Psychology 10: Introduction to Psychology

S/R Paper for March 26, 2009

By

Halford H. Fairchild

Film Clip: Miracle of Life

Stimulus: This film clip shows the “miracle” of human fertilization, cell division, the migration and implantation of the fertilized “zygote,” and images of a developing fetus, culminated with a childbirth. Fairchild commented on the problems of C-sections and the medicalization of natural processes, such as birth (and death).

Responses: It is, perhaps, a sad commentary that images of childbirth are unusual or shocking. We have been divorced from our own human essence, by making this natural process the rightful purview of doctors and hospitals. Mothers, and fathers, become almost incompetent onlookers in their own family development.

Harlow, H.F. (1958).  The nature of love.  American Psychologist, 13, 673-85. (Hock, pp. 126-134)

Stimulus: Details Harlow’s classic study of infant monkeys raised with a “cloth” or “wire” “mother. Harlow placed frightening objects in the cages (a wind-up drum-laying toy bear, for example). Harlow recorded monkeys’ in an “open field test,” with either or neither “mother” present. FINDINGS: debunked the idea of attachment being due to the satisfaction of primary needs (hunger, thirst). Rather, contact was far more important in monkeys’ attachment behavior. Monkeys with wire mother had digestion problems, suggesting “psychological stress.” Harlow also studied the effects of “rejecting” mothers (surrogates who emitted strong jets of air or who had blunt spikes that would jump out).

Recent applications: social contact and loneliness; touching or “kangaroo care” for premature infants; touch in psychotherapy.

Response: Harlow commits the ‘sin’ of anthropomorphizing – attributing human characteristics (in this case “love”) to infra-human organisms. What is “love”? What is Harlow actually examining?

Is mother-infant bonding really “love”? Or is it “contact comfort”?

Importance of noting how Harlow’s study was in contradiction to behaviorist theories, which emphasized the satisfaction of physical needs as the basis for attachment. “…man cannot live by milk alone.”

Suggests that men can be equally efficacious in providing contact comfort inasmuch as this comfort did not require the “mammalian capabilities” of women.

Breast feeding vs. bottle feeding.

Ethical debates. Is what we learned worth what was done to the monkeys?

Are institutional children (e.g., in orphanages) really handled more by caretakers?

Attachment is a two-way street: mothers’ attachments and touching their infants (& especially with premature infants); fathers’ attachment and touching/caring/changing diapers.

Avoiding touch and sexual harassment issues.

Piaget, J. (1954).  The development of object concept.  The construction of reality in the child. NY: Basic Books. (Hock, pp. 134-142)

Stimulus: Notes that Piaget was a trained biologist, but worked with Alfred Binet who was developing the first intelligence tests. Notes that such tests are “standardized” “…so that each child who takes the test will receive the same questions. In this way, any differences in scores can be attributed to the child and not to variations in the test.”

Provides Piaget’s stages: sensorimotor, preoperational (object permanence but no conservation, egocentric), concrete operations (conservation, classification), formal operations (11 and up; abstractions, ethics, etc.).

Provides some of Piaget’s detailed observational notes.

Suggests that “…object permanence is the foundation for all subsequent advances in intellectual ability.” [response: sort of like saying that you must crawl before you walk, which we know is not true.]

Response: Intellectual development as a process of maturation (& nature/nurture interaction).

The text suggests that walking requires physical maturity. But it is really mind/body maturity? Walking is an intellectual task (as well as a physical capability. In fact, bipedalism has been credited with a cause and consequence of human intellect. Cannot separate mind and body.

Standardized tests: scores are misattributed (in part) to the child; as the tests assess whether the child’s environment had provided the information that is being tested.

