fandomhigh | Psychology 101 (Thursday, 01/12/2006, 5th Period)

{{Class is closed for grading.}}

Jenny stood at the front of the classroom. After the students signed in and took their seats, Jenny started today's lecture. She had coffee available at the front for anyone who wasn't quite awake yet.

"Okay, first off, one thing I forgot to mention on Monday, guys. That's my detention policy. Cause a disturbance in class? Possible detention, depending on the disturbance. Miss two classes? Detention. Unless you have a good reason. Come and talk to me if you do."

{{OOC: In other words, I get that RL can come up in a heartbeat Let me know if it does.}}

"Psychology's one of the youngest of the sciences. Today's going to be fairly easy--we're going to go over some of the most common perspectives on the mind and behavior.

The psychoanalytic perspective was the one founded by Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology. In that one? Behavior comes out of the unconscious, and there are drives and conflicts that shape personality. Generally, psychoanalysts take a look at disorders and personality traits in terms of sexual and aggressive desires, plus the disguised effects of unfulfilled wishes, or childhood trauma. In other words? 'Mommy didn't love me enough, and that's why I'm a bad person.'

Behavioral is all about stimulus-response. Nope, I'm not talking about sex, so get your minds out of the gutter, guys. It's about how you learn your different reactions to any situation--fear responses, anger responses, whatever. Also, it's all about how to alter your behavior. And no, we will not be covering behavior modification in any detail in this course, but you will need to learn about both classical and operant conditioning.

Classical conditioning: You ever notice how a cat hears an electric can opener and comes running? That's what it is. Operant conditioning--If I give you a shiny gold star for doing something good, then you're going to do something to get another shiny gold star. Obviously, we're simplifying here.

Cognitive psych is exactly what it says it is. All about thought processes. How do we process, store, and retrieve memories? How do we use the information available to us to solve problems? To reason with? Lots of biology involved, because the brain? Amazingly complicated thing.

Cognitive psych is closely related to biological psych, also known as neuropsychology--which is actually a little bit more focused than biological psych, really. But sometimes people use the two terms interchangeably. How does the body and the brain affect someone's mood and behavior? This is the arena of psych that looks at the happy drugs like Prozac and the not-so-happy-but-useful drugs like Thorazine. Though, really, we've got better anti-psychotics these days.

Next week, we're going to hit psychoanalysis in a little more depth. Why don't you guys start discussing today's subject matter, 'kay? I'm still looking for a TA, if anyone's interested in applying for the job."

{{OOC: OCD comment threads ~~going up shortly~~ are up.}}

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"Isn't classical conditioning linked with aversion therapy?" Elizabeth asked curiously, leaning forward.

"You guessed it, Elizabeth," said Jenny, grinning at her. "Simplest example? Is training a pet not to do something by spraying it with cold water every time it does that."

"But what about it's use on humans? A Clockwork Orange had the protagonist undergo the Ludovico technique, to try and prevent him from continuing his violent behavior. But the technique meant that he couldn't even defend himself when he was attacked, and as well as violence being his stimuli, he also associated a piece of music with it. I know it's fictional, but..." She shrugged.

"It certainly can be used on humans," said Jenny. "And has been, to great theraputic effect. Now, if you're talking about A Clockwork Orange, well, techniques that extreme would be considered torture. And probably a violation of several other basic human rights. But in the long term, I don't think the conditioning would stick so well. One important factor of classical conditioning is that the stimulus-response reflex must be continually reinforced. Otherwise? You have what we call extinction of the behavior."

OOC: OMG, do you know how long it's been since I've even looked at that book? Hee!

"But the conditional reinforcement doesn't have to be continued throughout the entire length of time you want the behavior though, right? At least not in dogs. We never had to retrain them after the initial period."

"Is there any factoring in of the fact that a dog is a lot less complicated a being than is a human? A person might objectively look at their behavior and be able to break out of it, whereas a dog would be less likely?"

"That's exactly right, Alex," said Jenny. "Also, a human will have a number of more complex and varied experiences than a dog would. All of those combine to make the classical conditioning of a human's behavior--especially if it contradicts a person's personality--much easier to break."

Psychology 101 (Thursday, 01/12/2006, 5th Period)

Re: Discussion - Today's Topic: Intro to Psychological Perspectives

Re: Discussion - Today's Topic: Intro to Psychological Perspectives

Re: Discussion - Today's Topic: Intro to Psychological Perspectives

Re: Discussion - Today's Topic: Intro to Psychological Perspectives

Re: Discussion - Today's Topic: Intro to Psychological Perspectives

Re: Discussion - Today's Topic: Intro to Psychological Perspectives

Re: Discussion - Today's Topic: Intro to Psychological Perspectives