Syllabus

• Dora Simunovic
• doras@bigsss-bremen.de
• South Hall, room 307
• Every day from 10:00 – 16:00

• Ulrich Kühnen, prof

• u.kuehnen@jacobs-university.de
 Syllabus
• Wednesdays & Thursdays, 14:15 – 15:30

• Grading scheme:
– Attendance: 15%
– Active participation in class: 15%
– Quiz: 30%
– Presentation: 20%
– Discussion reports: 20%
 Week by Week Breakdown
• Week 1:
– Psychology as a Science
– Personality Psychology
• Week 2:
– Cognitive Psychology: The Brain and Perception
• Week 3:
– Cognitive Psychology: Complex Cognitive
Processes
– Developmental Psychology
 Week by Week Breakdown
• Week 4:
– Developmental Psychology
• QUIZ
• Week 5:
– Clinical Psychology
ULI! – Social Psychology: The Individual in Society
• Week 6:
– Social Psychology: Group Processes
 Week by Week Breakdown
• Week 7:
ULI! – Cultural Psychology
– Evolutionary Psychology
• QUIZ
• Week 8:
– Discussion reports due
 Week by Week Breakdown
• Week 7:
ULI! – Cultural Psychology
– Evolutionary Psychology
• QUIZ
• Week 8:
– Discussion reports due

• HAPPY HOUR
 Week 1:
Brief History of Psychology
Foundation Year Introduction into
Psychology
Dora Simunovic
neuroscience cognitive therapy
study of social movements cognition
human resources defectology
psychoanalysis personality psychology
forensic and criminal profiling victimology
psychophysiology study of religion
neuroeconomics behavioural genetics
group dynamics gender theory
behavioural modification theories of learning
behaviourism neurolinguistics
cultural psychology development through life
neuroscience cognitive therapy
study of social movements cognition
human resources defectology
psychoanalysis personality psychology
forensic and criminal profiling victimology
psychophysiology study of religion
neuroeconomics behavioural genetics
group dynamics gender theory
behavioural modification theories of learning
behaviourism neurolinguistics
cultural psychology development through life
 What is psychology?
• Psychology is the systematic study of the
(human) mind, brain and behaviour
 What is psychology?
• Psychology is the systematic study of the
(human) mind, brain and behaviour
Applied science Academic discipline
 What is psychology?
• Psychology is the systematic study of the
(human) mind, brain and behaviour
• Mind: any mental activity or construct, including
subjective experiences
• Ψυχή, “breath”
• Brain: central organ of the nervous system which
generates the mind
• Behaviour: any observable action or response
 History of Psychology
• One of the oldest areas of interest, and one of
the youngest sciences…

• An idea about the separation of the mind and

the body has existed since at least Homo
neanderthalensis (300,000 years ago)
• Neanderthal man is the first hominid to have a
burial ritual; the only other human race to do that
is Homo sapiens
 History of Psychology
• Neanderthal burials
 History of Psychology
• Earliest Homo sapiens burials
• Even more ornate
 History of Psychology
• Earliest Homo sapiens burials
• Even more ornate

TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY: the idea that a good portion

