Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper

Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper What Sparked the Study? This experiment was initiated by Stanley Milgrim, a psychologist at Yale University. His goal was to focus on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. He examined the defenses of “obedience” as justifications from WW2 and wanted to see how it correlated to the way humans act under an authoritarian. The Experiment Using an ad in the newspaper, Milgrim selected participants for the study. A participant was paired with another person (A person that knew about the experiment). They had a fixed drawing of straws to see who would be the “learner” and who would be the “teacher”. Because the draw was fixed, the participant was always the teacher. The learner was taken into a room next to the teacher and was strapped to electrodes. The teacher went into the next room and was greeted by an electric shock machine. The shock machine contained shocks from 15 volts-450 volts. In this experiment, there was also an experimenter, played by an actor.Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper Permalink: https://nursingpaperessays.com/ psychological-st…mind-essay-paper / The teacher tells the learner a list of words and gives the learner a series of tests that included naming a word and asking the learner to recall its partner. The teacher was told to administer a shock every time the learner made a mistake, increasing the shock each time. The learner purposefully got the answers wrong to test the teacher. When the shocks got riskier and the teacher refused, the experimenter used four different means to urge the teacher to continue with the experiment. Academic and commercial researchers alike are aiming towards a deeper understanding of how humans act, make decisions, plan, and memorize. Advances in wearable sensor technology along with procedures for multi-modal data acquisition and analysis have lately been enabling researchers all across the globe to tap into previously unknown secrets of the human brain and mind. Before you write your essay it’s important to analyse the task and understand exactly what the essay question is asking. It is possible your lecturer will give you some advice – pay attention to this as it will help you plan your answer. Next conduct preliminary reading based on your lecture notes. At this stage it’s not crucial to have a robust understanding of key theories or studies, but you should at least have a general ‘gist’ of the literature. After reading, plan a response to the task. This plan could be in the form of a mind map, a summary table, or by writing a core statement (which encompass the entire argument of your essay in just a few sentences). Still, as emphasized by Makeig and colleagues (2009), the most pivotal challenge lies in the systematic observation and interpretation of how distributed brain processes support our natural, active, and flexibly changing behavior and cognition. We all are active agents, continuously engaged in attempting to fulfill bodily needs and mental desires within complex and ever-changing surroundings, while interacting with our environment. Brain structures have evolved that support cognitive processes targeted towards the optimization of outcomes for any of our body-based behaviors. All patients come to psychiatrists with basically the same problem: the sense of helplessness, the fear and inner conviction of being unable to cope and change things. One of the roots of this sense of impotence is some desire to partially or totally escape the pain of confronting problems because this continual battle of confronting and solving problems is a painful one, indeed. Fearing the pain involved, almost all of us, to a greater or lesser degree, attempt to avoid them like the plague. Its human, it’s understandable, and to some extent quite natural…but it is definitely not beneficial. This tendency of avoidance and the emotional suffering inherent in it is the primary basis of all human mental illness. Keeping this in mind, it is safe to say that almost all of us lack complete mental health—including psychologists themselves.Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper That’s why psychotherapy is very helpful to anyone and everyone. It is a legitimate and courageous path to personal growth and freedom which bestows people with a lot of opportunities to become stronger and healthier than average. It helps bring forth the darkest and brightest parts of one’s own self in an atmosphere of utter honesty and non-judgment. Do we need to understand human nature, and particularly the nature of the human mind, to answer central questions in philosophy, theology and science? A powerful tradition in Western thought answered this question in the affirmative. For thinkers in this tradition, the greatest questions concerning morals, politics, and religion, and even a proper understanding of what is really involved when we “do” natural science, mathematics, and art, can be gained only from a position of knowledge concerning the actual nature of real human beings. But historically, this position on human nature was long held in abeyance by a rival tradition that re-conceived philosophy as the study of a priori truths. These circumstances have troubled scholars such as W.V.O. Quine, who famously declared that philosophers should quit their “make believe” and join forces with the natural sciences in trying to get a better handle on what the human world is really like. As part of this broader effort to gain fundamental insights into the place of human beings in the world, the Herzl Institute is home to an ongoing project in human nature studies entitled “Human Nature, Human Mind.” Since 2009, Institute scholars have hosted international conferences and a series of public lectures aimed at exploring the history of the human-nature tradition in Western thought, and to developing constructive contributions that human nature theory can make today to morals, political theory, and theology, as well as to seemingly more remote disciplines such as mathematics, logic, and natural science.Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper People often make claims about “human nature.” For example — “It is a part of human nature to be egoistic.” “Human beings are naturally acquisitive.” “Cooperation is a natural human instinct.” “Human nature defines the way we learn language.” “Violence is natural.” What would human nature look like? To start with a preliminary definition, we might say that human nature is a relatively fixed set of characteristics of psychology, motivation, and cognition that are not the product of learning. Or, at a slightly greater remove from behavior, we might include innate capacities that can be triggered by appropriate experiences, but may also remain latent if those experiences are not encountered. (This is roughly the way that Noam Chomsky thinks about language competence in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax .) When people have identified some psychological characteristics as being part of human nature, they usually have had one of three things in mind. First, thinkers have sometimes held that there are “innate ideas” — beliefs and concepts that are hard-wired and are not learned through experience. For example, Kant holds that the ideas of space, time, and causality are a necessary part of any intelligent being’s mental equipment. Second, thinkers have sometimes postulated that there are certain visceral emotions that come with the normal human equipment — for example, fear of loud noises, love of infants, or empathy. And third, people sometimes assert that there are some fundamental dispositions to behavior that are a part of “human nature” — for example, being self-interested, being amenable to the appeal of fairness, being monogomous or its opposites.Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper The logical contrary to the idea that there is a human nature, is the idea that human beings are simply general-purpose “learning machines,” equipped with a pretty impressive inference engine and neurophysiological computer; so all our beliefs, emotions, and dispositions to behavior are learned through experience. (Even on this approach there is something “fixed” in the human apparatus — the set of computational processes through which learning occurs. But everything else is variable and dependent upon the environment in which learning takes place.) This is the “tabula rasa” theory — the idea that the mind is a blank slate upon which experience inscribes specific knowledge and dispositions to behavior. On this approach, the mind consists of an extended inductive logic engine (permitting the acquisition of beliefs about the world); a “culture-acquisition device” (permitting the absorption of linguistic and normative practices from the surrounding community); and a “scenarios and actions” guidebook assembly kit (permitting the construction of a growing list of commands along the lines of “when such-and-so happens, do thus-and-so”). Altogether this being has the ability to gather empirical and causal beliefs, gain language and values, and acquire a set of guidelines about how to behave. And, according to the tabula rasa theory, the content of each of these attainments is governed only by the feedback of experience. Supply a different environment, and you get different knowledge, values, and behavior. It is evident that much of an adult’s mental makeup is the result of his/her history and the enveloping culture within which the individual has developed. Learning is a fundamental aspect of human life, and it occurs at virtually every level; modes of reasoning, self-control, willingness to cooperate with others, and definition of the appropriate distance of separation between two people in a conversation are all human performances that are culturally and individually variable. They are the outcome of social learning. Further, human culture fundamentally influences human behavior — and culture is only transmitted through lived experience.Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper The question of human nature is whether there are any dispositions or behavioral outcomes that are largely independent from these learning and developmental processes. Are there any social behaviors, emotions, or impulses that are an innate part of the human mental system? The sociobiologists have offered one line of analysis on this question. They note that the human mental system — cognition, emotions, and the control of behavior — is embodied in an organ that is itself subject to natural selection and evolution, the central nervous system. So it seems logical to expect that this system will have acquired some socially specific characteristics through the evolution of hominids and modern human beings. Edward O. Wilson took a controversial stab at the question in On Human Nature . And Richard Dawkins tried to get a handle on the evolutionary biology of cooperation in The Selfish Gene . Each book has proven controversial over the decades since publication — largely on grounds of the complaint that they are somewhat reductionist in their disregard of the causal importance of culture in the behaviors they describe. (See, for example, Marshall Sahlins, The Use and Abuse of Biology: An Anthropological Critique of Sociobiology .) But surely the foundation of the approach is a valid one: the human brain has been shaped through natural selection; skill in social relationships is relevant to reproductive success; so it is logical to expect that there has been specialized brain development around the challenges of social interaction. Allan Gibbard’s Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment explores these ideas in some detail and in a way that is exempt from the accusation of reductionism. The strongest case for mental features that might be part of human nature concerns what might be referred to as the social emotions and the foundations of social cognition. The social emotions might include a disposition towards reciprocity, an innate responsiveness towards infants, and a deep grounding of empathy for the suffering of other human beings. It is not difficult to put together an analysis that would show that these psychological traits might have differential reproductive advantage for the individuals who carry these traits. And the foundations of social cognition also seem to qualify as candidates for features of human nature as well: the ability to recognize and remember faces, the ability to “read” emotions and mental states in the speech and behavior of others, and the ability to quickly apprehend a social setting, for example. Here too there seem to be the makings of a selection-based explanation of the proliferation of these traits through a population; these cognitive abilities surely confer some reproductive benefits on the individuals who possess them. Another example of a mental trait that might be an enduring component of human nature is the ability to plan future actions, considering alternatives and choosing a series of actions that brings about the future outcome that the individual has selected. The cognitive abilities that underlie planning would appear to confer substantial evolutionary advantage.Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper What seems not to be justified is any form of simplistic “social Darwinism”, leading to the assumptions of narrow self-interest as a component of permanent human nature. Here the error is an over-quick inference from the proposition that “evolution favors organisms that out-reproduce their fellows at a given time” to the conclusion that “organisms that maximize local self-interest will out-reproduce their fellows.” This inference is unjustified, since we can readily describe models of populations in which reciprocity and altruism out-reproduce egoism and narrow self-interest. It was on a hike across Isla Del Sol in Bolivia a few years ago that I first wondered how many animals walk for pleasure – not to hunt or feed, not to find shelter or warmth, but to enjoy the act of walking itself. I asked the question on Quora to rather unsatisfying results. The question arose again on our recent Abel Tasman hike and led me to wonder what other characteristics are unique or largely restricted to humans. This in turn led me to an old issue of New Scientist magazine and a fascinating set of articles on the six things all humans do. Some are obvious, some are amusing. All trigger a flush of recognition and a sense of belonging. 1. BEING PLAYFUL You may have heard the fact that humans and dolphins are the only species that mate for pleasure. This, perhaps unsurprisingly, is not true. Several other animals have sex where reproduction is impossible or unlikely. What’s interesting is that few other species are as generally playful as humans. All mammals play, says New Scientist, but no other species pursues such a wide variety of entertainment or spends so much time enjoying themselves. We enjoy not only physical activities (sports, games, dancing and even tickling) but we also play with language (making jokes, creating music) and use our imaginations. We carry our childhood sense of playfulness right into adulthood, rare among other species. 2. BEING SCIENTIFIC As children, we learn to identify patterns. We might identify and group all the red Lego bricks together, or recognise that a two-piece brick slots above another two-piece brick. We find ourselves constantly sorting the world into categories, predicting how things work and testing our predictions. This, says New Scientist, is the very essence of science and is evident in everything from the establishment of time and calendars to our use of measuring units and our pursuit of cosmic knowledge. 