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Special fields of psychology (курсова робота)

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SPECIAL FIELDS OF PSYCHOLOGY

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Physiological psychology

3. Psychoanalysis

4. Behaviourism

5. Gestalt psychology

6 .Cognition

7. Tests and Measurements

8. Development psychology

9. Social psychology

10. Psychiatry and mental health

11. Forensic psychology and criminology

12. Psychology, religion and phenomenology

13. Parapsychology

Industrial Psychology

Vocabulary

Literature

1. Introduction

Psychology, scientific study of behavior and experience—that is, the
study of how human beings and animals sense, think, learn, and know.
Modern psychology is devoted to collecting facts about behavior and
experience and systematically organizing such facts into psychological
theories. These theories aid in understanding and explaining people’s
behavior and sometimes in predicting and influencing their future
behavior.

Psychology, historically, has been divided into many subfields of study;
these fields, however, are interrelated and frequently overlap.
Physiological psychologists, for instance, study the functioning of the
brain and the nervous system, and experimental psychologists devise
tests and conduct research to discover how people learn and remember.
Subfields of psychology may also be described in terms of areas of
application. Social psychologists, for example, are interested in the
ways in which people influence one another and the way they act in
groups. Industrial psychologists study the behavior of people at work
and the effects of the work environment. School psychologists help
students make educational and career decisions. Clinical psychologists
assist those who have problems in daily life or who are mentally ill.

History. The science of psychology developed from many diverse sources,
but its origins as a science may be traced to ancient Greece.

Philosophical Beginnings. Plato and Aristotle, as well as other Greek
philosophers, took up some of the basic questions of psychology that are
still under study: Are people born with certain skills, abilities, and
personality, or do all these develop as a result of experience? How do
people come to know the world? Are certain ideas and feelings innate, or
are they all learned?

Such questions were debated for many centuries, but the roots of modern
psychological theory are found in the 17th century in the works of the
French philosopher Ren Descartes and the British philosophers Thomas
Hobbes and John Locke. Descartes argued that the bodies of people are
like clockwork machines, but that their minds (or souls) are separate
and unique. He maintained that minds have certain inborn, or innate,
ideas and that these ideas are crucial in organizing people’s
experiencing of the world. Hobbes and Locke, on the other hand, stressed
the role of experience as the source of human knowledge. Locke believed
that all information about the physical world comes through the senses
and that all correct ideas can be traced to the sensory information on
which they are based.

Most modern psychology developed along the lines of Locke’s view. Some
European psychologists who studied perception, however, held onto
Descartes’s idea that some mental organization is innate, and the
concept still plays a role in theories of perception and cognition.

Against this philosophical background, the field that contributed most
to the development of scientific psychology was physiology—the study of
the functions of the various organ systems of the body. The German
physiologist Johannes Miller tried to relate sensory experience both to
events in the nervous system and to events in the organism’s physical
environment. The first true experimental psychologists were the German
physicist Gustav Theodor Fechner and the German physiologist Wilhelm
Wundt. Fechner developed experimental methods for measuring sensations
in terms of the physical magnitude of the stimuli producing them. Wundt,
who in 1879 founded the first laboratory of experimental psychology in
Leipzig, Germany, trained students from around the world in this new
science.

Physicians who became concerned with mental illness also contributed to
the development of modern psychological theories. Thus, the systematic
classification of mental disorders developed by the German psychiatric
pioneer Emil Kraepelin remains the basis for methods of classification
that are now in use. Far better known, however, is the work of Sigmund
Freud, who devised the system of investigation and treatment known as
psychoanalysis. In his work, Freud called attention to instinctual
drives and unconscious motivational processes that determine people’s
behavior. This stress on the contents of thought, on the dynamics of
motivation rather than the nature of cognition in itself, exerted a
strong influence on the course of modern psychology.

Modern psychology still retains many aspects of the fields and kinds of
speculation from which it grew. Some psychologists, for example, are
primarily interested in physiological research, others are medically
oriented, and a few try to develop a more encompassing, philosophical
understanding of psychology as a whole. Although some practitioners
still insist that psychology should be concerned only with behavior—and
may even deny the meaningfulness of an inner, mental life—more and more
psychologists would now agree that mental life or experience is a valid
psychological concern.

The areas of modern psychology range from the biological sciences to the
social sciences.

2. Physiological psychology

The study of underlying physiological bases of psychological functions
is known as physiological psychology. The two major communication
systems of the body—the nervous system and the circulatory system—are
the focus of most research in this area.

The nervous system consists of the central nervous system (the brain and
the spinal cord) and its outlying neural network, the peripheral nervous
system; the latter communicates with the glands and muscles and includes
the sensory receptors for seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching,
feeling pain, and sensing stimuli within the body. The circulatory
system circulates the blood and also carries the important chemical
agents known as hormones from the glands to all parts of the body. Both
these communication systems are very important in overall human
behavior.

The smallest unit of the nervous system is the single nerve cell, or
neuron. When a neuron is properly stimulated, it transmits
electrochemical signals from one place in the system to another. The
nervous system has 12.5 billion neurons, of which about 10 billion are
in the brain itself.

One part of the peripheral nervous system, the somatic system, transmits
sensations into the central nervous system and carries commands from the
central system to the muscles involved in movement. Another part of the
peripheral nervous system, the autonomic system, consists of two
divisions that have opposing functions. The sympathetic division arouses
the body by speeding the heartbeat, dilating the pupils of the eye, and
releasing adrenaline into the blood. The parasympathetic division
operates to calm the body by reversing these processes.

A simple example of communication within the nervous system is the
spinal arc, which is seen in the knee-jerk reflex. A tap on the patellar
tendon, just below the kneecap, sends a signal to the spinal cord via
sensory neurons. This signal activates motor neurons that trigger a
contraction of the muscle attached to the tendon; the contraction, in
turn, causes the leg to jerk. Thus, a stimulus can lead to a response
without involving the brain, via a connection through the spinal cord.

Circulatory communication is ordinarily slower than nervous-system
communication. The hormones secreted by the body’s endocrine glands
circulate through the body, influencing both structural and behavioral
changes . The sex hormones, for example, that are released during
adolescence effect many changes in body growth and development as well
as changes in behavior, such as the emergence of specific sexual
activity and the increase of interest in the opposite sex. Other
hormones may have more direct, short-term effects; for instance,
adrenaline, which is secreted when a person faces an emergency, prepares
the body for a quick response—whether fighting or flight.

3. Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis, name applied to a specific method of investigating
unconscious mental processes and to a form of psychotherapy. The term
refers, as well, to the systematic structure of psychoanalytic theory,
which is based on the relation of conscious and unconscious
psychological processes.

Theory of Psychoanalysis

The technique of psychoanalysis and much of the psychoanalytic theory
based on its application were developed by Sigmund Freud. His work
concerning the structure and the functioning of the human mind had
far-reaching significance, both practically and scientifically, and it
continues to influence contemporary thought.

The Unconscious

The first of Freud’s innovations was his recognition of unconscious
psychiatric processes that follow laws different from those that govern
conscious experience. Under the influence of the unconscious, thoughts
and feelings that belong together may be shifted or displaced out of
context; two disparate ideas or images may be condensed into one;
thoughts may be dramatized in the form of images rather than expressed
as abstract concepts; and certain objects may be represented
symbolically by images of other objects, although the resemblance
between the symbol and the original object may be vague or farfetched.
The laws of logic, indispensable for conscious thinking, do not apply to
these unconscious mental productions.

Recognition of these modes of operation in unconscious mental processes
made possible the understanding of such previously incomprehensible
psychological phenomena as dreaming. Through analysis of unconscious
processes, Freud saw dreams as serving to protect sleep against
disturbing impulses arising from within and related to early life
experiences. Thus, unacceptable impulses and thoughts, called the latent
dream content, are transformed into a conscious, although no longer
immediately comprehensible, experience called the manifest dream.
Knowledge of these unconscious mechanisms permits the analyst to reverse
the so-called dream work, that is, the process by which the latent dream
is transformed into the manifest dream, and through dream
interpretation, to recognize its underlying meaning.

Instinctual Drives

A basic assumption of Freudian theory is that the unconscious conflicts
involve instinctual impulses, or drives, that originate in childhood. As
these unconscious conflicts are recognized by the patient through
analysis, his or her adult mind can find solutions that were
unattainable to the immature mind of the child. This depiction of the
role of instinctual drives in human life is a unique feature of Freudian
theory.

