Katie Clouse's Archive

Humanistic psychology, also known as third force psychology, emphasizes an individual’s drive towards self-actualization and creativity. It believes that behavior is connected to a person’s inner feelings and self-concept. I think this is greatly seen in our society today. Individualism is praised and people are striving to be different and unique. I think a perfect example of this in today’s world is the whole “hipster” movement. It focuses on self-actualization and individualism. It suddenly became popular to fall away from the mainstream of society and its norms to do your own thing. While hipsters tend to be more trendy, they add their own style and unique twist and strive to personalize it. I think another great example of a rise in creativity is Pinterest. Pinterest is a website that allows people to share ideas with each other ranging from recipes to craft projects. It’s purpose is to encourage people to be creative with the things they have around them, whether that be a meal, refurbishing furniture, painting or sewing. The object is to turn something ordinary into something unique. I see these prominently in our society. These examples best illustrate humanistic psychology for me.

Psychoanalysis is used to explore the unconscious and learn more about why that individual acts the way they do. There are many examples of this found in everyday life. The biggest one would be simply talking to a psychiatrist. They know what questions to ask that will provoke you to explore certain parts of your mind. Psychiatrists use many different techniques that allow them to see how your brain functions. Some of those include ink blots, free association, dream analysis, and even hypnosis.  Another example of this would be interrogations given by the police/FBI. They have to ask certain question to figure out if the person did it, or was even capable of doing it. One of my favorite TV shows is Criminal Minds. In this show, they have to look at the murders and figure out a suspect by narrowing down what type of person would be capable of such a crime.  They go over every little detail in order to find the killer(s) responsible. I have included a clip from one of the episodes that shows the team looking over the murder scene to find clues that will lead them to the killer (unsub).

The best example of behaviorism that I can come up with comes from my everyday experiences. I was an only child growing up, an only grandchild on my mother’s side, and was very spoiled. As you can deduce, I was the center of attention. But for some reason, I never let that go to my head. Even now my friends tell me that I don’t play the spoiled, only-child roll. I don’t strive for everyone’s attention; honestly, those kinds of people annoy me. I do however have a friend like that. She is a very dear friend, and I love her despite this flaw, but she is one of those people who has to be the center of attention all the time. She does outrageous things in order to get whatever type of attention she can. Even if it’s negative attention, its still attention, and she’ll take it happily. This friend has an older sister that was already out of the house by the time she came along, so she was basically an only child as well. The only explanation I have is that her parents must have reinforced that behavior growing up, whereas, mine did not. This is an example of conditioning a behavior that I hope I do not produce in my own children.

Evolutionary Psychology is a very interesting topic. The definition of evolutionary psychology given to us in class was that it is the application of principles and knowledge of evolutionary biology to psychological research and theory. In other words, it’s a theory that integrates pieces of information that psychologists have studied that have shown some correlation throughout the years. I myself do not completely agree with evolutionary psychology. I feel like our behaviors and thinking patterns derive from what we see and learn growing up. It’s not something that is innate and there from the beginning. On the other hand, I cannot deny that humans have come a long way. We have advanced and adapted due to the things that we have available to us. We are able to learn more and understand more, but I do not believe that our underlining behaviors and thoughts came from our ancestors. The articles we read today in class brought up some very interesting points. The article my group evaluated was written by Simon Conway Morris. He said, “We could not have arrived where we are except by evolution….” His statement is true in the fact that we could not have gotten this far without making technological changes and advances, but, I do not believe that applies to the way humans think and behave.

There were many groups throughout history that influenced contemporary thinking. Take the Scholastics for example. This group included a number of men, some of which were Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great, Peter Abelard, and William of Ockham. I saw their contributions to contemporary thinking as we discussed them in class today. Thomas Aquinas influenced contemporary thinking by demonstrating that much of what Aristotle said was actually consistent with a Christian world view, which no one had pieced together before then. Albert the Great also taught Aristotle’s work and emphasized the value of experience. He believed that we were not born with knowledge, but instead we gain it through our experiences (which I happen to agree with). I think this thought would have made people more open to trying new things. Peter Abelard contributed to contemporary thinking through his gift of dialect. He wrote a book that presented questions and then he answered them by arguing both sides, which I can imagine cause some controversy while expanding people’s views over the questions asked.  William of Ockham became known for his principle, Ockham’s Razor, which states that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily, which means if there are two competing hypotheses, the one with fewer assumptions is the better one. I believe that this encouraged many people to experiment in order to find the best hypothesis. This is how I believe these men influenced contemporary thinking during their time.

It is hard to put a definition with “the good life.” It seems to change from person to person and country to country. For example, the good life in America is based more on man’s possessions and you’ve made it to the good life once you have a spouse, children and a nice home for you all to live in. I believe that “the good life” is tied to personal happiness; that if you are content with where your life is, then you are living the good life. My definition of the good life would be different for everyone. What makes one person happy will not necessarily make another man happy. For instance, some people feel that happiness comes from goals you achieve throughout life (like wanting to get married and have a family) and others believe it has to do with the amount and/or quality of the things they have. I am the happiest when I am surrounded by friends and family that love me. Knowing that no matter what I do in my life, they will still be there to support me is very comforting. As long as I have those relationships present, it will be a good life.