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Example research essay topic: B F Skinner Abraham Maslow - 4,588 words

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... for contributing so much to psychology Harry eventually died in 1949. Contribution to the Theories of Personality In his life Sullivan introduced many theories of personality. These theories include: 1. Heuristic Stages of Development 2. Beginnings of Self-System 3.

Heterosexual Intimacy and Lust There are several stages of Heuristic Stages Development 1. Infancy. It extends from a few minutes after birth to the appearance of articulate speech, however uncommunicative or meaningless. 2. Childhood. It extends from the ability to utter articulate sounds of or pertaining to speech, to the appearance of the need for playmates, that is, companions. cooperative beings of approximately one's own status in all sorts of respects. 3.

Juvenile Era. It x tends through most of the grammar-school years to the eruption, due to maturation, of a need for an intimate relation with another person of comparable status. 4. Preadolescence. It is exceedingly important but chronologically rather brief period that ordinarily ends with the eruption of genital sexuality and puberty, but psychologically or psychiatric ally ends with the movement of strong interest from a person of one's own sex to a person of the other sex. 5.

Adolescence. In this culture (it varies, however, from culture to culture) continues until one has patterned some type of performance which satisfies one's lust, one's genital drives. 6. Late Adolescence. Turn continues as an era of personality until any partially developed aspects of personality fall into their proper relationship to their time partition. 7.

Adulthood. This age is to establish relationships of love for some other person, in which relationship the other person is as significant, or nearly as significant, as one's self. This really highly developed intimacy with another person is not the principal business of life, but is, perhaps, the principal source of satisfaction in life. Sullivan also introduced the theory of Beginnings of self system. Successful training of the functional activity of the anal zone of interaction accentuates a new aspect of tenderness -- namely, the additive role of tenderness as a sequel to what the mothering one regards as good behavior. Now this is, in effect -- however it may be apprehended by the infant -- a reward, which, once the approved social ritual connected with defecating has worked out well, is added to the satisfaction of the anal zone.

Sullivan also introduces the theory on Heterosexual Intimacy and Lust. Women undergo the puberty change somewhat in advance of men [and this] leads to a sort of stutter in developmental progress between the boys and the girls in an age community [like the school] so that by the time most of the boys have gotten really around to an interest in girls, most of the girls are already fairly wound up in their problems about boys Abraham Maslow Biography Abraham Maslow was born in 1908. He was an American psychologist and leading person of humanistic psychology. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and educated at the City College of New York and the University of Wisconsin. Maslow spent most of his teaching career at Brandeis University. He also worked on judging orthodox behaviorism and psychoanalysis.

Maslow's writings include Toward a Psychology of Being, which he wrote in 1962 and Farther Reaches of Human Nature which he wrote in 1971. In 1951, Maslow served as the chairperson of the psychology department at Brandeis for 10 years. It was there where he met Kurt Goldstein, who introduced him to the idea of self-actualization, and then Maslow began his own work. It was also here that he began his theories for a humanistic psychology. He eventually died of a heart attack in California on 8 th June 1970. Contribution to the Theories of Personality In his life Maslow introduced many theories of personality.

Some of these theories include: 1. Human needs 2. Self actualization 3. Metaneeds and meta pathologies Maslow's most famous theory is about Human needs. 1. The physiological needs. These include the needs we have for oxygen, water, protein, salt, sugar, calcium, and other minerals and vitamins.

They also include the need to maintain a pH balance (getting too acidic or base will kill you) and temperature (98. 6 or near to it). Also, theres the needs to be active, to rest, to sleep, to get rid of wastes (CO 2, sweat, urine, and feces), to avoid pain, and to have sex. 2. The safety and security needs. When the physiological needs are largely taken care of, this second layer of needs comes into play. You will become increasingly interested in finding safe circumstances, stability, protection.

You might develop a need for structure, for order, some limits. 3. The love and belonging needs. When physiological needs and safety needs are, by and large, taken care of, a third layer starts to show up. You begin to feel the need for friends, a sweetheart, children, affectionate relationships in general, even a sense of community. Looked at negatively, you become increasing susceptible to loneliness and social disturbances. 4.

The esteem needs. Next, we begin to look for a little self-esteem. Maslow noted two versions of esteem needs, a lower one and a higher one. The lower one is the need for the respect of others, the need for status, fame, glory, recognition, attention, reputation, appreciation, dignity, even dominance.

