when eating or watching television, regardless of
Group norms:Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group
norms. Norms are implicit, unsaid rules, shared by a group of individuals, that guide interactions
with others. This tendency to conform occurs in small groups and/or society as a whole, and
may result from subtle unconscious influences, or direct and overt social pressure. Conformity
can occur in the presence of others, or when an individual is alone. For example, people tend to
follow social norms when eating or watching television, even when alone.
Desire for security within a group: People often conform from a desire for security within a
group—typically a group of a similar age, culture, religion, or educational status. This is often
referred to as groupthink: a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced
manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics, which ignores realistic
appraisal of other courses of action. Unwillingness to conform carries the risk of social rejection.
Conformity is often associated with adolescence and youth culture, but strongly affects humans
of all ages.
Environmental influence: Although peer pressure may manifest negatively, conformity can
have good or bad effects depending on the situation. Driving on the correct side of the road
could be seen as beneficial conformity. With the right environmental influence, conforming, in
early childhood years, allows one learn and thus, adopt the appropriate behaviours necessary to
interact and develop correctly within one's society. Conformity influences formation and
maintenance of social norms, and helps societies function smoothly and predictably via the self-
elimination of behaviors seen as contrary to unwritten rules. In this sense it can be perceived as
a positive force that prevents acts that are perceptually disruptive or dangerous.
Asch Experiment
Which line matches the first line, A, B, or C? In the Asch conformity experiments, people
frequently followed the majority judgment, even when the majority was wrong.
Humans have been shown to be obedient in the presence of perceived legitimate authority
figures, as shown by the Milgram experiment in the 1960s, which was carried out by Stanley
Milgram to find out how the Nazis managed to get ordinary people to take part in the mass
murders of the Holocaust. The experiment showed that obedience to authority was the norm,
not the exception. Regarding obedience, Milgram said that "Obedience is as basic an element
in the structure of social life as one can point to; Some system of authority is a requirement of all
communal living, and it is only the man dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond,
through defiance or submission, to the commands of others." A similar conclusion was reached
in the Stanford prison experiment.
In the Milgram experiment, participants were told they were going to contribute to a study
about punishment and learning, but the actual focus was on how long they would listen to and
obey orders from the experimenter.
In the Stanford Prison Experiment, college age students were put into a pseudo (faked) prison
environment in order to study the impacts of "social forces" on participants behavior. Philip
Zimbardo, the psychologist behind the experiment, found that the guards in the study obeyed
orders so much that their behavior turned aggressive.
The classical study on obedience was conducted at Stanford University during the 1970's.
Phillip Zimbardo was the principle investigator responsible for the experiment. In the Stanford
Prison Experiment, college-age students were put into a pseudo prison environment in order to
study the impacts of "social forces" on participants' behavior. Unlike the Milgram study, in which
each participant underwent the same experimental conditions, the Zimbardo study used random
assignment so that half the participants were prison guards and the other half were prisoners.
The experimental setting was made to physically resemble a prison, while simultaneously
inducing "a psychological state of imprisonment.”
The Milgram study found that participants would obey orders even when it posed severe harm
to others. This result was surprising to Milgram because he thought that "subjects have learned
from childhood that it is a fundamental violation of moral behavior to hurt another person against
his will". Zimbardo found similar results as the guards in the study obeyed orders so much that
their behavior turned aggressive. Prisoners likewise were hostile to and resented their guards,
and because of the psychological duress induced in the experiment, it had to be shut down after
only 6 days.
Some animals can easily be trained to be obedient by employing operant conditioning, for
example obedience schools exist to condition dogs into obeying the orders of human owners.
Obedience training seems to be particularly effective on social animals, a category that includes
human beings; other animals do not respond well to such training.