of the human psyche is formed by the basic conflict between
the desire to live, and the knowledge that death is inevitable.
 History of Psychology
• Psychology as a science starts from medicine
• Hippocrates’ theory of the four humours
• All illness, including mental illness, results from an
imbalance of the person’s natural humours
 History of Psychology
• Psychology as a science starts from medicine
• Hippocrates’ theory of the four humours
• All illness, including mental illness, results from an
imbalance of the person’s natural humours
• Defined four personality types
• Choleric: excess of yellow bile = irritable, anxious, ambitious
• Melancholic: excess of black bile = despondent, analytical,
unsocial
• Sanguinic: excess of blood = courageous, easily angered,
playful
• Phlegmatic: excess of phlegm = calm, thoughtful, patient,
unemotional
 History of Psychology
• Humourism as a theory of the psyche
persisted throughout the Middle Ages in
Europe, and the Golden Age of Islam in the
Middle East
• Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi argued that there was a
connection between the health of the body and
the health of the psyche (nafs) which went both
ways
• Psychosomatic disorders
• Mental disorders were recognized and treated
• Music therapy, psychotherapy, guided meditation
 History of Psychology
• Greek and, later, Islamic philosophers were
interested in functions of the mind as well
• Plato – constructivism; nature of reality cannot be
known since it is perceived and interpreted by the
mind
• Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) – performed some of
the first psychological experiments about vision,
as part of his research into optics
 History of Psychology
• Indian subcontinent
• Pronounced idea of the need for balance between
body and mind
• Mental health is a matter of inner peace
• China and the Far East
• Compulsory education resulted in the earliest
ideas of IQ including IQ testing
Meanwhile, in Europe…
 Beginning of Modern Psychology
• Named as a science in the 15th century
• Croatian dude, Marko Marulic, published the first
text devoted entirely to the “logic of the human
soul”, called psychology

• Renaissance autopsies suggest to scientists of

the time that the brain is divided into sections
by function, and that it contains the psyche
 Beginning of Modern Psychology
• Rene Descartes’ dualism (17th century)
• The mind is the function of the brain
• “The mind is what the brain does”

• Enlightenment begins to eliminate the

influence of religion on science
Industrial Revolution
 Beginning of Modern Psychology
• 19th century was a pretty wild time for science
 Beginning of Modern Psychology
• 19th century was a pretty wild time for science
 Beginning of Modern Psychology
• Wilhelm Wundt
• First formal experimental psychologist
• Opened the first psychological laboratory at the
University of Leipzig, 1879
• Focused on consciousness, i.e. the awareness of
the self (and death…)
 Beginning of Modern Psychology
• From Germany, psychology spread all over
Europe

• Within the same generation, it was brought to

the USA, Japan, and India
Johns Hopkins University Imperial University of Tokyo University of Calcutta
Psychology Does the Splits…
 Psychology does the splits

Structuralism Functionalism

Psychoanalyis Gestalt

Humanism Behaviourism
 Structuralism v. Functionalism
Structuralism Functionalism
• Analysis of the basic • Analysis of the function of
elements of consciousness consciousness
– Emotions, sensations, – Intelligence, cognition,
experiences… learning…

• Introspection: careful, • Mental testing, education…

systematic self-analysis
 Psychoanalysis
• Sigmund Freud
• “Explained” conscious thought through the
workings of the unconscious mind
• Irrational fears, phobias, anxieties, obsessions,
addictions, delusions, hysteria…
• … personality, human nature
 Gestalt
• School of thought dealing
primarily with perception
• The whole is more than
the sum of the parts
• Consciousness and
behaviour must be studied
holistically rather than in
separate disciplines
 Behaviourism
• John B. Watson wrote in 1913 that scientists
should only study observable, measurable
behaviour
• Introspection is out
• Focus on behaviour, and the
animal’s response to stimuli
• Animal experiments, conditioning
Behaviourism
• B.F. Skinner
• Through the stimulus –
response – feedback
loop, anybody’s
behaviour can be
controlled
• Superstitious pigeons
• No free will
 Humanism
• Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow revolted
against behaviourism
• “Self-concept” determines human behaviour,
unlike the behaviour of animals
 Humanism
• Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow revolted
against behaviourism
• “Self-concept” determines human behaviour,
unlike the behaviour of animals

• All of the above…

Most common answer in
social sciences! By far…
 Nowadays
• Psychology is split up by topic of interest, not the
philosophy of the psyche
• Surpasses the traditional limits of the discipline
• Neuroscience, anthropology, physics, economics,
politics…

• Psychology is a systematic, interdisciplinary study

of mental processes, their origins, functions,
biology, subjective experience, and expression.
 Week 1:
Personality Psychology
Foundation Year Introduction into
Psychology
Dora Simunovic
 Human psychology
• A good deal of who we are and what we do is
the same across culture, time, and social
status
– Even gender differences are small compared to
differences between humans and other primates

• Most of human psychology is universal to

humans
 Why do we study personalities?
• Because there is obviously something making
one person different from another, i.e. an
individual

• What are the basic pieces of people?