According to Freud’s doctrine of infantile sexuality, adult sexuality is
an end product of a complex process of development, beginning in
childhood, involving a variety of body functions or areas (oral, anal,
and genital zones), and corresponding to various stages in the relation
of the child to adults, especially to parents. Of crucial importance is
the so-called Oedipal period, occurring at about four to six years of
age, because at this stage of development the child for the first time
becomes capable of an emotional attachment to the parent of the opposite
sex that is similar to the adult’s relationship to a mate; the child
simultaneously reacts as a rival to the parent of the same sex. Physical
immaturity dooms the child’s desires to frustration and his or her first
step toward adulthood to failure. Intellectual immaturity further
complicates the situation because it makes children afraid of their own
fantasies. The extent to which the child overcomes these emotional
upheavals and to which these attachments, fears, and fantasies continue
to live on in the unconscious greatly influences later life, especially
love relationships.

The conflicts occurring in the earlier developmental stages are no less
significant as a formative influence, because these problems represent
the earliest prototypes of such basic human situations as dependency on
others and relationship to authority. Also basic in molding the
personality of the individual is the behavior of the parents toward the
child during these stages of development. The fact that the child
reacts, not only to objective reality, but also to fantasy distortions
of reality, however, greatly complicates even the best-intentioned
educational efforts.

Id, Ego, and Superego

The effort to clarify the bewildering number of interrelated
observations uncovered by psychoanalytic exploration led to the
development of a model of the structure of the psychic system. Three
functional systems are distinguished that are conveniently designated as
the id, ego, and superego.

The first system refers to the sexual and aggressive tendencies that
arise from the body, as distinguished from the mind. Freud called these
tendencies Triebe, which literally means “drives,” but which is often
inaccurately translated as “instincts” to indicate their innate
character. These inherent drives claim immediate satisfaction, which is
experienced as pleasurable; the id thus is dominated by the pleasure
principle. In his later writings, Freud tended more toward psychological
rather than biological conceptualization of the drives.

How the conditions for satisfaction are to be brought about is the task
of the second system, the ego, which is the domain of such functions as
perception, thinking, and motor control that can accurately assess
environmental conditions. In order to fulfill its function of
adaptation, or reality testing, the ego must be capable of enforcing the
postponement of satisfaction of the instinctual impulses originating in
the id. To defend itself against unacceptable impulses, the ego develops
specific psychic means, known as defense mechanisms. These include
repression, the exclusion of impulses from conscious awareness;
projection, the process of ascribing to others one’s own unacknowledged
desires; and reaction formation, the establishment of a pattern of
behavior directly opposed to a strong unconscious need. Such defense
mechanisms are put into operation whenever anxiety signals a danger that
the original unacceptable impulses may reemerge.

An id impulse becomes unacceptable, not only as a result of a temporary
need for postponing its satisfaction until suitable reality conditions
can be found, but more often because of a prohibition imposed on the
individual by others, originally the parents. The totality of these
demands and prohibitions constitutes the major content of the third
system, the superego, the function of which is to control the ego in
accordance with the internalized standards of parental figures. If the
demands of the superego are not fulfilled, the person may feel shame or
guilt. Because the superego, in Freudian theory, originates in the
struggle to overcome the Oedipal conflict, it has a power akin to an
instinctual drive, is in part unconscious, and can give rise to feelings
of guilt not justified by any conscious transgression. The ego, having
to mediate among the demands of the id, the superego, and the outside
world, may not be strong enough to reconcile these conflicting forces.
The more the ego is impeded in its development because of being enmeshed
in its earlier conflicts, called fixations or complexes, or the more it
reverts to earlier satisfactions and archaic modes of functioning, known
as regression, the greater is the likelihood of succumbing to these
pressures. Unable to function normally, it can maintain its limited
control and integrity only at the price of symptom formation, in which
the tensions are expressed in neurotic symptoms.

Anxiety

A cornerstone of modern psychoanalytic theory and practice is the
concept of anxiety, which institutes appropriate mechanisms of defense
against certain danger situations. These danger situations, as described
by Freud, are the fear of abandonment by or the loss of the loved one
(the object), the risk of losing the object’s love, the danger of
retaliation and punishment, and, finally, the hazard of reproach by the
superego. Thus, symptom formation, character and impulse disorders, and
perversions, as well as sublimations, represent compromise
formations—different forms of an adaptive integration that the ego tries
to achieve through more or less successfully reconciling the different
conflicting forces in the mind.

Psychoanalytic Schools

Various psychoanalytic schools have adopted other names for their
doctrines to indicate deviations from Freudian theory.

Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung, one of the earliest pupils of Freud, eventually
created a school that he preferred to call analytical psychology. Like
Freud, Jung used the concept of the libido; however, to him it meant not
only sexual drives, but a composite of all creative instincts and
impulses and the entire motivating force of human conduct. According to
his theories, the unconscious is composed of two parts; the personal
unconscious, which contains the results of the individual’s entire
experience, and the collective unconscious, the reservoir of the
experience of the human race. In the collective unconscious exist a
number of primordial images, or archetypes, common to all individuals of
a given country or historical era. Archetypes take the form of bits of
intuitive knowledge or apprehension and normally exist only in the
collective unconscious of the individual. When the conscious mind
contains no images, however, as in sleep, or when the consciousness is
caught off guard, the archetypes commence to function. Archetypes are
primitive modes of thought and tend to personify natural processes in
terms of such mythological concepts as good and evil spirits, fairies,
and dragons. The mother and the father also serve as prominent
archetypes.

An important concept in Jung’s theory is the existence of two basically
different types of personality, mental attitude, and function. When the
libido and the individual’s general interest are turned outward toward
people and objects of the external world, he or she is said to be
extroverted. When the reverse is true, and libido and interest are
centered on the individual, he or she is said to be introverted. In a
completely normal individual these two tendencies alternate, neither
dominating, but usually the libido is directed mainly in one direction
or the other; as a result, two personality types are recognizable.

Jung rejected Freud’s distinction between the ego and superego and
recognized a portion of the personality, somewhat similar to the
superego, that he called the persona. The persona consists of what a
person appears to be to others, in contrast to what he or she actually
is. The persona is the role the individual chooses to play in life, the
total impression he or she wishes to make on the outside world.

Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler, another of Freud’s pupils, differed from both Freud and
Jung in stressing that the motivating force in human life is the sense
of inferiority, which begins as soon as an infant is able to comprehend
the existence of other people who are better able to care for themselves
and cope with their environment. From the moment the feeling of
inferiority is established, the child strives to overcome it. Because
inferiority is intolerable, the compensatory mechanisms set up by the
mind may get out of hand, resulting in self-centered neurotic attitudes,
overcompensations, and a retreat from the real world and its problems.

Adler laid particular stress on inferiority feelings arising from what
he regarded as the three most important relationships: those between the
individual and work, friends, and loved ones. The avoidance of
inferiority feelings in these relationships leads the individual to
adopt a life goal that is often not realistic and frequently is
expressed as an unreasoning will to power and dominance, leading to
every type of antisocial behavior from bullying and boasting to
political tyranny. Adler believed that analysis can foster a sane and
rational “community feeling” that is constructive rather than
destructive.

Otto Rank

Another student of Freud, Otto Rank, introduced a new theory of
neurosis, attributing all neurotic disturbances to the primary trauma of
birth. In his later writings he described individual development as a
progression from complete dependence on the mother and family, to a
physical independence coupled with intellectual dependence on society,
and finally to complete intellectual and psychological emancipation.
Rank also laid great importance on the will, defined as “a positive
guiding organization and integration of self, which utilizes creatively
as well as inhibits and controls the instinctual drives.”

Other Psychoanalytic Schools

Later noteworthy modifications of psychoanalytic theory include those of
the American psychoanalysts Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, and Harry Stack
Sullivan. The theories of Fromm lay particular emphasis on the concept
that society and the individual are not separate and opposing forces,
that the nature of society is determined by its historic background, and
that the needs and desires of individuals are largely formed by their
society. As a result, Fromm believed, the fundamental problem of
psychoanalysis and psychology is not to resolve conflicts between fixed
and unchanging instinctive drives in the individual and the fixed
demands and laws of society, but to bring about harmony and an
understanding of the relationship between the individual and society.
Fromm also stressed the importance to the individual of developing the
ability to fully use his or her mental, emotional, and sensory powers.