Learning to obey adult rules is a major part of the socialization process in childhood, and
many techniques are used by adults to modify the behavior of children. Additionally, extensive
training is given in armies to make soldiers capable of obeying orders in situations where an
untrained person would not be willing to follow orders. Soldiers are initially ordered to do
seemingly trivial things, such as picking up the sergeant's hat off the floor, marching in just the
right position, or marching and standing in formation. The orders gradually become more
demanding, until an order to the soldiers to place themselves into the midst of gunfire gets an
instinctively obedient response.
Compliance is a type of social influence where an individual does what someone else
wants them to do, following his or her request or suggestion. It is similar to obedience,
but there is no order – only a request.
"Situations calling for compliance take many forms. These include a friend's plea for
help, sheepishly prefaced by the question "Can you do me a favor?" They also include
the pop-up ads on the Internet designed to lure you into a commercial site and the
salesperson's pitch for business prefaced by the dangerous words "Have I got a deal for
you!" Sometimes the request is up front and direct; what you see is what you get. At
other times, it is part of a subtle and more elaborate manipulation." (Kassin, Fein, &
Markus, 2011).
Compliance is a major topic of interest within the field of consumer psychology. This
specialty area focuses on the psychology of consumer behavior, including how sellers
can influence buyers and persuade them to purchase goods and services. Marketers
In this approach, marketers start by asking for a large commitment. When the other
person refuses, they then make a smaller and more reasonable request. For example,
imagine that a business owner asks you to make a large investment in a new business
opportunity. After you decline the request, the business owner asks if you could at least
make a small product purchase to help him out. After refusing the first offer, you might
feel compelled to comply with his second appeal.
In this approach, marketers start by asking for and obtaining a small commitment. Once
you have already complied with the first request, you are more likely to also comply with
a second, larger request. For example, your co-worker asks if you fill in for him for a
day. After you say yes, he then asks if you could just continue to fill in for the rest of the
week.
Have you ever found yourself watching a television infomercial? Once a product has
been pitched, the seller then adds an additional offer before the potential purchaser has
made a decision. "That's not all," the salesperson might suggest, "If you buy a set of
widgets now, we'll throw in an extra widget for free!" The goal is to make the offer as
appealing as possible.
This strategy involves getting a person to make a commitment and then raising the
terms or stakes of that commitment. For example, a salesperson might get you to agree
to buy a particular cell phone plan at a low price before adding on a number of hidden
fees that then make the plan much more costly.
This approach involves gaining approval from the target in order to gain their
compliance. Strategies such as flattering the target or presenting oneself in a way that
appeals to the individual are often used in this approach.
Reciprocity
People are more likely to comply if they feel that the other person has already done
something for them. We have been socialized to believe that if people extend a
kindness to us, then we should return the favor. Researchers have found that the
reciprocity effect is so strong that it can work even when the initial favor is uninvited or
comes from someone we do not like.
Social norms differ from culture to culture: Norms are rules and expectations by which
members of society are conventionally guided. Deviance is an absence of conformity to these
norms.Social norms differ from culture to culture. For example, a deviant act can be committed
in one society that breaks a social norm there, but may be normal for another society.
Act exceed the tolerance limit of the community: Viewing deviance as a violation of social
norms, Social Psychologists have characterized it as "any thought, feeling or action that
members of a social group judge to be a violation of their values or rules" or group "conduct that
violates definitions of appropriate and inappropriate conduct shared by the members of a social
system. The departure of certain types of behavior from the norms of a particular society at a
particular time and "violation of certain types of group norms where behavior is in a disapproved
direction and of sufficient degree to exceed the tolerance limit of the community.
Social Context: Deviance can be relative to time and place because what is considered deviant
in one social context may be non-deviant in another (e.g., fighting during a hockey game vs.
fighting in a nursing home). Killing another human is considered wrong, except when
governments permit it during warfare or for self-defence.
Edwin Lemert developed the idea of primary and secondary deviation as a way to explain the
process of labeling.Primary and Secondary Deviation is what causes people to become harder
criminals.
A. Primary deviance is any general deviance before the deviant is labeled as such.
Primary deviance is the time when the person is labeled deviant through confession or
reporting.