• How do we learn about people’s personality?
• What makes people the way they are?
• Where does individuality come from?
 Personality
• Personality: characteristic patterns of thought,
emotion, and behaviour which persist in an
individual, as well as the underlying
psychological mechanisms behind those
patterns

• Temperament? “Merely” the result of

previous experience? Genetics?
 Personality
• Would you say you were:
 Personality
• Would you say you were:

• Choleric, Melancholic, Sanguinic, or

Phlegmatic?
 Personality
• Would you say you were:

• Choleric, Melancholic, Sanguinic, or

Phlegmatic?
• Introverted or Extroverted?
 Personality
• Would you say you were:

• Choleric, Melancholic, Sanguinic, or

Phlegmatic?
• Introverted or Extroverted?
• Oral, anal, phallic, latent, or genital?
 Approaches to Personality

• Psychoanalytic
– Psychodynamic
• Humanistic
• Trait
• Social-cognitive

Behaviorists were never interested in personality

 Psychoanalytic Perspective
• Studied nervous
disorders at University
of Vienna, in 1873
• Noticed patients had
disorders without
physical cause
• Opened a private
practice
• Got hooked on shittons of cocaine which
was totally legal at the time…
Sigmund Freud
 Psychoanalytic Perspective
• Much of human behaviour is caused by parts
of the personality which we are unable to
consciously access
– Conscious mind
– Preconscious mind
– Unconscious mind
Psychoanalytic Perspective
• Conscious: thoughts
and perceptions
• Preconscious:
memories, stored
knowledge, fears,
doubts
• Unconscious: selfish
motivation,
aggression, socially
unacceptable desires
 The ID
• Basic biological urges
• Operates on the Pleasure Principle
– “I want it, and I want it now”
• Eros & Thanatos
– Life and Death instinct
• Libido – the energy
 The EGO
• Conscious faculties for perceiving and dealing
with reality intelligently
• Second to develop
• Acts as a mediator between the id and the
superego
• Maintains contact with
reality
 The SUPEREGO
• Internalized rules forming the:
– Conscience: notions of right and wrong, Hume’s
“moral feeling”
– Ego Ideal: the perfect version of oneself
• Holds higher goals; keeps us from committing
murder because
it is wrong, not
because we may
get caught
 Freud’s Theory of Personality
• An individual’s feelings, thoughts, and
behaviour, are the result of the constant
conflict between the id, ego, and superego
• Conflict generates anxiety which the id cannot
handle – this duty falls to the ego which uses
different defence mechanisms
 Remember oral and anal?
• The personality-forming trio passes through
five psychosexual development stages
– At each stage is a different anxiety-producing
conflict between pleasure and reality
– If left unresolved, fixation can occur
 Stages of Development
• Oral stage: 0 – 18 months
– Gratification through sucking and swallowing
– Fixation: preoccupation with eating and drinking,
smoking; passive and needy personality, OR
hostile and verbally abusive to others
• Anal stage: 1 ½ - 3 years
– Fixation: stingy, compulsively orderly,
perfectionist, OR uninhibited, messy, careless,
uncontrolled
 Stages of Development
• Phallic stage: 3 – 6 years
– Discovery of genitalia and masturbation
• Children learn to identify with the same
gender parent
• Oedipal/Electra conflict
• The child wishes to replace the same sex parent, and
are sexually attracted to other sex parents
• Castration anxiety and penis envy
 Stages of Development
• Latency period: 6 – puberty
– Socialization with own gender
– Sexual repression
• Genital stage: puberty on
– Reawakening of sexual urges (libido) and
readiness for a mate means the final actualization
of a full person