Horney worked primarily in the field of therapy and the nature of
neuroses, which she defined as of two types: situation neuroses and
character neuroses. Situation neuroses arise from the anxiety attendant
on a single conflict, such as being faced with a difficult decision.
Although they may paralyze the individual temporarily, making it
impossible to think or act efficiently, such neuroses are not deeply
rooted. Character neuroses are characterized by a basic anxiety and a
basic hostility resulting from a lack of love and affection in
childhood.

Sullivan believed that all development can be described exclusively in
terms of interpersonal relations. Character types as well as neurotic
symptoms are explained as results of the struggle against anxiety
arising from the individual’s relations with others and are a security
system, maintained for the purpose of allaying anxiety.

Melanie Klein

An important school of thought is based on the teachings of the British
psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. Because most of Klein’s followers worked
with her in England, this has come to be known as the English school.
Its influence, nevertheless, is very strong throughout the European
continent and in South America. Its principal theories were derived from
observations made in the psychoanalysis of children. Klein posited the
existence of complex unconscious fantasies in children under the age of
six months. The principal source of anxiety arises from the threat to
existence posed by the death instinct. Depending on how concrete
representations of the destructive forces are dealt with in the
unconscious fantasy life of the child, two basic early mental attitudes
result that Klein characterized as a “depressive position” and a
“paranoid position.” In the paranoid position, the ego’s defense
consists of projecting the dangerous internal object onto some external
representative, which is treated as a genuine threat emanating from the
external world. In the depressive position, the threatening object is
introjected and treated in fantasy as concretely retained within the
person. Depressive and hypochondriacal symptoms result. Although
considerable doubt exists that such complex unconscious fantasies
operate in the minds of infants, these observations have been of the
utmost importance to the psychology of unconscious fantasies, paranoid
delusions, and theory concerning early object relations.

4. Behaviriourism

The literature of this school of psychology is still awaiting its
bibliographer. Though this interpretation of human actions and reactions
has been strongly criticized by other psychologists, the leading figures
– B.F.Skinner, J.B.Watson and E.C.Tolman – have also been recognized and
respected as great scholars. Skenner`s own summary About behaviorism,
1974, contained numerous bibliographic references to this important
interpretation of man’s relationship to the world around him. Strange
compilation of references designed to show the errors of this school of
psychology was published by A.A.Roback in 1923 as part of his critical
discussion entitled Behaviorism and Psychology; it is now only of
historical interest.

We have already referred to Robert 1 Watson`s The history of psychology
and behavioral sciences: a bibliographic guide, 1978. in our discussion
of the general background guides to psychology. It suffices to note,
here, that this work, though by one of the leading scholars of the
behaviorist school, is not, and does not pretend to be, a bibliography
of Behaviourism. In some respects the same can be said of
C.Heidenreich`s Dictionary of personality: behavior and adjustment
terms, which appeared in 1968. Both these books have been compiled by
leading members of this behaviorist school and unquestionably
representative of the views of that school. We have mentioned these
works here for that reason, but stress that these are scholarly and
unbiased reference works which do not include or misrepresent references
to other interpretations of human behavior.

5. Gestalt psychology

Gestalt Psychology, school of psychology that deals mainly with the
processes of perception. According to Gestalt psychology, images are
perceived as a pattern or a whole rather than merely as a sum of
distinct component parts. The context of an image plays a key role. For
instance, in the context of a city silhouette the shape of a spire is
perceived as a church steeple. Gestalt psychology tries to formulate the
laws governing such perceptual processes.

Gestalt psychology began as a protest. At the beginning of the 20th
century, associationism dominated psychology. The associationist view
that stimuli are perceived as parts and then built into images excluded
as much as it sought to explain; for instance, it allowed little room
for such human concepts as meaning and value. About 1910, German
researchers Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Koehler, and Kurt Koffka rejected
the prevailing order of scientific analysis in psychology. They did not,
however, reject science; rather they sought a scientific approach more
nearly related to the subject matter of psychology. They adopted that of
field theory, newly developed in physics. This model permitted them to
look at perception in terms other than the mechanistic atomism of the
associationists.

Gestalt psychologists found perception to be heavily influenced by the
context or configuration of the perceived elements. The word Gestalt can
be translated from the German approximately as “configuration.” The
parts often derive their nature and purpose from the whole and cannot be
understood apart from it. Moreover, a straightforward summation process
of individual elements cannot account for the whole. Activities within
the total field of the whole govern the perceptual processes.

The approach of Gestalt psychology has been extended to research in
areas as diverse as thinking, memory, and the nature of aesthetics.
Topics in social psychology have also been studied from the
structuralist Gestalt viewpoint, as in Kurt Lewin’s work on group
dynamics. It is in the area of perception, however, that Gestalt
psychology has had its greatest influence.

In addition, several contemporary psychotherapies are termed Gestalt.
These are constructed along lines similar to Gestalt psychology’s
approach to perception. Human beings respond holistically to experience;
according to Gestalt therapists, any separation of mind and body is
artificial. Accurate perception of one’s own needs and of the world is
vital in order to balance one’s experience and achieve “good Gestalten.”
Movement away from awareness breaks the holistic response, or Gestalt.
Gestalt therapists attempt to restore an individual’s natural, harmonic
balance by heightening awareness. The emphasis is on present experience,
rather than on recollections of infancy and early childhood as in
psychoanalysis. Direct confrontation with one’s fears is encouraged.

6. Cognition psychology

Cognition, act or process of knowing. Cognition includes attention,
perception, memory, reasoning, judgment, imagining, thinking, and
speech. Attempts to explain the way in which cognition works are as old
as philosophy itself; the term, in fact, comes from the writings of
Plato and Aristotle. With the advent of psychology as a discipline
separate from philosophy, cognition has been investigated from several
viewpoints.

An entire field—cognitive psychology—has arisen since the 1950s. It
studies cognition mainly from the standpoint of information handling.
Parallels are stressed between the functions of the human brain and the
computer concepts such as the coding, storing, retrieving, and buffering
of information. The actual physiology of cognition is of little interest
to cognitive psychologists, but their theoretical models of cognition
have deepened understanding of memory, psycholinguistics, and the
development of intelligence.

Social psychologists since the mid-1960s have written extensively on the
topic of cognitive consistency—that is, the tendency of a person’s
beliefs and actions to be logically consistent with one another. When
cognitive dissonance, or the lack of such consistency, arises, the
person unconsciously seeks to restore consistency by changing his or her
behavior, beliefs, or perceptions. The manner in which a particular
individual classifies cognitions in order to impose order has been
termed cognitive style.

7. Tests and Measurements

Many fields of psychology use tests and measurement devices. The
best-known psychological tool is intelligence testing. Since the early
1900s psychologists have been measuring intelligence—or, more
accurately, the ability to succeed in schoolwork. Such tests have proved
useful in classifying students, assigning people to training programs,
and predicting success in many kinds of schooling. Special tests have
been developed to predict success in different occupations and to assess
how much knowledge people have about different kinds of specialties. In
addition, psychologists have constructed tests for measuring aspects of
personality, interests, and attitudes. Thousands of tests have been
devised for measuring different human traits.

A key problem in test construction, however, is the development of a
criterion—that is, some standard to which the test is to be related. For
intelligence tests, for example, the usual criterion has been success in
school, but intelligence tests have frequently been attacked on the
basis of cultural bias (that is, the test results may reflect a child’s
background as much as it does learning ability). For vocational-interest
tests, the standard generally has been persistence in an occupation. One
general difficulty with personality tests is the lack of agreement among
psychologists as to what standards should be used. Many criteria have
been proposed, but most are only indirectly related to the aspect of
personality that is being measured.

Very sophisticated statistical models have been developed for tests, and
a detailed technology underlies most successful testing. Many
psychologists have become adept at constructing testing devices for
special purposes and at devising measurements, once agreement is reached
as to what should be measured.

Types of Tests

Currently, a wide range of testing procedures is used in the U.S. and
elsewhere. Each type of procedure is designed to carry out specific
functions.