Retrospective labeling happens when the deviant recognizes his acts as deviant prior to the
primary deviance, while prospective labeling is when the deviant recognizes future acts as
deviant.
Functions
Claim of individuality and identity: Deviant acts can be claim of individuality and identity, and
thus as rising against group norms of the dominant culture and in favor of a sub-culture.
Benefits of Deviance: Deviance verify cultural values and norms. It also clarifies moral
boundaries, promotes social unity by creating an us/them dichotomy, encourages social
change, and provides jobs to control deviance. "Certain factors of personality are theoretically
and empirically related to workplace deviance, such as work environment, and individual
differences."
Workplace deviance
The three main factors affecting a team's cohesion (working together well) are:
environmental, personal and leadership.
Social facilitation
Social facilitation is the tendency for people to do better on simple tasks when in the
presence of other people. This implies that whenever people are being watched by
others, they will do well on things that they are already good at doing.
Social facilitation, is the tendency for people to perform differently when in the presence
of others than when alone. Compared to their performance when alone, when in the
presence of others, they tend to perform better on simple or well-rehearsed tasks and
worse on complex or new ones. The Yerkes-Dodson law, when applied to social
facilitation, states that "the mere presence of other people will enhance the performance
in speed and accuracy of well-practiced tasks, but will degrade in the performance of
less familiar tasks."
Social facilitation has occasionally been attributed to the fact that certain people are
more susceptible to social influence, with the argument that personality factors can
make these people more aware of evaluation.
The co-action effect may come into operation if you find that you work well in a library in
preference to working at home where it is equally quiet (and so on). Other co-action
effect studies include Chen (1937) who observed that worker ants will dig more than
three times as much sand per ant when working (non-co-operatively) alongside other
ants than when working alone and Platt, Yaksh and Darby (1967) found that animals will
eat more of their food if there are others of their species present.
Audience effect
Social facilitation occurs not only in the presence of a co-actor but also in the presence
of a passive spectator/audience. This is known as the audience effect, surprisingly.
In social psychology, social loafing is the phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to
achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone. This is seen as
one of the main reasons groups are sometimes less productive than the combined
performance of their members working as individuals, but should be distinguished from
the accidental coordination problems that groups sometimes experience.
Research on social loafing began with rope pulling experiments by Ringelmann, who
found that members of a group tended to exert less effort in pulling a rope than did
individuals alone. In more recent research, studies involving modern technology, such
as online and distributed groups, have also shown clear evidence of social loafing.
Many of the causes of social loafing stem from an individual feeling that his or her effort
will not matter to the group.
Social loafing refers to the concept that people are prone to exert less effort on a task if
they are in a group versus when they work alone. The idea of working in groups is
typically seen as a way to improve the accomplishment of a task by pooling the skills
and talents of the individuals in that group. But, in some groups, there is a tendency on
the part of participants to contribute less to the group's goal than if they were doing the
same task themselves.
Social loafing has negative consequences for both the group and the individuals in the
group. The group dynamic is affected when certain individuals are seen as weak
contributors to the group purpose. It tends to split the group and fosters a lack of
cohesion. For example, if only five of the eight members of a team are doing most of the
work, it will often create an 'in' group (those members that are working hard) and an 'out'
group (those members that are not contributing as much). Resentment can easily build
between the two factions, causing less productivity and more emotional tension than a
cohesive group would experience.
There is much debate as to whether this difference results in decisions that are better or
worse. According to the idea of synergy, decisions made collectively tend to be more
effective than decisions made by a single individual. However, there are also examples
where the decisions made by a group are flawed, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion, the
incident on which the groupthink model of group decision-making is based.
Factors that impact other social group behaviours also affect group decisions. For
example, groups high in cohesion, in combination with other antecedent conditions (e.g.
ideological homogeneity and insulation from dissenting opinions) have been noted to
have a negative effect on group decision-making and hence on group effectiveness.[2]
Moreover, when individuals make decisions as part of a group, there is a tendency to
exhibit a bias towards discussing shared information (i.e. shared information bias), as
opposed to unshared information.
