Psychology

Enduring Issues in Psychology Toni Blake

• Which Type of Psychotherapy Is Most Useful?
• Psychotherapy should focus on unconscious traumas
• Psychotherapy should focus on irrational thought processes
• Psychotherapy should focus on an individual’s potential
• Psychotherapy should focus on changing

• What Is Personality and How Is It Measured?
• Unconscious instincts motivate personality
• Social feeling motivates personality
• A hierarchy of needs motivates personality
• Personality is a combination of thousands of traits
• Personality is a combination of five major factors

• How Does Psychological Development Occur?
• Development occurs in a series of psychosexual stages
• Development occurs in a series of psychosocial stages
• Development occurs in a series of cognitive stages
• Development occurs in a series of moral stages
• Development occurs through imitation

• Does Nurture or Nature Drive Psychological Disorders?
• Alcoholism is a disease
• Alcoholism is not a disease
• Criminal behavior is influenced by heredity
• Criminal behavior is influenced by society
• Genes cause depression
• Psychosocial factors cause depression

• Should Psychological Theory Determine Public Policy?
• Repressed memories are questionable
• Repressed memories may be reliable
• Involuntary commitment of the mentally ill is justifiable
• Involuntary commitment of the mentally ill in not justifiable
• Rational suicide is a valuable practice
• “Rational” suicide is a misnomer

Forty Studies That Changed Psychology Roger R. Hock

• Biology and Human Behavior
• One brain or two?
• More experience = bigger brain?
• What you see is what you’ve learned (behaviors of the BaMbuti Pygmies)
• Watch out for the visual cliff

• Consciousness
• To sleep, no doubt to dream (eye mobility and concomitant phenomena)
• When you wish upon a dream (the influence of a conscious wish on dreams)
• Unromancing the dream (the brain as a dream-state generator)
• Acting as if you are hypnotized (hypnotic behavior)

• Learning and Conditioning
• It’s not just about salivating dogs! (conditioned reflexes)
• Little emotional Albert (conditioned emotional responses)
• Knock wood! (superstition in the pigeon)
• See aggression… do aggression!

• Intelligence, Cognition, and Memory
• What you expect is what you get (teacher’s expectancies)
• Making a good impression
• Maps in your mind (cognitive maps in rats and men)
• Thanks for the memories!

• Human Development
• Discovering love
• Out of sight, but not out of mind (the development of object concept)
• Born first, born smarter?
• In control and glad of it! (the effects of choice)

• Emotion and Motivation
• A sexual motivation (human sexual response)
• I can see it all over your face! (constants across cultures in the face and emotion)
• Life, change, and stress
• Thoughts out of tune (cognitive consequences of forced compliance)

• Personality
• Are you the master of your fate?
• How moral are you?
• Learning to be depressed (failure to escape traumatic shock)
• Racing against your heart (overt behavior pattern with cardiovascular findings)

• Psychopathology
• Who’s crazy here, anyway? (being sane in insane places)
• You’re getting defensive again! (mechanisms of defense)
• Projections of who you are
• Crowding into the behavioral sink (population density and social pathology)

• Psychotherapy
• Choosing your psychotherapist
• Relaxing your fears away
• Picture this! (explorations in personality)
• A chemical calm (the effects of Diazepam)

• Social Psychology
• Not practicing what you preach
• The power of conformity
• To help or not to help (bystander intervention)
• Obey at any cost (behavioral study of obedience)

Taking Sides Brent Slife & Joseph Rubinstein

• The Study of Psychology
• Can deception in research be justified?
• Should psychologists study memory through controlled laboratory experiments?
• Can experiments using animals be justified?

• Biological Processes
• Is our behavior primarily determined by biological processes?
• Is the “Disease” of alcoholism a myth?
• Is our state of mind responsible for our state of health?

• Cognitive Processes
• Has science discredited ESP?
• Can computers help us understand the human mind?
• Can intelligence be increased?

• Human Development
• Do gender differences originate from biological factors?
• Is day care harmful?
• Are children of divorced parents at greater risk? (of mental / physical problems)
• Should adolescents be allowed to make decisions about abortion without parental involvement?

• Mental Health and Psychotherapy
• Should psychotherapists allow suicide?
• Do diagnostic labels hinder the effective treatment of persons with mental disorders?
• Should psychotherapy include religious values?
• Is electroconvulsive therapy safe?

• Social Issues
• Should psychologists be allowed to prescribe drugs?
• Would legalizing drugs have beneficial effects on society?