Achievement Tests . These tests are designed to assess current
performance in an academic area. Because achievement is viewed as an
indicator of previous learning, it is often used to predict future
academic success. An achievement test administered in a public school
setting would typically include separate measures of vocabulary,
language skills and reading comprehension, arithmetic computation and
problem solving, science, and social studies. Individual achievement is
determined by comparison of results with average scores derived from
large representative national or local samples. Scores may be expressed
in terms of “grade-level equivalents”; for example, an advanced
third-grade pupil may be reading on a level equivalent to that of the
average fourth-grade student.

Aptitude Tests. These tests predict future performance in an area in
which the individual is not currently trained. Schools, businesses, and
government agencies often use aptitude tests when assigning individuals
to specific positions. Vocational guidance counseling may involve
aptitude testing to help clarify individual career goals. If a person’s
score is similar to scores of others already working in a given
occupation, likelihood of success in that field is predicted. Some
aptitude tests cover a broad range of skills pertinent to many different
occupations. The General Aptitude Test Battery, for example, not only
measures general reasoning ability but also includes form perception,
clerical perception, motor coordination, and finger and manual
dexterity. Other tests may focus on a single area, such as art,
engineering, or modern languages.

Intelligence Tests. In contrast to tests of specific proficiencies or
aptitudes, intelligence tests measure the global capacity of an
individual to cope with the environment. Test scores are generally known
as intelligence quotients, or IQs, although the various tests are
constructed quite differently. The Stanford-Binet is heavily weighted
with items involving verbal abilities; the Wechsler scales consist of
two separate verbal and performance subscales, each with its own IQ.
There are also specialized infant intelligence tests, tests that do not
require the use of language, and tests that are designed for group
administration.

The early intelligence scales yielded a mental-age score, expressing the
child’s ability to do as well as average children who were older,
younger, or equivalent in chronological age. The deviation IQ used today
expresses the individual’s position in comparison to a representative
group of people of the same age. The average IQ is set at 100; about
half of those who take the test achieve scores between 90 and 110. IQ
scores may vary according to testing conditions, and, thus, it is
advisable to understand results of the tests as falling within a certain
range, such as average or superior.

Interest Inventories. Self-report questionnaires on which the subject
indicates personal preferences among activities are called interest
inventories. Because interests may predict satisfaction with some area
of employment or education, these inventories are used primarily in
guidance counseling. They are not intended to predict success, but only
to offer a framework for narrowing career possibilities. For example,
one frequently used interest inventory, the Kudor Preference Record,
includes ten clusters of occupational interests: outdoors, mechanical,
computational, scientific, persuasive, artistic, literary, musical,
social service, and clerical. For each item, the subject indicates which
of three activities is best or least liked. The total score indicates
the occupational clusters that include preferred activities.

Objective Personality Tests. These tests measure social and emotional
adjustment and are used to identify the need for psychological
counseling. Items that briefly describe feelings, attitudes, and
behaviors are grouped into subscales, each representing a separate
personality or style, such as social extroversion or depression. Taken
together, the subscales provide a profile of the personality as a whole.
One of the most popular psychological tests is the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory (MMPI), constructed to aid in diagnosing
psychiatric patients. Research has shown that the MMPI may also be used
to describe differences among normal personality types.

Projective Techniques. Some personality tests are based on the
phenomenon of projection, a mental process described by Sigmund Freud as
the tendency to attribute to others personal feelings or characteristics
that are too painful to acknowledge. Because projective techniques are
relatively unstructured and offer minimal cues to aid in defining
responses, they tend to elicit concerns that are highly personal and
significant. The best-known projective tests are the Rorschach test,
popularly known as the inkblot test, and the Thematic Apperception Test;
others include word-association techniques, sentence-completion tests,
and various drawing procedures. The psychologist’s past experience
provides the framework for evaluating individual responses. Although the
subjective nature of interpretation makes these tests particularly
vulnerable to criticism, in clinical settings they are part of the
standard battery of psychological tests.

Interpretation of Results

The most important aspect of psychological testing involves the
interpretation of test results.

Scoring. The raw score is the simple numerical count of responses, such
as the number of correct answers on an intelligence test. The usefulness
of the raw score is limited, however, because it does not convey how
well someone does in comparison with others taking the same test.
Percentile scores, standard scores, and norms are all devices for making
this comparison.

Percentile scoring expresses the rank order of the scores in
percentages. The percentile level of a person’s score indicates the
proportion of the group that scored above and below that individual.
When a score falls at the 50th percentile, for example, half of the
group scored higher and half scored lower; a score at the 80th
percentile indicates that 20 percent scored higher and 80 percent scored
lower than the person being evaluated.

Standard scores are derived from a comparison of the individual raw
score with the mean and standard deviation of the group scores. The
mean, or arithmetic average, is determined by adding the scores and
dividing by the total number of scores obtained. The standard deviation
measures the variation of the scores around the mean. Standard scores
are obtained by subtracting the mean from the raw score and then
dividing by the standard deviation.

Tables of norms are included in test manuals to indicate the expected
range of raw scores. Normative data are derived from studies in which
the test has been administered to a large, representative group of
people. The test manual should include a description of the sample of
people used to establish norms, including age, sex, geographical
location, and occupation. Norms based on a group of people whose major
characteristics are markedly dissimilar from those of the person being
tested do not provide a fair standard of comparison.

Validity. Interpretation of test scores ultimately involves predictions
about a subject’s behavior in a specified situation. If a test is an
accurate predictor, it is said to have good validity. Before validity
can be demonstrated, a test must first yield consistent, reliable
measurements. In addition to reliability, psychologists recognize three
main types of validity.

A test has content validity if the sample of items in the test is
representative of all the relevant items that might have been used.
Words included in a spelling test, for example, should cover a wide
range of difficulty.

Criterion-related validity refers to a test’s accuracy in specifying a
future or concurrent outcome. For example, an art-aptitude test has
predictive validity if high scores are achieved by those who later do
well in art school. The concurrent validity of a new intelligence test
may be demonstrated if its scores correlate closely with those of an
already well-established test.

Construct validity is generally determined by investigating what
psychological traits or qualities a test measures; that is, by
demonstrating that certain patterns of human behavior account to some
degree for performance on the test. A test measuring the trait “need for
achievement,” for instance, might be shown to predict that high scorers
work more independently, persist longer on problem-solving tasks, and do
better in competitive situations than low scores.

Controversies. The major psychological testing controversies stem from
two interrelated issues: technical shortcomings in test design and
ethical problems in interpretation and application of results. Some
technical weaknesses exist in all tests. Because of this, it is crucial
that results be viewed as only one kind of information about any
individual. Most criticisms of testing arise from the overvaluation of
and inappropriate reliance on test results in making major life
decisions. These criticisms have been particularly relevant in the case
of intelligence testing. Psychologists generally agree that using tests
to bar youngsters from educational opportunities, without careful
consideration of past and present resources or motivation, is unethical.
Because tests tend to draw on those skills associated with white,
middle-class functioning, they may discriminate against disadvantaged
and minority groups. As long as unequal learning opportunities exist,
they will continue to be reflected in test results. In the U.S.,
therefore, some states have established laws that carefully define the
use of tests in public schools and agencies. The American Psychological
Association, meanwhile, continues to work actively to monitor and refine
ethical standards and public policy recommendations regarding the use of
psychological testing.

8. Development psychology

Developmental Psychology study of behavioral changes and continuity from
infancy to old age. Much emphasis in psychology has been given to the
child and to the deviant personality. Developmental psychology is
particularly significant, then, in that it provides for formal study of
children and adults at every stage of development through the life span.

Developmental psychology reflects the view that human development and
behavior throughout the life span is a function of the interaction
between biologically determined factors, such as height or temperament,
and environmental influences, such as family, schooling, religion, and
culture. Studies of these interactions focus on their consequences for
people at different age levels. For example, developmental psychologists
are interested in how children who were physically abused by their
parents behave when they themselves become parents. Studies, although
inconclusive, suggest that abused children often become abusive parents.

Other recent studies have focused on the relationship between the aging
process and intellectual competence; contrary to the traditional notion
that a person’s intellectual skills decline rapidly after the age of 55,
research indicates that the decline is gradual. American studies of
adulthood, building on the work of Erik Erikson, point to stable periods
with a duration of 5 to 7 years, during which energy is expended on
career, family, and social relationships, punctuated by “transitional”
periods lasting 3 to 5 years, during which assessment and reappraisal of
major life areas occurs. These transitional periods may be smooth or
emotionally stormy; the “midlife crisis” is an example of such a
transition. Whether such transitions are the same for men and women, and
whether they are universal, is currently under study.