The higher form involves the need for self-respect, including such feelings as confidence, competence, achievement, mastery, independence, and freedom. Abraham Maslow also introduced a theory on Self actualization. The last level is a bit different. Maslow has used a variety of terms to refer to this level: He has called it growth motivation (in contrast to deficit motivation), being needs, and self-actualization. These are needs that do not involve balance or homeostasis. Once engaged, they continue to be felt.

In fact, they are likely to become stronger as we feed them! They involve the continuous desire to fulfill potentials, to be all that you can be. They are a matter of becoming the most complete, the fullest, you -- hence the term, self-actualization. Now, in keeping with his theory up to this point, if you want to be truly self-actualizing, you need to have your lower needs taken care of, at least to a considerable extent. This makes sense: If you are hungry, you are scrambling to get food; If you are unsafe, you have to be continuously on guard; If you are isolated and unloved, you have to satisfy that need; If you have a low sense of self-esteem, you have to be defensive or compensate.

When lower needs are unmet, you cant fully devote yourself to fulfilling your potentials. Maslow was also responsible for the theories of Metaneeds and Metapathologies. He believes that the people need the following things to be happy. Truth, rather than dishonesty. Goodness, rather than evil.

Beauty, not ugliness or vulgarity. Unity, wholeness, and transcendence of opposites, not arbitrariness or forced choices. Aliveness, not deadness or the mechanization of life. Uniqueness, not bland uniformity. Perfection and necessity, not sloppiness, inconsistency, or accident. Completion, rather than incompleteness.

Justice and order, not injustice and lawlessness. Simplicity, not unnecessary complexity. Richness, not environmental impoverishment. Effortlessness, not strain. Playfulness, not grim, humorless, drudgery. Self-sufficiency, not dependency.

Meaningfulness, rather than senselessness. Carl Rogers Biography Carl Rogers was born in 1902. He was an American psychologist, who was known for his development of new methods of therapy. Carl Rogers got his PhD from Columbia University in 1931. By that time Rogers was already involved in work with abused children. He also taught at Ohio State University from 1941 to 45 and the universities of Chicago from 1945 to 57 and Wisconsin university from 1957 to 61.

Unfortunately now was the time of conflict within the psychology department of the institution. Carl Rogers became very disappointed with this kind of education. In 1964, he was happy to accept a research position in La Jolla, California. He taught there for a while and also worked on his new theories. It was the time when he introduced most of his theories about personality. He also provided therapy, gave speeches, and wrote several interesting psychology books.

After contributing all this to the psychological world Carl Rogers eventually died in 1987. Contribution to the Theories of Personality In his life Rogers introduced many theories of personality. These theories include: 1. Details 2. Incongruity 3. Defenses 4.

The fully-functioning person Roger introduced the theory of Details. Rogers tells us that organisms know what is good for them. Evolution has provided us with the senses, the tastes, the discriminations we need: When we hunger, we find food -- not just any food, but food that tastes good. Food that tastes bad is likely to be spoiled, rotten, unhealthy. That what good and bad tastes are -- our evolutionary lessons made clear! This is called organismic valuing.

Among the many things that we instinctively value is positive regard, Rogers umbrella term for things like love, affection, attention, nurturance, and so on. It is clear that babies need love and attention. In fact, it may well be that they die without it. They certainly fail to thrive -- i. e. become all they can be.

Roger was also involved in the theory of Incongruity. The aspect of your being that is founded in the actualizing tendency, follows organismic values, needs and receives positive regard and self-regard, Rogers calls the real self. It is the you that, if all goes well, you will become. On the other hand, to the extent that our society is out of system with the actualizing tendency, and we are forced to live with conditions of worth that are out of step with organismic values, and receive only conditional positive regard and self-regard, we develop instead an ideal self.

By ideal, Rogers is suggesting something not real, something that is always out of our reach, the standard we cant meet. This gap between the real self and the ideal self, the I am and the I should is called incongruity. Defenses was also a work by Roger. When you are in a situation where there is an incongruity between your image of yourself and your immediate experience of yourself (i. e. between the ideal and the real self), you are in a threatening situation.

For example, if you have been taught to feel unworthy if you do not get A's on all your tests, and yet you aren't really all that great a student, then situations such as tests are going to bring that incongruity to light -- tests will be very threatening. When you are expecting a threatening situation, you will feel anxiety. Anxiety is a signal indicating that there is trouble ahead, that you should avoid the situation! One way to avoid the situation, of course, is to pick yourself up and run for the hills.