Formal systems
Consensus decision-making
Tries to avoid "winners" and "losers". Consensus requires that a majority approve a
given course of action, but that the minority agree to go along with the course of action.
In other words, if the minority opposes the course of action, consensus requires that the
course of action be modified to remove objectionable features.
Range voting lets each member score one or more of the available options. The option
with the highest average is chosen. This method has experimentally been shown to
produce the lowest Bayesian regret among common voting methods, even when voters
are strategic.
Majority requires support from more than 50% of the members of the group. Thus, the
bar for action is lower than with unanimity and a group of "losers" is implicit to this rule.
Plurality, where the largest block in a group decides, even if it falls short of a majority.
Delphi method
Dotmocracy
A facilitation method that relies on the use of forms called "dotmocracy sheets" to allow
large groups to brainstorm collectively and recognize agreement on an unlimited
number of ideas they have authored.
Leadership is both a research area and a practical skill encompassing the ability of an
individual or organization to "lead" or guide other individuals, teams, or entire
organizations.[citation needed] Specialist literature debates various viewpoints,
contrasting Eastern and Western approaches to leadership, and also (within the West)
United States versus European approaches. U.S. academic environments define
leadership as "a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and
support of others in the accomplishment of a common task". Leadership seen from a
European and non-academic perspective encompasses a view of a leader who can be
moved not only by communitarian goals but also by the search for personal power.
Leadership can derive from a combination of several factors.
Trust and leadership go hand in hand, however, it doesn’t come with your title. It needs
to be earned.
It’s at the root of every good relationship, including that of manager and employee.
When your employees trust you, and they perceive that what you’re doing is honestly in
their best interest, you are more likely to have an engaged team.
Trust affects a leader’s impact and the company’s bottom line more than any other
single thing.
The office is in a way another home, which stands on the foundation of trust.
Demonstrate Passion: If you want your employees to be passionate about what they
do and produce great work, you need to do the same. They need to trust that you are
there for the right reasons and that you care about the company at large.
Share Your Knowledge: Being knowledgeable about your industry or product instills
trust in your team because it suggests that you know what you’re talking about.
Keep Your Promises As we were taught when we were young, and from being let
down in our personal relationships, don’t make promises that you can’t keep.
Trust Them: Trust goes both ways. Showing that you have trust and faith in your
employees’ abilities, decision-making skills and judgment is a great way to open them
up to trusting you.
Get To Know Employees Personally: Trust is all about relationships, and putting in
the time and effort to getting to know your employees on a more human and personal
level is a great way to build this trust.
Be Transparent: One of the most powerful ways to build trust is by simply being open
and transparent in all of your communications.
Admit to Mistakes, And Share Credit: Many people, including managers, have a hard
time taking the blame and accepting responsibility when a mistake is made. Good
leaders understand the power in owning up to mistakes and rectifying them. Taking
responsibility shows that you are just as human as the rest of the team and that there is
always room for improvement.
Leadership styles
Different types of leadership styles exist in work environments. The culture and goals of
an organization determine which leadership style fits the firm best, while personality
differences often dictate which is most often used.
Autocratic Leadership
The autocratic leadership style allows managers to make decisions alone without the
input of others. Leaders possess total authority and impose their will on employees. No
one challenges the decisions of autocratic leaders. Countries such as Cuba and North
Korea operate under the autocratic leadership style. This leadership style benefits
employees who require close supervision. Creative employees who thrive in group
functions detest this leadership style.
Democratic Leadership
A laissez-faire leader lacks direct supervision of employees and fails to provide regular
feedback to those under his supervision. Highly experienced and trained employees
requiring little supervision fall under the laissez-faire leadership style. However, not all
employees possess those characteristics. This leadership style hinders the production
of employees needing supervision. The laissez-faire style produces no leadership or
supervision efforts from leaders, which can lead to poor production, lack of control and
increasing costs.