9. Social psychology

Social Psychology branch of psychology concerned with the scientific
study of the behavior of individuals as influenced, directly or
indirectly, by social stimuli. Social psychologists are interested in
the thinking, emotions, desires, and judgments of individuals, as well
as in their overt behavior. An individual’s inner states can be inferred
only from some form of observable behavior. Research has also proved
that people are affected by social stimuli whether or not they are
actually in the presence of others and that virtually everything an
individual does or experiences is influenced to some extent by present
or previous social contacts.

Development of Theory. Social psychology is rooted in the earliest
intellectual probes made by individuals into their relations with
society. Many of the major problems of concern to contemporary social
psychology were recognized as problems by social philosophers long
before psychological questions were joined to scientific method. The
questions posed by Aristotle, the Italian philosopher Niccol
Machiavelli, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, and others
throughout history are still asked, in altered form, in the work of
present-day social psychologists.

The more recent history of social psychology begins with the publication
in 1908 of two textbooks—each having the term social psychology in its
title—that examine the impact of society on the development and behavior
of individuals. One of these was written by the British psychologist
William McDougall, and the other by the American sociologist Edward
Alsworth Ross. McDougall framed a controversial theory of human
instincts, conceived of as broad, purposive tendencies emerging from the
evolutionary process. Ross, on the other hand, was concerned with the
transmission of social behavior from person to person, such as the
influence of one person’s emotions on another’s in a crowd, or the
following of fads and fashions.

Another textbook on social psychology, published in 1924 by the American
psychologist Floyd H. Allport, had an important influence on the
development of social psychology as a specialization of general
psychology. Allport extended the principles of associative learning to
account for a wide range of social behavior. He thus avoided reference
either to such mysterious social forces as were proposed by Ross or to
the elaborate instinctive dispositions used by McDougall and his
followers to account for social behavior. Through the remainder of the
decade, the literature of social psychology continued to be devoted to
similar discussions and controversies about points of view, and little
empirical work, that is, work relying on experience or observation, of
theoretical or practical significance was done.

Early Experimentation. In the 1930s empirical research was first
undertaken on such matters as animal social behavior, group
problem-solving, attitudes and persuasion, national and ethnic
stereotypes, rumor transmission, and leadership. The German-American
psychologist Kurt Lewin emphasized the necessity of doing theoretical
analysis before conducting research on a problem, the purpose of the
research being to clarify explanatory mechanisms hypothesized to
underlie the behavior being studied. The theory proposes an explanation
of certain behavior and allows the investigator to predict the specific
conditions under which the behavior will or will not occur. The
investigator then designs experiments in which the appropriate
conditions are methodically varied and the occurrence of the behavior
can be observed and measured. The results allow modifications and
extensions of the theory to be made.

In 1939 Lewin together with two of his doctoral students published the
results of an experiment of significant historical importance. The
investigators had arranged to have the same adults play different
leadership roles while directing matched groups of children. The adults
attempted to establish particular climates—that is, social environmental
conditions—of democratic, autocratic, or completely laissez-faire
leadership. The reactions of the children in the groups were carefully
observed, and detailed notes were taken on the patterns of social
interaction that emerged. Although the experiment itself had many
deficiencies, it demonstrated that something as nebulous as a democratic
social climate could be created under controlled laboratory conditions.

The originality and success of this research had a liberating effect on
other investigators. By the end of World War II, an outpouring of
experimental research involving the manipulation of temporary social
environments through laboratory stagecraft began. At the same time,
important advances occurred in nonexperimental, or field, research in
social psychology. The objective rather than the speculative study of
social behavior is the current trend in social psychology.

Research Areas. Social psychology shares many concerns with other
disciplines, especially with sociology and cultural anthropology. The
three sciences differ, however, in that whereas the sociologist studies
social groups and institutions and the anthropologist studies human
cultures, the social psychologist focuses attention on how social
groups, institutions, and cultures affect the behavior of the
individual. The major areas of research in social psychology are the
following.

Socialization. Social psychologists who study the phenomena of
socialization, meaning the process of being made fit or trained for a
social environment, are interested in how individuals learn the rules
governing their behavior toward other persons in society, the groups of
which they are members, and individuals with whom they come into
contact. Questions dealing with how children learn language, sex role,
moral and ethical principles, and appropriate behavior in general have
come under intensive investigation. Also widely studied are the methods
by which adults learn to adapt their patterns of behavior when they are
confronted by new situations or organizations.

Attitudes and Attitude Change. Attitudes have generally been regarded as
learned predispositions that exert some consistent influence on
responses toward objects, persons, or groups. Attitudes are usually seen
as the products of socialization and therefore as modifiable. Because
the behavior of a person toward others is often, although not always,
consistent with his or her attitudes toward them, the investigation of
how attitudes are formed, how they are organized in the mind, and how
they are modified has been considered of great practical as well as
theoretical importance.

The discovery that attitudes follow from behavior as well as vice versa
emerges from the well-tested assumption that people desire to preserve
logical consistency in their views of themselves and their environments.
A number of theories of cognitive consistency have become important in
social psychological thinking. These theories stress the idea that
individuals have a personal stake in believing that their own thoughts
and actions are in agreement with one another, and that perceiving
inconsistency between one’s actions and thoughts leads to attempts to
reduce the inconsistency. Through research, social psychologists attempt
to understand the conditions under which people notice an inconsistency
and the conditions under which they will attempt to reduce it by
changing significant attitudes. Studies support the consistency-theory
prediction that the attitudes of a person about a group of people can
often be changed by inducing the person to change his or her behavior
toward the group; the attitude change represents the efforts of the
person to bring his or her ideas about the group into agreement with how
he has just acted toward its members.

Social Affiliation, Power, and Influence. The factors that govern
whether and with whom people will affiliate, as well as whether and how
they will attempt to influence or be influenced by others, have received
much attention by social psychologists. Researchers have determined, for
example, that if people are unsure of how they should feel or behave in
response to a new or unpleasant situation, they will seek the company of
others who may be able to provide the lacking information. Social
psychologists have also found that firstborn and only children are
generally more inclined to join groups throughout their lives than are
those born later.

Group Structure and Functioning. Social psychologists have studied many
issues related to questions of how the group and the individual affect
one another, including problems of leadership functions, styles, and
effectiveness. Social psychologists investigate the conditions under
which people or groups resolve their conflicts cooperatively or
competitively and the many consequences of those general modes of
conflict resolution. Research is conducted also to determine how the
group induces conformity and how it deals with deviant members.

Personality and Society. Some social psychologists are particularly
concerned with the development and consequences of stable individual
differences among people. Differences in the degree of achievement
motivation have been found to be measurable and to have important
consequences for how a person behaves in various social situations.
Systems of attitudes toward authority, such as the notion of the
authoritarian personality, have been found to relate to attitudes toward
ethnic minorities and to certain aspects of social behavior. A
personality syndrome known as Machiavellianism, named after the Italian
political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli, has been used to predict the
social manipulativeness of people in interaction and their ability to
dominate certain interpersonal situations.

Investigative Techniques

Numerous kinds of research methods and techniques are being used in
social psychology. The tradition of theory-based investigation remains
strong in the discipline. In recent years rigorously exact mathematical
models of social behavior have been used increasingly in psychological
studies. Such models are projections, based on theory and in arithmetic
detail, of social behavior in a possible system of social relationships.

Other techniques include the questionnaire and the interview, both used
widely in public opinion polls and studies of consumer preferences.
These two methods pose a considerable challenge to investigators. The
kind of control of the environment that is possible in the laboratory is
not available in the field, and the effects of subtle variables that can
be observed in experiments are easily obscured by other variables that
may exist in natural environments.

Frequently, behavior in natural settings is systematically observed, or
computers are programmed to simulate social behavior. Special techniques
are used for analysis of statistics and other data and for attitude
measurement as well as measurement of social choice and interpersonal
attractiveness. Also important is psychophysiological measurement, that
is, the measurement of shared mental and physiological characteristics.
Cross-national and cross-cultural research is one of the modern
techniques, designed to provide comparisons of behavior between nations
and cultures; the same research study is carried out in several
different countries in order to determine the cross-cultural validity of
the research.

