Love and Hate and Where Will We Find Personality - Assignment Example

Love and Hate: Where Will We Find Personality? Assignment and briefly describe two of the many possible explanations for peoples aggression and hatred. Which explanation makes the most sense to you? Why? What are the weaknesses of this approach? When discussing the root causes of hatred and aggression in human individuals, two of the primary areas where researchers look for the cause of these drives and beliefs are in the psychological and biochemical responses. The traditional psychological interpretation can approach the question of hatred and aggression from two vantage points, the individual decision making process and the social context. The biochemical approach can be considered as wider than strictly a neuro-chemical investigation, as it would be concerned with the internal functioning of the hormones, amino acids, enzymes, and other glandular secretions in the body. As biochemical responses such as the production of adrenalin, testosterone, serotonin, and other substances in the human body have been established as relating directly to the experience of hatred and aggression in individuals, both in normal and abnormal psychology, a type of quandary paralleling the “nature-nurture” divide in traditional psychological studies is established by the question of how hatred and aggression are experienced in human individuals. Specifically, this relates directly to the effect of “meaning” as it is constructed and experienced in mental operations by human beings as part of the thought and emotional responses of consciousness. Certainly the effects of learning, conditioning, and education have a major effect in how the value system of the individual is constructed, and through that there will be a variety of differences in the reactions exhibited in individuals when experiencing the same or similar phenomena. From this basis, the differences of personality or culture are formed. Yet, “meaning” as such, or the semantic, intellectual, or emotional values that are used to understand subjective events and experiences must be on another level related to the biochemical processes in the brain and body. This duality is difficult to deconstruct, because it is apparent that meaning cannot be simply reduced to biochemistry in consciousness, and thus the dilemma represents the experimental impetuous between neuroscience and psychology today. The effects of adrenalin, testosterone, serotonin, and other substances in creating aggression or hatred in human individuals were recognized from the middle decades of the 20th Century in Western medicine. Levi (1965) showed that subjects who were repeatedly exposed to violent imagery such as TV programs or films would exhibit and increased output of adrenalin decomposition effects in the urine in comparison to subjects who watched benign films or images. (Levi, 1965) Similarly, Archer (1991) documented the causality between increased levels of testosterone in males and increased aggression. (Archer, 1991) Coccaro (1989) and other researchers have also found evidence that variations in the levels of serotonin (5-HT) in the brain of humans, other primates, and mice have all been related to variance in the level of aggression in behavior. (Coccaro, 1989) These findings suggest that when earlier psychologists found relationships between conditioning, such as in education or cultural programming, and violence, hatred, or aggression, that there was also a deeper biochemical reason to the behavior that needed to be deciphered. Similarly, if crowded, deprived, or stressed situations also caused levels of hatred, violence, and aggression to rise in human and non-human subjects, the effects of cognitive meaning as experienced by the subject could also have a tractable and recordable effect in the biochemistry in both cause and effect. Because of these findings, it is no longer enough to simply observe and attempt to find words of meaningful interpretation to describe the phenomena or events related to human behavior and the experience of hatred or aggression, the biochemical, neuro-chemical, genetic, and anatomical aspects of the situation must also be deconstructed as variables contributing to the subjective experience itself. Assignment 2: What are the three romantic attachment styles described by Shaver and colleagues? Briefly describe one, and give an example of how it might ‘look.’ How are these similar to early attachment styles described by researchers such as Bowlby and Ainsworth? Shaver and Hazan (1987) proposed an extension of Bowlby’s three “inner working models” of relationship which he identified as part of the separation response in infants. (Shaver & Hazan, 1987) Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980) published a “three volume” study on the way that infants reacted to the common experience of being separated from the parents, and identified “secure, avoidant, and anxious-resistant” as the characteristics of these modes of response. (Shaver & Hazan, 1987) According to Bowlby, about 60% of the infants reacted in what can be called a normal or secure manner to the separation and reengagement with parents. It should be noted that this situation is common, the parents leave the infant alone and then return sometime later to reunite with the child. During the separation period, the children may experience a range of behaviors and responses. What was important to Bowlby, or what he viewed as characteristic of the relationship and key to its importance, was how the children responded when reunited with the parents. The difference in response patterns was shown clearly in Ainsworth’s “strange situation”. (Haley, 2010) According to Ainsworth’s findings, the “normal” or “secure” children may have cried or become upset when separated from the parents, but they quickly