Outline of Consciousness
Section 4: Consciousness
Pages 114-117
I. Defining Consciousness
a. Consciousness is commonly defined as being aware of the immediate environment.
i. For example, knowing when to go to class or work.
b. Consciousness also deals with awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and memories.
i. Examples
1. Making plans for dates.
2. Getting annoyed at your performance in school.
3. Thinking back about good times with your friends.
c. Early psychologists and their studies
i. When early psychologists studied the mind, they studied consciousness.
1. William Wundt (late 1880 's) had subjects report contents of consciousness while working, falling asleep, and sitting still.
2. Sigmund Freud (1900 's) wrote that needs, desires, and influences are part of the conscious and people have different levels of consciousness.
d. Dualism
i. Started by French philosopher Rene Descartes stated that mind and body are separate, but interacting. ii. Dualism says that one thing cannot exist without it 's opposite.
1. Light cannot exist without darkness.
2. Good cannot exist without the presence of evil.
3. The body cannot function without the mind, and so forth.
e. Materialism
i. Psychologists say that our mental activity is rooted in the brain. ii. Dominant perspective with modern psychologists. iii. Tends to take a less black and white view of "consciousness" versus "unconsciousness." iv. Psychologists say that you are more aware of certain mental processes over others.
1. For example, doing the same routine at work and time seems to go by faster.
v. Cognitive psychologists ignore the unconscious. They call it the deliberate versus the automatic.
f. Different levels of Consciousness
i. Freud and other cognitive psychologists came up with this theory.
1. Consciousness is a continuum.
a. Alert attention
b. Dreaming
c. Hypnosis
d. Drug-induced states
2. Someone who isn 't paying attention is still conscious, just not "as conscious" as someone that is alert.
Pages 114-117
I. Defining Consciousness
a. Consciousness is commonly defined as being aware of the immediate environment.
i. For example, knowing when to go to class or work.
b. Consciousness also deals with awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and memories.
i. Examples
1. Making plans for dates.
2. Getting annoyed at your performance in school.
3. Thinking back about good times with your friends.
c. Early psychologists and their studies
i. When early psychologists studied the mind, they studied consciousness.
1. William Wundt (late 1880 's) had subjects report contents of consciousness while working, falling asleep, and sitting still.
2. Sigmund Freud (1900 's) wrote that needs, desires, and influences are part of the conscious and people have different levels of consciousness.
d. Dualism
i. Started by French philosopher Rene Descartes stated that mind and body are separate, but interacting. ii. Dualism says that one thing cannot exist without it 's opposite.
1. Light cannot exist without darkness.
2. Good cannot exist without the presence of evil.
3. The body cannot function without the mind, and so forth.
e. Materialism
i. Psychologists say that our mental activity is rooted in the brain. ii. Dominant perspective with modern psychologists. iii. Tends to take a less black and white view of "consciousness" versus "unconsciousness." iv. Psychologists say that you are more aware of certain mental processes over others.
1. For example, doing the same routine at work and time seems to go by faster.
v. Cognitive psychologists ignore the unconscious. They call it the deliberate versus the automatic.
f. Different levels of Consciousness
i. Freud and other cognitive psychologists came up with this theory.
1. Consciousness is a continuum.
a. Alert attention
b. Dreaming
c. Hypnosis
d. Drug-induced states
2. Someone who isn 't paying attention is still conscious, just not "as conscious" as someone that is alert.