Conservation tasks (develops by the period of concrete operations

Piaget’s egocentrism: assuming that the findings on his children applied to all children in the world. (similar to most Western psychologists, Freud, Erikson, Skinner, etc. which has mislead them/us to assume that cultural differences are cultural deficits]

Kohlberg, L.  (1963).  The development of children's orientations toward a moral order: Sequence in the development of moral thought.  Vita Humana, 6, 11-33.  (Hock, pp. 142-150)

Stimulus: This chapter reviews Kohlberg’s stage theory of moral development. The early sample consisted of 72 boys in Chicago (some upper and some lower SES). From this Kohlberg developed a stage theory, which has the following features: (1) each stage is unique or qualitatively different; (2) there is an invariant sequence to the stages; (3) the stages are prepotent (children at one stage understand all the stages below that stage, and no more than one stage above).

Level 1: Premoral Level

Stage 1: morality determined by punishment and obedience

Stage 2: naïve instrumental hedonism (satisfaction of one’s needs)

Level 2: Morality of Conventional Role-Conformity

Stage 3: “good boy/girl” (what pleases others is good)

Stage 4: law and order; doing one’s duty

Level 3: Morality of Self-accepted moral principles

Stage 5: society’s democratically determined values; individual rights

Stage 6: individual principles of conscience according to universal principals.

Hock notes the problem of applying Kohlberg’s theory cross-culturally (especially in collectivist cultures, where the welfare of the entire community is emphasized); and sex differences (and the work of Carol Gilligan who debunks the idea that women operate at a lower level).

Notes that the morality of rapists and child molesters may be at a high level, but so too is their psychopathic deviance and paranoia, such that they ignore their interpersonal, moral values. (E.g., George W. Bush and the rush to war).

Response: Kohlberg’s egocentrism is displayed in his proclamation that the theory is universal.

Are we really born amoral and then learn morality? Or are we moral, and then learn immorality?

Can we develop a stage theory of immorality? And apply it to war, pornography and globalism (abusive capitalism)? What is the morality of slavery (de jure or de facto or through wages). What is the morality of the death penalty?

Gandhi and MLK are cited as exemplars of the highest levels of moral reasoning. Both were strict adherents of non-violence (and anti-war).

Langer, E.G., & Rodin, J.  (1976).  The effects of choice and enhanced personal responsibility for the aged:  A field experiment in an institutional setting.  (Hock, pp. 150-157).

Stimulus: Control over stressful events is important. Having the power to choose is beneficial. Eliciting the cooperation of a Connecticut nursing home (Arden house), two groups of elderly residents were affected. One was the “responsibility-induced group” (where the director gave them choices about how to arrange their rooms, making complaints, having a plant and which plant, seeing a movie on Thursday or Friday), vs. the “control group” (who were given a plant and told when to see the movie—most of the decisions were made for them).

Dependent measures: questionnaires on mood; attendance at movies; entry into a jelly bean estimating contest. Findings: elevated mood (see Table 1); greater attendance; greater participation in the contest; better ratings by the nurses.

Assessesd short term (3 weeks) and long term (18 months) effects.

18 months later, the benefits persisted. Including the fact that 30% of the control group had died compared to 15% of the experimental group.

Can too many choices be made available? Studies suggest that fewer choices may be beneficial in selecting extra credit options or jams or chocolates.

Personal control is related to physical health.

Response: To what extent are our choices mere illusions? (How much choice did students have in doing this reading or not?)

Ethical considerations: What happens when the research is over? Are the power and control and choices withdrawn? [Or, did the research stimulate lasting changes in the nursing home’s policies and procedures?]

Too many choices: how do you want that burger?

Film: Pioneer of Peace: A Parable.

Stimulus: Using mostly drawings and animation, the film tells the story of an encounter between Western pioneers (in a wagon train, moving West), and Native Americans. The men grabbed their guns, ready to fight. One of the women, sensing the danger, but also seeing the calmness in the American Indians, approaches the Indians, and hands them her baby. They look and laugh at the baby, and then hand the baby back.

Responses: This story illustrates a number of developmental themes:

1. gender socialization (the men grabbed their guns; the woman grabbed her baby)

2. societal development (can you believe it actually took months to travel from the East Coast to the West?)

3. giving peace a chance (in recognizing the humanity in our adversaries, we find no need to kill them.)