resolved this by welcoming the parents back when they returned, and this to the researchers was evidence of the basis of a healthy mental relationship between the individuals in the family. (Haley, 2010) However, 40% of the children reacted differently than the “secure” group in the studies. The “anxious-resistant” children apparently sought to “punish” the parents in an emotional manner for the disturbance caused by the separation. According to Ainsworth, the children seemed to want to be soothed and comforted upon being reunited with the parents, but they appeared to also bear a type of grudge that caused them to resist the normal resumption of a happy relationship. The “avoidant” group comprised another approximately 20% of the children, and these infants seemed to ignore the parents when they returned from the separation, turning their attention to play with toys or to attend to other activities. (Haley, 2010) Ainsworth and Bowlby suggested that the “avoidant” group felt the same experience of emotions as the secure and anxious-resistant children, but simply chose by nature of personality or relationship type, to express the reaction differently. Instead, the “avoidant” group tried to downplay or hide the communication of their own distress to the parents, by making pretend that they were not concerned with the issue that had clearly caused them stress in the time of separation. Shaver and Hazan (1987) posited that the adult romantic relationship was based on many of the same types of intimacy that defined the parent-sibling relationship, and that the manner in which infants or children expressed their personalities in Ainsworth’s “strange experiment” could be seen as a deeper characteristic or trait of the person in adult relationships as well. There is some debate in the findings as to whether the parent-infant relationship is actually defining or determinant to future adult relationships or if the manner of reacting in intimacy is rather a personality characteristic that is exhibited in a consistent manner in both instances. This is important, as many parents are concerned about the quality of their choices in raising families and the long-term effect that these decisions may have on the mental health of their children. There appears to be no evidence in the Shaver, Ainsworth, or Bowlby experiments that suggest that the parents play a role in determining whether the children react in a secure, anxious-resistant, or avoidant manner in the “strange experiment,” which suggests that the mode of reaction is a part of the personality structure from even the time of infancy. The continuity of self-identity from infancy to adulthood may be vague or pronounced as an experience of awareness in individual consciousness, and most agree that people change in vast ways while learning, growing and experiencing life yet also remain fundamentally the same person in character even across changes in moods, environments, and cultures. Therefore, Shaver and Hazan’s extrapolation of the personality characteristics present in the earliest intimate relationships between the parents and child to adult romantic relationships can be seen as controversial in some ways, yet also consistent. For example, “secure” or normal relationships would experience separation from the romantic partner and reintegration along the same forgiving, happy, and continuous patterns as the infants reacted to the situation with the parents. The anxious-resistant and avoidant types would also apply these methods of relationship to romantic relationships in adulthood on a consistent basis as they had been observed in childhood. What is striking and important about these findings is that it is still not clear to researchers what the deeper basis for this developing of different manners of relationship in human individuals is fundamentally, i.e. if it is genetic, biochemical, learned behavior, a combination of factors, etc. Yet, as Shaver and Hazan (1987) conclude, “attachment style is related in theoretically meaningful ways to mental models of self and social relationships and to relationship experiences with parents.” (Shaver & Hazan, 1987) Assignment 3: Take one element of the theories or ideas presented this week and apply it to a real person – for example, someone from current events, politics, business, sports, the entertainment field. Define the terms you’re using, and apply them to an aspect of this person’s life (a specific action, behavior, or decision, for example). How can we understand this person more fully by using this concept to understand him/her? Pop psychological interpretations of celebrities or historical figures are taken to be speculative and often unreliable, as they often lack a full portrait of the inner mind and greater context which verify the conclusions. In other times, the psychological theory is presented, and the biographer or pop psychologist attempts to paint the picture of the celebrity with a broad brush so that the facts seem to illustrate the theory that the author wishes to prove. Nevertheless, in politics it is well known that foreign governments will prepare deep dossiers on American political leadership, believing that in depth psychological analysis can give insight into the way a political figure will react to conflict, to direct personal attacks, to challenges, etc. and to use the psychological interpretation for an advantage. Many people have described President Barack Obama as “detached” and suggest that he prefers to avoid conflict. Obama himself has presented a gift to pop psychologists and others who would seek to interpret the inner workings of his mental life by writing his autobiography and speaking at length about his family relationships, which include an interracial family heritage. Obama’s father and mother became separated and divorced at an early age, and