Much of the intellectual history of psychology hasinvolved the attempt to come to grips with the problemof mind and body and how they interact.
While the philosophical distinction between mind andbody can be traced back to the Greeks, it is due tothe influential work of René Descartes, (writtenaround the 1630’s) that we owe the first systematicaccount of the mind/body relationship. When Descartes’friend and frequent correspondent, Marin Mersenne,wrote to him of Galileo’s fate at the hands of theInquisition, Descartes immediately suppressed his owntreatise. As a result, the world’s first extendedessay on physiological psychology was published onlywell after its author’s death. In this essay, heproposed a mechanism for automatic reaction inresponse to external events. According to hisproposal, external motions affect the peripheral endsof the nerve fibrils, which in turn displace thecentral ends. As the central ends are displaced, thepattern of interfibrillar space is rearranged and theflow of animal spirits is thereby directed into theappropriate nerves. This is the reason he has beencredited with the founding of the reflex theory.
Descarte was the first to talk about mind/bodyinteractions, and thus had a great influence in laterpsychologists and thinkers. He proposed that not onlybody can influence mind, but that mind could alsoaffect body.
Years later, the work of Nicolas Malebranche wasprobably the most influential provider ofoccasionalism. Occasionalism deals with thecontradiction that if the nature of causality is suchthat causes and effects must have a necessaryconnection and be of a similar type, then mind/bodyinteractionism is unsound. He argued that both ofDescartes’ substances, mind and body, are causallyineffective. His belief was that G’d is the one andonly true cause. There is no influence of mind onbody or of body on mind.
The Term Paper on Mind Body Physical Event
... These are some of the many aspects of the mind-body problem. Descartes' doubts about the reality of the physical world ... stimuli have the ability to influence the mind.An offshoot ... in which the mind and the body function together is called interactionism. The mind has the ability to influence the body, and physical ...
“In order to retain the notion of God as the one truecause without sacrificing the idea of causality asoperative in both the mental and the physical spheres,Benedictus de Spinoza abandoned Descartes’two-substance view in favor of what has come to becalled double-aspect theory.” Double-aspect theoriesare based on the notion that the mental and thephysical are simply different aspects of one and thesame substance. Nonetheless, he agreed with Descartesthat the world of consciousness and that of extensionare qualitatively separate. He believed thatsubstance, G’d, is the universal essence or nature ofeverything that exists. In other words he believedthat mental incidents can determine only other mentalincidents, and physical motions can determine onlyother physical motions, “mind and body nonethelessexist in pre-established coordination, since the samedivine essence forms the connections within bothclasses and cannot be self-contradictory.” Thesedual-aspect theories go went through a resurgenceduring the 19th century. Another view introduced by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnizwas that of psychophysical parallelism, which holds onto both the dualism of mind and body and the notion ofa regular correlation between mental and physicalevents. This view, however, avoids any assumption ofan underlying mind/body connection. It believes thatmind and body are so different, that they cannotaffect one another. They do, however, recognize thefact that every mental event is correlated with aphysical event.
During the 18th century, the problem of re-relatingmind and body arose. George Berkely talked about theview of immaterialism in which “he denies even thepossibility of mindless material substance. Forsomething to exist for Berkeley it must either beperceived or is the active mind doing the perceiving.>From this perspective, there is no mind/bodydistinction because what we think of as body is merelythe perception of mind. While Berkeley had fewcontemporary adherents, immaterialism was to resurfacein the later 19th century in the guise of mind- stufftheory.”
The Essay on Where Does The Body Stop And The Mind Start
Where does the body stop and the mind start In the philosophy narrative since early times there were three basic theories that described relationship and connection between mind and body. These theories are as follows: dualism, materialism and phenomenalism. Dualism is based upon the ideas that the physical and mental processes of the body are not interrelated. The proponents of materialism state ...
As the 19th century progressed, the problem of therelationship between mind and brain becameincreasingly present. This is palpable especially intexts after 1860. To a large extent, this directlyreflected two major developments that converged toimpress philosophers and psychologists with thecentrality of the mind/brain problem. “The formalbeginning of psychology as a modern science came in1879 when Wilhelm Wundt founded, in Leipzig, Germany,the first laboratory devoted to experimentalpsychology.” Together with Hermann con Helmholtz andGustav Fechner, they founded the school of psychologynow labeled determinism. Determinism is based on theidea that behaviors have causes that can beinvestigated, and the causes of behavior are, to acertain extent, beyond the control of the individual.
Determinism was proceeded by a school of psychologycalled structuralism, which focused on the structureor contents of the mind, and analyzed it in parts, inother words, events can be understood when brokendown. Structuralism relied heavily on introspection. Edward Titchener led this school of thought. “Structuralism represented the early development ofpsychology.”
The American John Dewey developed the school ofpsychology called functionalism, which gave utmostimportance to learned habits which enabled organismsto adapt to their environments and functioneffectively, believing that an organism’s goal is toadapt.
