Great Ideas in Psychology

A Cultural and Historical Introduction

Fathali M. Moghaddam

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781780744506
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie en psychologie

This book focuses on the key ideas of the most important modern psychologists. Nineteen classic "great ideas" in psychology are critically assessed in their cultural and historical context, with topics ranging from neuroscience to personality, development to socio-cultural issues. The simple narrative style and chapter structure, combined with "critical thinking questions" and a shortlist of essential readings for further study at the end of each chapter, provides an ideal approach for anyone interested in learning about the key ideas and theories in psychology

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INTRODUCTION: WORKING OUT AND WORKING IN

Albert Einstein worked out. Those who work out have grand visions, outside the constraints of available empirical evidence. They use their creativity to construct pictures that show the world in a new way, unconstrained by the known facts. Their visions concern the big picture and broad ideas, rather than the details of experiments. Albert Einstein did not do any experiments, but he had great ideas; ideas great enough to change our views about the universe. Sometimes it takes decades or even centuries before experimental research catches up with the ideas of such thinkers; it is only now that we are capable of testing some of Einstein’s great ideas, such as the idea that the universe is expanding, and finding them to be accurate.

Sigmund Freud also worked out, crafting intricate and elaborate stories about how the conscious, the pre-conscious, and the unconscious take shape, and how civilization molds individual personalities. He did gather evidence, mostly through case studies of his own patients, and he made some efforts to tie his ideas to evidence, but the link remained rather loose. For the most part, Freud worked out; his ideas were based on sheer flights of creative imagination. He worked rather like a fiction writer. The genius of Freud, Einstein, and others who work out is in their flights of imagination, soaring well beyond experimental evidence of the time.

The great Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov, on the other hand, worked in. Researchers who work in try very hard to stick close to empirical evidence. Their point of departure is often an observation of unexpected events in everyday life or some unexplained findings from empirical research. From such a puzzling fact, the researcher develops an explanation, always working back in toward the hard evidence that was the point of departure. Pavlov worked in and kept his ideas tied to hard facts, as far as he could recognize them.

In scientific research, great ideas have come from either working out or working in, and some of the best ideas have come from researchers working both routes. For example, Charles Darwin amassed a great deal of evidence about geological and biological change when as a young man just graduated from university he traveled on board the ship HMS Beagle around the coast of South America for five years (1831–36). He gathered more and more evidence about evolutionary change, and was inspired to develop the theory of evolution to explain the various bodies of evidence he and others had accumulated. He worked out, and he worked in; and the fit between his revolutionary ideas and the mass of accumulated evidence eventually convinced most of the die-hard critics. Piaget, the Swiss developmental psychologist, also tried to work both in and out. He did most of his research on his own children, and originated a stage-wise model of human cognitive development.

Since the mid nineteenth century, psychologists have conducted hundreds of thousands of experiments, many of them inspired directly or indirectly by a very small number of great ideas. Some such ideas, such as the unconscious, displaced aggression, and the self, have evolved by researchers mostly working out. In these cases, the great idea is not very closely tied to empirical evidence. Other great ideas in psychology, such as attachment, learning, and obedience to authority, have evolved by researchers mostly working in. In these cases, the ideas have evolved on the basis of hard evidence, and often such ideas were developed explicitly to explain puzzling evidence.

WHAT MAKES AN IDEA GREAT?

Most psychologists agree that ideas such as the unconscious, artificial intelligence, and learning are great. However, key questions about great ideas are seldom explicitly addressed. Why should we identify great ideas? Why should students care about great ideas? We should identify great ideas and be concerned about them because they tie together the central issues in psychology. Great ideas in psychology engage us in what is most central and essential in the science of psychology, stripped away from what seem like endless bits of detailed information, dates, names, and references that cram the typical introductory texts. The great ideas are what should be attended to and remembered because of their centrality, even decades after the detailed information about facts, dates, and names may have been forgotten. It is through the great ideas that we too can join the long debate, stretching back thousands of years to ancient Greece and beyond, about the nature of humankind and our potential for change and genuine progress.

