Aggressive Behaviour
any action of an animal that serves to injure an opponent or prey animal or to cause an opponent to retreat. The term is used in manydifferent ways, however, and no single definition can possibly cover all of its meanings. When considering human aggression, for example, some psychiatrists consider any act that has destructive consequences (including suicide) to be aggressive. (For a discussion of aggressivebehaviour in man, see emotion.) Thus, the role of aggression in behaviour has been—and continues to be—debated by psychologists and ethologists, as is the meaning of the term itself. Frequently, aggressive behaviour encompasses both attack and defense. Other investigators exclude food-gathering behaviour, though it may involve attack on another animal.
In order to avoid these ambiguities of definition, a distinction must be made between causation, function, and description of observed behaviour. It is frequently assumed that a single motivational system (aggression) causes all recognizably aggressive behaviour in higher animals. This assumption is certainly invalid for invertebrates and for most higher vertebrates, in which a variety of motivational bases appear to exist. A motivational definition of aggression is thus difficult. The only possible rigorous approach is to list patterns of behaviour, usually held on both functional and causative grounds to be aggressive. Because aggressive behaviour has been most studied in mammals, mammalian behaviour will be examined here first as a basis for comparison with other animals.
8/30/2006
Affective Disorder
Affective Disorder
mental disorder characterized by dramatic changes or extremes of mood. Affective disorders may include manic (elevated, expansive, or irritable mood with hyperactivity, pressured speech, and inflated self-esteem) or depressive (dejected mood with disinterest in life, sleep disturbance, agitation, and feelings of worthlessness or guilt) episodes, and often combinations of thetwo. Persons with an affective disorder may or may not have psychotic symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, or other lossof contact with reality.
In manic-depressive disorders, periods of mania and depression may alternate with abrupt onsets and recoveries. Depression is the more common symptom, and many patients never develop a genuine manic phase, although they may experience a brief period of overoptimism and mild euphoria while recovering from a depression. The most extreme manifestation of mania is violence against others, while that of depression is suicide. Statistical studies have suggested a hereditary predisposition to the disorder, which commonly appears for the first time in young adults.
Manic-depressive disorders were described in antiquity by the 2nd-century Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia and in modern times by the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin. The current term is derived from folie ma ni aco-mélancholique, whichwas introduced in the 17th century.
mental disorder characterized by dramatic changes or extremes of mood. Affective disorders may include manic (elevated, expansive, or irritable mood with hyperactivity, pressured speech, and inflated self-esteem) or depressive (dejected mood with disinterest in life, sleep disturbance, agitation, and feelings of worthlessness or guilt) episodes, and often combinations of thetwo. Persons with an affective disorder may or may not have psychotic symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, or other lossof contact with reality.
In manic-depressive disorders, periods of mania and depression may alternate with abrupt onsets and recoveries. Depression is the more common symptom, and many patients never develop a genuine manic phase, although they may experience a brief period of overoptimism and mild euphoria while recovering from a depression. The most extreme manifestation of mania is violence against others, while that of depression is suicide. Statistical studies have suggested a hereditary predisposition to the disorder, which commonly appears for the first time in young adults.
Manic-depressive disorders were described in antiquity by the 2nd-century Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia and in modern times by the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin. The current term is derived from folie ma ni aco-mélancholique, whichwas introduced in the 17th century.
Adulthood
Adulthood
the period in the human lifespan in which full physical and intellectual maturity have been attained. Adulthood is commonly thought ofas beginning at age 20 or 21 years. Middle age, commencing at about 40 years, is followed by old age at about 60 years.
Physically, early and middle adulthood are marked by slow, gradual declines in body functioning, which accelerate as old age is reached. The muscle mass continues to increase through the mid-20s, thereafter gradually decreasing. The skeletal mass increases until age 30 or so, and then begins to decrease, first in the central skeleton (pelvis and spine) and last in the peripheral skeleton (fingers and toes). Throughout adulthood there is a progressive deposition of cholesterol in the arteries, and the heartmuscle eventually grows weaker even in the absence of detectable disease. The production of both male and female hormones also diminishes with age, though this cannot be directly related to the gradual diminution in sexual activity that occurs in both males and females between 20 and 60.
There is clear evidence that with increasing age adults display a slow, very gradual tendency toward decreasing speed of response in the execution of intellectual (and physical) tasks. Slowing rates of electrical activity in the older adult brain have been linked to the slowing of behaviour itself. This decline in the rate of central nervous system processing does not necessarily imply similar changes in learning, memory, or other intellectual functions. The learning capacity of young adults is superior to thatof older adults, as is their ability to organize new information in terms of its content or meaning. Older adults, on the other hand, are equal or superior to young adults in their capacity to retain general information and in their accumulated cultural knowledge.
the period in the human lifespan in which full physical and intellectual maturity have been attained. Adulthood is commonly thought ofas beginning at age 20 or 21 years. Middle age, commencing at about 40 years, is followed by old age at about 60 years.
Physically, early and middle adulthood are marked by slow, gradual declines in body functioning, which accelerate as old age is reached. The muscle mass continues to increase through the mid-20s, thereafter gradually decreasing. The skeletal mass increases until age 30 or so, and then begins to decrease, first in the central skeleton (pelvis and spine) and last in the peripheral skeleton (fingers and toes). Throughout adulthood there is a progressive deposition of cholesterol in the arteries, and the heartmuscle eventually grows weaker even in the absence of detectable disease. The production of both male and female hormones also diminishes with age, though this cannot be directly related to the gradual diminution in sexual activity that occurs in both males and females between 20 and 60.