his mother left him on several occasions with his grandparents for rearing. The “strange situation” described by Ainsworth, Bowlby, Shaver and others can be applied to Obama in order to determine what personality type he appears to most closely resemble in his personal relationships. As Shaver and Hazan also suggested that the manner in which infants or children react to separation from their parents will also be repeated in adult romantic relationships, the personality type derived from this analysis can also be seen as fundamental to the approach in other aspects of life. In this context, it would appear that President Obama is best described as an “avoidant” personality type and that this in turn has led him to have some problems in political negotiations that his enemies foreign and domestic attempt to capitalize on to their own purposes and ends. While campaigning for President, Obama wrote, “There was only one problem: my father was missing. Nothing my mother or grandparents told me could obviate that single, unassailable fact. Their stories didnt tell me why he had left. They couldnt describe what it might have been like if he had stayed. Later, Id become troubled by questions. Why didnt my father return? But at the age of five or six, I was satisfied to leave these distant mysteries intact… When I was ten, my father came back from Africa to visit us for Christmas. After a week of my father in the flesh, I decided that I preferred his more distant image, an image I could alter on a whim - or ignore when convenient. If my father hadnt exactly disappointed me, he remained something unknown, something volatile and vaguely threatening.” (Obama, 2008) The “avoidant” infants in Ainsworth and Bowlby’s studies pretended as if the separation with the parents had not bothered them, and they did not seek to “punish” the parents as the anxious-resistant children did. In some ways, these children remained “cool and aloof,” just as President Obama is often called by both his friends and enemies. Dr. Stanton Peele also suggested that his reaction to separation from his mother also followed similar patterns of personality reaction. “Dunhams treatment of her child encouraged a unique kind of intellectual detachment.... But Obama also had to be detached because the Indonesian culture encouraged it,” he wrote. (Peele, 2011) It should be clearly understood that there is nothing inherently wrong about the reaction of the avoidant personality type described by Ainsworth, Bowlby, and Shaver, but that if a person consistently reacts to situations in that manner, it may become politically predictable and enemies or opposing parties in politics or foreign policy may attempt to exploit it as a weakness. Obama abstracts directly from his experience of his father to thoughts on race, elevating the personal relationship to a higher issue in his mind and then applying it to a historical interpretation. (Obama, 2008) It is clear that leaders from Al Qaeda, Russia, China, and other countries will refer to his mixed race upbringing and non-traditional family to attempt to make him less secure in his decisions or negotiations, in hopes that the implied personal attacks will cause an insecurity that forces him back to a deeper and engrained personality trait of avoiding conflict. Republicans may feel that his cool and detached manner or need to avoid direct emotional conflict in relationships makes it easier for him to be forced to compromise at the negotiating table. Pop psychology and outside interpretation has its limits however, but these foreign countries, groups, and political organizations have nearly unlimited resources to deploy to psychological analysis of American leadership in order to seek advantage in negotiations and complex issues of diplomacy. Therefore, Obama could be perceived and approached differently by those who seek to exploit psychological interpretation for political gain, and he as everyone should be self-aware of his personality type or the typical means of reacting so as to be able to overcome it when necessary. One way to accomplish this is by breaking his own habits or being unpredictable so that he cannot be forced into a course of action by opponents seeking to use subliminal or unconscious biases to further their own political goals. Sources Cited: Archer, John (1991). The influence of testosterone on human aggression. British Journal of Psychology, Volume 82, Issue 1, pages 1–28, February 1991. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1991.tb02379.x/abstract Coccaro, Emil F. (1989). Central serotonin and impulsive aggression. British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol 155(Suppl 8), Dec 1989, 52-62. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1990-17360-001 Fraley, R. Chris (2011). A Brief Overview of Adult Attachment Theory and Research. University of Illinois, 2010. Retrieved from http://internal.psychology.illinois.edu/~rcfraley/attachment.htm Hazan, Cindy; Shaver, Phillip (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 52(3), Mar 1987, 511-524. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.511. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/52/3/511/ Levi, Lennart (1965). The Urinary Output of Adrenalin and Noradrenalin During Pleasant and Unpleasant Emotional States: A preliminary report. Psychosomatic Medicine 27:80-85 (1965). Retrieved from http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/27/1/80.short Obama, Barack (2008). Barack Obama: How I am still haunted by my father. Mail Online, 08 February 2008. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-512970/Barack-Obama-How-I-haunted-father.html Peele, Stanton (2011). Obamas Search for his Mother. Psychology Today, April 21, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/addiction-in-society/201104/obamas-search-his-mother-0 Read More