Since that is not usually an option in life, instead of running physically, we run psychologically, by using defenses. The fully-functioning person is also a very interesting theory. Rogers thought a person like this would have these values. 1. Openness to experience.

This is the opposite of defensiveness. It is the accurate perception of one's experiences in the world, including one's feelings. It also means being able to accept reality, again including one's feelings. 2. Existential living. This is living in the here-and-now.

Rogers, as a part of getting in touch with reality, insists that we not live in the past or the future -- the one is gone, and the other isn't anything at all, yet! The present is the only reality we have... 3. Organismic trusting. We should allow ourselves to be guided by the organismic value process. We should trust ourselves, do what feels right, what comes natural. This, as I'm sure you realize, has become a major sticking point in Rogers' theory. 5.

Creativity. If you feel free and responsible, you will act accordingly, and participate in the world. A fully-functioning person, in touch with actualization, will feel obliged by their nature to contribute to the actualization of others, even life itself... Gordon Allport Biography Gordon Allport was born in 1897. He was an American psychologist. Allport is known for his studies in personality appraisal and in social psychology.

Gordon Allport was born in Montezuma, Indiana and he was educated at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also studies at the German universities in Berlin and Hamburg, and the University of Cambridge, England. He also taught at Robert College in Constantinople, Harvard, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Allport returned to Harvard as assistant professor and in 1942 he was made professor of psychology there.

He later became the editor of the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology from 1937 to 1949. He was also author and co-author of many books like Expressive Movement, The Psychology of Radio, Trait Names, Personality, Psychology of Rumor, The Individual, and His Religion. He eventually died in Cambridge Massachusetts in 1967. Contribution to the Theories of Personality In his life Allport introduced many theories of personality. Some of these theories are: 1. The proprio 2.

Traits or disposition 3. Psychological maturity 4. Functional anatomy The proprio is a work by Allport. Putting so much emphasis on the self or proprio, Allport wanted to define it as carefully as possible. He came at that task from two directions, phenomenological and functionally. First, phenomenological, that is, .

the self as experienced: He suggested that the self is composed of the aspects of your experiencing that you see as most essential (as opposed to incidental or accidental), warm (or precious, as opposed to emotionally cool), and central (as opposed to peripheral). His functional definition became a developmental theory all by itself. The self has seven functions, which tend to arise at certain times of ones life: 1. Sense of body 2. Self-identity 3. Self-esteem 4.

Self-extension 5. Self-image 6. Rational coping 7. Propriate striving Traits or Disposition is also introduced by Allport.

Now, as the proprio is developing in this way, we are also developing personal traits, or personal dispositions. Allport originally used the word traits, but found that so many people assumed he meant traits as perceived by someone looking at another person or measured by personality tests, rather than as unique, individual characteristics within a person, that he changed it to dispositions. A personal disposition is defined as a generalized neuro psychic structure (peculiar to the individual), with the capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent, and to initiate and guide consistent (equivalent) forms of adaptive and stylistic behavior. Allport also introduced psychological maturity. If you have a well-developed proprio and a rich, adaptive set of dispositions, you have attained psychological maturity, Allport's term for mental health. He lists seven characteristics: 1.

Specific, enduring extensions of self, i. e. involvement. 2. Dependable techniques for warm relating to others (e.

g. trust, empathy, genuineness, tolerance... ). 3. Emotional security and self-acceptance. 4. Habits of realistic perception (as opposed to defensiveness). 5. Problem-centered ness, and the development of problem-solving skills. 6. Self-objectification -- insight into ones own behavior, the ability to laugh at oneself, etc. 7.

A unifying philosophy of life, including a particular value orientation, differentiated religious sentiment, and a personalized conscience. Allport also contributed to the functional anatomy theory. Allport didnt believe in looking too much into a persons past in order to understand his present. This belief is most strongly evident in the concept of functional autonomy: Your motives today are independent (autonomous) of their origins.

It doesnt matter, for example, why you wanted to become a doctor, or why you developed a taste for olives or for kinky sex, the fact is that this is the way you are now! Functional autonomy comes in two flavors: The first is preservative functional autonomy. This refers essentially to habits -- behaviors that no longer serve their original purpose, but still continue. You may have started smoking as a symbol of adolescent rebellion, for example, but now you smoke because you cant quit! Social rituals such as saying bless you when someone sneezes had a reason once upon a time (during the plague, a sneeze was a far more serious symptom than it is today! ), but now continues because it is seen as polite.