3. BEING LEGISLATIVE Many animals adhere to simple behavioral rules (often around territory and hierarchy), but none have a sophisticated system of rules, taboos and etiquette like that of humans. Without studying every community in the world, we can’t say for certain whether each and every one has formal laws but humans, by nature, tend to have rules. These rules always involve governing behaviour in three key areas, a sign that legislating is fundamental to human nature. First is kinship: the rights, goods and status one is entitled to and also the obligation one has to their kin (e.g. a daughter inheriting land from her mother, or a father legally obligated to provide for his son). Second is safety: everyone worries about safety so every culture has rules that govern when someone can kill or hurt another person.Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper Third is the use of objects: the definition of ‘private property’ is far from universal but societies everywhere have rules that govern who can and cannot use certain things at certain times. 4. BEING EPICUREAN To most animals, a meal is just a meal: a way to sustain their bodies so they can continue living. To humans, a meal can be a labour of love, a work of art, a vehicle for seduction, an event in and of itself. Friends gather to break bread while families share stories and squabbles over the dinner table. Of course, it’s not just our attitude towards food that sets us apart. Cooking, one of humanity’s greatest inventions, has made a huge difference. Primatologist Richard Wrangham at Harvard University says that cooked food, which offers more calories and less chewing, was the key innovation that allowed our ancestors to evolve into smart, social creatures. He notes that chimps spend more than six hours a day chewing; humans, less than one which leaves more time for culture and development. 5. BEING CLANDESTINE ABOUT SEX It was visiting the breeding centre on San Cristóbal in the Galápagos that changed my mind about tortoises. Until then, I saw them as wise and gentle creatures, slowly and carefully plodding through life. After the visit, they morphed into huge, horny creatures that had loud, grunting, unattractive sex in public. Of course, that makes them no different to any other creature except humans who prefer to have sex in private. One might say this is due to centuries of social conditioning, but academics suggest a deeper reason. Secret mating happens among species with a lot of inter-male competition, says Clive Wynne, a professor of psychology at the University of Florida. Donald Symons, anthropologist and author of The Evolution of Human Sexuality, says that men regard sex as a precious commodity and therefore enjoy it “covertly to avoid inciting covetousness”. Harvard professor Steven Pinker agrees: “This is for the same reason that during a famine anyone with food is likely to consume it in private.” In short, it’s not shame that drives clandestine copulation, but envy and competition instead.Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper 6. BEING GOSSIPY There is a rather unkind comment a female columnist once made about British actress Keira Knightley: “If you want to befriend a woman, ask her the question, ‘What do you think of Keira Knightley?’ In the resulting torrent of bile and loathing, you will bond.” It’s true: humans use gossip to cement relationships, says Robin Dunbar, author of Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. He believes that gossip is the human equivalent of primate grooming. We have too many relationships to maintain through time-consuming grooming so we engage in chat instead: “Gossip evolved for oiling the wheels of social interaction,” says Dunbar – a maxim that applies to everyone from schoolchildren to the most powerful leaders of the world. What’s interesting is that gossip isn’t negative by nature. In his research, Dunbar found that negative comments were far less common than innocuous observations about a subject. In essence, it’s not that we like to bitch; it’s just that we like to talk. Unless of course it’s about Keira Knightley. Past speakers in this series include: Thomas Ahnert (Edinburgh), Roger Ariew (South Florida), Lera Boroditsky (Stanford), David Chalmers (Australian National University), Steve Darwall (Yale), Gil Diesendruck (Bar-Ilan), Samuel Fleishacker (Illinois), Dan Garber (Princeton), Aaron Garrett (Boston University), Tamar Szabo Gendler (Yale), Raoul Gervais (Ghent), Michael Gill (Arizona), Knud Haakonssen (Sussex), James Harris (St. Andrews), Bennett Helm (Franklin & Marshall), Michael Heyd (Hebrew U.), Eli Hirsch (Brandeis), Daniel Jacobson (Michigan), Hilla Jacobson (Ben-Gurion), Aviv Keren (Hebrew U.), Steven Horst (Wesleyan), Peter Lewis (Miami), Joseph Mali (Tel Aviv), Ricardo Manzotti, (IULM, Milan), Angela Matthies (Stuttgart), David Owen (Arizona), Fania Oz-Salzberger (Haifa), Robert Pasnau (Colorodo), Robert Pepperell, (Cardiff School of Art), Shimon Peretz (Bar-Ilan), Steven Pinker (Harvard), Jesse Prinz (CUNY Graduate Center), Paul Rahe (Hillsdale), Frederick Rosen (University College-London), Kranti Saran (Harvard), Geoff Sayre-McCord (UNC-Chapel Hill), Eric Schliesser (Ghent), Axel Seemann (Bentley), Oron Shagrir (Hebrew U.), Silvia Sebastiani (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Susanna Siegel (Harvard), Amie Thomasson (Miami), Alfred Tauber (Boston University), Marius Usher (Tel Aviv), Joshua Weinstein (Shalem), Konrad Werner (Jagiellonian), Benjamin Young (CUNY Graduate Center), and Nick Zangwill (Durham).Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper Despite the widespread rejection of Creationism and Intelligent Design in our society, most of us continue to believe that humanity is “the Crown of Creation.” Even though brought about by an impersonal force, such as Nature or Evolution, we consider ourselves superior to all other living beings, incomparably more intelligent and capable of loftier, more noble, emotions, and for this reason of our cognitive and emotional superiority, fully justified in making whatever use of them we may decide upon to improve our quality of life. If the very same logic were applied to differences between human beings and it were suggested that the more intelligent people with more developed emotional life can use people who are less intelligent and less developed emotionally in whatever way that suits the former to make their lives better, many of us would be appalled. But, if asked to explain this reaction, we would have to resort to the claim of cognitive and emotional superiority again. It is clear that we have the ability to use (that is in various ways exploit, kill for food, convenience, or sport, take over the resources they need to survive, impose conditions that turn their lives into torture) other animals, while they do not have the ability to use us. So, obviously, they are not our equals. But this is not because they are all naturally less intelligent than we are, or because our emotional capacities are naturally better developed. What drastically separates us from all other animals does not have anything to do with our biological nature at all. As a biological species we are not that different from others: apparently, there is only 2% of difference in genetic material between us and some other great apes, such as chimpanzees, and these 2% account for all of our differences–forms of our feet and legs, genitalia, body and facial hair, posture, weight and height, etc., etc.,–so it is unclear how much of this is left to account for the difference between their and our brains, presumably responsible for our superior mental capacities. Moreover, capacities can be observed empirically only in their effects, only if a person writes a book, for instance, can we say that s/he has the capacity to write a book. (Well, one may counter in this context, no animal has ever written a book: ergo, we are smarter than they are. But an overwhelming majority of us have never written a book either. Does that mean that cognitive capacities of the overwhelming majority of people are no different than those of other animals?) As to other achievements, every day now brings more evidence about the great intelligence, cognitive and emotional, of animals (innate–not, like ours, which often learned).See, for instance, “When a Wolf Dies.”Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper No, the only empirically observable characteristic which clearly separates us from other animals has nothing to do with our biological endowment: what distinguishes humanity from all other species is that, while all other species transmit their ways of life genetically, through blood, we transmit our ways of life symbolically, through such things as traditions, institutions, laws, etc. Genetic transmission–a central process within the process of life itself–is, like life itself, a biological process. Symbolic transmission is not a biological process; it is, instead, the process of culture. We empirically observe the dramatic difference between these two processes of transmission of ways of life in that animal societies within the same species keep their characteristic form across hundreds and thousands of generations and even when geographically very widespread (like wolves, for example), while human societies are infinitely variable, always reflecting their specific historical period in a specific geographical location. In other words, what distinguishes humanity from all other animals, what actually makes us human and not just animals, is culture. It’s a question that’s reverberated through the ages – are we humans, though imperfect, essentially kind, sensible, good-natured creatures? Or deep down are we wired to be bad, blinkered, idle, vain, vengeful and selfish? There are no easy answers and there’s clearly a lot of variation between individuals, but this feature post aims to shine some evidence-based light on the matter. Here in the first part of a two-part feature – and deliberately side-stepping the obviously relevant but controversial and already much-discussed Milgram, Zimbardo and Asch studies – we digest 10 dispiriting findings that reveal the darker and less impressive aspects of human nature:Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper We view minorities and the vulnerable as less than human Through history humans have demonstrated a sickening willingness to inflict cruelty on one another. Part of the explanation may be that we have an unfortunate tendency to see certain groups – especially outsiders and vulnerable people perceived as low status – as being less than fully human. One striking example of this “blatant dehumanisation” came from a small brain-scan study that found students exhibited less neural activity associated with thinking about people when they looked at pictures of the homeless or of drug addicts, as compared with higher-status individuals. Many more studies have since demonstrated subtle forms of dehumanisation (in which we attribute fewer mental states to