According to Freud we are all stuck somewhere

before this stage.
Psychodynamic Personality Theories
 Psychodynamic Personality Theories
• Thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are caused
by internal conflict associated with childhood
experiences
• Unconscious conflict between pleasure
impulses and social restraints
 Psychodynamic Personality Theories
• “Neo-Freudians”
– Carl Jung: Collective Unconscious (archetypes),
Intro/Extroversion
– Alfred Adler: Inferiority complex
– Karen Horney: cultural, rather than biological
personality
 Humanistic Personality Theories
• Abraham Maslow & Carl Rogers
 Humanistic Personality Theories
• Abraham Maslow & Carl Rogers
• Introduced the concept of the SELF
• Rejected the pessimistic view of personality as
peddled by the Freudians
– Most Freudians collected evidence for their
theories from people in therapy, while the
humanists broadened this to the general
population, using self-report, rather than
reinterpretation
 Humanistic Personality Theories
• Self-actualization: the motive to realize one’s
full potential
– Main driving force
• Self-concept: the collection of beliefs about
the self
– As long as it is positive, we are healthy and whole
Humanistic Personality Theories
• Maslow’s
hierarchy of
human motives
 Humanistic Personality Theories
• Carl Rogers talked about the real v. ideal self
– We need approval from others to establish a
realistic idea of what our real, and our ideal self
are
– Thus we become either well-adjusted, or poorly
adjusted
 Humanistic Personality Theories
• Self-actualization is the culmination of a
lifetime of inner-directed growth
(development of the self)
– Well-adjusted, self-actualized people are: happy,
open to new experiences, committed to a cause or
higher goal, trusting, caring, empathetic,
courageous, accepting of others, and genuine
Trait Personality Theories
 Trait Personality Theories
• Personality: stable internal characteristics with
biological, social, cultural, etc. basis
• Should be investigated using large general
samples as well as in-therapy patients
– Observation and large-scale surveys
 Trait Personality Theories
• GOAL: identifying the most basic and
relatively enduring dimensions of personality
along which people differ from on to another
– TRAITS
• Francis Galton: lexical hypothesis (1884)
• Gordon Allport: 3 main traits (1936, 1961)
• Raymond Cattell: 16 main traits (1940, 1965)
• Hans Eysenck: 3 main trait dimensions (1995)
 BIG FIVE
• For the last 20 years, the most used model of
personality in psychology
• Five irreducible, independent dimensions
which form the basis of all personality
 BIG FIVE
• Openness to experience • I have a rich vocabulary
• I am full of ideas

• Conscientiousness • I like order

• I pay attention to details

• I start conversations
• Extraversion • I don’t mind being the centre of
attention

• Agreeableness • I am interested in people

• I feel other’s emotions

• Emotional stability • I change my mood a lot.

• I worry about things.
 BIG FIVE
• Studies using the Big Five as a predictor
variable have found some interesting
correlations:
– Size of different brain structures
– Gender
– Birth order
– Culture
 Do traits really exist?
• Walter Mischel argued:
– Behaviour is inconsistent across time and
SITUATION
• Situationism: the situation has a greater
impact on an individual’s behaviour than any
internal “trait” does
 Do traits really exist?
• Walter Mischel argued:
– Behaviour is inconsistent across time and
SITUATION
• Situationism: the situation has a greater
impact on an individual’s behaviour than any
internal “trait” does
As usual, all of the above – an interaction between the
situation and the personality.
• Personality influences how the situation is interpreted?
Social-Cognitive Approach
 Social-Cognitive Approach
• Emphasizes the role of learning in personality
development
– How does the environment shape personality?

• Albert Bandura: Social learning theory

– Personality is a complex process in a dynamic
relationship (reciprocal determinism) with the
environment and behavioural outcomes
Social-Cognitive Approach
 Social-Cognitive Approach
• Locus of control: the extent to which
individuals feel they are in control of events
affecting them
– Internal
– External
 Social-Cognitive Approach
• Locus of control: the extent to which
individuals feel they are in control of events
affecting them
– Internal
– External
• Why don’t dogs tear our faces off?
– Learned helplessness
– Prisons, nursing homes, colleges, abusive
relationships…