Jason Herrington's Archive

Over the last couple of weeks we have talked a lot about humanistic psychology and while I think that it has an important part in the world of psychology I found that I was not a fan of it. There were some major concepts that I did not like especially the idea that since humans are unique, anything learned about one person is irrelevant to the understanding of others.

I understand why people support this school of psychology because it protects against the process of placing people in a box. Humanistic psychology began as a protest movement against the other schools of psychology and diminishes the major contributions that people like Watson, Skinner, and Freud made to psychology. These people along with others in their school of psychological thinking made efforts to improve the human condition which is what humanistic psychology is all about.

The rejection of the other schools as well as the methods and contributions that they have made seem to me, a regression. Over the course of the semester I have seen many important experiments and research done by behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and other schools of psychology and feel that they have been helpful to treating the human condition.

Lastly, I would like to briefly talk about unconditioned positive regard. While I do not mean to take away from the contributions that Carl Rogers made on psychology, I do think that his idea of unconditioned positive regard to be a little overemphasized. I think that it is important that children and human beings especially children to be loved and treated with decency even when they mess up, but I think that it creates a feeling of false hope. I think there are times when a child does bad things because he does not know that it is bad and it is the parents’ job to step in and teach the child why it is bad. I believe that you can love and respect a child for who they are as you teach proper behaviors. I know that this is a bunch of random stuff but I really wanted to know how yall felt about humanistic psychology. Is it realistic?

Watson had many concepts that helped contribute to the development of psychological thinking. One was his view on emotions. He believed that humans inherit only three emotions: fear, rage, and love. When I first considered this I began to think about all of the different emotions, trying to find more than just three but after little success and reading Watson’s explanation that all other emotions derive from the three I began to become convinced that he was right.

Along with this view, Watson believed that the body reacted differently to all of these different emotions (i.e. Fear causes catching the breath, closing eyes, crying.) and that the feelings and sensations were not important when it came to emotional response. He only cared about were the stimuli that began the emotion, the internal reaction, and the external reaction. I found this surprising because in my opinion the emotions and sensations that we experience are crucial in the way we react to things. Someone that tends to act on emotions more than normal reacts extremely different than those who are able to remain level headed.

When a child is placed in a situation where he experiences fear, how can you not think that the feelings and sensations that he experiences during that situation are not important? In my opinion they contribute strongly to the way that he reacts to the situation. The child feels threatened or scared through his senses (i.e. If a barking dog cornered a child he would be scared by hearing the bark, seeing the dog’s teeth). It seems that the feelings and sensations are what bridge the stimuli that began the emotion to the internal and external reactions, therefore crucial to this concept. I am interested to see what y’all think? Are feelings and sensations important when it comes to emotions?

One thing that I enjoyed reading about in preparation for class was the chapter on functionalism and the development of experimental psychology in the United States. Chapter 11 discusses how functionalism helped bring a change to Psychology and how it was important to not make the assumption that psychology in the U.S. began with functionalism. Hergenhahn makes it clear that while Titchener (a famous functionalist) believed that experimental psychology was the only true form of psychology, nonexperimental psychology was equally important. You must be able to understand what came in the beginning to understand new ideas.

Last blog post I mentioned how important it was to realize that what we are doing now will be stepping stones for those who will come after us. I will go further to say that it is really important for us to know the history of Psychology to fully understand what we will be doing the rest of our lives. I have always found history to be an interesting subject but have not always remembered the importance that it held. The dates, people, theories, and other parts of this book that we are introduced to are what piece everything that we have learning about psychology together. In my opinion, it has really given meaning to what I am learning now.

Functionalism brought forth new concepts and ideas such as the focusing on the differences of organisms instead of the similarities. Instead of trying to discover a description of the mind, functionalists wanted to understand its function through different research methods. Such methods included research on animals and abnormal people. These ideas eventually opened the door behaviorism which is brand of Psychology that we still use today. Psychology is always improving and getting better and while from the beginning I knew this class was important I now I have a fuller understanding of how significant the history of psychology really is.