Hans Eysenck Biography Hans Eysenck was born in Germany on March 4, 1916. He was an active Jewish sympathizer, his life was in danger in Germany. Then he moved to England, there he continued his education, and received his Ph. D. in Psychology from the University of London in 1940. During World War II, he worked as a psychologist at an emergency hospital.

There he did research on the reliability of psychiatric diagnoses. After the war was over, he started teaching at the University of London. He also worked as the director of the psychology department of the Institute of Psychiatry. He was also related with Bethlehem Royal Hospital. He wrote almost about seventy five books and wrote over seven hundred articles. This all makes him one of the most interesting writers in psychology.

Eysenck eventually retired from work in 1983 and continued to write. He eventually died on 4 th September 1997. Contribution to the Theories of Personality In his life Eysenck introduced many theories of personality. These theories include: 1. Neuroticism 2. Extra version-introversion 3.

Neuroticism and extra version-introversion 4. Psychoticism Neuroticism is introduced by Eysenck. Neuroticism is the name Eysenck gave to a dimension that ranges from normal, fairly calm and collected people to ones that tend to be quite nervous. His research showed that these nervous people tended to suffer more frequently from a variety of nervous disorders we call neuroses, hence the name of the dimension.

But understand that he was not saying that people who score high on the neuroticism scale are necessarily neurotics -- only that they are more susceptible to neurotic problems. Eysenck was convinced that, since everyone in his data-pool fit somewhere on this dimension of normality-to-neuroticism, this was a true temperament, i. e. that this was a genetically-based, physiologically-supported dimension of personality.

He therefore went to the physiological research to find possible explanations. Extraverson-introversion is also a work by Eysenck. His second dimension is extra version-introversion. By this he means something very similar to what Jung meant by the same terms, and something very similar to our common-sense understanding of them: Shy, quiet people versus out-going, even loud people. This dimension, too, is found in everyone, but the physiological explanation is a bit more complex. Eysenck hypothesized that extra version-introversion is a matter of the balance of inhibition and excitation in the brain itself.

These are ideas that Pavlov came up with to explain some of the differences he found in the reactions of his various dogs to stress. Excitation is the brain waking itself up, getting into an alert, learning state. Inhibition is the brain calming itself down, either in the usual sense of relaxing and going to sleep, or in the sense of protecting itself in the case of overwhelming stimulation. Eysenck also introduced the Neuroticism and extra version-introversion. Another thing Eysenck looked into was the interaction of the two dimensions and what that might mean in regard to various psychological problems. He found, for example, that people with phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder tended to be quite introverted, whereas people with conversion disorders (e.

g. hysterical paralysis) or dissociate disorders (e. g. amnesia) tended to be more extroverted. Heres his explanation: Highly neuroticistic people over-respond to fearful stimuli; If they are introverts, they will learn to avoid the situations that cause panic very quickly and very thoroughly, even to the point of becoming panicky at small symbols of those situations -- they will develop phobias. Other introverts will learn (quickly and thoroughly) particular behaviors that hold off their panic -- such as checking things many times over or washing their hands again and again.

Psychoticism is also a work by Eysenck. Eysenck came to recognize that, although he was using large populations for his research, there were some populations he was not tapping. He began to take his studies into the mental institutions of England. When these masses of data were factor analyzed, a third significant factor began to emerge, which he labeled psychotic ism.

Like neuroticism, high psychotic ism does not mean you are psychotic or doomed to become so -- only that you exhibit some qualities commonly found among psychotics, and that you may be more susceptible, given certain environments, to becoming psychotic. As you might imagine, the kinds of qualities found in high psychoticistic people include certain recklessness, a disregard for common sense or conventions, and a degree of inappropriate emotional expression. It is the dimension that separates those people who end up institutions from the rest of humanity. B.

F. Skinner Biography B. F. Skinner was born in 1904. He was an American psychologist. He was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, and educated at Harvard University.

From this university he received a Ph. D. degree in 1931. He joined the Harvard teaching staff in 1948.

Skinner became the most important person in the U. S. for the behaviorist school of psychology. He also organized programmed instruction, a teaching technique in which the student is presented with a series of information. He also designed a variety of teaching machines.

One of the famous machines is the Skinner box. He also wrote a lot of books like, Behavior of Organisms, Walden Two, and The Technology of Teaching. All these books included important information about his famous experiments. On August 18, 1990, B. F. Skinner died of leukemia after becoming the most famous and well-known psychologist after Sigmund Freud.

