Personal Psychology Issues - Report Example

Psychology Project Psychology As we see Latisha explains the cruelty of Germans during the World War II with their personal features and suggests that their obedience to Hitler’s inhumane commands was caused by mental disorders and cruelty. According to scientific researches and theories, this statement is rather wrong and – except that – characterizes Latisha implicitly highlighting her psychological peculiarities. The psychological phenomenon observed in Latisha’s judgements is called the fundamental attribution error or correspondence bias. First this phenomenon was distinguished and studied by North American scientists and denoted a person’s tendency to attribute the behavior and actions of other people to some internal reasons like personal traits (Moskovitz). When elaluating other’s people typically underestimate the impact of the outer factors and overestimate person’s behavior, abilities and features (Harris). In our case that means that Latisha attributes the behavior of Germans during the war to inner factors of influence. At the same time, the person makes an exception while evaluating his or her own behavior justifying it with external circumstances. In general, the tendency for correspondence bias varies depending on the type of culture. Whereas people belonging to collectivist cultures are less prone to overattribute, the members of individualist cultures tend to experience this phenomenon rather often (Bernstein). It is reasonable to suppose that Latisha is the member of such culture (especially judging by her name of American origin), and we can conclude that it may be rather typical for her to judge in this way. At the same time, Latisha leaves other probable reasons for Germans’ behavior out of account. To my thinking, it is rather possible that the Germans complied with the commands of Hitler as they were intimidated or blinded by the strong propaganda (which is more likely as Germany implemented efficient propaganda campaign with even the Catholic church of Germany supporting Hitler). 2. The statements cited in the task refer directly to the issue of human needs. Numerous theories have been built up over years that were aimed at systematization and analysis of human needs. There are two opposite statements given in the task: according to one of them, physiological needs stand in the foreground of the human life; another implies that spiritual or non-material needs are of primary meaning. In terms of psychology these ideas may be framed into the hierarchy of needs. The most famous hierarchy of needs was introduced by Abraham Maslow and became the best-known need theory (Griffin). According to this hierarchy, the needs are located due to their importance for people. Maslow’s pyramid is based on physiological needs and needs in security and safety (Goble). Moving up the pyramid and satisfying more and more needs, a person eventually reaches the highest point and is able to fulfil his/her need for self-actualization. The needs are rather psychological than purely physiological, they reflect the inner nature of the human (Goble). As a person suffers lack of food and drink, these needs come to the foreground influencing and direct human actions and behavior. Thus, all activity performed by a person in this case is literally aimed at satisfaction of these primary needs – food, sleep, shelter, air, sex, water, security and safety. These are the basic needs. As they are satisfied, a person moves one level up starting to seek love. This means that the satisfaction of higher needs depends on the satisfaction of lower ones. As a person is no more concerned with getting some food (for example), these needs go to the background, and she/he can focus on other more elaborate needs. Although this theory gained much popularity, it has been criticized and is not considered the main true theory to rely on. Critics stated that this pyramid is irrelevant as higher needs can acquire primary importance. For example, when a person is engulfed in creating art, she/he may forget about food and sleep for a certain period of time. Another disadvantage of this theory lies in the absence of quantitative index of needs satisfaction. Therefore comes a question: why some of needs continue to motivate people even when they are basically satisfied? 3. According to our task, the person under consideration suffers a certain mental disturbance that proves itself in numerous symptoms: lack of self-discipline, excessive anxiety, and disability to plan ahead, fear of challenges and excessive criticism towards other people. Such behavior can be explained from three points of view. First, we can look at the problem from the standpoint of humanistic psychology. According to this approach to psychology, such things as self-actualization, sanity, freedom, love, personal communication etc. are considered to be the key values. According to this theory, I would assume that Andy’s disorder is connected with problems in self-actualization or communication. Humanistic psychotherapy claims that every patient has the recovery potential, and the therapist should first of all accept the patient as he/she is and support him/her. To my thinking, Andy needs a certain big aim in his life – maybe something artistic – I think if he had something to absorb him and make him make efforts, he would learn to control himself, plan and