outsiders and minorities) and there have been further demonstrations of blatant dehumanisation – for instance, people who are opposed to Arab immigration or in favour of tougher counter-terrorism policy against Muslim extremists tended to rate Arabs and Muslims as literally less evolved than average. Among other examples, there’s also evidence that young people dehumanise older people; and that men and women alike dehumanise drunk women. What’s more, the inclination to dehumanise starts early – children as young as five view out-group faces (those belonging to people who live in a different city or who are of a different gender than the child) as less human than in-group faces. We already experience schadenfreude at the age of four That last finding is particularly dispiriting since we often look to young children to give us hope for humankind – they are seen as the sweet and innocent ones who have yet to be corrupted by the grievances of adulthood. And yet many other studies show that very small kids are capable of some less-than-appealing adult-like emotions. For instance, a study from 2013 found that even four-year-olds seem to experience modest amounts of Schadenfreude – pleasure at another person’s distress, especially if they perceived the person deserved it (because they’d engaged in a bad deed). A more recent study found that by age six children will pay to watch an antisocial puppet being hit, rather than spending the money on stickers. Oh, and maybe you should forget the idea of children offering you unconditional kindness – by age three, they are already keeping track of whether you are indebted to them.Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper We believe in Karma – assuming that the downtrodden of the world must deserve their fate On a related note, so strong is our inherent need to believe in a just world, we seem to have an inbuilt tendency to perceive the vulnerable and suffering as to some extent deserving their fate (an unfortunate flip-side to the Karmic idea, propagated by most religions, that the cosmos rewards those who do good – a belief that emerges in children aged just four). The unfortunate consequences of our just-world beliefs were first demonstrated in now classic research by Melvin Lerner and Carolyn Simmons. In a version of the Milgram set-up, in which a female learner was punished with electric shocks for wrong answers, women participants subsequently rated her as less likeable and admirable when they heard that they would be seeing her suffer again, and especially if they felt powerless to minimise this suffering. Presumably derogating the woman made them feel less bad about her dismal fate. Since then, research has shown our willingness to blame the poor, rape victims, AIDS patients and others for their fate, so as to preserve our belief in a just world. By extension, the same or similar processes are likely responsible for our subconscious rose-tinted view of rich people. We are blinkered and dogmatic It’s not just that we are malicious and unforgiving, we humans are worryingly close-minded too. If people were rational and open-minded, then the straightforward way to correct someone’s false beliefs would be to present them with some relevant facts. However a modern classic published in 1967 showed the futility of this approach – participants who believed strongly for or against the death penalty completely ignored facts that undermined their position, actually doubling-down on their initial view. This seems to occur in part because we see opposing facts as undermining our sense of identity. It doesn’t help that many of us are overconfident about how much we understand things, and that when we believe our opinions are superior to others, this deters us from seeking out further relevant knowledge.Psychological Studies That Give Insight into the Human Mind Essay Paper We would rather electrocute ourselves than spend time in our own thoughts Maybe if we spent a little more time in contemplation we would not be so blinkered. Sadly, for many of us, it seems the prospect of spending time in our own thoughts is so anathema we’d actually rather electrocute ourselves. This was demonstrated dramatically in a 2014 study in which 67 per cent of male participants and 25 per cent of female participants opted to give themselves unpleasant electric shocks rather than spend 15 minutes in peaceful contemplation. Although others questioned the interpretation of the results, at least one other study has shown people’s preference for electrocuting themselves over monotony, and another found cross-cultural evidence for people’s greater enjoyment of doing some activity alone rather than merely thinking (also replicated here). The gist of these findings would seem to back up the verdict of the French philosopher Blaise Pascal who stated that “All of man’s troubles come from his inability to sit quietly in a room by himself”. We are vain and overconfident Our irrationality and dogmatism might not be so bad were they married with some humility and self-insight, but actually most of us walk about with inflated views of our abilities and qualities, such as our driving skills, intelligenceand attractiveness – a phenomenon that’s been dubbed the Lake Wobegon Effect after the fictional town where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average”. Ironically, the least skilled am