Archive for October, 2010

The media and their use of behaviorism is, in my opinion, spectacular. It exploits basic human processes in simplest way in order to achieve the best results. It is actually a win win situation for both the consumer and the company. The company wins obviously by way of selling their product, but the consumer wins by gaining a sense of desire, or fulfillment, or whatever else might be warranted from the attainment of that product. By pairing the product with safety, happiness, sexual attractiveness, or healthiness in the commercials, the consumers begin to associate the product with the paired attribute. This then compels a sense of desire for the merchandise being marketed, but only if the consumer wants the paired attribute. In this sense, behavioral conditioning in marketing acts as a form of placebo effect that placates those who desire whatever their product offers; of course being a discerning consumer is a necessary safeguard for those companies who unscrupulously advertise. This marketing technique does however provide satisfaction to many of those who they market to, and even though it may seem that they are satisfying a need they themselves created through their advertising, I would argue that this is not true on the basis that they did not create a need for their product, but rather coupled their product with a need that the consumer already held. In this way companies are satisfying a previously unmet need.

One theory that has really caught my eye lately is Festinger’s social comparison theory. In his theory  he states that “people compare themselves to others because for many domains and attributes there is no objective yardstick to evaluate ourselves against, and other people are therefore highly informative”

Yardstick, clearly made me think of Boomstick, which made me want to talk about the Rangers. And with everything going on right now, how could I not?

I have a been a Texas Rangers fan for as long as I remember. I love learning about the players, researching stats, and going to games. One interesting thing is the idea of sports and how it reminded me of the social comparison theory. Every time you read stats, anytime you talk about players, they are always being compared to others. Sports is all about performance. If you follow sports you constantly hear something like the following: Lets look at Josh Hamilton’s batting average compared to Derek Jeters. (Lets be for real, Hamilton is infinitely better, but that is besides the point)

I wonder if this idea of performance that we see on the TV leaks into our everyday life, starting as kids. I remember as a kid hearing my dad yelling at the TV if a player failed, or saying that one player was much better than the other. What if this encourages us to look at those around us and compare? Maybe we are influenced by others more than we think.

I recently made a comment on some one’s post which was about behaviorism and how influential it is in media and commercials. I wanted to follow up on that comment and bring up the idea of how many commercials now a days actually do not use behaviorism to make a catchy punch line or a song that, when one hears it, automatically thinks of that company in the media message. What are some ideas as to what companies are, dare I say, dumb enough to not use a catchy tune or a borderline inappropriate innuendo to get the audiences attention?

I believe that it is very interesting that many of the Schools of Psychology, when they first emerge, claim that they are attempting to shape Psychology as a science, and look at those schools before them as inadequately unscientific.  Behaviorism stands out though, among the schools of psychology in the zeal it showed in proclaiming itself as a “pure” science.  Watson especially was considered excessive in reducing everything to behavior.  I remember how in the book, it tells that when Watson attempted to explain thought and speech as a behavior, he met with criticism from all sides.  And that, though Watson could not explain either thought or speech in terms of behavior  satisfactorily, he remained adamant in keeping behavior as the only way to explain humans psychologically.

I question as to whether or not behaviorism will continue to be a major school of psychology in the future.  Or, if like  gestalt psychology, it will simply become a supporting wing of psychology to the increasingly popular biological model.  Neurology/psychiatry and neuropsychology are becoming increasingly intertwined, and despite Watson’s prediction, are becoming increasingly more able to explain psychology in terms of biological processes.  However, even the biological model cannot explain everything.  As far, behaviorism has its niche and can explain many but not all psychological aspects of humans, and as it cannot explain the mind, has become more and more connected with cognitive psychology

So, I wonder in the future whether psychology, like physics, will search for a unifying theory.  Or will it remain a fractured science, in which collaboration between the branches in the only way to explain human beings?

I think that it is okay to test fears in children. The experiment with little Albert is a good model for how fears come about in any situation and we wouldn't necessarily criticize the other circumstances that are the same. Fears are all learned anyways and you can overcome a fear. I was able to overcome a lot of my fears as I got older because I realized that a lot of them were unreasonable. I was afraid of bugs, but I didn't have a reason to be afraid of them. I was afraid because I heard someone else scream when they saw a bug. I assumed that they were fearful for a reason, so I became scared. When other people scream it is like making a loud noise behind a child. We then learn to be afraid of the situation because of the things we learn to associate with it. I was always more fearful if I heard others scream then when I am alone. 

Structuralism really makes a lot of sense to me, and I want to explain why. All my life, I’ve been very analytical and fancied myself rather scientific. And yet, for some reason I have always been fascinated by the soft science of psychology. This means that I find myself leaning more on the scientific side of psychology. My brother, who is one of the people by whom I am the most influenced, is a science major. He is majoring in math and computer science (and for a while physics). This is important only in that it explains part of why I find science so important. Things have to add up. It always seemed to me that science was the way things should be. It just makes sense. I’m not such a fan of the ‘mushy’ part of psychology, that which cannot be quantified. I remember a time, as a young freshman psychology student, when I tried making it all about the parts of the brain, the biology of it, not taking into account anything that could not be proven by hard science. I really wanted psychology to be able to hold it’s head up and not be scorned by those hard sciences, those that have all kinds of empirical evidence. This is why I could really get behind structuralism and the idea of breaking things down into their elemental parts. However, as I have grown older and, I hope, wiser I have come to realize how foolish it is to try to break down the human experience into little, scientific parts. I understand that it is somewhat helpful, but I also understand that there are some things that need a more Gestaltist approach, looking at the whole.
Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about while we discussed the ideas held by the structuralists.