In the study of social behavior in animals, a laboratory environment
facilitates controlled experimentation, that is, experimentation
considering the previous history of the animals as well as their present
environmental conditions. Simple behavioral acts, such as a pigeon
pecking at an object, can be isolated and schedules of
reinforcement—that is, repetition of stimuli—can be maintained. Social
psychological research with animals has led to important new techniques
for their training.

Applied Social Psychology

The principles developed in laboratory and field research in social
psychology have been applied to many social situations and problems.
Applied researchers and consultants have worked to ameliorate problems
found in ethnic relations, international relations, industrial and labor
relations, political and economic behavior, education, advertising, and
community mental health. Industries, organizations, schools, and task
groups of many kinds regularly use the services of applied social
psychologists to improve interpersonal relations, to increase
understanding of relations between members of groups in conflict with
one another, and to diagnose and help correct problems in group and
organizational productivity.

Psychiatry and mental health

Psychiatry is the realm in which medical science and psychology join to
provide help for persons whose mind (as one says) is disturbed and whose
behavior does not conform to accept social patterns. Psychopathology
and clinical psychology are integral sub-fields of this branch of
medical psychology which, of necessity, also includes neurology, mental
deficiency or retardation, forensic psychology, certain aspects of
abnormal psychology, social psychology and psychotherapy. Mental illness
has been recognized as such since the days of Aristotle and Hippocrates,
and its long modern history has been able described by some scientists.

Mental Health, state characterized by psychological well-being and
self-acceptance. The term mental health usually implies the capacity to
love and relate to others, the ability to work productively, and the
willingness to behave in a way that brings personal satisfaction without
encroaching upon the rights of others. In a clinical sense, mental
health is the absence of mental illness.

The Mental Health Movement

Concern for the mentally ill has waxed and waned through the centuries,
but the development of modern-day approaches to the subject dates from
the mid-18th century, when reformers such as the French physician
Philippe Pinel and the American physician Benjamin Rush introduced
humane “moral treatment” to replace the often cruel treatment that then
prevailed. Despite these reforms, most of the mentally ill continued to
live in jails and poorhouses—a situation that continued until 1841, when
the American reformer Dorothea Dix campaigned to place the mentally ill
in hospitals for special treatment.

The modern mental health movement can be traced to the publication in
1908 of A Mind That Found Itself, an account of the experience of its
author, Clifford Whittingham Beers, as a mental patient. The book
aroused a storm of public concern for the mentally ill. In 1909 Beers
founded the National Committee for Mental Hygiene.

Public awareness of the need for greater governmental attention to
mental health services led to passage of the National Mental Health Act
in 1946. This legislation authorized the establishment of the National
Institute of Mental Health to be operated as a part of the U.S. Public
Health Service. In 1950 the National Committee for Mental Hygiene was
reorganized as the National Association for Mental Health, better known
as the Mental Health Association.

In 1955 Congress established a Joint Commission on Mental Illness and
Health to survey the mental health needs of the nation and to recommend
new approaches. Based on the commission’s recommendations, legislation
was passed in 1963 authorizing funds for construction of facilities for
community-based treatment centers. A similar group, the President’s
Commission on Mental Health, reported its findings in 1978, citing
estimates of the cost of mental illness in the U.S. alone as being about
$17 billion a year.

Scope of the Problem

According to a common estimate, at any one time 10 percent of the
American population has mental health problems sufficiently serious to
warrant care; recent evidence suggests that this figure may be closer to
15 percent. Not all the people who need help receive it, however; in
1975 only 3 percent of the American population received mental health
service. One major reason for this is that people still fear the stigma
attached to mental illness and hence often fail to report it or to seek
help.

Analysis of the figures on mental illness shows that schizophrenia
afflicts an estimated 2 million Americans, another 2 million suffer from
profound depressive disorders, and 1 million have organic psychoses or
other permanently disabling mental conditions. As much as 25 percent of
the population is estimated to suffer from mild or moderate depression,
anxiety, and other types of emotional problems. Some 10 million
Americans have problems related to alcohol abuse, and millions more are
thought to abuse drugs. Some 5 to 15 percent of children between the
ages of 3 and 15 are the victims of persistent mental health problems,
and at least 2 million are thought to have severe learning disabilities
that can seriously impair their mental health.

In addition, according to the President’s Commission, the list of mental
health problems should be extended beyond identifiable psychiatric
conditions to include the damage to mental health associated with
unrelenting poverty, unemployment, and discrimination on the basis of
race, sex, class, age, and mental or physical handicaps.

Prevention

Public health authorities customarily distinguish among three forms of
prevention. Primary prevention refers to attempts to prevent the
occurrence of mental disorder, as well as to promote positive mental
health. Secondary prevention is the early detection and treatment of a
disorder, and tertiary prevention refers to rehabilitative efforts that
are directed at preventing complications.

Two avenues of approach to the prevention of mental illness in adults
were suggested by the President’s Commission. One was to reduce the
stressful effects of such crises as unemployment, retirement,
bereavement, and marital disruption; the second was to create
environments in which people can achieve their full potential. The
commission placed its heaviest emphasis, however, on helping children.
It recommended the following steps:

good care during pregnancy and childbirth, so that early treatment can
be instituted as needed;

early detection and correction of problems of physical, emotional, and
intellectual development;

developmental day-care programs focusing on emotional and intellectual
development;

support services for families, directed at preventing unnecessary and
inappropriate foster care or other out-of-home placements for children.

Treatment

Care of the mentally ill has changed dramatically in recent decades.
Drugs introduced in the mid-1950s, along with other improved treatment
methods, enabled many patients who would once have spent years in mental
institutions to be treated as outpatients in community facilities
instead. (A series of judicial decisions and legislative acts has
promoted community care by requiring that patients be treated in the
least restrictive setting available.) Between 1955 and 1980 the number
of people in state mental hospitals declined from more than 550,000 to
fewer than 125,000. This trend was due partly to improved community care
and partly to the cost of operating hospitals; in an effort to save
public money, some large state mental hospitals have been closed,
forcing alternatives to be found for patients. This is generally
considered a progressive trend because when patients spend extended
periods in hospitals they tend to become overly dependent and lose
interest in taking care of themselves. In addition, because the
hospitals are often located long distances from the patients’ homes,
families and friends can visit only infrequently, and the patients’
roles at home and at work are likely to be taken over by others.

The psychiatric wards of community general hospitals have assumed some
of the responsibility for caring for the mentally ill during the acute
phases of illness. Some of these hospitals function as the inpatient
service for community mental health centers. Typically, patients remain
for a few days or weeks until their symptoms have subsided, and they
usually are given some form of psychotropic drug to help relieve their
symptoms. Following the lead of Great Britain, American mental hospitals
now also give some patients complete freedom of buildings and grounds
and, in some instances, freedom to visit nearby communities. This move
is based on the conclusion that disturbed behavior is often the result
of restraint rather than of illness.

Treatment of patients with less severe mental disorders has also changed
markedly in recent decades. Previously, patients with mild depression,
anxiety disorders, and other neurotic conditions were treated
individually with psychotherapy. Although this form of treatment is
still widely used, alternative approaches are now available. In some
instances, a group of patients meets to work through problems with the
assistance of a therapist; in other cases, families are treated as a
unit. Another form of treatment that has proven especially effective in
alleviating phobic disorders is behavior therapy, which focuses on
changing overt behavior rather than the underlying causes of a disorder.
As in the serious mental illnesses, the treatment of milder forms of
anxiety and depression has been furthered by the introduction of new
drugs that help alleviate symptoms.

Rehabilitation

The release of large numbers of patients from state mental hospitals,
however, has caused significant problems both for the patients and for
the communities that become their new homes. Adequate community services
often are unavailable to former mental patients, a large percentage of
whom live in nursing homes and other facilities that are not equipped to
meet their needs. Most of these patients have been diagnosed as having
schizophrenia, and only 15 to 40 percent of schizophrenics who live in
the community achieve an average level of adjustment. Those who do
receive care typically visit a clinic at periodic intervals for brief
counseling and drug monitoring.

In addition to such outpatient clinics, rehabilitation services include
sheltered workshops, day-treatment programs, and social clubs. Sheltered
workshops provide vocational guidance and an opportunity to brush up on
an old skill or learn a new one. In day-treatment programs, patients
return home at night and on weekends; during weekdays, the programs
offer a range of rehabilitative services, such as vocational training,
group activities, and help in the practical problems of living.
Ex-patient social clubs provide social contacts, group activities, and
an opportunity for patients to develop self-confidence in normal
situations.

