PS2080 - Psychology in a socio - political context

1) industrialisation and immigaration

2) material basis for natural phenomena

3) the cold war and computers

4) mothers in the work force

5) influence of statistics

6) influence of physics and universal laws

- high population cities of poor and working class families

- natural selection to make claims about biologically fitness

- assumption: intelligence and aggression were innate

- eugenics: is the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally Galton 1904 - idea if we could breed man we could lessen woes

- eugenics gained popularity

- lost appeal post proposed sterilisation of some individuals

- new emphasis but back on social experience

- increased interest in researching the brain

- lesion studeis in animals

- democritus's premise: material entitiies were the foundation of all observed

- feelings, thoughts, and the behaviours can be explained

- artificial intelligence

-cognitive psychology

- feelings and emotions less important than verbalising & RTs

- 1950 - 40% working

- 2000 - 78% working

Bowlby and attachment

- innate need to attach to caregiver

- needed continous care

- maternal deprivation - long term consequences

national science foundation

- F-tests

- T-tests

- Correlation coefficients

- materialistc foundation for natural phenomena

- more successful predictions

- use of mathematics

metaphor - an analogy from another area that helps map a new, complex problem

example: memory

- plato - wax tablet

- middle ages - library full of books

- 19th and early 20th century - photography

mid 20th century - computer

metaphors help formulate and test hypothesis

1st test of intelligence in France

Binet and Simon

- socio-political system in France - welfare state

- emphasis on citizen's well-being

-  compulsory primary education for all children

3 principles:

1. test scores were practical, did not define intelligence

2. aim: identify learnng-disabled children, not rank normally devloping children

3. purpose: provide extra help for at risk children

4. IQ did not equal fixed quantity - can be improved

socio-political system in the US - segregation of black people and other immigrants

Goddard: other contexts - regular students - immigrants - recruitment

- coined the term "moron" (IQ 50=70) - belief that intelligence was governed by a single gene

Stanford-Binet test Terman (1916) - advocated national testing for every child - national testing is a way to reduce crime (i.e. by removing low IQ members from society)

US Military support 3 tests: army alpha/army beta/ individual examination - intelligence is innate - can assign miliary speciality

- average mental age of white american male = 13/ european immigrants also averaged in the moron range/ average scor eof black american male =10.4

- supported the notion of genetic differences between races

- immigration restriction act (1924)

Problems in administation

- individuals illiterate in english still allocated to alpha test and then scored 0 - beta test required the use of writing numbers with a pencil - unsatisfactory conditions

data should be condidered critically

Morton's Skull Colelction - mean skull size of white people larger than native americans and black people - race differences in intelligences

Gould v Morton

Gould reanalysed data - head size related to body size - sample biased toward Inca Peruvians (who were smaller) - men have bigger brains than women because men are bigger - cranial capacity was measure by pouring mustuard seeds in skulls (which can be compressed) - when corrected for biases there was no differences

- advances in technology and explanding economy lead to general optimism in the US

- maybe gains could be made by improving educational system

- gender identity strongly infleuced by education

- trainability of gender identity

- dr money and the John/Joan story

Social changes led to increase interest in ethics:

1) experiments may have caused harm

Monster Study Johnson, Nuremberg trials (1946-1947) - malaria experiments, mustard gas experiments, sea water experiments  - informed consent

2) legality

Ethical codes of conduct:

- ethical approval for all research - protection of participants - informed consent - no coercian - right to withdraw - anonymity and confidentiality - appropriate exclusion criteria - monitoring - duty of care and appropriate supervision - additional safeguards

growing impact of psychology on the way people see themselves and interact with each other

reasons: psychology is taught frequently on different degrees - psychology is frequently in the media - frequency of psychological topics in everydat conservations

social change in the last centuries = individualisation

psychology played important role (e.g. Jung's terms extrovert + introvert)

Psychology coined other terms:

- neurotic

- depressed

- intelligent

- lacking self-esteem

Medical and pharmaceutical industry overstate their significance (Illich) - Life expentancy increased in parallel with medicinal advancess; but other factors played a role too (i.e. reduction in famine, clean water, better hygiene)

Extends to psychology:

evidence: rise in discovery of psychopathologies and syndromes; ADHD, Battered Woman Syndrome

Parallel rise in the providion of counselling and therapy

Normal everyday worries get psychological labels (Fuerdi) - creates anxiety and weakness, expect stress, therapeutic education (Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009)

- Inattentive type: easily distracted, forgetful, daydreams often, disorgansied, poor concentration & difficulty completing task

- hyperactive-impulsive type: excessive fidgetiness and restlessness, hyperactivity, difficulty waiting and remaining seated, immature behaviour, destruvtive behaviours may be present, combined type: combination of two other subjects

- case: smith 1992 shot sleeping husband

- claimed abuse

- prosecution refused to accept plea of manslaughter

- appealed based on battered woman syndrome

- 2002: case sent to appeal court as a miscarriage of justice

- released from prison after sentence reduce to manslaughter

- helping people age successfully

- helping to prevent bullying

- helping police, courts and prisons to perform more effectively

- helping athletes perform better

- making roads and driving safer

- improving eyewitness identification accuracy

Research impact - demonstrate contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy

Reserch impact embradces all the way research related skilles benefit individuals, organisations and nations

- foster global exonomic performance

increase effectiveness of public serivces and policy

- enhance quality of life, healt and creative output

- research with impact is more likely to get funded