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In order for anyone to understand this lecture completely one must first understand what psychology and where its basis was derived from and how it came to be the psychology we known today. Professor O’Brien has incorporated many different disciplines in his explanation of evolutionary psychology. The name speaks for itself; the evolution of psychology is basically how psychology has evolved throughout the centuries from Wilhelm Wound first psychology lab in 1879 to its own science.
Before psychology developed into its own separate entity, its earliest history can be traced sack to the time of the early Greeks where its basis were derived from famous philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The Greeks teachings of philosophy and Greek literature are some of most basic foundations in the development of psychology. While Socrates was mainly credited for his intellectual understanding of philosophy, his philosophical ideas, lend a helping hand in the development of psychology. Plato was Socrates most prized student, he rejected the notion that the mind was a separate entity to the body.
He believed that knowledge as in all of us, and that the mental processes come from the brain rather than anything else from a person. He proposed that we are all born into this world with knowledge, and utilizing this knowledge was Just a matter of learning, a process he called amnesias. In one of his famous writings “The Republic” he proposed that the mind consisted of three interwoven parts, called the tripartite mind. The three parts Logistic, Thumbs, and the Petitioning. The logistic was the central intellect, which govern reasoning and logic.
Thumbs was the spiritual centre of the mind, which dictated emotions and feelings. The Petitioning was the part that governed desires and appetite. Plat’s ideas will make way for Aristotle idea of the trinity souls, which helped the 20th century psychoanalysts idea that the human mind needs to be balanced between three impulses. Wilhelm Wound may have been what some people believed to be the father of modern psychology, Aristotle was responsible for the theoretical and philosophical framework that established the groundwork for modern psychology.
He was the first to write about the ideas of psychology. In his book called Para Psyche, which was known as “about the mind” detailed the basis of reasoning, and how the mind and soul worked interchangeably. (Professor O’Brien Lecture) He believed that there were three different types of souls that helped us define life; soul of the plants, soul of the animals, and the soul of humans. The human soul was what differentiates us from animals and plants, it gives humans the ability to reason, understand the world, and create.
Aristotle believed that that our desire to reproduce was the central impulses of all living things. These ideas brings me back to one of Professor O’Brien lectures in which he mentioned he influenced of Charles Darning’s ideas on evolutionary psychology, he provided the framework for thinking about human behavior. Darning’s contribution to psychology was the “evolution of the mind from the lowest form of animal to the highest man, the expression of emotion, and the evolution of instinct. (Professor O’Brien Lecture) helicopters and scientists believe that human behavior is guided by reason, while non-human animal behavior is guided by instinct. (similar to Aristotle interpretation of the soul that gives us the ability to reason) We can see here that Aristotle intellectual mind was far ahead of his time. Besides influences of these three philosophers, Greek literature also played a great in helping us understand psychology. Greek mythology brings tales of dysfunctional individuals whether god or human whose tale serve as a moral to the readers of today.
When we analyze Greek Mythology, the ethical behaviors of the gods and humans draws on the basic qualities of humans for its stories, whether its love, hate, revenge, sex, lust, egotism, curiosity, mystery etc. These stories are all built on the basis of philosophy, which seeks to make sense of the validity of these same human traits. “it also brings this notion to the universe that one should behave, using ethical obligations place on gods and humans. “(Professor O’Brien Lecture) Modern day philosophy owes much to the early Greek philosophers, who were fond of using Greek mythology to illustrate their teachings.
Professor O’Brien mentioned that our roots stems from the ancient Greeks; “they’ve created a system that allow their philosophies to transcend time itself by creating mythological stories that explains philosophical elements”(Professor O’Brien). When we observe the ethical behavior of the ancient mythology characters, we can answer questions on why certain characters act the way they do. When we dig deeper we can “explain what we are made from, whether physical being in the world or as an ethical/philosophical being”(Professor O’Brien Lecture). The stories of Greek Mythology lend a helping hand in today’s psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy is the process in which dysfunctional individuals seek help when their coping mechanisms have fail. The tales of Greek mythology provide us with insights on people dealing tit anxiety producing experiences and the mysterious of the unconscious. Many times when we read these stories we see similar problems with patients in psychotherapy, these stories help shed light on the problems that some patients have. In conclusion this class not only Just teaches me about the evolution of psychology, it taught me the different disciplines that made psychology into what it is.
