Mengyuan Tang's Archive

This is an anti-smoking poster, which applies the classic conditioning of behavioral learning theory. As we known, classic conditioning is a form of learning by temporal association. When two events repeatedly occur close together in time, they become fused in a person’s mind and produce the same response. The ash skull in the poster is an unconditioned stimulus. It elicits the unconditioned response of fear. Fear of death is a natural feeling with which human being is born. The cigarette is a conditioned stimulus, a previous neutral stimulus that comes to be linked with ash skull in people’s mind. As such, it too produces a fear response. The fearful feeling people experience when they think of the cigarette represent a conditioned response. Since people fear of the cigarette, they will quit or avoid the behavior of smoking. In this way, the poster achieves its goal.

Psychoanalytical thinking appears in everyday life. Take Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality for example. According to Freud, he believed three central forces shape the personality, the id, the ego and the superego. As a college student, it may happen to you that your friend asks you to hang out but you have a paper due by midnight and you haven’t finished it. At that time, the id produces instinctual impulse to go out and have fun. The ego then employs the reason and operates in accordance with the reality principle, so even though you really want to go out with your fiends, you decide to decline the invitation and work on the paper because you do not want to miss the deadline and get a low grade. Based on the superego, you know it is wrong to hang out with friends while leaving your work unfinished. Therefor you stay at home and continue with your paper instead of going out. However, sometimes the id impulse is so strong. You have to use ego defense mechanism to control unacceptable id drive and to reduce the anxiety it arouses. Thus you may use denial, telling yourself that it’s not actually an important assignment and will not lower much of your grade even if you do not done it, and that there’s no good reason not to go out with old friends.

There is no doubt that the Greeks have an enormous amount of impact on contemporary thinking.  I will take Plato, one of the most influential Greek philosopher and feminism, the idea that advocates equal rights for women, as an example.

Feminism calls for the political, economic and social equality of the sexes, including establishing equal opportunities for women in education and workplace.  Dating back to ancient Greece, some of Plato’s views regarding on the equality of the sexes can be considered as the beginning thoughts of Feminism. In his renowned work The Republic, Plato demonstrated that there was actually no great difference between men and women in ability. He wrote: “differentiation in treatment between one guardian and another should be based on difference of talent, not on difference of sex.” Therefore, the difference of talents is actually the difference between individuals rather than genders. The right for women to be educated is always the core issue of Feminism. Plato emphasized the same issue in his theory of education. He wanted every boy and girl to be educated. The Republic wrote：“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.” He claimed that women should receive the same education as men do. The same kind of education includes physical and educational training, even the art of war. Seeking the equal right for women in employment in another key issue of Feminism. Discrimination in occupation based on gender still exits today, Plato, however, strongly encouraged women to fully participate in the work outside home.  In The Republic, in his ideal society, women are assigned important role. Plato believed that women could have the same competence as man to participate in Guardian’s role, or even in governing in the state.

Although the notion that Plato is the first feminist or the forerunner of feminism is controversial, his perception of women is really advanced at his time and in some way, may truly influences the emergence of feminism.