Leaders using the transactional leadership style receive certain tasks to perform and
provide rewards or punishments to team members based on performance results.
Leaders and team members set predetermined goals together, and employees agree
to follow the direction and leadership of the manager to accomplish those goals. The
manager possesses power to review results and train or correct employees when team
members fail to meet goals. Employees receive rewards, such as bonuses, when they
accomplish goals.
Definitions of intelligence
1. Binet (1916) defined it as the capacity to judge well, to reason well, and to
comprehend well
2. Terman (1916) defined it as the capacity to form concepts and grasp their
significance
3. Wechlser (1939) defined it as the global capacity of an individual to act
purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively with the environment
An intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several standardized tests
designed to assess intelligence. The abbreviation "IQ" comes from the German term
Intelligenz-Quotient, originally coined by psychologist William Stern. When modern IQ
tests are devised, the mean (average) score within an age group is set to 100 and the
standard deviation (SD) almost always to 15, although this was not always so
The many different kinds of IQ tests use a wide variety of methods. Some tests are
visual, some are verbal, some tests only use abstract-reasoning problems, and some
tests concentrate on arithmetic, spatial imagery, reading, vocabulary, memory or
general knowledge. The psychologist Charles Spearman in 1904 made the first formal
factor analysis of correlations between the tests. He found a single common factor
Spearman named it g for "general factor" and labelled the smaller, specific factors or
abilities for specific areas s. In any collection of IQ tests, by definition the test that best
measures g is the one that has the highest correlations with all the others. Most of these
g-loaded tests typically involve some form of abstract reasoning. Therefore, Spearman
and others have regarded g as the (perhaps genetically determined) real essence of
intelligence. This is still a common but not universally accepted view. Other factor
analyses of the data, with different results, are possible. Some psychometricians regard
g as a statistical artifact. One of the best measures of g is Raven's Progressive Matrices
which is a test of visual reasoning.
Modern tests
Theories of Intelligence:
Are There Different Kinds of Intelligence?
Perhaps you see yourself as a good writer but as someone who lacks ability in math. Or
maybe you view yourself as a “science” person who easily masters physics but has little
strength in interpreting literature. Perhaps you view yourself as generally fairly smart
with intelligence that permits you to excel across domains.
More recent theories explain intelligence in a different light. Rather than viewing
intelligence as a unitary entity, some psychologists consider it to be a multidimensional
concept that includes different types of intelligence (Tenopyr, 2002; Stankov, 2003;
Sternberg & Pretz, 2005).
Crystallized intelligence is the ability to use skills, knowledge, and experience. It does
not equate to memory, Crystallized intelligence is one’s lifetime of intellectual
achievement, as demonstrated largely through one's vocabulary and general
knowledge. This improves somewhat with age, as experiences tend to expand one's
knowledge.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence (EQ or EI) is a term created by two researchers – Peter Salavoy
and John Mayer – and popularized by Dan Goleman in his 1996 book of the same
name.
In practical terms, this means being aware that emotions can drive our behavior and
impact people (positively and negatively), and learning how to manage those emotions
– both our own and others – especially when we are under pressure.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the
emotions of others. It is generally said to include three skills: emotional awareness; the
ability to harness emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problem solving;
and the ability to manage emotions, which includes regulating your own emotions and
cheering up or calming down other people.
In addition, an extreme amount of stress can take a severe emotional toll. While people
can overcome minor episodes of stress by tapping into their body's natural defenses to
adapt to changing situations, excessive chronic stress, which is constant and persists
over an extended period of time, can be psychologically and physically debilitating.
Stress can be external and related to the environment, but may also be caused by
internal perceptions that cause an individual to experience anxiety or other negative
emotions surrounding a situation, such as pressure, discomfort, etc., which they then
deem stressful.
Humans experience stress, or perceive things as threatening, when they do not believe
that their resources for coping with obstacles (stimuli, people, situations, etc.) are
enough for what the circumstances demand. When people think the demands being
placed on them exceed their ability to cope, they then perceive stress.