There is clear evidence that with increasing age adults display a slow, very gradual tendency toward decreasing speed of response in the execution of intellectual (and physical) tasks. Slowing rates of electrical activity in the older adult brain have been linked to the slowing of behaviour itself. This decline in the rate of central nervous system processing does not necessarily imply similar changes in learning, memory, or other intellectual functions. The learning capacity of young adults is superior to thatof older adults, as is their ability to organize new information in terms of its content or meaning. Older adults, on the other hand, are equal or superior to young adults in their capacity to retain general information and in their accumulated cultural knowledge.
Adolescence
adolescence
transitional phase of growth and developmentbetween childhood and adulthood. “Adolescence” is a convenient label for the period in the life span between ages 12 and 20 and is roughly equivalent to the term “teens.”
In many societies adolescence is narrowly equated with puberty (q.v.) and the cycle of physical changes culminating in reproductive maturity. Western societies understand adolescence in terms of a broader sense of development—that is, it encompasses psychological, social, and moral terrain as well as the strictly physical aspects of maturation.
Adolescence is the period during which the individual experiences an upsurge of sexual feelings following the latency period of childhood. During this time the individual learns to control and direct his sex urges. Another issue that usually arises in adolescence is that of emotional (if not physical) separation from parents as a necessary step in the establishment of personalvalues. This new responsibility for self-determination and self-sufficiency forces an array of adjustments upon many adolescents. Furthermore, teenagers often have no defined role of their own in society but are caught in the ambiguous overlap between the reasonably clearly defined roles of childhood and adulthood. In a sense these issues define adolescence in Western cultures, and the response to them partly determines thenature of an individual's adult years.
Some specialists consider adolescence to be an intense and often stressful period of development that is characterized by a variety of special types of behaviour. Others find that the difficulties of adolescence have been exaggerated and that for many adolescents the process of maturation is usually peaceful and untroubled.
transitional phase of growth and developmentbetween childhood and adulthood. “Adolescence” is a convenient label for the period in the life span between ages 12 and 20 and is roughly equivalent to the term “teens.”
In many societies adolescence is narrowly equated with puberty (q.v.) and the cycle of physical changes culminating in reproductive maturity. Western societies understand adolescence in terms of a broader sense of development—that is, it encompasses psychological, social, and moral terrain as well as the strictly physical aspects of maturation.
Adolescence is the period during which the individual experiences an upsurge of sexual feelings following the latency period of childhood. During this time the individual learns to control and direct his sex urges. Another issue that usually arises in adolescence is that of emotional (if not physical) separation from parents as a necessary step in the establishment of personalvalues. This new responsibility for self-determination and self-sufficiency forces an array of adjustments upon many adolescents. Furthermore, teenagers often have no defined role of their own in society but are caught in the ambiguous overlap between the reasonably clearly defined roles of childhood and adulthood. In a sense these issues define adolescence in Western cultures, and the response to them partly determines thenature of an individual's adult years.
Some specialists consider adolescence to be an intense and often stressful period of development that is characterized by a variety of special types of behaviour. Others find that the difficulties of adolescence have been exaggerated and that for many adolescents the process of maturation is usually peaceful and untroubled.
Adler, Alfred
Adler, Alfred
born February 7, 1870, Penzing, Austria
died May 28, 1937, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
psychiatrist whose influential system of individual psychology introduced the term inferiority feeling, later widely and often inaccurately called inferiority complex. He developed a flexible, supportive psychotherapy to direct those emotionally disabled by inferiority feelings toward maturity, common sense, and social usefulness.
Throughout his life Adler maintained a strongawareness of social problems, and this servedas a principal motivation in his work. From his earliest years as a physician (M.D., University of Vienna Medical School, 1895), he stressed consideration of the patient in relation to the total environment, and he began developing a humanistic, holistic approach to human problems.
About 1900 Adler began to explore psychopathology within the context of general medicine and in 1902 became closely associated with Sigmund Freud. Gradually, however, differences between the two became irreconcilable, notably after the appearance of Adler's Studie über Minderwertigkeit von Organen(1907; Study of Organ Inferiority and Its Psychical Compensation),in which he suggested that persons try to compensate psychologically for a physical disability and its attendant feeling of inferiority. Unsatisfactory compensation results in neurosis. Adler increasingly downplayed Freud's basic contention that sexual conflicts in early childhood cause mental illness, and he further came to confine sexuality to a symbolic role in human strivings to overcome feelings of inadequacy. Outspokenly criticalof Freud by 1911, Adler and a group of followers severed ties with Freud's circle and began developing what they called individual psychology, first outlined in Über den nervösen Charakter (1912; The Neurotic Constitution). The system was elaborated in later editions of this work and in other writings, such as Menschenkenntnis (1927; Understanding Human Nature).
Individual psychology maintains that the overriding motivation inmost people is a striving for what Adler somewhat misleadingly termed superiority (i.e., self-realization, completeness, or perfection). This striving for superiority may be frustrated by feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, or incompleteness arising fromphysical defects, low social status, pampering or neglect during childhood, or other causes encountered in the course of life. Individuals can compensate for their feelings of inferiority by developing their skills and abilities, or, less healthily, they may develop an inferiority complex that comes to dominate their behaviour. Overcompensation for inferiority feelings can take the form of an egocentric striving for power and self-aggrandizing behaviour at others' expense.
Each person develops his personality and strives for perfection in his own particular way, in what Adler termed a style of life, or lifestyle. The individual's lifestyle forms in early childhood and is partly determined by what particular inferiority affected him mostdeeply during his formative years. The striving for superiority coexists with another innate urge: to cooperate and work with other people for the common good, a drive that Adler termed thesocial interest. Mental health is characterized by reason, social interest, and self-transcendence; mental disorder by feelings of inferiority and self-centred concern for one's safety and superiority or power over others. The Adlerian psychotherapist directs the patient's attention to the unsuccessful, neurotic character of his attempts to cope with feelings of inferiority. Oncethe patient has become aware of these, the therapist builds up hisself-esteem, helps him adopt more realistic goals, and encourages more useful behaviour and a stronger social interest.
