PS2080 - Psychology in a socio - political context
- Created by: Laura Black
- Created on: 09-12-16 11:05
Societal Changes affect psychological research
1) industrialisation and immigaration
2) material basis for natural phenomena
3) the cold war and computers
4) mothers in the work force
5) influence of statistics
6) influence of physics and universal laws
1) industrialisation and immigration
- high population cities of poor and working class families
- natural selection to make claims about biologically fitness
- assumption: intelligence and aggression were innate
- eugenics: is the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally Galton 1904 - idea if we could breed man we could lessen woes
- eugenics gained popularity
- lost appeal post proposed sterilisation of some individuals
- new emphasis but back on social experience
2) material basis for natual phenomena
- increased interest in researching the brain
- lesion studeis in animals
- democritus's premise: material entitiies were the foundation of all observed
- feelings, thoughts, and the behaviours can be explained
3) the cold war and computers
- artificial intelligence
-cognitive psychology
- feelings and emotions less important than verbalising & RTs
4) Mothers in the work force
- 1950 - 40% working
- 2000 - 78% working
Bowlby and attachment
- innate need to attach to caregiver
- needed continous care
- maternal deprivation - long term consequences
5) infleunce of statistics
national science foundation
- F-tests
- T-tests
- Correlation coefficients
6) influence of physics and universal laws
- materialistc foundation for natural phenomena
- more successful predictions
- use of mathematics
society as a metaphor
metaphor - an analogy from another area that helps map a new, complex problem
example: memory
- plato - wax tablet
- middle ages - library full of books
- 19th and early 20th century - photography
mid 20th century - computer
metaphors help formulate and test hypothesis
Socio-Political Biases - History of intelligence t
1st test of intelligence in France
Binet and Simon
- socio-political system in France - welfare state
- emphasis on citizen's well-being
- compulsory primary education for all children
3 principles:
1. test scores were practical, did not define intelligence
2. aim: identify learnng-disabled children, not rank normally devloping children
3. purpose: provide extra help for at risk children
4. IQ did not equal fixed quantity - can be improved
Socio-Political Biases - Intelligence testing in
socio-political system in the US - segregation of black people and other immigrants
Goddard: other contexts - regular students - immigrants - recruitment
- coined the term "moron" (IQ 50=70) - belief that intelligence was governed by a single gene
Stanford-Binet test Terman (1916) - advocated national testing for every child - national testing is a way to reduce crime (i.e. by removing low IQ members from society)
US Military support 3 tests: army alpha/army beta/ individual examination - intelligence is innate - can assign miliary speciality
- average mental age of white american male = 13/ european immigrants also averaged in the moron range/ average scor eof black american male =10.4
- supported the notion of genetic differences between races
- immigration restriction act (1924)
Socio-Political Biases - Gould + Morton's criticis
Problems in administation
- individuals illiterate in english still allocated to alpha test and then scored 0 - beta test required the use of writing numbers with a pencil - unsatisfactory conditions
data should be condidered critically
Morton's Skull Colelction - mean skull size of white people larger than native americans and black people - race differences in intelligences
Gould v Morton
Gould reanalysed data - head size related to body size - sample biased toward Inca Peruvians (who were smaller) - men have bigger brains than women because men are bigger - cranial capacity was measure by pouring mustuard seeds in skulls (which can be compressed) - when corrected for biases there was no differences
Socio-Political Biases - Social Perspective Domina
- advances in technology and explanding economy lead to general optimism in the US
- maybe gains could be made by improving educational system
- gender identity strongly infleuced by education
- trainability of gender identity
- dr money and the John/Joan story
Ethics
Social changes led to increase interest in ethics:
1) experiments may have caused harm
Monster Study Johnson, Nuremberg trials (1946-1947) - malaria experiments, mustard gas experiments, sea water experiments - informed consent
2) legality
Ethical codes of conduct:
- ethical approval for all research - protection of participants - informed consent - no coercian - right to withdraw - anonymity and confidentiality - appropriate exclusion criteria - monitoring - duty of care and appropriate supervision - additional safeguards
ways psychology influenced society
growing impact of psychology on the way people see themselves and interact with each other
reasons: psychology is taught frequently on different degrees - psychology is frequently in the media - frequency of psychological topics in everydat conservations
labels
social change in the last centuries = individualisation
psychology played important role (e.g. Jung's terms extrovert + introvert)
Psychology coined other terms:
- neurotic
- depressed
- intelligent
- lacking self-esteem
creating needs & values
Medical and pharmaceutical industry overstate their significance (Illich) - Life expentancy increased in parallel with medicinal advancess; but other factors played a role too (i.e. reduction in famine, clean water, better hygiene)
Extends to psychology:
evidence: rise in discovery of psychopathologies and syndromes; ADHD, Battered Woman Syndrome
Parallel rise in the providion of counselling and therapy
Normal everyday worries get psychological labels (Fuerdi) - creates anxiety and weakness, expect stress, therapeutic education (Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009)
Creating needs & values - ADHD
- Inattentive type: easily distracted, forgetful, daydreams often, disorgansied, poor concentration & difficulty completing task
- hyperactive-impulsive type: excessive fidgetiness and restlessness, hyperactivity, difficulty waiting and remaining seated, immature behaviour, destruvtive behaviours may be present, combined type: combination of two other subjects
creating needs & values - battered woman syndrome
- case: smith 1992 shot sleeping husband
- claimed abuse
- prosecution refused to accept plea of manslaughter
- appealed based on battered woman syndrome
- 2002: case sent to appeal court as a miscarriage of justice
- released from prison after sentence reduce to manslaughter
helping society
- helping people age successfully
- helping to prevent bullying
- helping police, courts and prisons to perform more effectively
- helping athletes perform better
- making roads and driving safer
- improving eyewitness identification accuracy
Impact
Research impact - demonstrate contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy
Reserch impact embradces all the way research related skilles benefit individuals, organisations and nations
- foster global exonomic performance
increase effectiveness of public serivces and policy
- enhance quality of life, healt and creative output
- research with impact is more likely to get funded
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