One of the things that interested me the most about the recent chapter was the life of Charles Darwin and his contribution to Psychology. I have studied Darwin’s theory since elementary school but after re-visiting it I have been able to understand how influential his theory truly was. The first thing that I noticed was that Charles Darwin did not come up with the theory completely by himself. Evolution had been a thing discussed before his time; Darwin was the first to approach evolution in the way that he did.

Something else that struck me was that Darwin believed in God which growing up I came to conclusion that if you do believe in evolution then you cannot believe in God. The last major thing that I took from his life was the power that a furnished idea can have on a multitude. Darwin realized how challenging his theories were and had no intention on publishing him during his lifetime. Even after his work was published he had another man to stand in his place defending it.

From all of this I have been reminded of the importance of historical theories and events. Every “new idea” comes from the ideas of the past. The mistakes that our ancestors have made and the ideas that they have developed have helped us discover what we have today. It is also important for us to realize that today, we are making history for future generations and that the progress as and the mistakes (no matter how insignificant or incorrect they seem) will shape the future. Lastly, simple ideas can change how people view the world and it is our duty to make sure that we handle them carefully. All of this is really simple but at the same thing very complex. It is good to be reminded that the work that we accomplish now will be a stepping stone on which generations will build upon. It gives the definition of significant a whole new meaning for me.

When I think about the Renaissance, what I think about most are the different major factors that stirred the spirit of objective inquiry. We have seen throughout history that certain bold accomplishments have triggered change and these contributing factors are what made it all possible. Marco Polo’s explorations of central Asia, Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World, and Luther’s challenge to Catholicism are just a few of these events. These ideas were bold in that they challenged ideas and opinions that had been accepted as laws once before. These ideas expanded what the world knew and they helped the world to better understand that some of the “truths” were indeed not truths at all. Events such as these shaped our world today and enlightening changes are always happening even today.

While I can think of many changes that have reawakened our society the one that I would like to discuss for just a moment is the tea party activists in American politics. When I came to ACU I began to get involved in the political views that our country held. I have followed Obama’s presidency and have found that political parties in our country are slowly changing. Recently I have come to find out that there is yet another political party that is rising in America, the tea party activists. I once believed that these people were traditional Republicans but as of late I have discovered that while they are Republican they are taking on a new face entirely. Not only are their ideas becoming more popular but tea party activists are now winning elections against other esteemed Republicans in states all over the U.S. in hopes to win back the House and Senate in the upcoming midterm elections.

While tea party activists believe very conservatively as traditional Republicans they see that the Republican party has not been doing it right and that changes need to be made. While this is just a small example it is proof that there are still events happening that are awakening the spirit of objective inquiry.

While attempting to find inspiration for my first blog post as hard as I tried to avoid the most popular post, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave was the one thing that I desired to write about the most. Over the years I have studied Plato’s Allegory thoroughly and it is something that still fascinates me to this day. In high school I actually read Plato’s dialogue of this allegory in his work, The Republic. I did not fully understand it in high school but after re-reading it a couple of days ago was amazing at how easy it was to understand not only because I had a better understanding of it but because our culture has seemed to embrace it and demonstrate it through works of art, stories, and even through the music.

Recently I have added a new folk rock band to my list of favorites known as Mumford and Sons. Their song Little Lion Man was what made me interested in the band but after buying the rest of one of their albums I came across a song titled The Cave. When I heard the title of this song I thought of Plato almost instantly. While I do not think that this song is talking about Plato’s Allegory entirely I do think that it contains some similar ideas such as the lines: “Now let me at the truth, which will refresh your mind” and “So come out of your cave walking on your hands, and see the world hanging upside down, You can understand dependence, when you know the maker’s land”. While some might consider this a stretch I think that this song has many similarities as it seems that the person is attempting to get away from the misconceptions and the presuppositions that he has had and to embrace the freedom of knowing the true forms of reality.

Attached is the link for the song, I could not find just the song so I though I would include the music video. I could not find references in the video to the cave but thought I’d still include it. Hope yall enjoy it.

The Cave