In Festinger’s social comparison theory (1954) he “suggested that people compare themselves to others because for many domains and attributes there is no objective yardstick to evaluate ourselves against, and other people are therefore highly informative” (Baron, Branscombe, Byrne, 2008, p. 134). Nowadays, this theory of the 1950’s seems like common sense; of course we compare ourselves to others to know where we stand. It is interesting, however, that certain things come into play for us to engage in social comparison: one of the most prominent is that we must have feel uncertain. Think back to any movie where one of the main characters is out of his or her element and looks to those around to know what to do. Here the main character is actively engaged in social comparison. When we are not in situations of uncertainty, where we must compare our actions to others so we know how to act, who do we compare ourselves to? The answer depends on the motive for the comparison. In the first example, it is to gain knowledge in uncertainty. At other times it is to asses ourselves and our actions or to feel good about ourselves. Normally, feeling good about ourselves trumps the desire for an accurate assessment. When we are acting out of the norm and we do want an accurate assessment of ourselves we normally compare ourselves to people that are similar: sharing in common with us the broad domains of gender, experience, values, or race, etc… We do not compare ourselves to people in a different social category because that can lead to a less positive comparison result. For example, let’s say someone is a beginning singer and is in a singing group with other beginners. He or she might think, “Well, compared to the others in my group I am a pretty good singer”. However, if that same person compares him or herself to an advanced singing group no doubt he or she would feel remarkably less positive about his or her singing ability. What should one take away from Festinger’s comparison theory? Should it be that you should compare yourselves to people who are less successful or talented than you in a particular domain? I suppose if one’s goal in life is to feel good about oneself, and not strive for an accurate assessment, I think that the above comparison can be beneficial and certainly has its place at times. On the other hand, if someone desires to grow and improve I would recommend comparing yourself to people who are slightly more successful in a certain domain so you will have something to work towards. As a singer, sometimes I compare myself to singers that match my skill level and think “I’m a pretty good singer” and at other times I will compare my singing to singers that a far more skilled and think, “Man, I have a long way to go”. In conclusion, Festinger was correct that we compare ourselves to others. Furthermore, we compare ourselves to different groups based depending on the motive for comparison. Lastly, while comparing to a particular group to feel good certainly has its place, let us strive for improvement (where improvement is feasible) when we engage in social comparison by comparing ourselves to groups that motivate self-improvement.

The best part about behaviorism is that it is applicable to our lives today. You do not have to even be a psychologist to understand the benefits of reinforcement and use them to condition people’s behavior. However, it is interesting to me how few of people employ these simple concepts. The clearest example and the one that always comes to mind when I think about reinforcing behavior is child rearing. There are way too many spoiled children in America today. And why are they spoiled? They are spoiled because their parents reinforce their negative behavior time and time again. For example, when mothers take their children to the grocery store with them, the child might ask for a piece of candy. When the mom says no, the child begins to scream and cause a scene so the mom gives them the candy to make them quiet. Now the child knows that if they behave a certain way they will get what they want.  Another example is in the video clip I posted. Veruca Salt is a spoiled child in the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In the film, she throws a fit whenever she doesn’t get her way and her father does what ever he can to make her happy. I believe it is mostly the parents’ fault when their children act so inappropriately. They are more concerned with getting their child to stop their behavior at that specific moment instead of thinking about long term effects.  I know it is not always easy to implement what we preach. I hope that some day when I am a parent that I will be able to use my knowledge of conditioning and reinforcement to raise children in a respectful way. Spoiled children grow up to be spoiled adults and these people are usually unpleasant to be around.

Veruca Salt

Our text defines artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as a “special branch of computer science that investigates the extent to which the mental powers of human beings can be captured by means of machines.”  The first thing that came to mind was immediately the movie Disney movie from the 90’s,  Smart House. The plot of the movie involves a family, “The Coopers win a “House of the Future” complete with a virtual housemaid codenamed “PAT” (Acronym: Personal Applied Technology). The PAT AI is great for house maintenance, throwing massive parties and making sure the family runs smoothly and flawlessly. But when Nick starts going out with Sarah, the person who created the smart house, Ben reprograms the PAT’s AI Behavior to act more motherly (and makes her watch 1950’s sitcoms), so no one will think that they need a mother. PAT gets far too overprotective, chaotic, and mad, and it’s up to Sarah and Ben to work together and defeat a very smart house (controlled by the now-motherly cybermaid) which tries to take over and control what they see and do.”

Disney\’s Smart House (part 1)

Smart House gone wrong

The reality behind this is that there are houses out there available to live in.  They can make life easier but along with technology also come problems.  I believe most everyone has experience a complication with technology one was or another.  From losing a paper due to a computer crash or simply not having cell phone service in an area.  Computers can only be as smart as those who design them. So where is this to lead us?

Have you ever wondered who the people are on the other side of these advertisements, what they are thinking when they come up with the slogan for a new company or decide to sell an item that no one in their right mind would ever buy. But are we in our right mind? Well i thought about it plenty. It seems to me and obviously with J.B Watson as an example that a lot of psychology goes into advertising. The foundation of my question is should this be legal and if so when is the line drawn. At one point they made subliminal messaging in advertising illegal but what about behaviorism. What if ever commercial for coke started and ended with a bing sound so that every time you heard the sound bing you thought of coke. From that moment on several times throughout the day you would hear a bing through the radio and that is it. Should that be legal if so what about doing it with cigarettes. I guess im just eager to hear some one elses thoughts on the subject? Bing. Oh, sorry i have to go its time for a coke and a smoke!