In 1921 Adler established the first child-guidance clinic in Vienna, soon thereafter opening and maintaining about 30 more there under his direction. Adler first went to the United States in 1926 and became visiting professor at Columbia University in 1927. He was appointed visiting professor of the Long Island College of Medicine in New York in 1932. In 1934 the government in Austria closed his clinics. Many of his later writings, such as What Life Should Mean to You (1931), were directed to the general reader. Heinz L. and Rowena R. Ansbacher edited The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler (1956) and Superiority andSocial Interest (1964).
born February 7, 1870, Penzing, Austria
died May 28, 1937, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
psychiatrist whose influential system of individual psychology introduced the term inferiority feeling, later widely and often inaccurately called inferiority complex. He developed a flexible, supportive psychotherapy to direct those emotionally disabled by inferiority feelings toward maturity, common sense, and social usefulness.
Throughout his life Adler maintained a strongawareness of social problems, and this servedas a principal motivation in his work. From his earliest years as a physician (M.D., University of Vienna Medical School, 1895), he stressed consideration of the patient in relation to the total environment, and he began developing a humanistic, holistic approach to human problems.
About 1900 Adler began to explore psychopathology within the context of general medicine and in 1902 became closely associated with Sigmund Freud. Gradually, however, differences between the two became irreconcilable, notably after the appearance of Adler's Studie über Minderwertigkeit von Organen(1907; Study of Organ Inferiority and Its Psychical Compensation),in which he suggested that persons try to compensate psychologically for a physical disability and its attendant feeling of inferiority. Unsatisfactory compensation results in neurosis. Adler increasingly downplayed Freud's basic contention that sexual conflicts in early childhood cause mental illness, and he further came to confine sexuality to a symbolic role in human strivings to overcome feelings of inadequacy. Outspokenly criticalof Freud by 1911, Adler and a group of followers severed ties with Freud's circle and began developing what they called individual psychology, first outlined in Über den nervösen Charakter (1912; The Neurotic Constitution). The system was elaborated in later editions of this work and in other writings, such as Menschenkenntnis (1927; Understanding Human Nature).
Individual psychology maintains that the overriding motivation inmost people is a striving for what Adler somewhat misleadingly termed superiority (i.e., self-realization, completeness, or perfection). This striving for superiority may be frustrated by feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, or incompleteness arising fromphysical defects, low social status, pampering or neglect during childhood, or other causes encountered in the course of life. Individuals can compensate for their feelings of inferiority by developing their skills and abilities, or, less healthily, they may develop an inferiority complex that comes to dominate their behaviour. Overcompensation for inferiority feelings can take the form of an egocentric striving for power and self-aggrandizing behaviour at others' expense.
Each person develops his personality and strives for perfection in his own particular way, in what Adler termed a style of life, or lifestyle. The individual's lifestyle forms in early childhood and is partly determined by what particular inferiority affected him mostdeeply during his formative years. The striving for superiority coexists with another innate urge: to cooperate and work with other people for the common good, a drive that Adler termed thesocial interest. Mental health is characterized by reason, social interest, and self-transcendence; mental disorder by feelings of inferiority and self-centred concern for one's safety and superiority or power over others. The Adlerian psychotherapist directs the patient's attention to the unsuccessful, neurotic character of his attempts to cope with feelings of inferiority. Oncethe patient has become aware of these, the therapist builds up hisself-esteem, helps him adopt more realistic goals, and encourages more useful behaviour and a stronger social interest.
In 1921 Adler established the first child-guidance clinic in Vienna, soon thereafter opening and maintaining about 30 more there under his direction. Adler first went to the United States in 1926 and became visiting professor at Columbia University in 1927. He was appointed visiting professor of the Long Island College of Medicine in New York in 1932. In 1934 the government in Austria closed his clinics. Many of his later writings, such as What Life Should Mean to You (1931), were directed to the general reader. Heinz L. and Rowena R. Ansbacher edited The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler (1956) and Superiority andSocial Interest (1964).
Growing depression: Psychology behind farmer suicides
Growing depression: Psychology behind farmer suicides
NDTV Correspondent
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 (Vidharba):
As steps are taken to fight a spate of farmer suicides in Vidharba, the psychology behind the move is last thing on anyone's mind.
Psychiatrist Sujay Patil, the son of a farmer tries to get people in Chandur Village to recognise symptoms of clinical depression.
"A farmer drowns in sorrow and begins to feel suicidal. He feels his life has no meaning. He feels trapped. He can neither buy books for his children nor clothes for his wife. He sees no hope and gets into acute depression," Patil said.
It is likely that one of the flaws in the official logic of checking farmer suicides is to only focus on the farmers' part of it by announcing scheme after scheme.
NDTV Correspondent
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 (Vidharba):
As steps are taken to fight a spate of farmer suicides in Vidharba, the psychology behind the move is last thing on anyone's mind.
Psychiatrist Sujay Patil, the son of a farmer tries to get people in Chandur Village to recognise symptoms of clinical depression.
"A farmer drowns in sorrow and begins to feel suicidal. He feels his life has no meaning. He feels trapped. He can neither buy books for his children nor clothes for his wife. He sees no hope and gets into acute depression," Patil said.
It is likely that one of the flaws in the official logic of checking farmer suicides is to only focus on the farmers' part of it by announcing scheme after scheme.