Stress is not always a bad thing. Stress is simply the body's response to changes that
create taxing demands. The previously mentioned Dr. Lazarus (building on Dr. Selye's
It is somewhat hard to categorize stressors into objective lists of those that cause
eustress and those that cause distress, because different people will have different
reactions to particular situations. However, by generalizing, we can compile a list of
stressors that are typically experienced as negative or positive to most people, most of
the time.
Of all forms of stress, acute stress is the most widely experienced one, since it typically
is caused by the daily demands and pressures encountered by each one of us.
Because acute stress occurs only at a very short period of time, these symptoms might
only come out when the stress has already accumulated:
Episodic Stress
Acute stress that is suffered too frequently is called episodic stress. This type of stress
is usually seen in people who make self-inflicted, unrealistic or unreasonable demands
which get all clamoured up and bring too much stress in their attempt to accomplish
these goals. Episodic stress is not like chronic stress, though, because this type of
stress ceases from time to time yet not as frequently as acute stress does.
Episodic stress is also typically observed in people with “Type A” personality, which
involves being overly competitive, aggressive, demanding and sometimes tense and
hostile. Because of this, the symptoms of episodic stress are found in Type A persons.
These include:
Ceaseless worrying
Chronic stress is the total opposite of acute stress; it’s not exciting and thrilling, but
dangerous and unhealthy. Chronic stress tears the life of a person apart his mind, body
or spirit.
dry mouth
difficulty in breathing
pounding heart
stomach ache
headache
diaphoresis
frequent urination
tightening of muscles
...and more...
sudden irritability
difficulty in sleeping
narrowed perception
Here are 5 ways reasons the modern world might produce more
stress, anxiety and depression than that of our distant ancestors.
before.
Perhaps our families are Democrats our work mates are Republicans, and our
school mates are Communists.
Our families like country music, our school mates like rap and pop, and our
work mates like classic rock.
People have a stake in whether we agree with them or not. They need to
know what to expect from us, and whether we’re with them or against them.
And we need to figure out when it’s necessary to be with them and when it’s
OK to be against them, because being on the side of one person sometimes
requires being opposed to another.
We watch TV and everyone is beautiful. We are not as beautiful. How many people in a
tribe of 150 look like Rosario Dawson? How many look like Jamie Dornan?
We watch the Olympics and realize we might as well not even know how to run or swim.
And it dawns on us that our synchronized swimming partner sucks. Only those in the
top 1% of 1% of 1% have an opportunity to display their talents, wealth, and beauty
before the general public. And those are the people we compare ourselves to. It’s a
nearly impossible standard. It’s natural to want to be the prettiest girl in the tribe, to have
the most resources, or to be the best in the known world at something that others
understand and respect. Once upon a time we could set goals like that and get away
with it. Today we draw our competition from a pool of 7 billion people, and wanting to be
among the elite is most often a recipe for discouragement.
3. We specialize more
We often don’t understand what our neighbor does for a living, and we don’t know how
to explain what we do.
We might even be the best in the world at some small little leaf far out on the tree of skill
or the tree of knowledge, but no one we grew up with cares.
If you provide a good no one else provides, you can charge a high price and make good
money. This probably won’t last long, though. If your profit margin is high enough,
others will notice the opportunity and set up shop to compete with you. This will drive
down prices. With enough competition, prices will fall to a level not much higher than the
cost of production.
This same dynamic applies to the labor market. If you have a skill very few others have,
you can charge a high price for your labor. However, if your wages are high enough,
others will notice the opportunity and begin developing the skills they need to compete
with you. If the supply of qualified workers grows faster than the need for the service,
wages will fall.
On balance efficient markets might work out well for us. The benefits we receive from
lower prices and cheaper labor offset the frustrations that come from having to sell our
goods and labor at lower prices.
But efficient markets might also fail us personally. If we lose our job, because there’s
too much competition for our position, the equation won’t balance in our favor – at least
in the short term. And in the long term some people reap more reward from efficient
markets than others.