What makes an idea great? What are the criteria by which we recognize one idea as great, and another idea as not so? By examining the hundreds of books that selectively discuss foundational issues in psychology, such as books on the history and current state of the discipline, we can see that there are many possible criteria for selecting great ideas. I have arrived at the following four as the most important criteria.

Influence on perceptions

First, to be judged great an idea in psychology must in a major way influence our interpretation of human behavior; it must alter how we view ourselves, rather like a mirror that reflects back a new, changed image of ourselves. Often, such ideas change our conception of human nature. For example, Freud’s interpretation of the unconscious dramatically shifted the emphasis, from seeing humans as rational to irrational, creatures who often do not know the real motives for their own behavior. This change came about not only among academics but also among the lay public. Also, Freud fundamentally changed the way artists and writers portray humans in novels, plays, paintings, films, music, and other creative works. As another example, the idea of attachment, an enduring and strong emotional bond between an infant and a care provider, has in important ways influenced how we approach child rearing, by highlighting the importance of the emotional bond between a primary care provider and an infant. The implications of attachment are part of controversial ongoing discussions on child care, adoption, and divorce, and this links to the next criterion.

Applied impact

A second criterion that must be met in order for an idea to be judged great is that it should prove to be effective in application. Such application can be in the professional arena. For example, the idea of IQ has been applied widely by professionals in educational and other settings. But the application may also be by lay people in their everyday lives. An example is the wide use lay people have found for the concept of IQ. Despite the severity of critical attacks by some experts against the idea of IQ, it thrives in popular culture (for example, talk about ‘high IQ’ and ‘low IQ’ has entered prime-time TV, the popular press, and political debate, as evident in discussions about the IQ of President G. W. Bush), presumably because people find it useful. Similarly, personality assessment techniques (such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, MMPI) have had a profound and widespread impact in both high-income and low-income societies around the world, by influencing how abnormality is assessed, for example. Again, despite avowed weaknesses of traditional personality assessment techniques, even critics would not deny their tremendous applied impact. The widespread applied impact of certain psychological ideas, such as in the areas of intelligence and personality, has been associated with highly productive research.

Stimulate research

A related, third, criterion for assessment is the ability of an idea to stimulate new research. Great ideas in psychology, such as personality traits, stimulate tens of thousands of studies involving an enormous number of researchers and research participants around the world. Such research often leads to new questions, both wide-ranging and narrow in scope. For example, research on personality traits led to major questions about the consistency of personality across contexts (Does personality stay the same across different situations? Or, is the consistency of personality an illusion, arising out of our expectations and biased judgments?), and narrower questions about the possible universality of particular traits (Are certain consistencies in behavior, such as neuroticism, shared by all humans?).

Ideally, a psychological idea should be proved either valid or invalid through cumulative empirical research. This is a similar point to what the philosopher of science Karl Popper refers to as falsifiability, making sufficiently precise predictions that we can at least imagine what evidence would be needed for an idea to be disproved. Put another way, falsifiability begins with the premise that, rather than trying to prove a hypothesis as correct, researchers should focus on demonstrating the conditions in which the hypothesis cannot be falsified (proved incorrect). In practice, we find that some of the most influential psychological ideas, such as the unconscious and the self, have not yet been proved or disproved. This could be because we do not as yet have sufficient empirical evidence to make the judgment. However, in the long term some of the psychological ideas we consider “great,” such as the unconscious, may not prove to be falsifiable, despite their historic importance and widespread international impact.