8/29/2006
Gestalt psychology
Gestalt psychology
20th-century school of psychology that provided the foundation for the modern study ofperception. Its precepts, formulated as a reaction against the atomistic orientation of previous theories, emphasized thatthe whole of anything is greater than its parts. The attributes of the whole of anything are not deducible from analysis of the parts in isolation. The word Gestalt is used in modern German to mean the way a thing has been gestellt; i.e., “placed,” or “put together.” There is no exact equivalent in English. “Form” and “shape” are the usual translations; in psychology the word is often rendered “pattern” or “configuration.”
Gestalt theory began toward the close of the 19th century in Austria and south Germany as a protest against the associationist and structural schools' piecemeal analyses of experience into atomistic elements. Gestalt studies made use instead of the methods of phenomenology. This method, with a tradition going back to Goethe, involves nothing more than the description of direct psychological experience, with no restrictions on what is permissible in the description. Gestalt psychology was in part an attempt to add a humanistic dimension to what was considered a barren approach to the scientific study of mental life. Gestalt psychology sought to encompass the qualities of form, meaning, and value that prevailing psychologists had either ignored or thought to fall outside the confines of science.
Max Wertheimer (q.v.) in 1912 published the paper considered to mark the founding of the Gestalt school. In it he reported the result of an experimental study done at Frankfurt with two colleagues, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka (qq.v.); these threeformed the core of the Gestalt school for the next decades. The earliest Gestalt work concerned the area of perception, particularly visual perceptual organization as illuminated by the phenomenon of illusion. A perceptual illusion that provided strong support for Gestalt principles was the phi-phenomenon, an illusion of apparent motion named and described in 1912 by Wertheimer. The phi-phenomenon is a visual illusion in which stationary objects shown in rapid succession appear to move by transcending the threshold at which they can be perceived separately (the phenomenon is experienced in viewing motion pictures).
The effect of the phi-phenomenon was apparently inexplicable on the old assumption that the sensations of perceptual experience stand in a one-to-one relation to the physical stimuli. The perceived motion is an emergent experience, not present in the stimuli in isolation but dependent upon the relational characteristics of the stimuli. The nervous system of the observerand the observer's experience do not passively register the physical input in a piecemeal way. Rather, the neural organization as well as the perceptual experience springs immediately into existence as an entire field with differentiated parts. In later writings this principle was stated as the law of Prägnanz: The neural and perceptual organization of any set of impinging stimuli forms as good a Gestalt, or whole, as the prevailing conditions allow.
Major elaborations of the new formulation occurred within the next decades. Wertheimer, Köhler, Koffka, and their students extended the Gestalt approach to problems in other areas of perception, problem solving, learning, and thinking. The Gestalt principles were later applied to motivation, social psychology, and personality, particularly by Kurt Lewin (q.v.), and to aesthetics and economic behaviour. Wertheimer demonstrated that Gestalt concepts could also be used to shed light on problems in ethics, political behaviour, and the nature of truth. Gestalt psychology's traditions have continued in the perceptual investigations undertaken by Rudolf Arnheim and Hans Wallach in the United States.
20th-century school of psychology that provided the foundation for the modern study ofperception. Its precepts, formulated as a reaction against the atomistic orientation of previous theories, emphasized thatthe whole of anything is greater than its parts. The attributes of the whole of anything are not deducible from analysis of the parts in isolation. The word Gestalt is used in modern German to mean the way a thing has been gestellt; i.e., “placed,” or “put together.” There is no exact equivalent in English. “Form” and “shape” are the usual translations; in psychology the word is often rendered “pattern” or “configuration.”
Gestalt theory began toward the close of the 19th century in Austria and south Germany as a protest against the associationist and structural schools' piecemeal analyses of experience into atomistic elements. Gestalt studies made use instead of the methods of phenomenology. This method, with a tradition going back to Goethe, involves nothing more than the description of direct psychological experience, with no restrictions on what is permissible in the description. Gestalt psychology was in part an attempt to add a humanistic dimension to what was considered a barren approach to the scientific study of mental life. Gestalt psychology sought to encompass the qualities of form, meaning, and value that prevailing psychologists had either ignored or thought to fall outside the confines of science.
Max Wertheimer (q.v.) in 1912 published the paper considered to mark the founding of the Gestalt school. In it he reported the result of an experimental study done at Frankfurt with two colleagues, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka (qq.v.); these threeformed the core of the Gestalt school for the next decades. The earliest Gestalt work concerned the area of perception, particularly visual perceptual organization as illuminated by the phenomenon of illusion. A perceptual illusion that provided strong support for Gestalt principles was the phi-phenomenon, an illusion of apparent motion named and described in 1912 by Wertheimer. The phi-phenomenon is a visual illusion in which stationary objects shown in rapid succession appear to move by transcending the threshold at which they can be perceived separately (the phenomenon is experienced in viewing motion pictures).
The effect of the phi-phenomenon was apparently inexplicable on the old assumption that the sensations of perceptual experience stand in a one-to-one relation to the physical stimuli. The perceived motion is an emergent experience, not present in the stimuli in isolation but dependent upon the relational characteristics of the stimuli. The nervous system of the observerand the observer's experience do not passively register the physical input in a piecemeal way. Rather, the neural organization as well as the perceptual experience springs immediately into existence as an entire field with differentiated parts. In later writings this principle was stated as the law of Prägnanz: The neural and perceptual organization of any set of impinging stimuli forms as good a Gestalt, or whole, as the prevailing conditions allow.