We live in exciting times. New discoveries are being made every year in almost every
field of science. New gadgets are being invented every year. And our existing
technologies are being improved every year.
Some improvements are happening even faster. The Human Genome Project set out to
sequence the human genome in 1989. It took 13 years and 3 Billion dollars to finish.
ust 15 years later a machine can sequence a genome in less than a day at a teeny
fraction of the cost.
Have you heard about 3-D printers? These machines take a 3-D design for a coffee
mug or a bracelet, or pretty much any solid object you can imagine, and print them layer
by layer out of plastic. Individuals with a sense of design can invent new gadgets all by
themselves.
Currently the production models of these printers make objects from a single material.
And you can’t print a ham sandwich yet. But Star Trek replicators can’t be that far off.
And did you know that we can now re-grow body parts and organs?
True. A woman recently grew a new ear (link is external) for herself under the skin of
her forearm.
Imagine what would happen if we could combine the 3-D printer technology with the
ability to grow new body parts. Then you could print a new liver for yourself in your
basement.
Lazarus states that stress is experienced when a person perceives that the “demands
exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilise." this is
called the 'transactional model of stress and coping.'
Neither the environmental event nor the persons response defines stress, rather the
individuals perception of the psychological situation is the critical factor. According to
Lazarus, the effects that stress has on a person is based more on that persons feelings
of threat, vulnerability and ability to cope than on the stressful event itself. He defines
psychological stress as a "particular relationship between the person and environment
that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and
Problem-Based Coping - Used when we feel we have control over the situation, thus
can manage the source of the problem. There are four steps to manage this
stress: 1.Define the problem, 2. Generate alternative solutions, 3. Learn new skills
to dealing with stressors, 4. Reappraise and find new standards of behaviour.
Stress occurs when you perceive that demands placed on you — such as work, school
or relationships — exceed your ability to cope.
Untreated chronic stress can result in serious health conditions including anxiety,
insomnia, muscle pain, high blood pressure and a weakened immune system. Research
shows that stress can contribute to the development of major illnesses, such as heart
disease, depression and obesity.
But by finding positive, healthy ways to manage stress as it occurs, many of these
negative health consequences can be reduced. Everyone is different, and so are the
ways they choose to manage their stress. Some people prefer pursuing hobbies such
as gardening, playing music and creating art, while others find relief in more solitary
activities: meditation, yoga and walking.
Here are five healthy techniques that psychological research has shown to help reduce
stress in the short- and long-term.
1. Take a break from the stressor. It may seem difficult to get away from a big
work project, a crying baby or a growing credit card bill. But when you give
yourself permission to step away from it, you let yourself have time to do
something else, which can help you have a new perspective or practice
techniques to feel less overwhelmed. It’s important to not avoid your stress
(those bills have to be paid sometime), but even just 20-minutes to take care of
yourself is helpful.
2. Exercise. The research keeps growing — exercise benefits your mind just as
well as your body. We keep hearing about the long-term benefits of a regular
exercise routine. But even a 20-minute walk, run, swim or dance session in the
midst of a stressful time can give an immediate effect that can last for several
hours.
Conflicts mostly refer to the existence of the clash, which can be interests, values,
actions or directions. Psychologically, a conflict appears when one motivating stimulus
reduces and another increases, so that a new adjustment is demanded.
There are many types of conflict. The most common conflicts are emotional,
interpersonal, group, organizational, military, workplace and others.
Conflict in the workplace seems unavoidable, but that does not mean it cannot be
diffused when it occurs. Handle conflict correctly and you will resolve the problem and
move on.
1. Competing Approach People who take the competing approach are resolute in
what they believe and want. Operating from a position of power, expertise or
strength, this approach is useful in an emergency situation when an immediate
decision needs to be made or to resolve an unpopular issue. However, misuse of
this style can squelch feedback, dis-empower staff and thwart learning,
demonstrating assertiveness but offering no cooperativeness.