Psychology has evolved throughout the years but we must give credit to the ones that built the basis of psychology. From Socrates to Plato to Aristotle, these philosophers helped developed the basis from which psychology was formed. These philosophers established the notion of the soul that animates us, makes us ethical, moral, brave, courageous and etc. “The soul is permanent and resides in us until we die”(Professor O’Brien). The stories of Greek mythology showed how gods impose law and order on the universe, which bought us the notion that human ought to follow the laws of nature.
We learned throughout the course that evolutionary psychology is never ending, it’s constantly evolving into its own psychology. As of today psychology must have empirical and testable theories to prove their work. Part B KM- pas 1-14 This first section of KM should be revised and resubmitted. The students did give a lot of insights on the different disciplines of psychology however they did not incorporate many sources in their findings. Many of these facts they stated seem to nave come trot personal experiences.
They mainly give background intimation on a lot of these different disciplines but not many details on how these disciplines developed into psychology as a whole. The students need to incorporate more historical backgrounds on how these disciplines formed into psychology. This Paper as competent in handling of the topic, but did not go beyond the obvious. They did have a clear thesis statement, which was back up in the different explanations of the different disciplines. However they lack unity to engage the informed reader.
Another thing about the thesis is that they gave various disciplines on how it is related to psychology but why in the end do they go into depth about Anthropology and Psychology? If this paper was to compare anthropology and psychology it should be more clear in the beginning rather than talking about the various disciplines briefly and then go into depth about anthropology and psychology. Pas 15-34 – The 2nd section of of KM should be rejected outright. Introduction did not give a clear thesis statement on what this group was trying to find or prove.
Throughout this section the group gave individual examples to social science, behavior social psychology and other various topics that dealt with social psychology. Their sources were very limited, they mainly gave definitions of different terms in social psychology. Their methods of study are not evaluated, does not identify questions that are unanswered. The whole paper had no flow; instead it was Just a bunch of information even with very limited sources to back up their claims. They did not provide any date or interpretations of data given.
Pas 35 – 60 – Overall this was the best section with some minor changes of grammatical errors. This section was very well organized; it contained a clear thesis statement. They presented insightful ideas toward marketing and psychology. The organization structure of this section leads the readers to the conclusion that they answered the questions implied by the assignment. They provided interpretations of their findings along with historical background that elated to their topic. They drew inferences that are consistent to the ideas they are trying to explain.
However there were times in this section where I felt they were repeating themselves, conclusion was not clearly stated, and some aspects were not fully connected. For a majority of the paper I did not know like how they transition from one topic to another, at times I almost forgot what this paper was really about. KM Section KM can be accepted for publication. The introduction was very clearly in stating the thesis, the different to this paper compared to the KM section of the paper was that the formatting was all dealt into one, meanwhile the KM section organization was not all that clear except for the last 20 pages of the work.
This one had a better flow, the transition from one idea to another seemed very clear. This section included many statistical and empirical evidence to their research whereas KM only included many personal experiences along with little to no statistical experiments that was used to describe their research. The paper was coherently organized and the logic was easy to follow, the researches they incorporated were elevate to the argument present into their thesis.
What I really like was how they gave a brief history of behavioral psychology, and then go into it in details about what behavioral psychology really is, they seemed to have did their research for the most part, using many different relevant sources to back up their thesis. The theories were relevant and accurately described, the relationship between the research and theory was clearly articulated. There might have been some minor grammatical errors that needed to be change but overall this paper could be submitted for publication.