Major elaborations of the new formulation occurred within the next decades. Wertheimer, Köhler, Koffka, and their students extended the Gestalt approach to problems in other areas of perception, problem solving, learning, and thinking. The Gestalt principles were later applied to motivation, social psychology, and personality, particularly by Kurt Lewin (q.v.), and to aesthetics and economic behaviour. Wertheimer demonstrated that Gestalt concepts could also be used to shed light on problems in ethics, political behaviour, and the nature of truth. Gestalt psychology's traditions have continued in the perceptual investigations undertaken by Rudolf Arnheim and Hans Wallach in the United States.
comparative psychology
comparative psychology
the study of similarities and differences in behavioral organization among living beings, from bacteria to plants to humans. The discipline pays particular attention to the psychological nature of human beings in comparison with other animals.
In the study of animals, comparative psychology concentrates on discerning qualitative as well as quantitative similarities and differences in animal (including human) behaviour. It has important applications in fields such as medicine, ecology, and animal training. With the rise of an experimental comparative psychology in the latter half of the 19th century and its rapid growth during the 20th, the study of lower animals has cast increasing light on human psychology in such areas as the development of individual behaviour, motivation, the nature and methods of learning, effects of drugs, and localization of brain function. Other animals are easier to obtain in numbers and can be better controlled under experimental conditions than can human subjects, and much can be learned about humans from lower animals. Comparative psychologists have been careful, however, to avoid anthropomorphizing the behaviour of animals; that is, to avoid ascribing to animals human attributes and motivations when their behaviours can be explained by simpler theories. This principle is known as Lloyd Morgan's canon, namedafter a British pioneer in comparative psychology.
The tendency to endow lower animals with human capacities always has been strong. In recorded history, two different views have developed concerning human beings' relation to the lower animals. One, termed for convenience the man-brute view, stresses differences often to the point of denying similarities altogether and derives from the traditional religious accounts of the separate creations of humans and animals; the other, the evolutionary view, stresses both similarities and differences. Aristotle formalized the man-brute view, attributing a rational faculty to humans alone, lesser faculties to the animals. The modern scientific view, on the other hand, considers humans to be highly evolved animals; evidence indicates that continuity in the evolution of organisms provides a basis for essential psychological similarities and differences between lower and higher animals, including humans.
the study of similarities and differences in behavioral organization among living beings, from bacteria to plants to humans. The discipline pays particular attention to the psychological nature of human beings in comparison with other animals.
In the study of animals, comparative psychology concentrates on discerning qualitative as well as quantitative similarities and differences in animal (including human) behaviour. It has important applications in fields such as medicine, ecology, and animal training. With the rise of an experimental comparative psychology in the latter half of the 19th century and its rapid growth during the 20th, the study of lower animals has cast increasing light on human psychology in such areas as the development of individual behaviour, motivation, the nature and methods of learning, effects of drugs, and localization of brain function. Other animals are easier to obtain in numbers and can be better controlled under experimental conditions than can human subjects, and much can be learned about humans from lower animals. Comparative psychologists have been careful, however, to avoid anthropomorphizing the behaviour of animals; that is, to avoid ascribing to animals human attributes and motivations when their behaviours can be explained by simpler theories. This principle is known as Lloyd Morgan's canon, namedafter a British pioneer in comparative psychology.
The tendency to endow lower animals with human capacities always has been strong. In recorded history, two different views have developed concerning human beings' relation to the lower animals. One, termed for convenience the man-brute view, stresses differences often to the point of denying similarities altogether and derives from the traditional religious accounts of the separate creations of humans and animals; the other, the evolutionary view, stresses both similarities and differences. Aristotle formalized the man-brute view, attributing a rational faculty to humans alone, lesser faculties to the animals. The modern scientific view, on the other hand, considers humans to be highly evolved animals; evidence indicates that continuity in the evolution of organisms provides a basis for essential psychological similarities and differences between lower and higher animals, including humans.
developmental psychology
developmental psychology
also called Life-span Psychology, the branch of psychology concerned with the changes in cognitive, motivational, psychophysiological, and social functioning that occur throughout the human life span. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, developmental psychologists were concerned primarily with child psychology. In the 1950s, however, they became interested in the relationship between personality variables and child rearing, and the behavioral theories of B.F. Skinner and the cognitive theories of Jean Piaget were concerned with the growthand development of children through adolescence. At the same time, the German psychologist Erik Erikson insisted that there are meaningful stages of adult psychology that have to be considered in addition to child development. Psychologists also began to consider the processes that underlie the development of behaviour in the total person from birth to death, including various aspects of the physical-chemical environment that can affect the individual during the intrauterine period and at birth. By the latter part of the 20th century, developmental psychologists had become interested in many broad issues dealing with the psychological process throughout life, including the relation of heredity and environment, continuity and discontinuity in development, and behavioral and cognitive elements in the development of the total person.
also called Life-span Psychology, the branch of psychology concerned with the changes in cognitive, motivational, psychophysiological, and social functioning that occur throughout the human life span. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, developmental psychologists were concerned primarily with child psychology. In the 1950s, however, they became interested in the relationship between personality variables and child rearing, and the behavioral theories of B.F. Skinner and the cognitive theories of Jean Piaget were concerned with the growthand development of children through adolescence. At the same time, the German psychologist Erik Erikson insisted that there are meaningful stages of adult psychology that have to be considered in addition to child development. Psychologists also began to consider the processes that underlie the development of behaviour in the total person from birth to death, including various aspects of the physical-chemical environment that can affect the individual during the intrauterine period and at birth. By the latter part of the 20th century, developmental psychologists had become interested in many broad issues dealing with the psychological process throughout life, including the relation of heredity and environment, continuity and discontinuity in development, and behavioral and cognitive elements in the development of the total person.
fatigue
fatigue
specific form of human inadequacyin which the individual experiencesan aversion to exertion and feels unable to carry on. Such feelings may be generated by muscular effort; exhaustion of the energy supply to the muscles of the body,however, is not an invariable precursor. Feelings of fatigue may also stem from pain, anxiety, fear, or boredom. In the latter cases, muscle function commonly is unimpaired.