The criterion of time

These different criteria for assessing ideas and identifying great ones are all relevant, but a strong argument can be made for the view that these criteria are subsumed by one overriding criterion: time. The surest way to determine the greatness of an idea is to chart how well it survives over time. An idea that in a major way influences the way we interpret human behavior, has wide application, and stimulates a great deal of research is bound also to survive a long time. The criterion of time is applicable to art, science, or any other domain of human endeavor. For example, we consider an athletic record, such as world record for the one hundred meters dash, to be particularly great if it lasts a long time.

Although I believe the criterion of time is the most important one for identifying great ideas in psychology, two qualifications are necessary. First, we must be careful not to confuse the survival of terminology associated with an idea with the survival of the idea itself. For example, the continued use of terms such as “Freudian slip” and “ego” in everyday language does not by itself demonstrate that Freudian psychology is surviving over time. Such terms may have become detached from the original ideas from which they originally derived. Consequently, we must seek evidence of the survival of the broader original idea, and this is where the first three criteria – “influence on perceptions,” “applied impact,” and “stimulate research” – prove invaluable.

A second qualification concerns the interpretations of a great idea during different historical periods. As culture changes, the ways in which a great idea is interpreted can also change. For example, over the last century there have been major changes in culture, in most societies, in areas such as gender roles and gender relations. In turn, such changes have altered the ways in which men and women evaluate Freudian psychology generally (for example, Freud’s views on the so-called “Oedipus complex” have undergone serious re-evaluation, in part as a result of the feminist movement), and possible great ideas articulated by Freud particularly (for example, Freud’s ideas on so-called “penis envy” in the early development of girls and how this influences the unconscious have been critically re-assessed and found wanting, particularly given the modern role of women). In a sense, a great idea is continually being reconstructed by different generations of psychologists and lay people. However, the core of the idea must survive through such reconstructions if it is to be recognized as a great idea.

Although the vast majority of the great ideas I have included in this book are very well established, I have also included four newer great ideas, on the well-founded conviction that they will pass the test of time. These four newer ideas are: artificial intelligence (AI), multicultural psychology, feminist psychology, and the self. Two points need to be highlighted about these four newer ideas. First, they are strongly influenced by multiple disciplines and reflect growing multi-disciplinary trends in psychology. For example, artificial intelligence is influenced by developments in biology, engineering, linguistics, philosophy, as well as psychology. The disciplines that influence multicultural psychology, feminist psychology, and the self include sociology, political science, anthropology, as well as psychology. Second, these four ideas have already had deep and wide impact on psychological research and practice: this is self-evident from the contents of psychological publications and psychology training programs at major institutions around the world. Thus, there are very strong reasons for adding these four newer ideas to the longer list of more established great ideas.

The challenge of change

The criterion of time raises a number of other thorny issues when applied to ideas in psychology. Since the decline of behaviorism and the first “cognitive revolution” of the 1950s, psychology has been viewed by most researchers as the science of thinking and activity, mental life and overt behavior. Most psychologists would also agree that mental life and overt behavior are at least to some extent influenced by the cultural environment. Over time, the cultural environment changes, and so does human behavior. For example, in Western cultures, at least, males and females think and behave in ways that were fundamentally different in 2002 compared with 1802. Thus, an idea that would have been considered “great” because it accurately described the behavior of men and women in 1802 (in the domain of personality, for instance) might not be accurate in 2002, because cultural conditions have dramatically changed and so has behavior. Does this mean that the criterion of time is not applicab...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction: Working Out and Working in
• 2 The Psychology Laboratory
• 3 The Placebo Effect
• 4 The Freudian Unconscious
• 5 Long-Term Potentiation
• 6 Learning
• 7 Intelligence Tests
• 8 Artificial Intelligence
• 9 Stage Models of Development
• 10 The Zone of Proximal Development
• 11 Attachment
• 12 Displaced Aggression
• 13 Personality Traits
• 14 The Self
• 15 Conformity to Group Norms
• 16 Obedience to Authority
• 17 Feminist Psychology
• 18 Multicultural Psychology
• 19 Evolutionary Psychology
• 20 Social Constructionism
• Index