Since then, psychologists have taken differentapproaches such as the biological approach, thepsyhodynamic approach, and the cognitive approach,amongst many others. Psychology itself has grown inpopularity and has been therefore analyzed to a fullerextent. An important issue directly related to thefield of psychology is the development of anindividual, which has been dealt with variousapproaches.
Developmental psychology is “the branch of psychologythat is concerned with the changes in physical andpsychological functioning that occur from conceptionthrough an entire life span.” Developmentalpsychologists study physical, mental, and socialchanges occurring throughout the life cycle. Throughout life, there is never a period on whichchange does not occur. Something is always changing.
The Essay on Psychological Attitudes Towards Human Behavior
Psychological Attitudes towards Human Behavior Psychological attitude towards variety of issues is an important factor determining human behavior in certain life situation. In this research we are going to analyze the book by Victor Frakl called Mans search for meaning in order to find out possible attitudes towards human behavior and how it can be expressed. This book is giving the reader a ...
Some psychologist view development as change isessentially continuous. Other psychologists viewdevelopment as “a succession of reorganizations:behavior is different in different age-specificperiods, such as infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Thus, while development itself is continuous,particular aspects of it are discontinuous.”
Because a great deal of who people are was determinedsince before they were born, in order to fullyunderstand the development of an individual, we haveto go back to the origin of that person, the time ofconception. As soon as a zygote has been formed, itcontains genetic information “that will determine notonly the physical make-up, but many of thepsychological characteristics of the new individual. For that reason, the study of behavior properly beginswith the study of mechanisms of heredity,” which iswhy members of the same family have similar genes andtraits, and why brothers and sisters will resembleeach other as well as their parents. Genes are whatmake each of us a distinctive human being, and yetthey are also what determines the characteristics thatmake us human beings, rather than any other species. What human beings have in common, nonetheless, is anorderly sequence of biological growth processespredetermined by our genes. This process is calledmaturation. The genetic growth tendencies are innate. Although fraternal twins are no more alike geneticallythan ordinary siblings born at different times, theirenvironments are more similar, and thus theirdevelopment is more similar as well. All differencesbetween identical twins are due to environmentalfactors. Everyday experiences shape human developmentand maturation. It is still under discussion,however, how much of behavior is due to heredity, andhow much is due to the environment.
The British philosopher John Locke believed neonatesare born without any knowledge or skills, as thoughthey were born with a blank tablet which, throughoutlife gets filled with experiences which shapedevelopment. “What directs human development, Lockeclaimed, is the stimulation people receive as they arenurtured by experience and education.” The Frenchphilosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought otherwise. “He argued the view that nature, the totality ofpredispositions and abilities we are born with, shapesdevelopment.” People are noble savages corrupted bycontact with society. Since then new discoveries havebeen made and contemporary developmental psychologistsnow acknowledge that both, heredity and theenvironment shape development and that neither one issufficient alone. The epigenetic model, with whichmost psychologists agree with, states that“development is influenced by the forces of bothnature and nurture.” It is a result of theinteraction of our genes and our past and presentexperiences.
The Term Paper on Potential Effects Of Five Different Life Factors On The Development Of An Individual
Genetics affect who you will grow to be in many ways. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the language of life that is within every living thing, genetic instructions that form what we will become. There is still much of the language that scientists don’t understand, but after extensive research scientists have found that certain gene codes actually relate to increased chances of developing a cancer or ...
In 1801 a young boy around the age of twelve wasdiscovered in Aveyron, France. Animals had apparentlyraised this “wild boy”. Because he was uncivilized,he became known as the Wild Boy of Aveyron. Childrenlike him are called feral (meaning wild) children, andthe majority of times they are “completely unable tocope with human society and usually die soon afterthey are recovered from the wild, either from humanillnesses to which they have no immunity or dietaryshock, or psychological trauma… Feral children are notthe same as those tragic children raised in extremeisolation or locked in cupboards and cellar for yearsat a time by mentally disturbed parents.” Plasticity is “the capacity of a developing organismto be molded and shaped by the environment, nurture,and experience.” Individuals themselves differ aboutthe extent of plasticity. Plasticity differs as wellaccording to different stages or periods indevelopment. “Your heredity establishes youpotential, but is your experiences that determine how,and how much of, that potential will be realized.”
Each person is an individual with his or her owndevelopmental schedule and pattern, however it isconvenient to group the occurrence of variousdevelopmental changes into stages. Nonetheless, onemust not forget that there is no one specific point atwhich a task suddenly appears or disappears, becauseeach area of development is continually interactingand influencing the others. The basic stages ofdevelopment are childhood, adolescence and adulthood,and sometimes late adulthood is considered a separatestage. Only recently has the neonate period ofdevelopment been carefully examined and considered.
The Essay on Evaluate two Theories. Piaget and Kolhberg
... Willoughby, 2002) There are many similarities between Piaget and Kohlberg’s theories; Children go through different stages of moral development. It is believed that clinical interviews ... respected. Level 3 is Post- Conventional. Stage five is Social contracts and individual rights. At this stage people have different values; opinions and ...