Another important rehabilitative facility is the halfway house for
patients whose families are not willing or able to accept them after
discharge. It serves as a temporary residence for ex-patients who are
ready to form outside community ties. A variant is the use of subsidized
apartments for recently discharged psychiatric patients.

Research

Many different sciences contribute to knowledge about mental health and
illness. In recent decades these sciences have begun to clarify basic
biological, psychological, and social processes, and they have refined
the application of such knowledge to mental health problems.

Some of the most promising leads have come from biological research. For
example, brain scientists who study neurotransmitters—chemicals that
carry messages from one nerve cell to another—are contributing to
knowledge of normal and abnormal brain functioning, and they may
eventually discover better treatment methods for mental illness. Other
researchers are trying to discover how the brain develops—they have
learned, for example, that even in adults some nerve cells partially
regenerate after being damaged—and such research adds to the
understanding of mental retardation, untreatable forms of brain damage,
and other conditions.

Psychological research relevant to mental health includes the study of
perception, information processing, thinking, language, motivation,
emotion, abilities, attitudes, personality, and social behavior. For
example, researchers are studying stress and how to cope with it. One
application of this type of research may help to prevent mental
disorders; in the future, psychologists may be better able to match
people (and their coping skills) to work settings and job duties.

Research in the social sciences focuses on problems of individuals in
contexts such as the family, neighborhood, and work setting, as well as
the culture at large. One example of such work is epidemiological
research, which is the study of the occurrence of disease patterns,
including mental illness, in a society.

Forensic psychology and criminology

The study of abnormal behaviour often leads to special investigations
into the origins or causes of crime. This in turn will lead to the
psychological study of criminals and also of the victims of crime. The
literature on this topic is growing and there exist now a number of
useful indexing services to help with the retrieval of particular
contributions from many countries. While most of these indexes and
abstracts are orientated towards the work of, and happenings in, the
courts, all of them contain, references to the behaviour of criminals or
social deviants. Criminology and penology abstracts has been in
existence since 1960; its abstracts are arranged under broad subject
heading which include psychology, psychopathology, psychiatry, social
behaviour of groups.

Psychology, religion and phenomenology

The long traditional links between religions and psychology go back to
classical antiquity. They received much impetus in the middle ages and
again during the many periods of religious and political fervour that
stirred Europe during the past six centuries, reaching various climactic
peaks through seers, visionaries and martyrs. Every one of these
advocated social reforms on earth to attain a new heaven, or threatened
new hells should the reforms not be adopted. All were persecuted by the
established religious or political power, or both; then as now, the
defenders of the status quo almost invariably accused the challengers of
being madmen or psychopaths. It is all a matter of firmly held beliefs
uttered from pulpits,chancery ballconies and soap boxes as well as
printed in broadsides, pamphlets, or large books, or smeared on the
walls of houses with a wide brush

13. Parapsychology

Psychical Research, also parapsychology, scientific investigation of
alleged phenomena and events that appear to be unaccounted for by
conventional physical, biological, or psychological theories.
Parapsychologists study two kinds of so-called psi phenomena:
extrasensory perception (ESP), or the acquiring of information through
nonsensory means; and psychokinesis (PK), or the ability to affect
objects at a distance by means other than known physical forces.
Psychical research also investigates the survival of personality after
death and deals with related topics such as trance mediumship,
hauntings, apparitions, poltergeists (involuntary PK), and out-of-body
experiences. The name of this field of investigation is taken from the
Society of Psychical Research, founded in England in 1882 and in the
U.S. in 1884; both groups continue to publish their findings today.

Historical Development

Among the early achievements of the British group was the investigation
of hypnotism, a field later claimed by medicine and psychology. The
society also investigated phenomena produced at spiritualistic seances
and the claims of spiritualism. Psi phenomena to be investigated were
classified as either physical or mental. The physical effects, or PK,
include the movement of physical objects or an influence upon material
processes by the apparent direct action of mind over matter. The mental
manifestations, or ESP, include telepathy, which is the direct
transmission of messages, emotions, or other subjective states from one
person to another without the use of any sensory channel of
communication; clairvoyance, meaning direct responses to a physical
object or event without any sensory contact; and precognition, or a
noninferential response to a future event.

One of the first specific investigations in the field was the
examination, by the British chemist and physicist Sir William Crookes,
of the phenomena produced at seances held by the Scottish medium Daniel
Dunglas Home. Home, a physical medium, held his seances in full light,
and the validity of the paranormal phenomena he produced has never been
successfully impugned. The contents of verbal utterances by mental
mediums were also studied. Significant early research involved the
American medium Leonore E. Piper, whose apparent psychical gifts were
discovered by the American philosopher and psychologist William James.
Other lines of investigation dealt with psychic experiences that seemed
to occur spontaneously in everyday life, and involved the controlled
testing of persons with apparently outstanding ESP abilities.

Rhine’s Laboratory

In the U.S., one of the earliest groups to become active in
parapsychology was the Parapsychology Laboratory of North Carolina’s
Duke University, which began publishing literature in the 1930s. There,
under the direction of the American psychologist Joseph Banks Rhine,
methods were developed that advanced psychical investigations from the
correlations of isolated and often vague anecdotal reports to a
mathematical study based on statistics and the laws of probability.

In the experiments dealing with ESP, Rhine and his associates used
mainly a deck of 25 cards, somewhat similar to ordinary playing cards
but bearing on their faces only five designs: star, circle, cross,
square, and wavy lines. If a subject correctly named 5 out of the
shuffled deck of 25 concealed cards, that was considered pure chance.
Certain subjects, however, consistently named 6 out of 10 cards
correctly; so Rhine and his associates concluded that this demonstrated
the existence of ESP. In their experiments on PK, the group used
ordinary dice that were thrown from a cup against a wall or tumbled in
mechanically driven cages. In these tests, an apparent relationship was
found between the mental effort of subjects to “will” particular faces
of the dice to appear upward and the percentage of times the faces
actually did so. The results obtained in many individual experiments and
in the research as a whole, Rhine and his workers decided, could not
reasonably be attributed to the fluctuations of chance.

Rhine retired from Duke University in 1965 and transferred his research
to a privately endowed organization, the Foundation for Research on the
Nature of Man. Since that time parapsychology has become better
established in other universities, as illustrated by the offering of
credit courses in the subject in increasing numbers. In addition,
independent research centers continue to be founded, among them the
American Society for Psychical Research, with headquarters in New York
City. The Parapsychological Association, an international group of
scholars actively working in the field, was formed in 1957 and was
granted affiliation status by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science in 1969.

Criticisms

Although parapsychologists are increasingly employing and refining
scientific methodologies for their observations, one of the chief
criticisms of their work is that experiments in psi phenomena can rarely
be duplicated. Under the most rigorous laboratory controls, for example,
experiments on phenomena such as out-of-body experiences—in which
individuals demonstrate an apparent ability to locate their center of
perception outside their bodies—indicate that even reputable psychics
are rarely able to duplicate earlier, high-scoring performances. The
scores of such individuals, in fact, tend to drop to the level of
probability the more the experiment is repeated. Nonparapsychologists
find psi experiments even more difficult to repeat, and a majority of
conventional scientists dismiss parapsychology findings as unscientific
or at best inconclusive.

A similar criticism is based on the claim by most parapsychologists that
psi phenomena occur beyond the law of causality, which is one of the
fundamental premises of any scientific investigation. Indeed, results of
psi experiments often turn out to be far from or even contradictory to
the original predictions. Parapsychologists admit that psi phenomena
fall so far outside ordinary comprehension that they are often unsure
whether an ESP event or a PK event has occurred; Rhine himself stated
that one kind of event could not occur without the other. Because these
phenomena are difficult to define or isolate when they appear to
happen—and, further, because the phenomena occur only for a select group
of observers—most scientists think that psi investigations fall far
short of the rules of objectivity required by the scientific method. As
a result, many parapsychologists, rather than trying to demonstrate the
reality of psi phenomena to a skeptical scientific community, have
turned to exploring how such phenomena might actually work; they even
have drawn on quantum physics for empirical support. Some workers in the
field object to the very notion of repeatability of experiments as
foreign to the nature of psi phenomena; they consider the scientific
method, as currently understood, too restrictive a formulation for
exploring the unknown.