Contribution to the Theories of Personality In his life Skinner introduced many theories of personality. These theories include: 1. Schedules of reinforcement 2. Shaping 3. Aversive stimuli 4. Behavior modification Schedules of reinforcement is a famous work by Skinner.

Skinner likes to tell about how he accidentally -- i. e. operant ly -- came across his various discoveries. For example, he talks about running low on food pellets in the middle of a study. Now, these were the days before Purina rat chow and the like, so Skinner had to make his own rat pellets, a slow and tedious task. So he decided to reduce the number of reinforcements he gave his rats for whatever behavior he was trying to condition, and, lo and behold, the rats kept up their operant behaviors, and at a stable rate, no less.

This is how Skinner discovered schedules of reinforcement. Continuous reinforcement is the original scenario: Every time that the rat does the behavior (such as pedal-pushing), he gets a rat goodie. The fixed ratio schedule was the first one Skinner discovered: If the rat presses the pedal three times, say, he gets a good one. Or five times. Or twenty times. There is a fixed ratio between behaviors and reinforcers: 3 to 1, 5 to 1, 20 to 1, etc.

This is a little like piece rate in the clothing manufacturing industry: You get paid so much for so many shirts. The fixed interval schedule uses a timing device of some sort. If the rat presses the bar at least once during a particular stretch of time (say 20 seconds), then he gets a goodie. If he fails to do so, he doesnt get a goodie. But even if he hits that bar a hundred times during that 20 seconds, he still only gets one goodie! One strange thing that happens is that the rats tend to pace themselves: They slow down the rate of their behavior right after the reinforcer, and speed up when the time for it gets close.

Skinner also worked on the Shaping theory. A question Skinner had to deal with was how we get to more complex sorts of behaviors. He responded with the idea of shaping, or the method of successive approximations. Basically, it involves first reinforcing a behavior only vaguely similar to the one desired.

Once that is established, you look out for variations that come a little closer to what you want, and so on, until you have the animal performing a behavior that would never show up in ordinary life. Skinner and his students have been quite successful in teaching simple animals to do some quite extraordinary things. My favorite is teaching pigeons to bowl! I used shaping on one of my daughters once. She was about three or four years old, and was afraid to go down a particular slide. So I picked her up, put her at the end of the slide, asked if she was okay and if she could jump down.

She did, of course, and I showered her with praise. I then picked her up and put her a foot or so up the slide, asked her if she was okay, and asked her to slide down and jump off. So far so good. I repeated this again and again, each time moving her a little up the slide, and backing off if she got nervous. Eventually, I could put her at the top of the slide and she could slide all the way down and jump off. Unfortunately, she still couldnt climb up the ladder, so I was a very busy father for a while.

Skinner introduced the Aversive Stimuli theory. An aversive stimulus is the opposite of a reinforcing stimulus, something we might find unpleasant or painful. This both defines an aversive stimulus and describes the form of conditioning known as punishment. If you shock a rat for doing x, itll do a lot less of x. If you spank Johnny for throwing his toys he will throw his toys less and less (maybe). On the other hand, if you remove an already active aversive stimulus after a rat or Johnny performs a certain behavior, you are doing negative reinforcement.

If you turn off the electricity when the rat stands on his hind legs, hell do a lot more standing. If you stop your perpetually nagging when I finally take out the garbage, Ill be more likely to take out the garbage (perhaps). You could say it feels so good when the aversive stimulus stops, that this serves as a reinforcer! Skinner was also involved in the introduction of Behavior modification.

Behavior modification -- often referred to as b-mod -- is the therapy technique based on Skinners work. It is very straight-forward: Extinguish an undesirable behavior (by removing the reinforcer) and replace it with a desirable behavior by reinforcement. It has been used on all sorts of psychological problems -- addictions, neuroses, shyness, autism, even schizophrenia -- and works particularly well with children. There are examples of back-ward psychotics who havent communicated with others for years who have been conditioning to behave themselves in fairly normal ways, such as eating with a knife and fork, taking care of their own hygiene needs, dressing themselves, and so on. There is an offshoot of b-mod called the token economy.

This is used primarily in institutions such as psychiatric hospitals, juvenile halls, and prisons. Certain rules are made explicit in the institution, and behaving yourself appropriately is rewarded with tokens -- poker chips, tickets, funny money, recorded notes, etc. Certain poor behavior is also often followed by a withdrawal of these tokens. The tokens can be traded in for desirable things such as candy, cigarettes, games, movies, time out of the institution, and so on.

This has been found to be very effective in maintaining order in these often difficult institutions.


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