In spite of this, there are some general principlesof development. Development follows a predictablepattern with common characteristics such as the earlyphysical development of infants. In babiesdevelopment spreads downward from the head, whichdevelops first, to the feet. The individual firstdevelops general responses and then proceeds tospecific responses. A third characteristic ofdevelopment is that it is a continuous process. Afourth principle is that some individuals have adifferent rate of development, and each stage hasunique features, depending on the society and theperiod of development involved.
The neonate is the newborn through the first twoweeks to a month of life. Neonates, within a fewhours of life, given certain stimulus are capable ofvarious responses. Almost all of these behaviors “arereflexive—simple, unlearned, involuntary reactions tospecific stimuli. Many of these responses serve thepurpose of helping to respond to a basic need.” Because different psychologists name certain stagesdifferently, Jean Piaget named the first stage thesensory-motor stage, which involves the neonatal stageas well as infancy. It is during this stage in whichinfants learn by concrete actions; they learnopposability. This “grasping” usually takes takesplace between the age of three and five months. Opposability is of utmost importance in aiding theprocesses of the mind. The first schemes involve itssenses, actions and abilities, in which opposabilityplays a major role. “It seems that babies start tobuild up their knowledge of the world by observingrelations between connected sensory events.” It isin this manner that they learn to survive. Approachesfor survival and/or success begin to develop inchildhood.
“Regardless of the rate of one’s motor development,there are regularities in the sequence on one’sdevelopment.” Children grow very rapidly, bothphysically and cognitively and they develop certainintellectual abilities. It is during childhood thatindividuals acquire language skills, which arepresumed to have been forming since infancy. Humanbeings are presumed to be born with language learningabilities, and “social interaction motivates childrento learn language so they can communicate withothers.” It is believed that learning abilities areinnate because all individuals are born with vocalchords, and even as young as newborns, they alreadybabble and make certain sounds. Children all over theworld seem to go through similar steps of learninglanguage. Reinforcers as well as punishers play avital role in the development of language.
The Essay on Social Development Theory
As a parent, I would agree more with Vygotsky’s theory concerning child development rather than Paiget’s. Though children do progress at different rates, I believe that they are capable of more learning at an early age than Piaget’s theory allows. Piaget also states that learning should supersede social development in all cases while Vygotsky’s theory allows for social development to be as ...
“Piaget say the human mind as an active biologicalsystem that seeks, selects, interprets, and recognizesenvironmental information to fit with or adjust to itsown existing mental structures.” Jean Piagetgreatly influenced the trying to successfully figureout a way to understand the mental processes(including the process of opposability) children gothrough to understand physical realities. He namedthe mental structures or programs that guidedeveloping sequences of thinking schemes.
Although Piaget’s theory has greatly influenceddevelopmental psychology, since then more research hasbeen made, and thus has caused some questioning ofsome of his basic ideas. “The two major criticisms ofPiaget’s theory are that (1) the borderlines betweenhis proposes stages are much less clear-cut than histheory suggests, and (2) Piaget significantlyunderestimated the cognitive talents of preschoolchildren.” Another important disparagement is thathis theory focuses solely on the development ofchildren, and as we have already proven, developmentdoes not stop until the day we die. He also giveslittle consideration to the influence that languagedevelopment has on an individual. He also did notelaborate much about the capacity of a child’s memory.
Erikson, on the other hand, proposed a theory whichhe divided into eight stages of human development, hisfirst stage beginning at age zero and the eighth stagereferring to late adulthood. He too included thecharacteristics of cognitive development, however, hefocused on much more than that. Also, “many of hisobservations had more of a cross-cultural basis thandid Piaget’s.” Unlike Freud, Erikson decided toemphasize the social environment, and thus his theoryis referred to as psychosocial. To Erikson,development is not so much periods of time, but aseries of crises that need to be resolved. Inwhichever way these conflicts or crises are resolvedaffects greatly the development of the subsequentstages. According to Erikson we “naturally go throughthe resolution of each conflict or crisis in order andthat facing any one type of crisis usually occurs atabout the same age for all of us.”
Piaget agreed that moral development is closelyrelated to one’s cognitive awareness, yet it wasLawrence Kohlberg who assembled a theory of moraldevelopment. The theory is based on standards of moraljudgement. According to Piaget these cognitiveabilities develop only as the child progresses throughdevelopmental stages. Kohlberg’s theory is toodivided into stages. He proposed three major levelsof moral reasoning, or development. According toKohlberg, his three stages occur in that same order inall cultures.
Development is closely related to socialization,because as we have discussed earlier, nurture, or theenvironment plays a major role in the development ofan individual. Socialization the perceptual “processof shaping an individual’s behavior patterns, values,standards, skills, attitudes, and motives to conformto those regardless as desirable in a particularsociety.” Sexuality is closely related tosocialization.
Psychologists differ in their approaches towardsdevelopment because the view it from distinct pointsof view. Piaget, for example, proposed a theory ofthe cognitive development of children, while Eriksonproposed a theory based on the psychosocialdevelopment of individuals. Although Kohlberg basedhis theory on Piaget’s, his theory focused on moralreasoning.