14. Industrial Psychology

Psychologists in industry serve many roles. In the personnel office,
they assist in hiring through testing and interviewing, in developing
training programs, in evaluating employees, and in maintaining good
employee relations and communications. Some psychologists do research
for marketing and advertising departments. Others work in the field of
human engineering, which involves designing machines and workplaces to
make them more suitable for people.

School Psychology

Psychologists in the educational system give most of their attention to
counseling and guidance. They help students plan their school and work
careers. Educational psychologists deal with the processes of teaching
and learning; for example, they may investigate new methods of teaching
children how to read or to do mathematics, in order to make classroom
learning more effective.

Clinical Psychology

Many applied psychologists work in hospitals, clinics, and private
practice, providing therapy to people who need psychological help. By
testing and interviewing, they classify their patients and engage in all
forms of treatment that are not exclusively medical, such as drug
therapy and surgery.

A special contribution of clinical psychology is behavior therapy, which
is based on principles of learning and conditioning. Through behavior
therapy, clinical psychologists try to change the behavior of the
patient and to remove unpleasant or undesirable symptoms by arranging
the proper conditioning experiences or the proper rewards for desired
behavior. A patient with a phobia about dogs, for example, might be
“desensitized” by a series of rewards given for closer and closer
contact with dogs in nonthreatening situations. In other forms of
therapy, the psychologist may try to help patients better understand
their problems and find new ways of dealing with them.

Vocabulary

Contents

Physiological psychology – психофизиология. Изучает психику в единстве с
ее

нейрофизиологическим субстратом – рассматривает соотношение мозга и
психики.

Psychoanalysis – психоанализ. Основывается на идее о том, что поведение
определяется не

только и не столько сознанием, сколько бессознательным.

Behaviourism – бихевиоризм. Направление в американской психологии ХХ в.,
отрицающее

сознание как предмет научного исследования и сводящее психику к
различным формам

поведения, понятого как совокупность организма на стимулы внешней среды.

Gestalt psychology – гештальт-психология. Программа изучения психики с
точки зрения

целостных структур – гештальтов, первичным по отношению к своим
компонентам.

Cognition – когнитивная психология. Исходит из того, что любая
ассоциация между стимулом и

реакцией создается сначала в мозге.

Tests and Measurements – тесты

Development psychology – возрастная психология. Отрасль психологии,
изучающая закономерности этапов психического развития и формирования
личности в связи с возрастом – на протяжении онтогенеза человека от
рождения до старости

Social psychology – социальная психология. Изучает психологические
особенности и

закономерности поведения и деятельности людей, обусловленные их
включением в группы

социальные и существованием в них, а также психологические
характеристики самих этих

групп.

Psychiatry and mental health – психиатрия и психическое здоровье.
Область клинической

медицины, изучающая психические болезни

Forensic psychology – судебная психология. Область психологии
юридической, изучающая круг

вопросов, относящихся к судопроизводству.

Сriminology – криминология.

Рhenomenology – феноменология.

Parapsychology- парапсихология (психотроника). Именование гипотез и
представлений, относящихся к психическим явлениям, объяснение коих не
имеет строгого научного обоснования.

Industrial Psychology – индустриальная психология.

2. Physiological psychology

Perception – восприятие

Certain skills – определенные навыки

Innate – врожденный

Perception – восприятие

Nervous system – нервная система

Circulatory system – гормональная регуляция

Central nervous system – центральная нервная система

Spinal cord – спинной мозг

Peripheral nervous system – периферическая нервная система

Glands- железа

Muscles – мышца

Sensory – чувствительный

Neuron – нейрон

Somatic system – соматическая система

Autonomic system – вегетативная система

Sympathetic division – симпатический отдел

Parasympathetic division – парасимпатический отдел

Knee-jerk reflex – рефлекс коленный (пателлярный)

3. Psychoanalysis

Unconscious – бессознательное

Conscious – сознательное

Latent dream – тайные (латентные) мысли

Manifest dream – явные мысли

Instinctual drives – основные инстинкты

Infantile sexuality – инфантильная сексуальность

Adult sexuality – взрослая сексуальность

Oral, anal and genital zones – оральная, анальная и фаллическая стадии

Oedipal period – эдипов комплекс

Структурные компоненты души:

Id – Ид (оно) “содержит все унаследованное, все, что есть при рождении.
Ид резервуар энергии для всей личности, содержание Ид бессознательно

Ego – эго – та часть психического аппарата, которая находится в
контакте с внешней реальностью. Развивается из Ид по мере того, как
ребенок начинает осознавать свою личность. Эго защищает Ид.

Superego – суперэго. Развивается и Эго. Служит судьей или цензором Эго.

Thinking – мышление

Motor control – моторные контроль

Defense mechanisms – защитные механизмы

Repression – подавление

Projection – проекция

Reaction formation – реактивные образование. Явная и обычно
бессознательная инверсия желания

Anxiety – тревожность

Analytical psychology – аналитическая психология

Libido – либидо – половое влечение

Personal unconscious – личное бессознательное

Collective unconscious – коллективное бессознательное

Archetypes – архетипы. Психические структуры, формы без собственного
содержания, которые организуют и канализируют психологический материал.

Persona – персона. Это то, какими мы представляем себя миру

Neurosis – невроз

Primary trauma of birth – первичная травма детства

Mental, emotional and sensory powers – ментальная, эмоциональная и
чувственная сила

Situation neuroses – ситуационный невроз

Character neuroses – невротик

Complex unconscious fantasies in children – комплекс бессознательных
фантазий в детстве

Death instinct – инстинкт смерти. Под ним понимаются присущие индивиду –
как правило,

бессознательные – тенденции к саморазрушению и возврату в неорганическое
состояние.

Depressive position – депрессивное состояние

Paranoid position – параноидальное состояние

Gestalt psychology

Associationism – ассоциативная психология

Cognition psychology

Attention – внимание

Perception – восприятие

Memory – память

Reasoning – мотивация

Judgment – суждение

Imagining – воображение

Thinking – мышление

Speech – речь

Psycholinguistics – психолингвистика. Научная дисциплина, изучающая
обусловленность процессов речи и ее восприятия структурой
соответствующего языка, или языка вообще.

Intelligence – интеллект

Tests and Measurements

Achievement tests – тест достижений

Aptitude tests – тест на профпригодность

Intellegence tests – тест умственных способностей

Verbal abilities – способности на восприятие вербального (знакового)
материала

Infant intelligence tests – тесты на определение уровня интеллекта
детей

Interest inventories – опросники профориентации

Objective Personality tests – объективные качества личности

Social extroversion or depression – социальные экстроверсия и
интроверсия

Personality types – психотипы

Projective techniques – Проективные тесты

Validity – валидность. Указывает, что именно тест измеряет и насколько
хорошо он это делает.

Criterion-related validity – критериально-связывающая валидность

Construct validity – конструктивная валидность

Social psychology

Emotions – эмоции

Desires – желания

Social Affiliation – социальная аффилиация (стремление быть в обществе
других людей)

Influence – влияние

10. Psychiatry and mental health

Patterns – образ жизни

Depressive disorders – депрессия

Organic psychoses – органический психоз. Глубокие расстройства психики,
психической деятельности; проявляются в нарушении отражения реального
мира, возможности его познания, изменении поведения и отношения к
окружающему.

13. Parapsychology

Extrasensory perception (ESP) – экстрасенсорное восприятие

Psychokinesis (PK) – психокинез

Trance mediumship, hauntings, poltergeists (involuntary PK) – трансовый
медиумизм, телепатия, полтергейст

Out-of-body experience – опыт вне телесного сознания

Hypnotism – гипноз (техника воздействия на индивида путем фокализации
его внимания с целью сузить поле сознания и подчинить его влиянию,,
контролю внешнего агента – гипнотизера, внушения коего гипнотизируемый
будет выполнять.

LITERATURE

Borchardt D.H. How to find out in Psychology. Pergamon Press 1984

Stedman`s concise Medical dictionary. First Webster`s New World Edition
1987.

Encarta Encyclopedia.1996

Никошкова Е.В. Англо-русский словарь по психологии. М: РУССО, ИП РАН,
1998

Ривкин В.Л., Морозов Н.В. Русско-английский медицинский
словарь-справочник с толкованиями. М: РУССО, 1996

Словарь практического психолога. Минск: Харвест, 1998

Хрестоматия по психологии личности. Самара: Издательский Дом “Бахрах”,
1996

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