The once-held belief that work was the cause of fatigue led to efforts to use the work output of factory workers, for example, as direct measures of fatigue. Early studies by industrial psychologists and engineers failed to show a close connection between how an individual worker said he felt and the amount of work he accomplished; production-oriented investigators were even led to attribute no significance at all to inner feelings of fatigue, and their attention shifted from the inner condition of the worker to external phenomena not related to the worker at all. In the process it was forgotten that work output is a product of, rather than a description of, the worker.
For other researchers who retained an interest in the worker himself, study was typically directed to observable body processes rather than to the overall internal state of the worker as manifested in how he said he felt. Such studies disclosed, among other things, that oxygen and glucose were consumed during work and that waste products such as carbon dioxide anduric acid were produced. Hence, for some investigators fatigue came to mean a bodily state in which waste products were present in high concentration.
All such studies clearly revealed specific results of exertion and disclosed evidence for the burning of food materials (metabolites); taken by themselves, the data provided a picture of the human organism as an energy-converting system and showed a definite relation of this process to energetic (work) performance. Such studies are a part of basic physiological research and apply most closely to what may be expected of people under heavy exertion in the workaday world and in sportsand athletics.
Feelings and other signs of fatigue can arise suddenly and disappear suddenly, and the onset, duration, and termination of fatigue symptoms may appear to bear little relation to exertion orwork. When fatigue arises in nonexertional situations, there is a temptation simply to say that the fatigue is “psychological” or “ motivational.” Relatively little research has been devoted to fatigue as descriptive of the person himself and of the full range of demands he has to meet, although many of these demands lie outside the simple energy requirements of more-or-less arduous work.
Man is able to—and may—respond to any situation in more than one way and at more than one level of behavioral complexity. The most readily observable ways are grossly physical and chemical; but these, in turn, underlie other levels of response such as primitive sensory activity (becoming aware of stimuli), and still higher levels such as perceiving (e.g., evaluating the nature and objectives of work activity). At the highest level of activity the relationship often is spoken of as existing between the whole person and the environment.
Since most investigative attention in industrial or other production situations has been directed toward what man can do in terms of his being only a machine that converts food energy into useful work, an understanding of the fine details of the relation between fatigue and physiological body processes has preceded experimental efforts to specify the role of personal attitudes (such as the individual's own evaluation of his abilities). Such self-evaluations (e.g., a worker's judgment that he cannot continue activity) rather than any exhaustion of the energy available within the body result in the termination of activity. Often when such changes in performance are attributed to motivation, or to any of a number of factors called psychological, one's allegiance to ancient views of the nature of man may tempthim to think of mental factors disjoined and unrelated to any physical, energistic description of the organism. Yet, a fully usefuldefinition of fatigue would require that all relevant factors be considered. Indeed, modern efforts to achieve a unified, integrated definition of fatigue rest on studies in which higher-order mental processes (such as thinking, perceiving, andemoting) are investigated to find whether they seem to stem from physical body processes.
Fatigue as it is applied to the whole person involves an individual's feelings of discomfort and aversion, his inner awareness of making mistakes, and any changes in observable signs of effort required to carry on the performance involved. These aspects are found to be related in various ways to measurable variations in work output. Investigators who typicallyfocus primarily on work output are apt to be concerned with the applied, practical view of the person as a productive worker; interest is more likely to be concentrated upon the worker himself by those scientists who wish to study fatigue even if their findings are not directly productive of work output. The worker himself is interested in how he feels and what makes him feel as he does.
At any rate, in accounting for fatigue, it is useful to make distinctions between what pertains to the individual as a whole and what pertains only to some part or organ of the individual. That the total behaviour is spoken of as personalistic, or psychological, is not simply because self-awareness (inner feelingof fatigue) is involved but because, at this level, resources are directed toward ends that go beyond the limited function of any one body part. This situation is illustrated by a simple example in muscular activity. When muscle activity is described in itself (at agiven subpersonalistic level), it is simply called muscle contraction. Muscle contraction occurring as an integrated part of more complex personalistic behaviour may be called reaching;this action is an integral part of grasping a pencil, which is part ofthe more personalistic act of writing to one's friends.
While fatigue is one consequence of grossly observable activity, itcan occur in the absence of manifest muscular exertion. It can develop, for example, as a rather immediate response to a sociallyexercised demand (such as that of a nagging supervisor), of which the person suddenly becomes aware but may not like. Thefeeling of fatigue produced in the absence of productive work seems to be essentially the same as that produced by goal-directed labour. Some components nevertheless are different, such as aching muscles in the one case and not in the other, but the factors that give fatigue its identity and differentiate it from other states of inadequacy are present in both. In each case conditions exist that can even result in one's total inability to carry on, whether his muscles contain high concentrations of waste products or not.
Muscular exertion does, however, produce biochemical changes in the body that are quite complex and that differ in various tissues and organs such as the heart or the brain. The consequence almost invariably is to produce secondary effects, perhaps muscular stiffness, and these in turn give rise to higher level effects such as one's sensory awareness of pain and discomfort. At a more personalistic level, the individual may develop a change in attitude with regard to the task or activity inprogress; e.g., he may begin to feel aversion for the work. The whole process, in effect, yields the individual's self-generated assessment of his own ability to carry on. If he continues his exertions under his personal assessment that such activity will produce more pain or will become more nearly intolerable or even impossible, the anticipated consequences include less efficient work performance. As the worker becomes preoccupied with his discomfort and with his waning production, the effect typically is to produce still more inefficient work. Thus fatigue defined as muscular inability to carry on and fatigue defined as a kind of felt aversion for exertion and as feelings of inability to carry on are all produced.