communicate with people without overcritisizing them. Second, one could refer to psychoanalytic approach to deal with Andy’s problem. Based on this perspective, one can suppose that such behavior and attitude models were influenced and formed by subconscious factors. It is well-known that according to this theory there are Id, Ego and Superego. Id is chaotic and responsible for primary instincts and needs. It needs to be restrained as it has much energy that can be destructive. Ego is reasonable and responsible for making decisions. Superego is a kind of measure responsible for formation of consciousness and critical response to all actions. It is formed in childhood under parental control with help of punishments and appreciation. Its forming process is completed as parental control is replaced with self-control. As Andy is a high school student, I think that his superego is immature yet as he cannot control himself in terms of discipline and planning. Third, social-cognitive approach presupposes interconnection between a person’s behavior and cognitive processes. In other words, interactions inside a stable set of social-cognitive mechanisms may explain behavioral expressions captured by a personality (Cervone). So, a person’s mental disturbances are caused by negative minsets received in the process of cognition. Base on this approach one can suppose that it is Andy’s negative mindsets towards himself that cause his fear of challenges. Maybe he is afraid because his mind is “adjusted” to the failure and he is subconsciously disposed to avoid that. Maybe is excessively critical to himself and therefore, to others. Except that, as he is rather young and prone to follow the example of majority, he may have inherited such mindsets from his acquaintances and friends. 4. Based on the information given in the task, Geraldo suffers a kind of mental disturbance that prevented him from going to the dentist. To my thinking, he suffers anxiety. This is morbid fear that, i.e. pathologically intensive exertion of fear cause by a certain irritant. Suffering a phobia, a patient cannot logically explain his/her fear but consistently avoids objects, places and situations that make him/her fear. In our case the patient has a morbid fear for medical procedures, and this fear made him avoid even routine checkups at the dentist’s for a long time. As such phobia is considered to be a minor psychological issue it can be treated with help of correction psychology. Our patient could seek help either from a behavior therapist or psychoanalytic therapist. The first option, behavior therapy is a kind of therapy aimed at bringing positive changes into a patient’s life via changing his/her behavior (Herkov). In other words, behavior therapy is used for developing positive and desirable behavior models and minimizing undesirable ones in order to create positive dynamics in the patient’s life. This therapy usually deals with relatively simple problems (Spiegler). The behavior therapist would define the aim of therapy. In our case is getting rid of the phobia. After that the therapist would use certain strategies to tackle the problem” self-monitoring, developing a schedule of weekly activities and behavior modification. Within behavior modification step a patient would get some reward for improving his/her behavior. For example, we would receive some nominal reward for each visit to the hospital\doctor. The second, psychoanalytic therapy is rather different from behavior therapy. While behavior therapy is aimed rather at the outer aspect of the problem, psychoanalytic therapy resolves patient’s issues by revealing inner reasons for their problems and making people more familiar with their inner world. Thus, psychoanalytic specialist would create confidential relations with Geraldo and speak to him in order to discover the origin of his phobia in his conscience and interpreting unconscious problems or conflicts. Reference list: Bernstein D., Penner L. A., Clark-Stewart A., Roy E., Psychology. Retrieved 27 June from: http://books.google.com.ua/books?id=dHd7tacWS7oC&dq=fundamental+attribution+error&hl=ru&source=gbs_navlinks_s Cervone D., Shoda Y., The Coherence of Personality: Social-cognitive Bases of Consistency, Variability, and Organization, 1999. Retrieved 27 June from: http://books.google.com.ua/books?id=ARbNcjoC9kwC&dq=social-cognitive&hl=ru&source=gbs_navlinks_s Goble Frank G. The Third Force: The Psychology of Abraham Maslow, 2004. – Retrieved 27 June from: http://books.google.com.ua/books?id=lE9Uj40Wh3cC&dq=hierarchy+of+needs&hl=ru&source=gbs_navlinks_s Griffin R., Moorhead G., Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Retrieved 27 June from: http://books.google.com.ua/books?id=Hc0WAAAAQBAJ&dq=hierarchy+of+needs&hl=ru&source=gbs_navlinks_s Harris D., Hancock P., Szalma J. L., Performance Under Stress. Retrieved 27 June from: http://books.google.com.ua/books?id=NxBC87g5Mx4C&pg=PA298&dq=fundamental+attribution+error&hl=ru&sa=X&ei=hr-tU_32Oufj4QS03oF4&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=fundamental%20attribution%20error&f=false Herkov, Michael, About behavior therapy. Retrieved 27 June from: http://psychcentral.com/lib/about-behavior-therapy/000669 Moskowitz G., Social Cognition: Understanding Self and Others. The Guilford Press, 2005. Spiegler M., Guevremont D., Contemporary Behavior Therapy. – Cengage Learning, 2009. Read More