Performance may be observed to deteriorate (among factory workers, for example) even when there are no signs of the feelingstate and of the aversive, pessimistic self-assessment defined here as personalistic fatigue. Indeed, often enough one may be “fatigued” without knowing it, indicating the predominance of relatively subpersonalistic factors at work. Such factors can be lumped under the term impairment, mentioned originally as one of the major forms of human inadequacy. While transient impairment and personalistic fatigue generally have not been distinguished from each other by many psychologists, in numerous studies impairment, rather than the feeling of fatigue, has been the point of interest.
Impairment of this sort reflects alterations in the chemical processes that occur within the cells of the body. That the alterations are reversible is illustrated in alcohol intoxication and oxygen lack (hypoxia). When such transient impairment incapacitates the individual for energetic activities without greatly affecting his brain processes, he is likely to feel tired and weak. Thus, it can be said that transient physiological impairment and personalistic fatigue are closely related, one being a basis for the other. When brain processes are so sharply affected as to reduce perceptual or attitudinal awareness, impairment may produce marked behavioral consequences without associated feelings of fatigue. In such cases, feelings of weakness and tiredness may not be reported by the individual since his abilities for self-evaluation have been dulled.
The failure of people to have feelings of fatigue as a consequence of physiological impairment is characteristic of some forms of hypoxia, which can be brought on in several ways. One of these isby a fairly abrupt reduction in atmospheric oxygen pressure, as would occur in one's being deposited atop a mountain by helicopter. Feelings of fatigue are much more likely to set in when oxygen reduction is gradual and associated with exertion (as in mountain climbing). Along with lack of oxygen, other factors of the climber's task play their roles, and the climber's own awareness of the negative factors that are developing produces the full syndrome of fatigue, including both the inability to carry on and the aversive attitude.
In contrast to this, oxygen lack can be produced much more quickly in a decompression chamber in a laboratory, without any associated muscular exertion. It is possible to reach levels of hypoxia that abruptly reduce the subject's efficiency in exercising self-assessment, and personalistic fatigue in such cases fails to develop.
specific form of human inadequacyin which the individual experiencesan aversion to exertion and feels unable to carry on. Such feelings may be generated by muscular effort; exhaustion of the energy supply to the muscles of the body,however, is not an invariable precursor. Feelings of fatigue may also stem from pain, anxiety, fear, or boredom. In the latter cases, muscle function commonly is unimpaired.
The once-held belief that work was the cause of fatigue led to efforts to use the work output of factory workers, for example, as direct measures of fatigue. Early studies by industrial psychologists and engineers failed to show a close connection between how an individual worker said he felt and the amount of work he accomplished; production-oriented investigators were even led to attribute no significance at all to inner feelings of fatigue, and their attention shifted from the inner condition of the worker to external phenomena not related to the worker at all. In the process it was forgotten that work output is a product of, rather than a description of, the worker.
For other researchers who retained an interest in the worker himself, study was typically directed to observable body processes rather than to the overall internal state of the worker as manifested in how he said he felt. Such studies disclosed, among other things, that oxygen and glucose were consumed during work and that waste products such as carbon dioxide anduric acid were produced. Hence, for some investigators fatigue came to mean a bodily state in which waste products were present in high concentration.
All such studies clearly revealed specific results of exertion and disclosed evidence for the burning of food materials (metabolites); taken by themselves, the data provided a picture of the human organism as an energy-converting system and showed a definite relation of this process to energetic (work) performance. Such studies are a part of basic physiological research and apply most closely to what may be expected of people under heavy exertion in the workaday world and in sportsand athletics.
Feelings and other signs of fatigue can arise suddenly and disappear suddenly, and the onset, duration, and termination of fatigue symptoms may appear to bear little relation to exertion orwork. When fatigue arises in nonexertional situations, there is a temptation simply to say that the fatigue is “psychological” or “ motivational.” Relatively little research has been devoted to fatigue as descriptive of the person himself and of the full range of demands he has to meet, although many of these demands lie outside the simple energy requirements of more-or-less arduous work.
Man is able to—and may—respond to any situation in more than one way and at more than one level of behavioral complexity. The most readily observable ways are grossly physical and chemical; but these, in turn, underlie other levels of response such as primitive sensory activity (becoming aware of stimuli), and still higher levels such as perceiving (e.g., evaluating the nature and objectives of work activity). At the highest level of activity the relationship often is spoken of as existing between the whole person and the environment.
Since most investigative attention in industrial or other production situations has been directed toward what man can do in terms of his being only a machine that converts food energy into useful work, an understanding of the fine details of the relation between fatigue and physiological body processes has preceded experimental efforts to specify the role of personal attitudes (such as the individual's own evaluation of his abilities). Such self-evaluations (e.g., a worker's judgment that he cannot continue activity) rather than any exhaustion of the energy available within the body result in the termination of activity. Often when such changes in performance are attributed to motivation, or to any of a number of factors called psychological, one's allegiance to ancient views of the nature of man may tempthim to think of mental factors disjoined and unrelated to any physical, energistic description of the organism. Yet, a fully usefuldefinition of fatigue would require that all relevant factors be considered. Indeed, modern efforts to achieve a unified, integrated definition of fatigue rest on studies in which higher-order mental processes (such as thinking, perceiving, andemoting) are investigated to find whether they seem to stem from physical body processes.
Fatigue as it is applied to the whole person involves an individual's feelings of discomfort and aversion, his inner awareness of making mistakes, and any changes in observable signs of effort required to carry on the performance involved. These aspects are found to be related in various ways to measurable variations in work output. Investigators who typicallyfocus primarily on work output are apt to be concerned with the applied, practical view of the person as a productive worker; interest is more likely to be concentrated upon the worker himself by those scientists who wish to study fatigue even if their findings are not directly productive of work output. The worker himself is interested in how he feels and what makes him feel as he does.
At any rate, in accounting for fatigue, it is useful to make distinctions between what pertains to the individual as a whole and what pertains only to some part or organ of the individual. That the total behaviour is spoken of as personalistic, or psychological, is not simply because self-awareness (inner feelingof fatigue) is involved but because, at this level, resources are directed toward ends that go beyond the limited function of any one body part. This situation is illustrated by a simple example in muscular activity. When muscle activity is described in itself (at agiven subpersonalistic level), it is simply called muscle contraction. Muscle contraction occurring as an integrated part of more complex personalistic behaviour may be called reaching;this action is an integral part of grasping a pencil, which is part ofthe more personalistic act of writing to one's friends.
While fatigue is one consequence of grossly observable activity, itcan occur in the absence of manifest muscular exertion. It can develop, for example, as a rather immediate response to a sociallyexercised demand (such as that of a nagging supervisor), of which the person suddenly becomes aware but may not like. Thefeeling of fatigue produced in the absence of productive work seems to be essentially the same as that produced by goal-directed labour. Some components nevertheless are different, such as aching muscles in the one case and not in the other, but the factors that give fatigue its identity and differentiate it from other states of inadequacy are present in both. In each case conditions exist that can even result in one's total inability to carry on, whether his muscles contain high concentrations of waste products or not.
Muscular exertion does, however, produce biochemical changes in the body that are quite complex and that differ in various tissues and organs such as the heart or the brain. The consequence almost invariably is to produce secondary effects, perhaps muscular stiffness, and these in turn give rise to higher level effects such as one's sensory awareness of pain and discomfort. At a more personalistic level, the individual may develop a change in attitude with regard to the task or activity inprogress; e.g., he may begin to feel aversion for the work. The whole process, in effect, yields the individual's self-generated assessment of his own ability to carry on. If he continues his exertions under his personal assessment that such activity will produce more pain or will become more nearly intolerable or even impossible, the anticipated consequences include less efficient work performance. As the worker becomes preoccupied with his discomfort and with his waning production, the effect typically is to produce still more inefficient work. Thus fatigue defined as muscular inability to carry on and fatigue defined as a kind of felt aversion for exertion and as feelings of inability to carry on are all produced.
Performance may be observed to deteriorate (among factory workers, for example) even when there are no signs of the feelingstate and of the aversive, pessimistic self-assessment defined here as personalistic fatigue. Indeed, often enough one may be “fatigued” without knowing it, indicating the predominance of relatively subpersonalistic factors at work. Such factors can be lumped under the term impairment, mentioned originally as one of the major forms of human inadequacy. While transient impairment and personalistic fatigue generally have not been distinguished from each other by many psychologists, in numerous studies impairment, rather than the feeling of fatigue, has been the point of interest.
Impairment of this sort reflects alterations in the chemical processes that occur within the cells of the body. That the alterations are reversible is illustrated in alcohol intoxication and oxygen lack (hypoxia). When such transient impairment incapacitates the individual for energetic activities without greatly affecting his brain processes, he is likely to feel tired and weak. Thus, it can be said that transient physiological impairment and personalistic fatigue are closely related, one being a basis for the other. When brain processes are so sharply affected as to reduce perceptual or attitudinal awareness, impairment may produce marked behavioral consequences without associated feelings of fatigue. In such cases, feelings of weakness and tiredness may not be reported by the individual since his abilities for self-evaluation have been dulled.
The failure of people to have feelings of fatigue as a consequence of physiological impairment is characteristic of some forms of hypoxia, which can be brought on in several ways. One of these isby a fairly abrupt reduction in atmospheric oxygen pressure, as would occur in one's being deposited atop a mountain by helicopter. Feelings of fatigue are much more likely to set in when oxygen reduction is gradual and associated with exertion (as in mountain climbing). Along with lack of oxygen, other factors of the climber's task play their roles, and the climber's own awareness of the negative factors that are developing produces the full syndrome of fatigue, including both the inability to carry on and the aversive attitude.
In contrast to this, oxygen lack can be produced much more quickly in a decompression chamber in a laboratory, without any associated muscular exertion. It is possible to reach levels of hypoxia that abruptly reduce the subject's efficiency in exercising self-assessment, and personalistic fatigue in such cases fails to develop.
industrial psychology
industrial psychology
also called occupational psychologyapplication of the concepts and methods of experimental, clinical, and social psychology to industry. The primary concern of industrial psychology is with the basic relations in industry between worker and machine and the organization.
Industrial psychology was first developed in the United States in theearly 1900s and has come to be applied, usually through personnel and office administrations, to industrial management in industries in other parts of the world, particularly in those countries where a concern has developed for the systematic and scientific examination of the problems of workers in industry.
also called occupational psychologyapplication of the concepts and methods of experimental, clinical, and social psychology to industry. The primary concern of industrial psychology is with the basic relations in industry between worker and machine and the organization.
Industrial psychology was first developed in the United States in theearly 1900s and has come to be applied, usually through personnel and office administrations, to industrial management in industries in other parts of the world, particularly in those countries where a concern has developed for the systematic and scientific examination of the problems of workers in industry.
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